Do Go On - 460 - Pokemon (with Nick Mason from the Weekly Planet)

Episode Date: August 14, 2024

Pokemon! This week we hear about its humble beginnings and its journey to becoming a global icon and the most lucrative franchise in the world!This is a comedy/history podcast, the report begins at approximately 11:34 (though as always, we go off on tangents throughout the report).Sign up to out international mailing list and tell us where to tour: https://forms.gle/Vmenxs5KCSeVtMwa6 Support the show and get rewards like bonus episodes: patreon.com/DoGoOnPodSupport the show on Apple podcasts and get bonus episodes in the app: http://apple.co/dogoon Live show tickets: https://dogoonpod.com/live-shows/ Submit a topic idea directly to the hat: dogoonpod.com/suggest-a-topic/  Twitter: @DoGoOnPodInstagram: @DoGoOnPodFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/DoGoOnPod/Email us: [e-mail] Check out our other podcasts:Book Cheat: https://play.acast.com/s/book-cheatPrime Mates: https://play.acast.com/s/prime-mates/Listen Now: https://play.acast.com/s/listen-now/Who Knew It with Matt Stewart: https://play.acast.com/s/who-knew-it-with-matt-stewart/ Our awesome theme song by Evan Munro-Smith and logo by Peader ThomasDo Go On acknowledges the traditional owners of the land we record on, the Wurundjeri people, in the Kulin nation. We pay our respects to elders, past and present. REFERENCES AND FURTHER READING:time.com/6796536/history-origins-pokemon/theculturetrip.com/asia/japan/articles/a-love-supreme-the-story-of-satoshi-tajiri-creator-of-pokemontime.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,2040095,00.htmlcontent.time.com/time/subscriber/printout/0,8816,992625,00.html Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Oh my gosh, our live tour to the UK, Ireland and Berlin is on sale right now. We are coming over in November 2024 to do many, many shows. Jess, what cities are we hitting up as I pass the list to you? Well, Dave, we're going to be hitting Berlin, Edinburgh, Belfast, Dublin, Manchester, Leeds, Birmingham, Bristol and London. My god. Huge. Big tour. We haven't been for a few years. That's right. And we've never been to Belfast and we've never been to Berlin. Yep. We've heard both of those places are very nice. That's right and they love to sell out

shows, right guys? Yes they do. We've heard that because I told you both that. They're great. I've had great times in both places. Yep, Irish bars in both places. Particularly Belfast. Yeah, of course. Interesting. Well, if you want to join us on this cultural extravaganza, you can get tickets right now at dogoonpod.com. Hello and welcome to another episode of Do Go On. My name is Dave Warnocky and as always, I'm here with Matt Stewart. Hey Dave, how's it going? Certainly paying attention, not still writing the report. All right, we'll give you an extra 30 seconds.

Thank you so much. To finish whatever you're writing to, welcome back to the podcast, the fourth, fifth, possibly sixth Beatle himself, it's Nick Mason. It's great to be back, folks. Hello. If you were sensing an incredible masculine energy coming off this episode. It's the boys episode. It's just the boys.

Three boys. Three big boys. Three big beards. That's exactly right. Three equally big beards. That's exactly right. Three equally big beards. That's correct. It's like evolution of beard. Dave to me, to Mesa.

I think we're missing maybe a step two, three, four, possibly five between me and you. Yeah, you're the fish. The fish in one frame and the next is like- I'm pro magnum man. The next person is just like an athlete running. How did it go from fish to athlete? Your beard is the fish of evolution. Before I got legs.

No legs beard. Anyway, Nick Mason. It's a fantastic beard. Thank you so much. All listeners won't know this, but it is getting pretty bushy. And cultivating it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. It's got that colour to it.

It's got a nice colour to it. Thank you. I like that you looked for something to compliment. You look like a cop out for the colour. You don't see a lot of men with a sort of blonde, a blonde beard. Yeah. Thank you. I'm doing it.

They said it shouldn't be done. I said it could be done. And they said no, we didn't say couldn't. Is it natural? We shouldn't. I know this is a very personal question. Yeah, are're blonding it, are you peroxiding your beard? Yeah, I'm blonding. Is that sun in?

Yeah, I'm blonding my beard, but letting my hair go grey. Hell yeah. You're squeezing lemon juice in and getting out in the sun. No, this is El Naturale. El Naturale. That's beautiful. Okay. So we haven't had you on for, I mean, a couple of months we had you at the comedy festival. That's right.

Great time was had by all, but but have you been the last few months? All right. Anything to report? Nope. Fantastic. See what you guys don't know is that nothing happens to me in between podcast appearances. I don't do anything. I go into my hermetically sealed hyperbaric chamber because I don't want age in between

podcasts. Yeah, you've looked the same the whole... We've been doing the show for nearly nine years with you on nearly from the start. Yeah, you've looked the same the whole, we've been doing the show for what, nearly nine years with you on nearly from the start. Yeah. And you look the same. I look, I look great. Just. And you see secret is permanently living in a hyperbaric chamber.

Yes, exactly. That's all it takes. Living for content. To look quite good. That's exactly right. Yes. That's right. Yeah.

Yeah. And you know, various oils and salves. Okay. Of course. You know, tinctures. Serums. Potions. Oh, okay. You know, tinctures. Serums. Potions. Oh, okay, yes.

You know, formulas and so forth, yeah. Listeners, those in Europe will know we're coming over soon. Those in America will know that we've been trying to come over for a long time. We've been having a few meetings. One of the meetings- Very LA. We've been having a few meetings. Having a few meetings, going, please, how do we do it?

What are we doing? And one of the people was very helpful, suggested we do a big- What do you call it, Dave? You're on that meeting. A survey. A big survey. Big survey. So we just get everyone to say where they would go see a live show or something.

Anyway, I thought, why don't we say it on this episode, which is coming out in a few weeks, and in that time, we'll figure out what to put in that survey and we'll put it out this day as well. Yeah, right. We're basically, you'll be able to head to, I think the best page to go is our Instagram page. Click the link there and we'll take you through to a little survey. I think we'll get your name, your email and where in the world you are and we can collate

all that data. Yeah. And then when we are ready to come to, example, Boston, and you said Boston, we'll email you. Yes. Don't do any tricks. And we'll also. Don't try and game the system.

Yes, I have. We all want to, you know, some little town in Iowa or whatever. 600 people have told us to go to the middle of Iowa. We'll do it. We'll do it. Well, that's the other thing. It helps us know where people are. And also follow us on Instagram.

Something else that he did. I don't know if you picked up on this, Dave, but it felt like it was like, and is Instagram your biggest following? Yeah. Yeah. So if you, yeah, apparently it doesn't look good to promote as our small social media. Yeah, because a lot more people listen than follow us. Hmm. So please follow us.

Please do that. Stop listening and follow. Yeah. Exactly. Yeah, if you can only do one, quit listening to the podcast and just sign up to the social media. We're saving you a lot of time. Yeah, that's right. We might do what, four or five photos a week? Yeah.

I'll tell you what, four or five seconds to look at. This podcast goes for like two hours. God, who has the time? Yeah. It's a very confusing system, this whole getting into America, but hey, we're trying. We're trying. Absolutely. So, yeah, to reiterate, we'll also put the link in the description of this very episode. How about that? It's very, very easy. You click there.

It'll be a couple of things about where you are, and then it helps us. Tell promoters, yes, we have enough people. Please work with us. That's right. That's all it is. Fantastic. All right. Now, we should get in this episode because I think it's not- I don't know if it's going to be long. I think it might be longish.

I put up a vote. If you want it to be long or longish. And they said- And they said, both are fine. Wow. Either or. I put up a vote- I'll commit to something, listeners.

Geez. Saying, just as a way, Nick Mason's going to be on, here are three big pop culture things. Oh. I said, knowing that Mesa is going to be on. We've got the king of pop culture himself. Which one do you want to hear? Have you written all three reports and Mesa gets to choose?

Honestly, the two were vying it out for top spot and I wrote I started researching one for quite a few hours and then the other one came over the top and I had to switch last. Gotta chuck all that old stuff in the bin. But I thought maybe you can come back one day and I'll do that other one. Okay but if you could chuck it all in the bin and start from scratch for the next one. I will do that. He'll know. That's stale.

That's stale info. All right Dave do we need to explain how this show works? He'll know. He'll know. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's style. Yeah. That's style info. That's right. All right, Dave, do we need to explain how the show works? Yeah, we haven't done that yet. Do you want me to do that? Because you'll do the report. Okay. Save that beautiful voice.

I'll step in and say, what we do here, Maceo, if you don't remember, is we're taking turns to report on a topic. It's often suggested to us by one of the listeners or many of the listeners. We go away, do a bit of research, bring it back to the group in the form of a report. Matt, he's written the report. It sounds like he's written one and a half reports. Yeah. He's going to pick one of those topics.

And we always start with a question to get us on the topic because Maceo and I don't know what won that vote. That's right. And then we're going to do funny little jokes and raps. Exactly. No, no, just get it right. But no dogshit raps. Don't make a fool of yourself today.

Oh, but that's what I love to do. The question is, according to TitleMax, what is the highest grossing media franchise of all time? Oh, Title Max. Yeah. Is it Title Max? Is this a promotion for Title Max? It's a Title Max promotion. Okay, great. All right. You ever done a sponsored topic?

For Title Max? Yeah, for anyone, really. No, I think Acast has talked to us about some. Yeah, every now and then we get approached with, how would you like to do this? We're like, yeah, that sounds cool. It hasn't quite worked out yet. Yeah. But a title max.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. We're open. That's right. Pepsi Cola, it's great and it's great for you. Here's the history of it. It was made with a little bit of magic. I'm thinking big franchises. A lot of them we've already covered.

James Bond. Star Wars. Star Wars has been going forever. A lot of them we've already covered. James Bond, Star Wars. Star Wars is number five on the list. Number five? Really? Gosh. I don't think it'll be the Marvel Cinematic Universe, although that's pulled in some big numbers. Oh yeah, is that big up there Matt?

Does that count as one? Marvel is... Eleven. Eleven? Really? Whoa. This is big. This is big, big, big.

What's bigger than all these things? That's my guess. 11. 11. Really? Whoa. So this is big. This is big. What's bigger than all these things? That's Marvel Cinematic. That's MCU. The Bible?

Is it Bible sales? It's not Bible sales. Interesting. Are we close though? No. What about like um. Satanic Bible sales. Oh, get closer.

That really kicked off for a while there. It did, didn't it? Lord of the Rings? He would have done Lord of the Rings. Done Lord of the Rings. And I don't think that's even on this list of the top 25. Did you say multimedia franchise? I said media franchise. Oh, Nintendo, Super Mario.

Super Mario, Nintendo. Mario is on the list. Oh. It feels good. It feels good to get one on the list Feels good You're playing family WWE WWE doesn't the world life experience. I should say Lord of the Rings is on the list. Sorry nice at 21 It's really obvious to 22. It's extensive list You go at 23 peanuts at 24.. Pokemon. Yes, it's Pokemon.

It's Pokemon gotta catch them all. Number one in the world. Yeah, we maybe get the top 10 in order. I'd love to hear that. Or out of order. Yeah. Yeah, maybe yeah 10 to 1 and we know where we're going. Maybe alternate evens and odds. I'm gonna go. 10 to 1. 10 to 1, Harry Potter is 10. Oh yeah that makes sense. Shonen Jump slash Jump Comics, number 9. Mayso can we just pause then, you tell me what the hell that is. Oh that's like Manga, that's like a weekly manga. Oh I think that makes sense. Although you know the dragon balls and all sorts of stuff.

That would count. That would all sort of sprung out of you. Yeah yeah. Mario is number 8. Mario question mark. That's a different franchise. Disney. It's a series of games about a guy, maybe is number eight. Mario, question mark. That's a different franchise. Disney. It's a series of games about a guy.

Maybe it's Mario. Disney Princesses. I don't think that counts as one thing. Somehow they've counted that. Is it also Disney Lions? Uh, Anpanman? Anpanman, another manga? I'm not familiar with Anpanman, but I'm going to look him up real quick.

Star Wars at five. Mickey Mouse at number four. Okay. Winnie the Pooh at number three, Hello Kitty at number two, and at number one, Pokemon. Anpanman is also a song by the pop band BTS. Oh, right, okay. Yeah, there's a bunch of others in there, Transformers. So the three that I put up for the vote may so. Oh, you would recognize and pan man I think seen that guy. I've seen this little guy familiar. Oh, yeah, it doesn't familiar. Wow He's one of the top multimedia franchises of all time. Why that little 2d guys killed it. He's got a friend who's a toast

Toast is that the one there's an egg in it. Yeah, it could be an egg I've got we're gonna save this for the and pan man special One of the three. Yeah, this is the Anpanman episode is going to do. Is Anpanman, is that what came second? No, so Transformers came third by some distance. It had about one fifth of the vote and then nearly, nearly exactly two fifths of the vote each, 40% of the vote each were the winner, of course, Pokemon and the X-Men.

Oh, sure. So I got quite deep into the X-Men and it was confusing me. That is a labyrinth. Yeah. Because the X-Men is the closest you can get in comic books to like a soap opera. It's been going for 50 years. And it like sort of it. Oh, it basically was put on ice and it came back.

Like I got pretty deep into it. I remember I found that out. There was the guy who came up with it and then there was like this three really important guys, maybe the first guy then another guy and then that guy handed over to another guy. I reckon we just chop this out and that can be the X-Men episode. Well that's definitely an episode. That's it basically. There were three guys.

Were these three guys all X-Men? No they were regular men. Oh no yes they were. I think they're all dead now, is that what you mean? Oh, I was wondering if it was autobiographical. X-Men, current corpses, yes. So Pokemon, that's really exciting. I loved Pokemon growing up.

See, I think I was too old for Pokemon. Yes. It would have been, Pokemon would have just come out when I was that age where I'm like, this seems stupid. This is all stupid I don't care about it. I'm sure I would enjoy it. And I was the same. Yeah, I mean everything seems stupid to me Yeah, everything from pop culture. That's right When the Bible came out you're like this will blow over this will blow over next

This will blow over. This will blow over. Next. Not the first. But you, Dave, you were all in. Oh, yeah, for about three or four years there, I was the right target demographic. And I know it's obviously it's the number one most successful franchise ever, but it's still like it's crazy that every generation that comes along seems to embrace and love Pokemon. Yeah. Like, would have been 20 plus years since I've been really into it.

Could you could you off the top of your head name all? 150 original Pokemon, I reckon I could here we go. Okay, you know, I couldn't do it in order. No Okay, okay. I feel like this should be a patreon bonus episode because it'll be quite frustrating because I can I name about the first 90 Yeah, yeah quite quickly and then we'd be there for about four hours. Yeah I have I said my to put you on the spot, but name one Pokemon. Jinx. Nice, he's done it. Oh.

As far as I can know. That comes up as a controversy later because it was seen. Is that the racist one or one of the racists? Oh my God. Now, I think I've never thought about that, but now I think about it. I can see that. Okay. Now that's all we can think about.

Let me name another one then. Oh my, Electabuzz. Anything wrong with Electabuzz? Uh, not that I came across. It's a racist towards electricians. So yeah. Oh look, all electricians are like, boo, buzz buzz. Boo.

It's funny as you're saying buzz buzz, you touching that cable is making a buzzing sound. I know, I'm a professional. That's the Electabuzz. That's the electabuzz. That's the electabuzz. Which of course you don't know because you refuse to wear headphones. That's correct. You can't you're like my ears can't be coddled.

Yeah. Yeah. Try and trap my ears. You can't. Plus, I don't want to hear my own voice. Yeah. Okay. Quite frankly. Yeah. Sorry, everyone. So this has been suggested by a few of our great listeners. If you want to suggest topics, anyone could do it into the hat.

There's a link in the show notes. People who suggested include Sam Wall from England, Eric Mitchell from Spokane, Washington, Rachel Johnson from Melbourne, who suggested it twice as Pokemon and Pokemon Go. Braden from Brisbane, Jack Quinn from Kilkenny Island, Steven Carter from Calaroy in Sydney near Manly, Sam Marklein from Brisbane, Jack Quinn from Kilkenny Island, Stephen Carter from Calaroy in Sydney near Manly, Sam Marklein from Melbourne, Brandon Castaneda from Roy, Utah. I can't imagine being from a place called Roy.

I like it. I like it too. It's a yes from me. Let's get a gig at Roy, Utah. Let's go to Roy. Dugong can go to Roy, Utah. Well, fill out that form. If you're from Roy, if we get enough Roy-y's on board. That's right. Do go on Mormon edition.

I'd also love to visit the next place because it was suggested by Malin Cullen from Nuke in Greenland. Oh, awesome. Douglas Johnson from Weirle, The Weirle in the UK. Stephen Coventry from Greenock. Brantley Wheeler from Center Return, Michael Derizzi from Wichita in Kansas, Chris Ostomos Motafis from Melbourne, Victoria, put in brackets Chris. I could have gone with that, but why would you shorten it when your name is Chris Ostomos? That is so good. Holy shit.

That's like the evolution of Chris. Yes. That's what third that's the ultimate stage. Yeah. And finally, Grant Dickey from Aberdeen in Scotland. Well, there's almost as many people suggest as that as there is 150 original Pokemon. That's the only fact I know about Pokemon is 150 original. Yeah. And we'll talk about it briefly, but 151st one as well. Yeah. Hawaii. That's right. Brandon from Roy in Utah said this, and I don't know what it means, Dave.

Maybe you can make sense of it. Mr Mime is Ash's dad or something like that. OK, so Mr Mime is a Pokemon who is who is like a little bit annoying in the TV show because it mimes, looks like a clan and it mimes all the time. It's a psychic Pokemon with psychic abilities, but it also goes, oh, oh, oh, oh, I sort of unpacked in a box all the time. Yeah. And Ash is the main character on the original Pokemon TV show. And I'm not sure. Well, I'll talk about that.

Not the original Pokemon TV show, and I'm not sure- Well, I'll talk about that. Not the original. Well, the one that CheeseTV played, which in my heart will always be the original, and I'm not sure- Just saying, I've got to let the listeners know, any electrical sounds you hear, it's because Mace was playing with the cable, and he refuses to wear headphones. Sorry for being too professional, guys. I tell you what, I'm really feeling for Mr. Sunday movies right now. Tell you what. This is what James has to deal with on a weekly basis.

I'm going to instead focus on fidgeting on this giant crystal skull tumbler you presented with me. Mate, so I was drinking water from a skull shaped glass. Do we have any? There's a good fidget spinner over there. Fidget thing that I like using that one. Yeah, that's a good one. Time to not focus on the podcast.

Here we go, folks. Anyway, in summary, I don't know how Ash, his dad is Mr. Mime, but Roy, I'm with you. That's the whole city of Roy. The whole city of Roy, I'm with you. I'd like to run for mayor. Dave, before I get stuck in it, I think I'll talk about it in bits and pieces. But before we get into it, can you give the people a, you know, a bit of a quick rundown? Of what Pokemon is?

What it is, yeah. Oh my gosh, well, I feel like you'd be a better place to say this, but I think it stands for pocket monsters, possibly? Yeah, yeah. So they're these, I mean, who doesn't know what Pokemon are? These little creatures, it's like a world where there's creatures that are like animals. You know who doesn't know what they are? People who weren't born three years either side of you.

But you know the idea of it, these little creatures that people capture, enslave and then forced to battle other Pokémon. But then they also just live in the wild and have a good time. And there's different elements, represent different types of Pokemon that categorize for like, there's water, there's fire, there's psychic, there's grass, there's bug, there's poison. Bug's big. There's dragon, there's flying type, and then there's like dark Pokemon. And they add every couple of years, there's a new generation of Pokemon. It's like, oh my God, we've just discovered in this world there's another hundred out there.

And then they also- Let's get them to dog fight. Discover new dogs. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But they, so they battle and you capture them- We can't let these live in the wild. Yeah, you capture them in these little Pokeballs and then they, you become their master and you, they battle, but they don't kill each other.

They battle until they just faint and pass out. How do you think, what do you think it's like inside those balls, the Pokeballs? Do you reckon it's like the, like the Doctor Who TARDIS that we spoke about a couple weeks ago. Oh, they're bigger on the inside. I hope so. What do you think the Pokemon are squished down like maybe they're very... It's even smaller on the inside. Yeah, that's right.

The walls are very thick on those Poke balls. Oh my god. Yeah, because it's wild that like a tiny Pokemon like a Cacuna is in the same size Pokeball as a Charizard. Yeah. Which is a big one. That's gotta be a Doctor Who style. It's gotta. What did you call it? TARDIS. The TARD one. That's gotta be Doctor Who style. It's gotta. What did you call it?

TARDIS. The TARDIS. It's gotta be a TARDIS top thing. And also there's these things called gyms where you battle against gym leaders and if you can beat them, you get given a badge. And depending on what, like league, there's different leagues, but to become a Pokémon master, I believe you have to get all the badges and then also collect all the Pokemon, which becomes harder and harder as they- now there's 58,000 Pokemon.

Not quite, but there are a lot. That's kind of a rundown of what I remember. And then, yeah, it's had cards and video games. Who's your favourite? TV shows. My favourite Pokemon? Gosh, that's really hard to say. Your favourite human in the Pokemon universe.

Probably Brock. Definitely Team Brock. You guys know Brock. In the game, which I loved playing the Pokemon Blue, the first game, I always loved getting a Gyarados, which is a big dragon type water Pokemon, which evolves from a Magikarp, which is a piece of shit fish that can't do anything except splash. But if you stick it out, it becomes a Magikarp, which is a piece of shit fish that can't do anything except splash.

But if you stick it out, it becomes a Gyarados, which is like a powerful dragon. You just have to enslave an awful fish that doesn't want to be there and make it fight as often as possible. Yeah. Let it flail around until one day it gets so angry, it becomes a dragon. Okay. And you never fear that's going to turn on you? They never-

But it must respect you because you've got these little badges. Yeah, that's true, yeah. And the more badges you have, the more powerful Pokemon will respect you. Do they ever dress in the Pokemon universe like the technology that allows a Pokeball to be bigger on the inside than the outside to like address like housing, the housing crisis or anything like that? Okay. It's just about enslaving this creature.

Okay, good. Great. All right. Should we get stuck into the story? this creature. Okay, good. Great. All right. Should we get stuck into the story? I'm just remembering that I did not have not done any checks on name pronunciations. Well, for the first 150, I can help you out after that. Does become a bit of a free for all. I was thinking more of the, I don't talk about too many of the monsters. I'm talking more about the creators. For the first 150 creators, I can absolutely. How's your Japanese? Perfect. All right. So the main man For the first 150 creators, I can absolutely. How's your Japanese? Perfect. All right, so the main man, the guy whose brain shot it was,

is a guy called Satoshi Tajiri, who was born on the 28th of August, 1965. That is my birth date, and that's why I feel an affinity with Pokemon. That's so good. For Time Magazine, Courtney Mifsud Integralia writes, Tajiri was raised by his parents, a Nissan salesman and a housewife in the Tokyo suburb of Machida in the late 1960s.

According to James Gates, writer for Culture Trip, at the time Machida was still a comparatively rural chunk of the city. It was a perfect spot for him to indulge in his love of catching and collecting insects, a hobby he became so synonymous with that his childhood friends would give him the nickname Doctor Bug. Great nickname. Went through a few drafts and they went, no, this is perfect. Doctor Bug.

I love it. Doctor Bug. He's like a little kid as well. Mr. Pockets full of worms. Oh, he became a surgeon. Surgeon Bug. full of worms. Oh, he became a surgeon. Surgeon bug. Of his love of bugs in these childhood years, he told Time magazine in 99, they fascinated me.

For one thing, they kind of moved funny. They were odd. Every time I found a new insect, it was a mystery to me. And the more I searched for insects, the more I found. If I put my hand in the river, I would get a crayfish. That's this magical river. Yeah. If there was a stick over a hole, I would create an air bubble and I'd find insects there. I like coming up with new ideas like how to catch beetles.

In Japan, a lot of kids like to go out and catch beetles by putting honey on a piece of tree bark. My idea was to put a stone under a tree because they slept during the day and they like sleeping under stones. So in the morning I'd go pick up the stone and find them. Tiny discoveries like that made me excited. And I got to keep the honey for myself. That's right. I got my own honey stick on a piece of tree bark. Yum yum yum yum.

You can catch more flies with the stone than with honey. Yeah. So he just loved- that excited him. Putting down a rock and then picking up that rock the next day and there being a bug. And that got him excited. It was the TikTok of its time, you know? You couldn't go to the movies without people just looking under their rocks in the cinema. Could you please, could you please not look under a rock?

Please, come on. We're trying to watch this movie. Stop clinking and clanking those rocks. We're trying to concentrate. This is a sacred space. That's right. Two hours without your rocks. That's all we ask for.

Please turn off your rocks. When he became a teenager, he started to really get into arcade games, particularly space invaders. According to Courtney Mifsud Integralia, I'll say their name different every time, Tajiri skipped going to college and instead studied electronics at a two year technical school. It was sinful as shoplifting, he said of skipping college, Tajiri.

My parents cried that I had become a delinquent because he- He went to technical school. Yeah. Do you think they would have preferred if he was a shoplifter? Yeah. Well, at least you get to get something out of this. Have some honour. God, you're a common criminal with your soldering and your capacitors and so forth.

God, why don't you just join the Yakuza? So his dad worked for Nissan. He's a salesman. Well, electronics in Japan? That will never work for him. That will never take off. Apparently, according to Time, Tajiri was such a fan and he spent so much money in an arcade that one of them gave him a Space Invaders machine to take home.

Wow. How many? I don't know how many coins you have to- Well, you punch the card 10 times. You play 10 games and then they give you the machine. That must mean he was annoying, right? Because like, you can play it at home. Please don't come in right. Like that stops him

coming in. That's the reason he's coming in and spending money in your shop. In a way, this is the most popular game, you know, at the time ever, but we, we, we will let you have it. We will remove a major source of our income if you never come back. If you doctor bug. So piss off. He found that there weren't many good outlets to get information about games, and that is when he decided to create and self-publish the magazine Game Freak. That's interesting. That's a name I recognise, but maybe it's not the Game Freak I'm thinking of.

I know, I think it would be because when you turn on the Pokemon game on the Gameboy, one of the production companies is Game Freak. Oh, no relation. Funny coincidence. It is a funny coincidence. So this magazine he was putting out was handwritten, hand stapled, and it included tips about how to succeed in games like Donkey Kong.

He sold it for 300 yen per copy, but it got a bit of a market. The biggest issue he sold was about a game called Xevious, does that ring any bells? Xevious? I don't know. Well maybe that's what it is. And apparently that that copy sold 10,000 copies. Wow! That's a lot of staples. Yeah, I was thinking that too, if you've got two in each. So I think we're... Oh my gosh. Minimum two, yeah. As it started to grow, he started getting a printer involved. So probably by that stage he might have been. Probably getting like RSI on his hand from stapling.

There'd be no time to write the articles. But he was putting it out from 1981 to 1986. So, yeah. He had a whole lot. He had a whole other life before Pokemon. Yeah, and 1991. So he started when he's a teenager then. Yeah, that's right. That's pretty cool. He had a whole other life before Pokemon. Yeah, and 1991, so he started when he's a teenager then. Yeah, that's right.

That's pretty cool. He's a businessman. It's a businessman. He's a businessman. According to- And a bug man. A doctor. Bugs in business.

That's what his business card said. What do you need me to handle, bugs or business? I can do both. I'm all out of business. That's right. But yeah, I'd love some bugs if you got me. I'm hit a tube, bugs into business, and I'm all out of business. But yeah, I'd love some bugs if you got here. I'm here to chew bugs and do business and I'm all out of business. Tom Tom Tom Tom Tom.

Courtney Courtney Mifsud and Teg Greel. I'm just going to start calling them Courtney. C C M C M I. C M I. Yeah C M I. Okay. Good to CMI. One of the Game Freak collaborators was Tajiri's friend, Ken Sugimori, who would eventually design all the Pokemon and oversee art direction for the movies and merchandising. Like Tajiri, Sugimori had a love of video games along with a childhood fascination with cartoons and animation. During Game Freak's publishing days, Tajiri also met Junichi Masuda, a programmer and composer.

And those three sort of, I think became kind of the core of Game Freak. So when I'm probably not going to be that great at mentioning all their names all the time, but when I say Game Freak, I'm talking about them. Yeah, those three freaks. What I'm saying? They're the Game Fre them. Yeah, those three freaks. What are they? They're the game freaks. Yeah, they're the freaks. And when you say CMI, you're talking about Courtney.

I'm talking about Courtney Mifsud in Treglia. Great. Yeah. Now we know who you're talking about. Great, great. Ken Sugimori, the guy who designed all the monsters, he was a reader at first and then got in touch and then they started collaborating that way,

which is kind of fun. Oh. That's like, I don't know, that's, these days people would like, you know, meet on Twitter or whatever. And it's okay. Yeah. That back in the day, you'd have to write a letter. My goodness. Oh my God.

Right? Oh, pen pals. Other readers became contributors as well. And they kind of all formed into a bit of a collective and they started even tinkering with code and the mechanics of the consoles as well. Tajiri had that electronic, I know this is disgusting, mostly putting his nose up at it, but he did do two years studying electronics. Criminal. Jail.

He should be in jail. According to Gates, Tajiri became preoccupied with Nintendo's Famicom home console, which is known here as the Nintendo Entertainment System, taking the device apart to better understand how it worked. So he kind of taught himself how to build games. Was he able to put it back together? No, it looked nothing like it, Unfortunately, it's a lamp now. Very expensive lamp.

Now, they also spent time chatting about what they liked and disliked about various games. But soon they became a little disenfranchised with the whole industry. As Tajiri told Time in 99. The more I learned about games, the more frustrated I became because the games weren't very good. I could tell a good game from a bad game. My conclusion was let's make our own games. And let's make them good. Yeah. That's the twist. A lot of companies don't make them bad. Yeah. Because they don't have someone on their team that knows the difference between a good and a bad game. Yeah, you need some freaks in there. You need some game testers who are real freaks. Because everyone out there is like, I guess they're all good. They're all games. They're probably all good games.

Why would they make a bad game? Yeah. But you'd be wrong. Yeah, it makes no sense. I, until reading that, I thought, well, if you make a game, it's a good game. It's a good game. Yeah. Isn't there a big Australian gaming thing called good game or not?

Oh, we just call it game. Yeah, we just call it game. They're all good games. Anyway, that's exactly what they did. Make just call it game. Yeah, we just call it game. They're all good games. Anyway, that's exactly what they did. Make games, good games. As Gates writes, he and Sugimori, along with the friends they picked up along the way, thanks to Game Freak, decided to turn their hobby into a profession and establish the company named after Tajiri's magazine, Game Freak.

The mission was to make video games that would capture people's imaginations by being good. Nice. Wow. Before Pokemon, his first game was called Quinty. According to Jerry. Bad start. Off to a bad start. What do you imagine? I'm imagining like a little stick figure going, I'm Quinty. And just sort of wandering around doing nothing. That's what I meant. I'm Quinty. I just imagined like a brand of tissues.

And you just, just on the screen, you just look at it. And it's, this is the cover for it, which is kind of fun. Um, but. Oh, okay. It's a little bit. Okay. There's a lot of colourful characters. It's more colourful than I was imagining, like a literal black and white.

Yeah. I think it was some sort of a puzzle game. Oh, okay. Yeah. But there's, there's little characters. It looks. Yeah. But there's there's little characters. Looks like a chess set. And then there's little characters and they've got bubbles. And does anyone say I'm Quinty?

Yeah, I mean, that's the essential part. I think, yeah, most of the game is you go around saying, I'm Quinty. And then the computer controlled characters say, go away. And then I think comes up saying, would you like to say I'm Quinty again? And you say yes or no. The game over state is you can't Quinty goes and he goes to technical school. And that's when you know you've really failed. And like to me, that sounds like a bad game, but because they made it, I know that's not

possible. They only make good games. That's right. So that's why I think Quinty must be a great game. Tajiri later said that he did it all by himself. I think he means that I did all by myself with the others, but maybe not. His definition about myself is pretty wild. I didn't rely on other companies or programmers. I maybe did do it by myself. I just started by taking apart the Nintendo system to see how it worked.

When I was 16, I won a contest that Sega was putting on. It took me two years to learn the programming and a year to make my first game. Quinty. I'm Quinty. I'm Quinty. Oh, I'm lost. Will you help me? I'm Quinty. I'm Quinty. Get out of here, Quinty. Sorry, hi. Sorry, excuse me.

I'm Quinty. Could you give me directions to the nearest town? Get in the bin, Quinty. God. Yeah, the baddies are always trying to put Quinty, could you give me directions to the nearest town? I'm not Quinty. Get in the bin, Quinty, God. No. Yeah, the baddies always trying to put Quinty in the bin. Yeah. And you go back to the start. Warrr, warr, warr, warr.

You wake up in the rubbish dump again. I think it's high time for a reboot of Quinty. Yeah. I mean, if Pokemon's, you know, they've got the juice now, they could just bring back Quinty. For sure. Quinty 3D. Yeah. Wow.

Dragon with that far of an F there. Quinty 64. Yeah. According to Game Freak's earliest creations, which appeared on the Famicom. QuintyGo in the bin. Go to in the bin. That would be so good. Everyone can go out with augmented technology or whatever.

And Quinty's there and you can punch him in the bin. And you put him into real bins. Yes. And it also teaches you to recycle. That's true. I'll be turning into a cup. It would teach you to separate rubbish from recyclables. Quinty goes in the bin.

Landfill. Now, I think that's fun. We recycle Quinty. See what he comes at us. Hopefully something useful next time. I'm toilet paper. Shut up, Quinty. But all these games were colorful, enjoyable titles, but didn't really reinvent the wheel, according to Gates.

Nevertheless, the company was building momentum, and Tajiri got a flash of inspiration when he saw Nintendo's latest creation, which was revolutionary at the time, a short black cable that connected two Gameboys. I thought you were going to say Mario Brothers, but alright, a cable. This cable is awesome. It's like your picture of that. It's the biopic. He sees it and it glows. It glows, yeah. That's right.

Yeah. It's a calculations number. Starts flashing up in his mind. Yeah, so that was the thing. He was like, wow, how about this? It's a cable that now allows two players to compete against each other. And he saw its potential perhaps more than anyone else. Later saying of the Game Boy and its cable, it was a profound image to me.

That cable really got me interested. I thought of actual living organisms moving back and forth across the cable. Quinty, for example. I don't want Quinty. I'll trade him to you. No, I don't want him either. No, we're just passing back and forth. It's called like, don't want Quinty. No one wants Quinty.

Can't we just get him stuck in the lead and then we'll throw the lead away? Did you have the cable? Yes, the cable. Yeah, it did come with the cable, yeah. It's awesome for the game that's going to make Pokemon because it means you can I'm gonna throw the lead away. Did you have the cable? Yes, the cable. Yeah, it did come with the cable, yeah. It's awesome for the game that's gonna make Pokemon because it means you can trade and battle with a friend. Yes.

And I did that with my cousin Jackson and it was awesome. That's so good. So if you could skip to the part where everything's awesome. Yeah, get to the bit. Hey, we're getting close. All right, good. He's just seen a cable hook, eh? Oh yeah, sorry, yeah, okay.

Slow down. I'm setting the table before we eat. Which is what I think about as the back half of an episode. And I'm hungry. While existing games use the cable as a way for kids to compete against each other, Tajiri saw it as a way of sharing information, and this helped spark the idea for Pokemon. What was this idea? It's a while that it starts with the cable. That does blow my mind.

I think, I think. Well, as you'll see, he goes back for inspiration a long way back. Mostly bugs, I think. Yes, of course, the bugs. The bug catching was a big one, as he later said. Places to catch insects are rare because of urbanisation. Kids play inside their homes now. And a lot had forgotten about catching insects. And so had I.

When I was making games, something clicked and I decided to make a game with that concept. Isn't it so sad that Dr. Bug lost his way? Yeah, right. He couldn't even really remember how to do it. Lost his passion for bugs. Yeah, that's heartbreaking. It is, yeah, that's right. But then he was like, what if your game board was full of bugs?

Would you open the battery compartment? There's a bunch of bugs in there? They're crawling everywhere. Everyone knocking crates. Oh no, I've got bugs on my hands. Oh no. Hey, he was scratching his skin a lot. There's bugs.

I can't get them. He goes on to say, everything I did as a kid is kind of rolled into one. That's what Pokemon is. Playing video games, watching TV, Ultraman with his capsule monsters. They all became ingredients for the game. Disappointing your parents.

Ultraman, if you don't know, is a series centred on a race of aliens nicknamed the Ultras. Do you know anything about these ones? They're big silver guys. They'll fight a big Godzilla style monster. They'll do a karate on them. Okay, and they had some sort of capsule monsters? I guess they did. Oh, you know, it was probably because you know, you watch the Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. And then the villain was always like throwing a monster into the real world and

then they had to fight the monster kind of thing. I think it's probably that kind of vibe, you know. Gotcha. Oh, I had an Ultraman toy growing up and I didn't even realize what that was. Oh, cool. You were sooo pampered. You were so close to becoming the creator of Pokemon. I wasn't even me! Because you've got a lot going on. You had all the pieces, clearly.

Like you knew about Ultraman, you loved playing Game Boy, you played Pokemon. You could have invented Pokemon but you didn't. You just didn't put the threads together, Dave. I think a relative might have brought it back from overseas, the Ultraman. Dave, you put one on one together and got zero. Yeah, that's really disappointing, actually. One minus one, fault me there. So he has this idea, kind of around 89, 90.

Game Boy comes out in 89. He sees this cable. He's putting it all together. And he pitches it to Nintendo. He starts working on it like it's one of those stories like nearly every story ever tell. There's slightly different versions about the chronology. Chronology. Yes. And yeah, anyway, so he pitches it to Nintendo.

According to Gates, Pocket Monsters was unlike anything seen at the time. As he envisioned it, players would wander a vast landscape, collecting small creatures, which they could train and send into battle against competitors, battling either the computer or another person via the Game Boys link cable.

Oh my God, that cable. Every time I hear about it, I think, my God. You get excited. That's a hard cable. Each creature would have its own unique design and set of attributes. Trained correctly, they could evolve into more powerful versions of themselves. It was his hope that the joy and enthusiasm he experienced as a youngster collecting bugs could be communicated via gameplay.

And Nintendo, well, they didn't really get it, apparently. They weren't bug boys. Yeah, they're like, oh, it's interesting. But they liked him and his work. So they kind of brought him under their corporate wing, so to speak, with the thought to further develop the idea. And it was also shown to a man named Shigeru Miyamoto. That's Mr. Nintendo. That's the guy who created Mario. That's right. I said a man. He's not a man. He's a bloody god. He's a bloody legend.

He's a legend of the form. Created Mario, Zelda, Donkey Kong. He's like the king. Yeah. Also, it's nicer than to be like, we'll take, we'll employ you and take you under our wing and not just we'll steal your idea. Yeah. This isn't going to work. Now leave.

Yeah. Guys, I've got a great idea. He's living the Quinty lifestyle. That's exactly right. He kicked from bin to bin. Yeah, that's right. I'm Quinty. I've got an idea for a game. We'll take the idea.

We'll write the idea down, pass it across the table and then fuck off forever. So, so yeah, he gets, he starts getting mentored by Miyamoto and Miyamoto is also in his corner with this game. He's basically going to Nintendo. Now this is, this is good. This is worth bashing. That's awesome. So yeah, really lucky to have him in their corner.

This guy better not make a more successful franchise than I do, Shigeru Miyamoto. If one day it ends up on top 10 list, it better not be number one. Yeah. So I will flip my lid. That's all I'm saying. If I'm number eight, I'll be furious. But yeah, so Nintendo kind of goes, if you've got the money to make it, you should make it. And then maybe we'll put it out or whatever.

Okay, great. But you can do some work with us in the meantime. So initially he's like, Pokemon, it'll take us about six months to make. And this is starting in 1990. I don't know if you remember when it came out, but it was a little while later than six months. It was six years. It dragged on and on and it caused great strain on the budding company, got nearly bankrupted. Their employees often went unpaid, which led to five of them.

I think the team was about 10 and it shrunk down to basically just those three guys I talked about before. Those freaks. Tajiri, Sugimori and Masuda. There's only the real freaks would stick around for no money. Yeah, yeah. For the love of the game. Bugs. That's right. Tajiri didn't draw a wage during that time, but he was luckily able to live off his parents. So this story, Dave, you and Tajiri didn't draw a wage during that time, but he was luckily able to live off his parents. So this story, Dave, you and Tajiri.

I know you still live off your parents. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah. I've been living them for a long time. That's not true. You've worked like three jobs for ages. But yet, most of the others either quit or were fired just because like we can't pay you anymore, depending on who you read. And the three who remained, the three final developers who stayed, worked brutal hours.

Apparently, Tajiri favored a system where he'd sleep for 12 hours and then work for 24 hours straight and repeat. Okay. I would have just done the normal way. In the Gr grants game of things, I don't think it matters that much. Does that sort of add up to the same numbers? I guess you're saving on commute? What's that, 12, 24, 36 hours? Yeah. I don't know. I don't know maths or sleeping.

Yeah. Dave, you're good at maths. I probably would have done, like I think the most productive method is you get up at about midday and then you faff about for a bit. Oh, okay. And then you do like an hour's work and then you have dinner and you go to bed again. Oh great. I've stumbled upon the best system. It's the podcasting way. Yeah, that's right. You see that video of the guy who's changed everything. He's reinvented time. He goes, I now get four days every day. That's right. Yes. I'll go midnight to 8am.

That's one day done. 8am. It's like now I'm getting every year I've got three times as many days every decade. Also three times. It's good stuff. I think he was being serious. It did feel like it did feel already, but did feel. Yeah. It's impossible to tell nowadays think he was being serious. It did feel like it did feel that way. But did feel yeah.

It's impossible to tell nowadays. No it is. So anyone like you can't ever go that's ridiculous because you're like almost definitely like yeah that even if it was a parody somebody's going to try it. Yeah. So apparently the company was saved from bankruptcy with an investment from Creatures Inc and this allowed the game's completion but also Proved to be a pretty shrewd investment because apparently Creatures Inc received a third of the franchise rights in return All right, and do they pay several hundred billion dollars for this?

No, I think they just invested to finish off the game just a little bit. Yeah, it's Dragon's Den sort of stuff. Yeah, Creatures Inc. That also comes up at the start of the game. Oh, OK, well there you go. Well, Google says it's a company. Oh, OK. So it all seems legit. Pretty good.

A Japanese video game company affiliated with Game Freak. That's what Wikipedia is telling us. It's exciting. It's a successor to another company called Ape Inc. Oh, that's a little gift for you, man. You could do a Prime Mates episode on it. But do they change to Creatures Inc. because they're like in the Pokemon game, there's lots of little creatures. Oh, maybe. And including Prime Apes.

Prime Apes. Prime Ape. Which did a... What's my show called? Prime Apes. Oh, Prime Ape. And also who has evolved from Manki. That's another one. That's right. Yeah, I think we talked about Manki and there's another... There's another Prime Ape and something else.

There's three stages normally. Oh, right. No, not always. But I think that when they release new, like a hundred, whatever, they often like, oh, actually, we've discovered that this one evolves again. Oh, OK. So in the original 150, it's only Mankey and Prime Ape, but maybe they came back and said, no, there's an even bigger ape. You'd feel ripped off if you were a Pokemon that couldn't evolve.

Yeah. What the hell? Yeah. Second evolution, Anihil Ape. Oh, wow. That's evolve. Yeah, what the hell? Second evolution, Anihalate. Oh wow. That's good. So it goes manky, unevolved, says fighting, which I guess is the thing that- That's a fighting type, sure. Yeah, it is, yeah.

Like Hitmonlee and Hitmonchan. Hey, what's your type? I'm grass, what are you? Fighting. Now run. First evolution. And what do we do mostly? Fighting, yeah, that's right do we do mostly? Fighting.

Yeah, that's good. That's right. What about grass? Grass is what Quinty would be. My special evolution is these brass knuckles that I have. But yeah, so then it becomes primate, again, fighting and then an eye leap is fighting slash ghost. Oh, wow.

That's cool. Damn. Okay. There is this one called Hitmonchan that literally has boxing gloves like attached to it. And then it's like another one of the similar type is called Hitmonlee. So there's like Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee. But the Hitmonlee has long legs that it kicks with. Whoa.

And then Hitmon Van Damme, he's got like tape, he's got tape around his fist and he puts them in broken glass. It's brutal. In his free time or their free time working on Pokemon, they, the team at Game Freak, were given a job by Nintendo to design Yoshi, which they did, which was a bit of success. So they were given another one, Mario and Wario. Wario? Yeah, Wario. It is War another one, Mario and Wario. Wario? Yeah, Wario.

It is Wario. It's not Wario. Wario. Wario. Yeah, Mario and Wario. A lot of people say Wario. Wario. But it is Wario.

I don't know. I think it's Wario. Yeah. It rhymes with Mario. Yeah, that makes more sense. Mario on Wario. Yeah. Yeah.

Did they also design Waluigi? No, I think Wario might have already been around. That was just the game Mario and Wario, which was never released outside of Japan, but it was there. He also, oh, they also did Sega's Pulse Man. Not heard of that guy. You haven't heard of Pulse Man? No, I haven't. He's a guy who drives around in a Nissan Pulsar.

Going, hey, can I hang out with you? And people say no. Go away. Go away, Pulse Man. God. Oh yeah, he's pretty generic. Can I see- You've got a photo there. There he is, there's Pulse Man.

Pulse Man, okay. Now, if you were going to call this game good or bad, what would you say? Pulse Man. Just from looking at one photo. Ah. Remembering who made it. I tell you what? Pulse man. Just from looking at one photo. Ah, remembering who made it. I tell you what, tremendous. Now, I mean, it looks sort of like a very, very common game of that era.

Just sort of like an action platform. Looks like a Sonic look like a Sonic sort of rip off. Like he's fighting a sort of Dr. Robotnik. Right. And it was a Sega game as well. Yeah. But look at this logo. It's very Pokemonnik. Right. A little. And it was a Sega game as well. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. But look at this logo.

It's very Pokemon logo. Yeah. I think that, you know, Influencers are apparent, you know. Well, we wouldn't have Pokemon without Pulse Man or Pulse Man. Who knows? Oh, it could be Pulse Man. Could be Pulsating Man. It's probably short for Pulsating Man. Yeah. Pocket, Pocket Monsters, Pokemon, Pulse Man, Pulsating Man. Pulsating monsters, Pokemon, Pulse man, pulsating man, pulsating manga.

We'll be back after this break if unless you're on the ad for anything on Patreon to tell you about the launch of Pokemon. So after much sweat and tears on the 27th of February 1996, Pocket Monsters was released for the Gameboy in Japan. According to PBS's Storied, the game was produced with an unusual and frankly genius feature. Released in two cartridges, Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green, you had to trade with another player to collect them all, since 11 of the original 151 pocket monsters would only evolve after trading. An intentional design choice by Tajiri, who aimed to promote social connection in the real world.

You just wanted to use that damn cable. Yeah, the slogan was, don't be a loser. Don't be a Quinty. You don't- what? You don't have a friend to trade with? Wow. I can't remember if I've written it down in a couple paragraphs down, which will be annoying. But Mr. Nintendo. Shigirami Yamato?

Apparently he suggested that as an idea, because the team at Game Freak are like two cartridges. There's no way they'll let us do this, even if we'd thought of it. But he suggested it and he got it across the line. Did you just have the one cartridge? Yes, I had when I came out here was Pokemon Red and Blue. And I remember I went with my mum to Maya, the department store in the city. I've heard of it. Part of the Carl's Maya group.

I could pick blue or red. And my friend in primary school, Nick, had the red one. So I chose blue. But I remember the lady at the counter handed it over and said, now, are you sure you want this one? Because it's got a seal on here. My seal. And once you open it, you won't be able to return it. So make sure you want it. And that made me really think about it a lot.

Oh, it's got a seal, the Nintendo seal of approval. Yeah. But I've still got the box. Oh, it's probably worth a lot. Pokemon blue, might be. And then I also later got Pokemon yellow. What would you do if you were like, I got blue and then you went to school and you're like, because I'm going to match up with you, Nick, because you've got red and you already got a friend

who'd got Pokemon Blue. Oh my God, I'd have to find someone. I'd be walking around the the primary school playground with my like empty cable going, can I connect with you? Sorry, I've already connected with Tina. Can I connect with you? Sorry, Chloe've already connected with Tina. Can I connect with you? Sorry, Chloe's my friend. And I was there wondering.

No, fortunately I was able to trade with Nick and it was good. Yeah, nice. Great, crisis averted. Probably had lots of friends since then. Yeah, yeah, yeah, you do. And Chloe and Tina. And also my cousin Jackson as well. Yeah, that's right.

I will talk about it once we get to the worldwide release, but it was changed from green and red to blue and red. Interesting. Green and red be to Christmasy maybe. Maybe. Yeah, and it wasn't coming out at Christmas. And red and green should never be seen. That's right. Exactly. They did, they were trying to get it out for Christmas, but it ended up coming out in February. It just all got pushed back and they're like, we've released such poor timing for so many reasons. So the main character was called Satoshi and his rival Shigeru as a tribute to Satoshi Tajiri and Shigeru Miyamoto.

The game was launched without a lot of fanfare. Media and industry expectations for the game were low for reasons like it was put out, you know, at a bad time of year when the Game Boy was kind of coming to the end of its life cycle. It's designed specifically for a Game Boy and the Game Boy came out like six, seven years earlier. And it said from the producers of Quinty on the box. That really made people go. Expectations in the floor.

That's why the lady actually admired us that she said, are you sure? You know that the last people met Quinty. Yeah. You know those game freaks? According to Howard Chua-Eon and Tim Larimer, what- how can you break that down? Because I'm going to reference them a couple of times. Oh.

HCE? Yeah, sure. I would say, yeah. Got an HCE. I got a CE and L. Yeah, a couple of boys. Yeah. Oh, is that two separate people now? Hmm. Yeah, sure. I was gonna say, yeah. According to HCE. According to CE and L. Yeah, a couple of boys. Oh, is that two separate people now? CE and L.

Howard Chuwa. Are these guys critics? Ewan and Tim Larimer. They're journalists. Game and Gurt journalists for Time magazine. Calling them the media. The media. According to the media.

According to the biased media. Well, according to them, Nintendo released the game. Just say them. According to them. But didn't they say the game? No, they didn't. They said the game. They said the media. According to the biased media.

Well according to them, Nintendo released the game, but did not expect much from it. However, while the big electronic companies were giving up on Game Boy, Japanese boys were not. For them, the games and the old technology were still affordable, the flasher and high tech new models were out of reach. Also I read things about like some of the newer models put out, but the battery life was awful. Oh, the Game Gear. Like that was, that was, that was. Whereas the Game Boy would last all day.

Because it was worse. But I had a Game Boy and a Game Gear. And yeah, I mean, yeah, you could, you could play that, you could play that Game Boy on a long car trip, but like, you're getting like an hour out of the Game Gear. Which one was the Game Gear? What did that look like? Game Gear was a Sega Master System in a, like a, like a, it was colour but like you're getting like an hour out of the game. Which one is the game gear? What did that look like? The game gear was a Sega Master System in a like a like a it was colour. Yeah, it was like quite wide. And you could put a TV tuner in it instead of a instead of a game. You could slot in a TV tuner with a big aerial.

I don't want you could tune in television. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's sick. For one hour. For one hour. What I mean, you may as well have been watching TV in your house because you have to plug it in. You'd have to plug in an AC adapter. So I don't know. If you had a little got one in one in your bedroom or something, that would have been pretty exciting as a kid. Yeah, that's right.

Those guys go on. Howard, Chua, Eon and Temlarama. Those guys from Time or something. Time magazine. Howard and Tim. Mainstream media. Howie and T. Pokemon sales grew slowly and steadily and they did not stop.

Tajiri generated further word of mouth by designing a secret twist in the programming. It would kill you in real life if you lost. Yeah. Do you bet your life? Yes or no? Oh, whoops. I've got you. I know you're only seven years old, but I've got you. You got to buy another copy. So, yeah, he did that. The blood pack.

But also, he added a secret hundred and fifty first Pokemon into the software named Mew. Whoa. And to do- Oh my god, you're going to put Mew in us? My goodness. It apparently really did. It sounds like one of those things that you'd say at primary school, like, oh my god, you're going to put Mew in us? My goodness. It apparently really did. It sounds like one of those things that you'd say at primary school, like, oh my god, do you know if you do this 58 times, you'll get this for free?

Yeah, that's right. And it, but apparently that, like, you know, there's a secret Pokémon in there? All these. I heard it from my uncle who works at Nintendo. Shigeru Miyamoto, you heard of him? You're lying. You've made it up. And that did happen. There were a lot of, like, urban myths that went around about it as well. It was like, there's a special truck you you look under and that's where Mew is.

But it wasn't, you know. The truck's in real life. Mew was hiding under a truck. It's at a 7-Eleven. There was this like glitch in the game called, I think it's called Masingu is what people refer to it as. If you went surfing, which is if you get water Pokemon, you can ride them. And if you went surfing off the coast, this of one of the towns. Did you ride many Pokemon, Dave?

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Garuda's good for that. And a Pokemon would, because if a Pokemon attacks you, it would say blah, blah, wild Bellsprout has appeared and then you have to battle them. But this thing, it would come up with a sort of glitchy sort of like black pixels and would say wild Masingu has appeared. Oh. And I think there's some people who have played this more recently, I mean, they're going to be yelling at their iPods,

but if you had like one of your items in your backpack in a certain spot and then you you battle them, it would duplicate the item. So you get and there's a thing called a master ball, because there's all these different types of Pokeball. There's a Pokeball, a Superball, an Ultraball, and then there's a Masterball. And the Masterball, if you throw it at any Pokemon, you capture them and they can't get out. Oh, yeah. Which I think you needed to capture Mew too.

But if you did this thing with this Masingo thing, you could like duplicate the Masterball, so you'd have like a thousand Masterballs. So any Pokemon repeat, you'd be like, I want that one. I want that one. I'll take that one. Yep. Yep. Yep. Was that a mistake or was that a- No, it was a mistake or an on purpose glitch that they put in there. Yeah, it was pretty fun.

Anyways, so Tajiri was like, you could only acquire Mew by interacting. Without trading, you can never get Mew. And the rumors started flying of a secret monster that only a few people had the key to unlock and more games sold. CMI writes, the truth is in the final hours of development, Mew was not in the game. At that point, nothing was supposed to be taken away, added or altered in any way. But with a surprise amount of bites to spare,

how could the developers resist squeezing in the mythical feline Pokemon? Because the Mew is like a cat, a cat monster. You've got those spare bytes, you've got to put something in, you know? Yeah, don't waste those bytes. It's like, it's like pop-pump CDs from the late 90s. Yeah, bonus track at the end, at the start. Sometimes you'd wind the CD back and it would be... And it ends up having like 18 songs on it.

And I mean, if you're in the video game industry, it's either a bonus character or like a weird pixelated nude woman that they've, you know, digitized in and... Yeah. Very upsetting. This is, so I've looked up this thing that in PrimeScore we called the Misingoo. Yeah. It actually is a missing N-O which stands for missing number. Oh. But it's so funny in my mind, I'm like, I'm sure it's missing gook, because that's what kids in the playground refer to it as.

Bit of fun. Bit of fun. I think yours is better. Missing gook is better than missing now. Yeah. So talking about how they at the last minute added in, Shigeki Morimoto said, we put Mew in right at the very end. Morimoto works as a programmer on Pokemon Red and Green. The cartridge was really full and there wasn't room for much more on there.

Then the debug features that weren't going to be included in the final version of the game were removed, creating a miniscule 300 bytes of free space. So we thought we could slot Mew in there. What we did would be unthinkable these days. That's right. You couldn't get away with that now. No, no, we put you in jail. Slotting Mew into the final 300 bucks.

300 bucks? Good luck. Good luck. Yeah, good lord. Come on. Wow. Anyway, it was a surprise smash hit. Yeah.

Why don't you just put Doctor Disrespect in the new Call of Duty? Did they? Why don't you do that? I don't know. But it would be, you couldn't do it these days. They put a secret man in Call of Duty. Secret man. Ooh, we weren't supposed to, but he's a secret man. That's Quinty. It's Quinty.

Quinty holding machine gun. Yeah. Finally getting some revenge. I think that'd be fun. Quinty goes bananas or something. Yeah. That's a great movie. Quinty goes postal. Yeah. Finally getting some revenge. I think that'd be fun. Quinty goes bananas or something. Yeah. That's a great movie. Quinty goes postal. So by September,

remembering came out just in early in that year in Feb, it sold more than a million units. Wow. And this is just in Japan. As Game Freak grew, apparently they got new employees. More freaks. More freaks on board. Freaky the better.

You have to do a freak audition. That's right freak us out Stop it. I hate I hate it. I love it. You're in guys. Look at this. It looks like my knees We're gonna hire this freak. Everything they see. They don't get out much. Yeah, that's right. Whoa. Yeah, yeah, yeah. But apparently they're new employees, interns and whatnot. New employees. They get to work on on bugs for the red and green editions.

When you say little, do you mean like software bugs or do you mean new bugs? Well. Or do you mean like Caterpie, a bug type Pokemon? I think both. I think they're trying to fix little problems, like missing goo. They missed missing goo. They missed missing goo. They missed it.

And, but also they were encouraged maybe to make new characters as well. This was meant to just be a training exercise and they were thinking, oh, maybe we'll even give a few, 50 of these games out to people who work here. But it ended up getting a bit of buzz and some of the hires up. It was a bit controversial internally, but they ended up wanting to put- Did someone say buzz? You can't do it when you try, basically. No, it's a shame.

Trying to get that lead to make a noise. I'm sorry, you can't. Can we add one in in post? Yeah. With something really upsetting. Okay. Can't roll, AJ. Do your thing.

Go now. Work your magic. So, yeah, I think some will like, it would be very confusing for us to release basically the same game, slightly different. People will be expecting to be a new game, they'll feel ripped off or whatever. But others are like, no, we'll make it really clear. So they ended up making a really clear thing. Here's a bonus.

Thank you for it being so successful or whatever. And it was released as Blue Edition in October of 96. And it was expected to sell maybe 300,000 and ended up selling over 600,000 copies. Wow. It was just like a slightly different version. I'd be like, here's a thank you. I'd like to sell this game to you for $60. My favourite ad for just how cheeky it was, was the Furfy ad.

There's like a beer and it was made by Little Creatures, who's owned by one of the big internationals. Not sponsored, but we would take offers. We would take offers. Yeah. But their ad, because it was like their ad on radio was Victoria. To say thank you. We're making a beer for you. Furfy. It's like you're selling that beer to us. Yeah. As a thank you.

Yeah. We should be able to go to our local GP and get a free beer. Do you normally have to pay for a gift, for a thank you? They should use all the vaccination sites that are disused and we should all line up and get handed a beer. Yeah. To say thank you. People thought, oh, what are these vaccination sites or these places where people go to quarantine? They'll be useless after things die down. Not if we start giving away beer and all that's right. Yeah, furphy.

I don't know if they've thought about that. Yeah. They're just sitting vacant right now. Mm-hmm. Cost you money not to give out beer. Yeah. Turn them all into beer sheds. That's interesting that it came out of, like, just, you know, just have a bit of fun

and invent some Pokemon. Yeah. That's how, have you guys done an episode on Pong? No. The tennis game, you know, for the Atari, that came out of a training exercise. At Atari, they're just like, they got all the new guys to just invent a little thing.

They're like, come up with a little concept. Cool. And we'll bring it back and we'll workshop it. And somebody brought in Pong and they're like, no, no, it's, let's release this. Pong is so good. Gosh, I hope that person got their cut. And I wasn't like, thanks to the training exercise, we've decided to hire none of you. Yeah, yeah.

Now we're making Pong. Yeah, we've learned from Nintendo. We are not paying you. We've learned from the comic book industry. That's right. But yeah, that used to be, be that was like a not a secret game But a little game you could play inside of commander keen. Oh, yeah, and I play I used to love playing pong inside of commander keen I'm sure that's come up in the last few

I love mentioning commander keen and pong. Oh, maybe actually you talked about on the hour Dungeons and Dragons show on patreon You talked about the mini game.geons and Dragons show on Patreon. You talked about the mini game. You said you loved that more than the actual game. Yeah, yeah. Alan Alcorn created Pong. All right. And how many billion dollars is Alan Alcorn worth? Let's find out. Gosh, I hope you got paid, Alan.

Alan, maybe you'll talk about it too, but the finances with this, Matt, are these the triumvirate, the three that started Game Freak? Are they getting paid well or is Nintendo owning everything? No, I think they're doing quite well. Game Freak was still- They're getting their own cart. You still saw their name on the thing. Yeah, yeah, great.

So it's not like, awesome. So you were working for us when he came out with that. So we already paid you $25 an hour. So- No, I think he- I was just worried. He's minted? He still missed the game, missed the factory. Doctor Bug. We already paid you $25 an hour. So I think he worried he's he's mr Mr. Game mr. Factory dr. Bug is the what's dr. Bug? Is still a freak. Yes, he after Atari sold to Warner

Communications in 1976 Alcorn was being paid not to show up for work. So that's I mean, that's that's all worth it Yeah, wait, was he he real life Quinty? He might have been, yeah. Please. If you wouldn't mind. Halcorn was involved in several startups directly afterwards, including Kummer, a reprogrammable video game cartridge kiosk system. That's C-U-M-M-A.

You take the cartridge out and you put a bit of yourself in. Kummer. Yeah, I mean, sometimes the game's not working, you gotta blow into the culture. That's pretty good. If Mesa was concentrating, I'm sure he would have loved that. Was it rude? Oh, it was very rude. Well, I would love that.

It was borderline disgusting. Oh, yeah. I'm a real game freak. According to the BBC, after the success of the first two games, a company called Media Factory created the Pokemon trading card game, or TCG for short. The first set of cards were released

on October the 20th, 1996, containing 102 cards with drawings by Ken Sugimori, Mitsuru Arita, and Kiji Kinabuchi. So that was the same year, like it started, it went from this thing that no one really expected much of and then they're like, oh shit, we can cash in on this while it's hot. We're not even going to include all the Pokemon in the card game. Yeah. We're going to have to pay extra for those.

102. We'll do 102 and like, and 15 of those will be energy cards that no one really gives a shit about. And yeah, and they- we won't tell anyone that they're not all in there, so people have to keep- I'm missing- I'm just missing 39 of cards. But yeah, this is all still just in Japan. The drawings depicted the Magnificent Beasts, and where you could find them was on the cards. Describing the Pokemon, PBS says, these fantastical creatures exist as sentient beings

somewhere between wild animals and beloved pets. The Pokemon are inspired by flora and fauna, science, religion, yokai and other supernatural beings. The series teams with not just Japanese folklore, but versions of monsters from across the globe, made cute with softened features. Quite a few of the monstrum monsters have Pokemon counterparts like the Gollum, Yuki, Onna, Godzilla, Mothra, Banshees, Hellhounds, monstrous plants and Kasha. Apologies for, I know there's, I know we're going to catch the music superstar. I meant Kasha. Yeah. Oh, right. Jerry Sanford, Runhugger.

No, thanks. Because there is a... So they're all influences, is that what you were saying? They're all influences for Pokemon? Yes, well, all of those apparently have Pokemon counterparts. Oh, there is one called Golem, and that's one of the ones you can only get if you trade a Graveler to a friend, then it evolves. Okay, you got to trade a Graveler. Classic.

Classic Pokemon technique right there. And then you have to say, okay, now can you please trade it back? Oh, my friend might be like, sorry. Oh, really? Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you'd be in the same room if you're there with a cable. Sorry, I can see that it is. I can see you unplugging it. I can see you packing up and going home with your mum.

You just cut it with scissors. That's my cable. I'm playing pack them up and go. So I have to go. Tajiri was also inspired by some of the creatures he caught as a kid, as we sort of assumed. Weedle, which is a little caterpillar worm thing. Courtney Miff said, in Treglia, CMI writes,

These critters provided inspiration for bug type Pokemon, a frequent presence in early Pokemon games, lurking in fields of tall grass and foreboding forests. Tajiri was able to preserve the world of his childhood in Pokemon. For instance, Poliwhirl has a belly decorated with a little swirl, which was inspired by Tajiri's memory of the transparent skin of a tadpole with its coiled innards visible beneath. Did you know that? That's where the world comes from.

That's where the world comes from. And here's another fact. There's polywag, which becomes polywhirl, which becomes polywrath. And I think the- When does it become polywaffle? The direction- When does it become a polycule? Well, if you get enough of them together.

When they evolve, the direction of the squiggle changes. Oh, that's that's detail. Same with the tadpole. But I never knew about it. It was interesting. If you get a tadpole and you're swinging around enough, the direction of its gizzards will change. It depends if the tadpole is southern or northern hemisphere. Yeah, that's true. Yeah.

The following March, the Pokemon Adventures at Manga. Is it Manga or Manga? I heard someone on a video I watched about this say Manga. I would- But it's Manga, isn't it? Or it doesn't? I would- it's probably close to Manga. But we would all say Manga.

Okay. It's the Australian accent, right? It'll change things. It'll change you. We'd call it Mango. Mangoes. Oh. Yeah, that's where that comes from. Mangoes.

So, yeah, which is a comic, right? A manga. Yes. And that was launched. And then in April, Pocket Monsters, the anime TV show was launched. So it all happened really quickly. This is all within just over a year of the initial game being launched. Now there's a cartoon series. It's amazing. And it's really good, right, Dave?

Well, I'm not sure if it's the original one that I've watched. Oh, yeah. Well, I mean, it's it's the original version, but I think it was before it was dubbed. Oh, are you telling me that Cheat TV weren't playing the Japanese version? Well, like I told you before, Ash, his name wasn't Ash. It was whatever I said earlier. According to Chua, Eon and Larimer, with a hit on its hands, Nintendo decided to animate the game. The show produced in anime style quickly became the top rated children's TV series in Japan. And according to PBS, part of the franchise's success was its ability to appeal to all genders

and a far wider age range than previously believed possible. And a big part of that appeal, Pikachu. While many Pokemon are undeniably cute with large eyes, expressive faces and exaggerated features, they create strong emotional attachments with consumers when placed in narratives in the anime and manga contributing to their perception as kawaii. Cute. Okay, because PBS continues, kawaii means more than just cute. Oh, sorry.

It's really a cultural touchstone to begin with. Let's take a mic, guys. I'll leave. I'll leave. Something is kawaii only if it is cute, soft, round, childlike, and childlike features are complemented by their sweet and gentle attributes. Oh my god, my ears are burning. Yeah.

I was gonna say. We're all pretty kawaii over here, aren't we? They should call us the kawaii boys We're all pretty kawaii over here, aren't we? They should call us the kawaii boys. Hashtag kawaii boys. One of the anime's creators, Masakazu Kubu, has said that the original anime's target demographic was young girls and mothers. PBS goes on, remember the original Nintendo games graphics were far simpler than they are than what they are today.

It's difficult to show cute in 8-bit. So which Pokemon could make the leap from the console screen and into the hearts of the masses? It's Pikachu. It's Pikachu. Chosen for its bright non-aggressive color, easy to say name, sweet expressive face and memorable cuddly silhouette, Pikachu became a global icon akin to Mickey Mouse or Hello Kitty. Did you know this was going to be my fun fact at the end, but did you know how it got its name? Picker?

He's going to tell us. Oh my goodness, because we were like, oh yeah. Picker apparently is the sound Japanese people say an electric spark makes and chew the sound a mouse makes. I'd call it like an electric mouse. Yeah, it'd be like a spark mouse. Yeah. Sparky mouse. Sparky mouse. That's not bad. Okay, yeah.

It's this huge hit, but there were many bumps in the road. So the next little while, I'm going to talk about some of the controversies and whatnot. in the road. So the next little while, I'm going to talk about some of the controversies and whatnot. Oh, love it. You know, any pop cultural behemoth is bound to have a bunch of controversies. I mean, do go on, hasn't? You're a cultural behemoth. Well, we are. You haven't gone cancelled yet. Maybe this is the episode. We've brushed a lot under the rug.

We do get messages sometimes. Stop what you're doing, I'll sue you. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, you haven't stopped. I am suing you. See you in the Supreme Court. We just put those letters in the bin. That's right.

We'll call you later, Mum. Mum. Wow, that's great stuff. Yes. So, yeah, this first one, though, is not like not one of the ones that I think is normally predicted when a big thing, you know, big cultural thing. According to Chia, Ewan and Larimer, in December of 1997, about 700 children had sudden and simultaneous seizures while watching the show. The specific episode involved a bomb attack on Pikachu and its pals.

Okay, that's pretty grim. Was it from a Pokemon or was there a jet dropping a bomb on them? Yeah, or a mad bomber of some sort? No, I think this was this was just a visual effect of the shows, because in a microsecond animated flashes interacted with frenetically changing colors as Pikachu blinked out its lightning bolts across the screen. Apparently, such combinations of light can induce seizures in some children. And while the government investigated, the show shut down for four months and the producers revised their animation strategies.

I'll be honest, whenever I'd see like flashing sequences in a movie or TV series, I'm like, I better look slightly to the side. Oh, right. You're trying to turn your head a bit. Yeah, I'm like, well, it hasn't happened yet, but maybe this is the one. And that's based on this? Yeah. Yeah.

Amazing. That was always the childhood rumor, I think, that you would, you know. So yeah, is this sort of like, do you watch much Futurama? There's like the- Hypnotode. Hypnotode, is that? Yeah, it's like the Hypnotode.

Inspired by? Yeah, maybe. So yeah, that was bad. I think a couple of kids might've been hospitalized, but there were no fatalities or anything. So, you know. Yeah, that's pretty good. But yeah, they, you know, they change how they animate it. It's not like they meant to do it, is it?

No. Very shocked by it. Hey, we're freaks, but we're not those kind of freaks, all right? Chia, Ian and Larima continue. The Pikachu crisis stirred a huge amount of attention and publicity, but the wrong kind. I would say any publicity is good publicity, but maybe not giving seizures to children. Yeah, that's a fine line. Giving seizures to children, yes.

Some sort of advertising executive saying this is fantastic. You can't pay for this kind of coverage. You are on all the front pages of the newspapers around the world. Yeah, kids are all sitting down and watch this episode. It's been pirated. Don't miss out, kids. The article continues, At the time, negotiations were happening with skeptical executives at Nintendo America about introducing Pokemon to the US.

Skeptical executives is a good- Skeptical executives. Just a good mouthwork out there. Yeah. Apparently, some of them are like, they don't really see it working in an American market. They weren't so sure. And the first headline Americans read about Pokemon was Cartoon Monster Attacks Kids. So not an ideal start perhaps. Gail Tilden, Vice President of Product Acquisition and Development at Nintendo of America said-

She sounds like a sceptical executive. She said, quite honestly, role-playing games, particularly for the Game Boy system, were never popular in the US. Very sceptical. We had a real concern that the role-playing nature of the game would be a hard sell for us. Apparently, they- yeah, in America they were saying it's no good. And then I think maybe Final Fantasy, is that a role playing game? Yeah.

Became a hit and they were like, oh no, maybe does that timing work out? Maybe Final Fantasy VII probably. Yeah. That was the big crossover I think. And then I mean the nerds liked all the previous Final Fantasy games but. And then I think, yeah maybe that helped to get launched there or something.

I'm pretty sure I heard that at some point. Anyway, Mazooka. Actually, Final Fantasy 7 was 1997. Yeah, that kind of works out. Yeah, that works out. So, Mazakazu Kubu, who was involved in the negotiation from the Pokemon side, said the negotiations were not easy. He called Gale Tilden the Dragon Mother.

But in the end. A real Dragonite, am I right? What is that? Oh, that's one of the- It's Pokemon. From context, I think you mean it's probably a reference to a Pokemon. You know what? The context should have instantly told me that. And it did, as I was asking the question, to be honest, but still it should have been

clear. You should have been clear, Dave. You should have said, like the Pokemon Dragonite. She sounds a lot like the Pokemon Dragonite. In my head went, is that a kind of D&D thing? Yeah, I was like, is that an element? Is that, you know? But in the end, Nintendo America were convinced and possibly because of Final Fantasy 7.

And they thought, maybe we can repeat the franchise's Japanese success stateside. Plus, they already had all the various Pokemon properties to work with, the video games, cards, comic books and TV shows. Yeah, they basically, you know, they didn't have to make anything. Yeah. So they did. Well you know, they didn't have to make anything. Yeah, they did. Well, yeah, they just had to- they had to, as Kubo said, they had to hide its Japan-ness a little bit. Oh, okay. Make it more American friendly.

But they went big. They did all that. And I'll talk a bit in a second about how they've changed, tweaked things for the American market. Yeah, they made a Freedomon and... Well, I mean... Gunman. They love Freedom and Guns. They do, it's true.

The two things you know about America then? So according to CMI, the games would be renamed Pokemon Red version and Pokemon Blue version. Nice. Keeping the monsters found in Japanese red and green respectively. would be renamed Pokemon Red version and Pokemon Blue version, keeping the monsters found in Japanese red and green respectively. The decision to change the name and color was thanks to Hiro Nakamura, an integral member of the US team for localizing the games. It was his kind of experimenting with people and understanding that blue is the most popular color in America and starting

with red and blue would be better than starting with red and green. Are the colours an American flag? Yeah, got them right. Tilden said, it wouldn't matter in the triangulation of water, fire, plant, which two led. What does that mean? It wouldn't matter in the triangulation of water, fire, plant, which two led. Maybe it wouldn't change in the internal logic of the game. Right. But the way the game starts is you get given either a water, fire or grass Pokemon. Okay. You get your choices Squirtle, Charmander and Bulbasaur.

You got to pick one of those three. Yeah, right. And then your rival, who in the Pokemon, in the English version, Matt, is called Gary. You battle against Gary. Gary gets another one. And Gary thumps you. Is that generally how that happens? Usually when you pick the fire one, he'll get the water one and water thumps fire. Yeah. OK. Teacher's a little lesson about, I don't know, this guy.

He's probably got rich parents or something. He's a real piece of shit. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's got connections. He's a Professor Oak's nephew. Oh, yeah. OK. So's got connections. He's a Professor Oaks nephew. Oh, yeah. Okay. So, you know. CMI continues. The games placed Charizard in the final evolutionary stage of flame-tailed Charamander. Charamander? Charmander. Charamander on the cover of Red and Blaze toys. Blast toys. Blast toys.

The tortoise-like behemoth and final evolutionary stage of turtle Squirtle on the cover of the blue. Kids would not only trade between themselves, but instantly understand the inherent competition going on. Which one did you get, red or blue? I got blue. We know Dave. You won't stop banging on about it. It was awesome. It was awesome.

For the launch, they went big in America and they went big like months before it even came out. This is Sam. It was a particularly hot day in Topeka, Kansas on August the 27th, 1998. Temperatures reached a sweltering 97 degrees, making it one of the most scorching days that month. For the 2500 lucky kids gathered in the city, it was about to start raining. Raining Pikachu, that is. Do they choose Topeka because it's going to be Topeka-chu? It officially became Topeka-chu.

That's great. Yeah, for the day it was renamed. It's raining Topeka-chu. So that afternoon, 700 stuffed Pikachu were dropped from the air along with 10 skydivers who landed and then raced away in yellow Pikachu themed Volkswagen new Beatles, each painted yellow with two pointy ears fixed to the roof and a lightning bolt tail on the back. The poker themed Bonanza was a month before the Pokemon anime's North American debut and celebrated the arrival of the games,

which were already wildly popular in Japan and the US. Pokemon Pretty Neat read the front page of the Topeka Capital Journal. Classic play on words there. Pokemon Pretty Neat. Is that like a quote from a kid? Oh, I thought you could help me. I wasn't sure. What does that mean? I don't think it means anything. Pokemon is pretty neat. Is that like a quote from a kid? Oh, I thought you could help me. I wasn't sure.

What does that mean? I don't think it means anything. Pokemon is pretty neat. Yeah, pretty neat. I assumed it must have been some sort of Pokemon pun. No, it sounds to me just like an adult who's just like, this is the best I can do. I have no interest in this. Pretty neat, I guess.

Kids seem to like it. And you would like, there's no way it expected to actually turn into anything really, would you? Yeah, it's funny getting all these kids hyped up for a thing they've never seen before. Yeah. Whoa, look at all the Pikachus. What's that? Yeah.

It's so funny. But they were, they were hyped up for it. I mean, they already knew that seizures could be caused. That's true. So yeah, that was the headline that ran alongside a picture of a seven-year-old hugging a gigantic Pikachu plush. Nintendo chose Topeka because it was in the centre of the country, but also surely it came into it that they could rename it Topeka for the day.

The newspaper article, they continue to phone it in. It continued, they came, they saw, they sold. Oh, wow. That is so bad. Yeah. That noting that- They didn't even pay attention to what a Pokemon was. Oh, a few people bought them. Came and saw their soul. Happy with that?

I guess they weren't talking about- Pretty neat. Talking about how it was wild that they were already selling a thing. I guess they made those kids a Pikachu they couldn't refuse. You know what I mean? You get it. So talking before about how Kubo said that though, you know, part of the strategy was to make it, hide its Japan-ness a little bit. Which is so funny because it was like, it feels like it's such an inherently Japanese franchise. And I think it was also in that era where they couldn't just go, this is from Japan and people would go, oh, from Japan?

Yeah. You better get it because it's from Japan. Right. You know? According to Kubo, this is some of the things they did for the American market. We tried not to have violence or sexual discrimination or religious scenes in the US. Oh, right. Was there a lot of sexual discrimination?

In the Japanese version? I don't know. Well, you wouldn't have seen it. It's all been chopped down. Exactly. Yeah, that's right. Quite wholesome. How different was the show over there? It was mostly a workplace drama and a woman couldn't get a promotion because her boss was a sexist. Then they added the monsters. Those those journalists.

Chua, Ewan. It's a hyphenated surname and I can't I can't get my head around either part of it, which is my fault. Chua Owen, if you're listening. I think it's an Irish name and Irish names are so tricky to me. But his his friend Larimer. Oh, yeah. I'm more confident about it. Anyway, they write some graphics scenes involving punching were taken out.

The names of the characters and monsters were westernized. Satoshi became Ash and Shigeru became Gary. Nice. Shigari Miyamoto. The Pokemon were given cleverly descriptive names, for example, of the three more popular Pokemon. Hitcher Cage, a salamander with a ball of fire on its tail, became Charamander. Fushigidane, a dinosaur with a green garlic bulb on its back, became Bulbasaur. And Xenogame, a turtle who squirts water, became Squirtle.

Clever descriptions. One of them has a giant tongue and its name is Lickitung. I haven't read this this paragraph here from CMI's article, but I think it gets into this. Let me read it to you just in case it's worth reading. I believe it might be because the Japanese games need to be translated into English and the Japanese Pokemon names need appropriate English counterparts. Bill Geese and Sarah Bush were localizers who pitched ideas about what each of the 151 creatures should be called.

Geese and Bush. Geese and Bush. Winning team. We'd got an info from Game Freak. We're going to bring in Geese and Bush. Quick. Yeah, the sound of the alarm. There's a press, push the red button. The Geese and Bush signal in the sky. Let's go. Team GP.

Hmm. So Geese said, later said, We'd got an info from Game Freak and they'd tell us the genesis of these creatures and what they meant and what they were inspired by. The team worked to honour the origins of the monsters, and often that came down to literally smashing two words together, writing on the wall and trying to say it fast and going, is that a word? Geese said. You'd be losing your mind, wouldn't you?

Yeah. Is that something? Yeah. We've been doing this for eight hours. I don't know anymore. It's all right. Only 140 to go. I've been doing this for eight hours, I don't know anymore. It's alright, only 140 to go. Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres, I remember those vividly because we were struggling with these

legendary ones. And once I had it in my head, Uno Dos Trace, I wrote it down on paper and I just put three elements together and I thought, oh my god, this might work. Oh my god, I've never thought of that before. You're gonna have to elaborate, Dave. So Articuno, Zapdos and Moltres. Articuno is a nice Pokemon. Zapdos is an electric Pokemon and Moltres is a fire type Pokemon.

And they're these mythical birds and there's only one of each. Ah. And they're like in these caves and they only appear once. And it's very hard to get them. And I just never thought before. So yeah, Articuno, Zapp for the electric one, Zappdos and Malt, what was that? That was like lava. Maltres, that's a fire-fire one.

Maltres. Like a flame bird. I'm so glad you asked that because I'm like, I didn't even, having just read it, didn't even pick that up. But yeah, that's so funny. Oh my God, this might just work. We are fired if we don't come up with names for these three. That's so funny, they just throw words together. But how's this for a line? Oh my God, this might work. Not because it was creative,

but because it meant I had solved the problem and could now go home and have dinner. Yeah, that's right. Thank God. And it's become like these iconic things. Yeah, yeah. It's just been banging them out. Plays the game, definitely knows them.

This article is great. It's so good on Time magazine if people are interested. By Courtney Mifsud. Inter... Intreglia. Will be linked in the show notes. Other names winked at familiar pop images, which Dave mentioned before, like the martial arts Pokemon Hitmonchan and Hitmonlee.

Obviously Jackie Chan and Bruce Lee, like Dave mentioned before. Another was Kadabra, which British Israeli illusionist Uri Geller took umbrage to. If you don't know who Geller is, he was like a famous illusionist. But I think when he came to fame, he was just meant to be literally- it wasn't illusions, it was magic. Bending spoons. Yeah, bending spoons is his big thing. Yeah. And people really believed he could do it. Right.

And I don't know if you know this about Kadabra, he holds a spoon. Yes. And you would think it's just to gouge out the brains and eyes of his opponents, but it's in reference to this thing. Did you realise that before? That it has anything to do with it. But why is that guy taking umbrage with it? Is his name, does he use the word Kadabra? No, it's because Kadabra was a psychic, which is what he was, and he was depicted holding the spoon, which is his iconic thing. And also his Japanese name wasn't Kadabra, but Yungura and his name is Yurigella.

So he thought pretty close to Yurigella. Well, really. So Kadabra is the middle Pokemon. There's three. There's Abra, there's Kadabra and Elakazam. So you say them all, it's Abra, Kadabra, Elakazam. That thing, that's what they're actually going for. Yeah, yeah. Nothing to do with this guy, really, I don't think. No, I think it was definitely, it was based on-

He held a spoon. And this guy used spoons? Yeah, man. We are influenced by you. And he took Umbridge with a little, little, little- sounds like he should use his powers. To take a good long look in the mirror. Maybe get over yourself. Maybe you. Maybe you just get over yourself. Maybe you bend a spoon and get over it.

Yeah, exactly. Bend a spoon into a bridge and then go over the bridge. Exactly. I mean, the way he tells it, like, it's clearly he was the inspiration for it. But the umbridge, what's the umbridge, though? Well, I'll quote what he says, which is, I think, pretty funny. But he sued Nintendo in 1999 for more than 60 million pounds for allegedly using his image without his permission. You got to see that, bro. That's so funny.

That's me. That is me. This little weird mouse thing is me. Just comes into court with a picture of it. It me, your honor. Don't you see the resemblance? It holds a spoon. I'm the only one on earth who uses a spoon. According to the Guardian, Geller discovered the Ungular cards in 1999 while Christmas

shopping at the Pokemon Center, a store in Tokyo devoted entirely to the Pokemon phenomenon. His version of events. This is funny, just him having a breakdown in the department store? Well, tell me if you believe his version of events, because I'm like, to me it feels, I don't know, was Gela fever at Fever Pitch in Japan in 1999? I don't know. But this is what he said. At first he was bemused when the store manager rushed out from his office, continuously bowing as hundreds of children thrust Pokemon cards at him to autograph

while chanting what sounded like Uri Geller. So he thinks, like, as far as he's telling it, hundreds of kids see this middle-aged magician and like swamp him. Yeah. Because they know he's the Pokemon. You know what I mean? Yeah. And that caused him such distress. But I love that he's- It's like I hate this adulation. But he's also saying what they're saying sounded to me like my name.

Yeah. But it's not- Younger-er, younger-er, younger-er. Yeah. I mean, I mean, if that, if that is what happened, that's enough for me Case closed 60 million dollars So Gala got the lawyers involved all across the world in Japan Europe America Latin America and Australasia At the time he stated quote this day. This is what he took on. Okay. Sorry. Yeah Nintendo turned me into an evil occult Pokemon character Nintendo stole my identity by using my name and my signature image.

The spoon. Oh, the spoon. Within four years, the suit was dismissed in America, but continued on elsewhere, and Nintendo responded by quietly deleting the character from its card game in 2002. Then seemingly out of nowhere, Gellar seemed to have a change of heart posting online in 2020. Whoa. I am truly sorry for what I did 20 years ago. Kids and grownups, I'm releasing the ban.

It's now all up to Nintendo to bring my Kadabra Pokemon card back. It never had anything to do with you. I think it did, Dave. If you go to Yuri Geller's Wikipedia page, it's not the only litigation he's threatened or submitted for various slights against him. So that's interesting. Right, okay. Yeah. So apparently he wrote to the president of the company, similar thoughts and got a positive reply back.

And then in August of 2022, he posted, the reason I changed my mind, first of all, I did a stupid thing for suing them. I was just angry that my name appeared on a Pokemon card out of the blue without ever being asked. The most important thing in these 20 years, I became a grandfather. Oh, his kids started liking, grandkids liked Pokemon. I saw my granddaughters and I thought, come on, you got to release the Pokemon card back into circulation again. Hence my letter. And what a nice letter they sent back.

I'm really happy about it. And finally, in 2023, the character was returned to the card game. And final thoughts here from Yuri Geller, and you'll enjoy a little bit of a third person reference to himself. Now we can all see Kadabra reunited with the original Pokemon in the card game. I love you all. And I admit, totally open and honest, I was a devastating mistake for me to sue Pokemon. Kadabra was basically a tribute to Uri Geller, but it's back now. Forgive me. I love you all. Much love and energy." Wow.

It's a beautiful end to a saga. I forgive you, Uri. I forgive you. You just like, he went from losing a fan, Dave, to regaining that fan. Absolutely. And gaining some respect for admitting that he was wrong. Yep. And for one, I'm going to go watch YouTube videos of him bending spoons now, because that sounds impressive.

Anyway, back to the American launch. Having turned down the Japan-ness, Pokemon was launched in America, and as Chua Owen and Larimer Wright, once again, the Pokemon swept a nation. We've never seen anything like it, says Tilden. The dragon mother is... That's right. Kubo called her. But I think he said it, I think in...

It wasn't like... It sounded negative to me and he explained it. He's like, it was really good to have her on the other side of the negotiation. It was great. She is an actual mother. And I think that was really important. So I'm like, I forget in some cultures, dragons aren't necessarily dragon. Mother to us sounds like, Oh, that's like a bad, an overbearing mom. But I don't know.

Anyway, the products plugged into every kitty angle. Toys appeal to younger kids who then move onto the cards and graduate to the various levels of video games. The TV show propagandized each new creature with a tutorial called, Who's the Pokemon? Do you remember that segment? Who's that Pokemon? And then it would be like a silhouette as it went to the ad break and you'd be like, Oh, I don't know who this is.

Come back and say, it's Weeping Bell. And Israel, it's so like no wonder it became so big. Everything's feeding into. And also, are you going to talk about the Pokey rap? No, do you want to quickly tell us about the Pokey rap? At the end of every episode, at least the first season of the TV show, they'd finished with the Pokey rap. Wish I could play it for you.

It's so great. Try and remember to post it on our socials. Yes, we'll do. It's so good. But it's, yeah, this is something I had trouble with. This episode is going to be long as it is. And there's a million Pokemon related things that I'm not going to talk about. Yeah, well, three decades, four days, almost of history.

But that's just so, it seems so smart. They're advertised, like it's just a whole show that's advertising their other products. All the stuff. It's amazing. It's got a catchy theme song. I want to be the very best. Oh, that's, yes, that's right. No one ever was bound. No, no, no, no. It's inspiring for the kids.

It's great. Was that from the movie? No, that's how they open the TV show. Oh, right. There you go It's a great theme song And something else that they said was good for the for that sort of propaganda style show What's good for the goose is good for the propaganda Geisenbush, that's right But yeah, they also said another thing that worked really well is most of the Pokemon growl their names repeatedly.

Squirtle, squirtle, squirtle. So the children learn who's who quickly. Nice, yes. This article that I'm reading from, you'll really realise, was written in the late 90s with the next paragraph. This is the Chua, Owen and Laramute one. The craze is also Gen Y web friendly. Oh, hell yeah. The most popular website for kids 12 years and younger is Pokemon.com. It's all Pokemon all the time, at least until the next craze. Yes. So it's like in the late 90s, they're like, you know, it's big now, but.

Five years, none of them even remember it. Yeah. Five years, no one will even remember it. Yeah. In 1998, Pokemon landed on the big screen with a July 18 release in Japan. I think it was about a year later, the American release and then elsewhere. The film had mixed reviews to be polite. Rotten Tomatoes aggregator has a critics score at 16 percent approval. That's rough. Out of? Out of the full hundred, I'm afraid.

Oh yeah, and it wasn't 16 out of 17. That would have been good. Well, it could have been 16 out of 150, which would be worse. Oh yeah, that's true. I saw it in the movies with my friends. Oh, did you? That's sick. I saw it as an adult. I didn't like it. I thought it was bad. Well, as a kid, I gotta tell you, Pokemon on the big screen, could life get any better?

Yeah. Hey Mesa, you probably agree with the Rotten Tomatoes consensus, critics consensus, which was audiences other than children will find very little to entertain them. Correct, yes. Which is like, it's so funny. It's like, oh, it's obviously a kids movie. Yeah. But yeah, the kids liked it like, it's so funny. It's like, oh, it's obviously a kids movie. Yeah. But yeah, the kids liked it or loved it maybe.

Dave? I loved it. The audience- The kids have spoken. Yeah. Well, yeah, the audience number on Rotten Tomatoes reflects that 74% approval. Out of? Out of the 400.

Okay, yeah, not 75. Oh, sorry, no, yeah, right, out of 75. Yeah, that's quite a high one. That was a big hit, turning a $ million dollar budget into more than 170 million at the worldwide box office. That's quite good. And also very bold, because they did call it the first movie. Yeah, that's right.

It was such a long convoluted name. Is that how it was originally put out? It was called like, Pokemon. Is it something to do with Mewtwo? Yeah. Mewtwo Strikes Back. Oh. It's like, wait, my first movie? Where's Mewtwo come from? Yeah. In the US alone it sold 10 million home video copies as well, so big, big hit. When it came out, kids wagged school to see

it, catching what some dubbed the Pokemon flu. Oh, sorry. Sorry, teach. I got a wag school. Got a wag school today. Got the old Pokemon flu, if you know what I mean. I'm winking. This wasn't the only thing worrying parents about Pokemon though. I'm going to talk about a few of the- I did say before I was going to get into some controversies. I'm now going to get into some controversy.

I should say that I just added a big chunk of stuff in there. That you've made up. That I've made up. As a goof. Bit of a goof. What's good for the goof? That's right. So the trading cards at schools were known to get a little bit out of hand as well

and cause a bit of panic, a bit of, you know, adults were like, children have been ruined by these cards. Oh, they were banned at my primary school and many because older kids would rip off younger kids. Oh my God. OK, so this is an article from the BBC from the year 2000. Yeah, this is one that's taken off at my primary school for sure. There have been stories of bullying, intimidation and aggressive trading among children desperate to complete their collections of 150 cards. In the US, police denounced the cards as America's most dangerous hobby after surge in child crime. What is it in America that was at the time in the year 2000, you couldn't do anything more dangerous in America.

That's right. That was the most dangerous thing. Hobby. Yeah. You could do professional more dangerous in America. That's right. That was the most dangerous thing, hobby. Yeah. You could do professional more dangerous things. Yeah, yeah. But hobby-wise. Could I swap this Blastoid for a Pikachu? You're under arrest!

That's it. This is a sting. But apparently there was a surge in child crime. Six children were arrested in Philadelphia for a Pokemon related assault. Liz Paver, head of- They beat up someone wearing a Pikachu costume. What happened? I could not find any more information about it. So this article goes back to 2000 and some of the hyperlinks are dead.

But also, I Googled Pokemon crime Philadelphia 2000 and stuff and couldn't come up with anything, but maybe some of our listeners are better Googlers than me. Liz Paver, head of Intake Primary School in Doncaster, is among a growing number of head teachers to ban Pokemon cards. She said, they're quite expensive and- Someone a bloody, bloody povver would say. Too expensive. That's why you're jealous.

Jealous. Jealous. They're quite expensive items. And a week or two ago, I stopped a boy who had 30 pounds worth in his pocket. We are not an affluent area and that's an enormous amount of money. I don't think manufacturers take into consideration the conflict these things bring about. I don't think the manufacturers give a shit. I'm so sorry. You're a teacher and I think you're probably doing it for the right reasons. I'm afraid the big corporations might not have your children's best interests at heart. She calls up the trading company and goes, oh my God, do you know the kids are desperate to have these?

And that they're spending a lot of money on them. So you should probably consider stopping making them because they'll do anything like spend money on them. Look, we can't do that, but I guess we could give them away for free. Would that help? We just never thought about that. I guess we could just give everybody 150 cards for free. I stopped a kid in the hallway and he had 30 pounds worth of Pokemon. There's no chance he could have afforded those.

Well, I don't know if that's what she's saying or I don't know, but it's also like, yeah, maybe, maybe they have an epiphany like, you know what? Some of these cards we probably haven't put out enough and it has led to scarcity, which is probably the price gouging. So we're going to fix that up. We're going to release a lot of every card here. She says, when kids are swapping the cards, they can say they didn't mean it and they want them back. I feel like that's a good life lesson, maybe some of this stuff.

I know, but you would do this is that you'd trade and you'd say no swap backs. Oh, yeah, that'd be good, wouldn't it? Yeah, absolutely. And then you'd have a prep kit. That's legal. It was six and a grade six is 12. And they'd be like, oh, this is a really good one. Do you want to swap this and exactly a piece of shit for your Charizard? Really rare one.

That's not any good. And then the kid would get ripped off, go home, tell their parents and the parents would be like, you gave away a Charizard! Yeah, okay. Yeah, that's a- Straight to the principal's office. And then the big kid would be like, we said no swap backs.

That's a- Well, that is legally binding, so- But that is interesting that- So it's not nice for the younger kids here. I wonder how often there would have been trends that would have gone from prep to grade six. But everyone wanted them. Tarzos. Tarzos are big.

They went all the way in high school. I remember Tarzos still being around. Volumes of Encyclopedia Britannica. Oh my gosh. Big trade in those. Look, will you trade your X for my A? I don't know. X has got a lot of cool stuff in it.

X has got X-ray and stuff. I don't know. X is really common. Oh, goose. A's really rare. I've got seven A's out there, but they're all, I think they might be the only seven. But they're all around, I think they might be the only seven. Teachers are having to spend time sorting out situations to the detriment of their relationship with the children.

Peer pressure is the most dangerous thing. I mean, I thought it was just the game, but now the most dangerous thing is peer pressure. And there's a great temptation to take money to buy them if they don't have it. It seems an innocent thing in conception, but it has a knock on effect. It puts enormous pressure on parents who want their children to have everything. Look, I'm not saying I don't agree that she's probably right. Mm. That it is bad. But also, like, what are you going to do? It's been 20 years. Get over it, lady.

These things happen. You know, get over it. Get over it, lady, in this article from 20 years ago. I called her up and she says, stand by every word. Well, well, right, we're going to respect that. If not as much, even more. Yeah. I double down. Yeah.

No take backs. That's what she said. Yeah. So yeah, that Chua, Ewan and Larima article talks about a few adults who are also having a bit of a panic about the problems they caused by Pokemon writing. Some behavior has been delinquent. A six-year-old logged on a Pokemon website and printed counterfeit copies of the cards to trade with gullible schoolmates.

A six-year-old? Yeah. What? Honestly. Skip a grade. We really got to reward that sort of entrepreneurship. That's amazing. Other behavior can be criminal.

I think that first one was criminal, but other behavior can be criminal. Last week, a nine-year-old boy on New York's Long Island stabbed an older schoolmate in a dispute over cards. A principal explained why her school, like many others, was banning Pokemon cards. Children who don't have Pokemon cards feel left out. when children bring the Pokemon cards into the lunchroom they often spend time looking at the cards instead of eating lunch kind of that

all right you can't eat a card yeah sometimes they were they were getting confused they were eating their cards and reading their lunch it was they were They were trading handfuls of mashed potato to each other. A group of parents in New Jersey has sued the trading card manufacturer for intentionally making some cards scarce to force children into buying more and more packs of Pokemon cards. I guess, I'm like the same before. Yeah, they did that on purpose. Racketeering, they said.

They literally took it to core. I do not think they won. Anyway, let's keep the controversies rolling. How about a bit of satanic panic? Yes, please. Dave, you did, you or Jess did a full episode while I was away during block last year. I did a block last year, I did a satanic panic episode. Did Pokemon come up?

Maybe like a one sentence little mention, but not nothing. D&D was a big one. Heavy metal music and stuff. Well, yeah, Pokemon got involved. According to Kieran Fisher writing for Film School Rejects, it shouldn't come as a surprise to know that some people believe that Pokemon was devised as a sneaky scheme to encourage children to practice Satanism and sorcery. I make sense. Abracadabra, Alakazam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. children to practice Satanism and sorcery.

I make sense. Abracadabra, Alakazam. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently in the 80s, Dungeons and Dragons was condemned by Christian opposition for promoting witchcraft and demonology. Fisher continues, in a 2001 article by Christian outlet Worthy News, the author- It's really worthy. The worthiest news in your inbox. Pretty neat news. And then, like, it linked to some actual church sermons where the preachers talking about it's evil and everyone's like, yeah, it's evil.

Yeah, it's evil, I guess. But yeah, in the Worthy News article, it was written that Pokemon quote, opens up players to the demonic realm. Wow. It's a powerful card. It's probably what's in the Poke Balls. It's in Portal to Hell. That's why there's so much room in there.

It's full of sinners. The Orthoilots. I did feel like Sinners was the first in a list, but it wasn't. It's full of sinners. And that's it. That's all I'm interested in. That's all that was in there. Crammed in wasn't. It's full of sinners. And that's it. And that's all I'm interested in. That's all that was in there.

Crammed in though. Not a lot of room in there. Sinners can be big. Oh yeah, huge. That's right. The author highlights how it's a dangerous game that can be manipulated by Lucifer and his agents to lead players down a dark path. Furthermore, the article is critical of the game's evolutionary, pagan, Shinto and Tibetan

influences, since none of these belief systems align with Christian dogma. Plus I've never got a Charizard and I'm really jealous. Yeah, I think it sounds like that that priest has been ripped off by a big grade six. And they said no swapbacks. Well, fine. They're banned then. They ban them all. Because they Well fine. They're banned then. They're banned them all. Because they're evil. They're evil.

Fisher then asks and answers the question, but how exactly does Pokemon turn players into witches and warlocks? Great question. It's great. We want to know. Well, the general consensus is that the games make them want to dig deeper into the occult. As noted by Did You Know Gaming, some creatures in Pokemon lore have supernatural and paranormal abilities and some religious naysayers have compared them to the demons in Lassakee of Solomon.

The ancient text which was popularized by the occultist Alastair Crowley gives instructions on how to summon evil entities from other dimensions. Naturally, it's only a matter of time before role-playing games about Pikachu's and Bulbasaur's inspires children to seek out real demons. Beelzebub, I choose you. Yeah, it ruined my life. I became a full occultist. And, you know, that was a long way out, all because I was a big fan of the Pokemon Hypno. So it was like, and it started getting around a bit that it was it was actually like just secretly an evil thing.

And then an interview with creator Satoshi Tajiri went viral. He went nah, it wasn't nah, it isn't. Don't worry about it. And this is what the what it said. In a rare interview with Pokemon creator Satoshi Tajiri, he admits that the games were created as a backlash against his Christian parents. He also says that the games are tailored towards an anti-Christian sentiment or Satanism. The interview, conducted by Time about the continued success of the Pokemon series, took

a sharp left turn when Tajiri was asked about the inspiration for the games. The following is an excerpt from the interview. Pokemon is essentially the correct answer towards life, not Christianity. Everything presented in the game is the opposite of what Christians may believe. Some have said the game promotes voodoo or magic, and I agree, in the sense that there are many things that occur in nature that are unexplainable. Furthermore, the violence in the games is unparalleled. It may not show up in the actual graphics, but the brutality is made especially explicit in the Pokedex entries. Time then asks, So those who say the game is anti-Christian are correct?

To jury, I suppose so. I mean, some could say that the game supports Satanism. I don't officially celebrate it, but I can understand why people would be attracted to it. Oh, and Nintendo America like, we do not know this man. That's right. He does not represent us. Yeah, as it turned out. We would never hire a game freak. This was a nonsense.

There's a Snopes article on it. And apparently it was published on a gaming site Play for Real. But it went around the Internet as if it was a real... Because he did a Times interview, which I've quoted from a bit, and people fully believed. But it's like it's laid on pretty thick. I'm like, when I was reading it at first, I'm like, is he being really funny here or is this bullshit? I kind of wish it was him just taking the piss. Yeah. I mean, we know from his history that it's just because he loved bugs.

He loved bug and that's all there is to it. I love the bug and the devil. I've got the bug for Bielzabub. Bielzabub, more like it. That would be one of his characters. Yeah, it really could be. Another fake story that got shared around and probably still some people might believe to be true because I think maybe one of the suggestors mentioned this but it's the Lavender Town myth as

Fisher writes, according to the story more than 200 Japanese children between the ages of 7 and 12 harm themselves after hearing some creepy music hitting in the Gameboy game Pokemon Red and Green. According to Nadia Oxford writing for Lifewire, the urban legend states that the original Lavender Town theme contains a high pitched tone that compels kids to lose their minds. Since our ability to hear high pitched tones diminishes as we age, young children are especially susceptible to the Lavender Town curse. That is classic satanic panic there. That's classic run the record backwards.

Yeah. Yeah. And apparently, I don't- do you recognise that Lavender Town at all? I don't know. It's a town in the game. Because apparently- I'm sure I recognise all- I know, I remember all the themes, what they sound like. I can't remember which is which.

I think it was toned down a bit in the Western release of it. Ah, toned it down. Did it ever make you want to kill your parents or? Well, yes, of course. Yeah. That was more pewter city for me. Right, okay, yeah. And wasn't that more just opening up feelings you already had?

Yeah. I didn't want broccoli, mum! The only time I felt murderous is when they said, you can't play any more Pokemon, you have to go to bed. Wow. But I don't think I had anything to do with Pokemon. No. No, you were just a bad kid.

So there was a- and there's a heaps more of these, but, but yeah, and, you know, you can pick out crazy Christian beliefs and stuff when the majority of them are like, this is the game, you know, including one of the guys who suggested it said, I grew up in a Christian family. We never panicked about anything. We love Pokemon. Yeah. And yet. In the end, Fisher writes that the Vatican gave the franchise its full blessing.

After investigating the games in 2000, they decided they did not contain any harmful moral side effects. So I got the Pope's thumbs up. Just joking the Pope. The Pope played through the whole thing? I think the Pope did. To give the full, Pope-a-mon. The full seal of approval. Oh Dave, one of the months in our Pope calendar,

where's Popey, has to be a Pope-a-mon level. That's so good. With lots of different like Pope, Pope monsters. We've talked about creating a calendar called Where's Popey? Absolutely. You have to find the Pope, often in arctic or very white. White background. Yeah.

Can be difficult to spot the Pope. That's very true. Because as far as we know, the Pope's never been to Antarctica. That's true. Yeah. Yeah. As far as we know. You could convert some people in Antarctica. We want our plan, I think, if it wasn't, it is now to get Dave the papacy and then get

him to the poll. Pope of the poll. And what name? Can you take a cool Pope name? Yeah, you can take a cool name. I'll probably Pius. Pius. Pope Pius of the poll.

But it would be PIE. Yeah. Oh, yes. What's the better? There's one that's really great. I like Pope Urban. Urban's good. Is it'd be PIE. Yeah. Oh, yes. What's the bet? There's one that's really great. I like Pope Urban. Urban's good. Is it Urban one?

There's a Pope Urban, yeah. Keith? Yes. Yes. Pope Keith would be pretty good. I agree. Yeah, Pope Gary would be hard to get past for me. But there's one that's so fun.

I can't remember what it is. But it's like Pope Frisky or something. Yeah. I can't remember. Do you know Dave's favorite Wikipedia or second favorite Wikipedia website? Oh, I bet he's told me, but I. It's a list of sexually active popes. There we go. That's right.

There's some, oh my God, there's so many great ones. St. Felix the first. Oh, Felix is fun. St. Mark. That's not as great as it. No, it's a dud. Okay. There's so, oh, that's not as great as it.

It's a dud. There's so many of these. Pelagius, the second. Oh, that's a good one. Yeah. Popolages of the pole. And I also like Boniface. Boniface. Spelled Bonnieface.

All right. So, yeah, that's the the moral panic, satanic panic one. There's others like Peter didn't like the fact that it was like they were, you know, it was basically like the gaming version of cock fighting. Absolutely. Yeah. Other controversies include negative racial depictions of some of the monsters, like Dave was talking about jinx before. This is from Bulbapedia has a full like it's got a whole page about

controversy and it's it's got a lot in there. There's one where there was one Pokemon that looked like it was doing like a Nazi salute. Oh gosh, I don't remember that one. Well, they changed it, I think. Oh, okay. But yeah, there's a few weird ones. But this is Bolpedia. Following the American airing of Holiday High Jinx in 1999, Carol Boston Weatherford,

an African American cultural critic, claimed that Jinx was a negative racial stereotype of African Americans due to the Pokemon's black skin and oversized facial features, which were typical in minstrel shows. Jinx's design was later officially revised by Gamefrank to be purple rather than black. Does, I don't even know if you'd recognize the original Jinx, Dave. Do you think of Jinx as being purple?

Purple, yeah, purple in my mind, yeah. Jinx is often trying to hit on people too. One of her moves is called lovely kiss. I think it might make you pass out. Okay. Okay. Is that a racial stereotype? Oh, no, no, no.

I'm just, no, sorry. That's nothing to do with the stereotype. I'm just reminiscing about what I remember of her is, oh yeah, showing us the side of her. Purple's a better choice there, I reckon, yeah. Yeah. I remember her as purple. So I guess by the time it got to the Australian TV screen, I was aware of it. She was always purple. And yeah, there's others along those lines as well.

But yeah, there's an end to stream. If you want to really dive into the controversies, I'll try and put a link to the Bobberpedia article. I say I try because ACAST has limited how many characters we can use in the show description. Yeah, that's right. Just you guys personally. article. I say I try because ACAST has limited out how many characters we can use in the show description. Yeah, that's just you guys personally. I think so. It has blown out of it. We probably could take out some of the links.

We were taking the piss. But yeah, I'm not going to go through them all and I'm getting close to finishing up, but I'll just try and briefly go through some of the variations, because I know there's a million different ones and they're in all sorts of media. And I'm very sorry if I missed out on yours, your favourite, Maceo. Right. Maceo, do you have a favourite Pokemon? I'll be honest, I couldn't tell you.

I mean, they took out the one that was doing the Nazi salutes. Hit Lomond. Yeah, they've ruined my interest. Did you? Did you ever like take in any of them? You watched the movie? Have you watched much of the show or? No, none of that. Never played the game?

No, no. Collected the cards? No. Oh, the cards, yes. I got all the cards. Yeah, yeah, I got them off. Got to catch them all. Got a bunch.

Got off a bunch of year sixes. Yeah. Made some very bad deals, but there's some good deals, you know? Oh, no, it was not my cup of tea, but I'm glad other people enjoyed it. I loved it. Still got the cards at home. All right. Oh. And then so, so I'm collecting them around the year 2000 to about 2002. Then my cousins come along and they're about 11 and 13 years younger than me, and then they get into Pokemon, and my aunt, their mom says, oh, you know, Dave, you see a Pokemon cast?

I said, yeah, still got them, do you wanna go look at them? They were so excited, they're like, oh my gosh, awesome. Then they looked at them and they said, oh, these are the old fashioned ones. Oh. Oh. That's such a funny, like the people who get deep into that sort of stuff, that should be exciting.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Ugh. Ugh. Magneton, I never even fucking heard of that one. Oh, a 1967 Mustang. Yeah, yeah. Oh. So I thought, and then, you know, that was over 10 years ago, so it's like, and now there's

another, there'd be a whole other generation now that would look at their Pokemon cards and probably say the same thing. Oh, I did watch Detective Pikachu. Oh, that's a fun movie. Oh yeah, that's fun. It's all I have for you. Yeah, I fell asleep watching it, but I should give it another go. Um, I mean, just when I put a movie on and I'm on the couch, it's pretty good time.

Yeah, you're playing with fire. Yeah, come on. You know what you did to me. Uh, so there's been many new generations of the video games since the originals, including, and they always come out in pairs in the same way, gold and silver, ruby and sapphire, diamond and pearl, black and white, X and Y, sun and moon, sword and shield, and scarlet and violet. And geese and bush, right? And geese and bush. And Geese and Bush.

With each new generation, more Pokemon were introduced, and I believe there are now over a thousand different Pokemon species. That's wild. I think that's too many. Yeah, they should start killing some off. Yeah, I think so. Yeah. Like in Transformers, the movie where they killed off the previous generation, you know? Yeah. Just clean house, you know?

What did you think about the voting Transformers getting done? So which would you have picked? I should have just messaged you said, which of these three topics would you want me to do? Oh, okay. No, this has been fascinating. Plus I probably know a lot of wrong facts about Transformers. So you'd be like, the Transformers were great.

I'd be like, wrong, wrong. I know better than this article you've read. I know better than Wikipedia. Well, that would be helpful. I haven't referenced Wikipedia once. That is a nasty stereotype about this show that we're just reading Wikipedia articles. Come on, mate.

I'm reading time. We're reading time and Bulbapedia. Bulbapedia. Bulbapedia. In fact, you get most of your research on all the episodes from Bulbapedia, right? The Bulbapedia, that's right. Sometimes you're doing an episode on onions. Yeah, and you the episodes from Bulbapedia, right? Sometimes you're doing an episode on...

Onions. Yeah, and you're like, Bulbapedia doesn't have much. I guess there's no history to onions, really. Why is Bulbapedia... So that's just taken off the fact that one of them has a bulb on its tail, and now Bulbapedia has become a thing? I thought before, I was like, why do they call it Bulb... So it's named after Bulbasaur, which is Pokemon number one. Oh, okay. So I imagine that's probably why.

It's like Wookiepedia. Yes. For Star Wars. And Chewie is Star Wars number one. Exactly, that's right. He is Star Wars number one. Of the cards, the card games, their popularity led to Pokemon card tournaments and even a world championship tournament.

I think, I read that- Oh, I am a Pokemon world champion. Oh. I forgot to mention that. Yeah, I am a Pokemon world champion. Oh, I forgot to mention that. Yeah, I don't really have a lot of interest. I'm the Andre Agassi of Pokemon. I don't like it, but I'm the best in the world. Let me give you a probably wrong fact because I read it and I didn't write it down.

But I think it said that in America, the Magic the Gathering Company took on the cards and they sold like they, in a short amount of time, maybe a year, the first year they sold more than the last 10 years of Magic. Oh, okay. But that's a that's with the little asterisks there. That's my memory of a thing that I read. But I write reports much like our man does. 24 hours straight. That's right.

Yeah, so big tournaments, of course, Mesa is the winner of one. According to the BBC, since then, more than 30 million, 30 billion cards have been printed. And some people will even pay hundreds of thousands of pounds for some of the more rare cards. These articles are from a couple of years ago as well. So it's probably like 31 billion by now.

That's right. 32 billion. Which I think more than 30 billion still covers actually. The most expensive single Pokemon card to sell at auction, according to BBC, was a first edition holographic shadowless Charizard card, which sold for a whopping $369,000 or around 262,000 pounds in the year 2000. But that info seems to be slightly out of date as according to TCG player, a truly one of a kind card, the population one PSA 10 Illustrator Pikachu was bought by YouTube influencer, I mean even that's out of date, isn't he a boxer now? Logan Paul in 2022 at a valuation of five point two seven five million dollars, making it the most expensive Pokemon card ever sold. More specifically, he paid four million dollars in cash plus a PSA nine illustrator Pikachu he previously owned.

Oh, it's cash and trade deal. Yeah. Wow. But yeah, there might be a difference. One of those was an option. Did he try it with a grade six? Yes, it was with a grade. He printed it off himself. Well, the grade six printed off himself. Yeah, pretty brutal. But Logan Paul also printed off the money. So yeah. Of the anime, there have been some 26 series and counting

and something like 1300 episodes and counting. To go along with this, there have been 25 feature films including a live action detective Pikachu starring Ryan Reynolds, Deadpool himself. That's correct. It says 24 feature films but one of them it came out in two films. Oh. To me that's two different films. Oh. And the counts they'll count as one. So they say there's 24 feature films. Part one, part two type thing. Yeah, that's, that's two films. Guys. Yeah, guys. Yeah. I have no opinion either way, but yes. I'm going to court. Okay. And all that, you know, all that's been great, of course. But the last iteration that I think really broke through, went into the zeitgeist, was Pokemon Go. So I thought I'd finish by talking a little about Pokemon Go

before we Pokemon Go. Oh, my God. That's good. And what better way to tell you about it than to quote a Vox.com article from the year 2016 that is trying to explain it to people who were confused. It's pretty neat, I guess. You may have heard stories of people hunting down Pokemon on their office desks, in hospital rooms, and even in bathrooms. One teenage girl even found a dead body while looking for Pokemon.

Pretty neat, I guess. And police in Missouri claimed that four suspected robbers lured in victims with a chance of catching Pokemon in a new game called Pokemon Go. What the hell is going on? What is Pokemon Go? Well, after a few years lying relatively low, the Nintendo-owned Pokemon, which exploded in popularity in the late 90s, is again taking the world by storm, this time through Pokemon Go, the series' biggest entry into the mobile space, now available for free download on Android and iOS.

It's so popular that it's now competing with Twitter in terms of daily active users on Android. That dates it a little, I'm guessing. Twitter's still doing pretty good, is it? In simple terms, Pokemon Go is a game that uses your phone's GPS and clock to detect where and when you are in the game and make Pokemon appear around you on your phone screen so you can go and catch them. As you move around, different and more types of Pokemon will appear depending on where

you are and what time it is. The idea is to encourage you to travel around the real world to catch Pokemon in the game. The mix of the game and the real world interacting is known as augmented reality. So why are people seeking out virtual creatures while at work and as they go to the bathroom? Part of the reason Pokemon Go is popular is that it's free.

It's free and it's something to do. Everyone. It's free and it's something to do. Everyone said it's free and it's something to do. Yeah, we got to take up our time with something. Yeah, everybody, everybody asked, shrugged their shoulders and went, Oh, I don't know. Oh, Pokemon. Who's Pokemon I walk around. You know, but most importantly, Pokemon Go fulfills a fantasy Pokemon fans have had since the games first came out.

What if Pokemon were real and inhabited our world? Oh, I never played it. Also never played it. No, I didn't play Pokemon Go. I had a job by then. Didn't you hear? You could have led you to dead bodies or playing in your office. You could have gone to the toilet.

It actually helped my job because that was the year I started working on the project, looking for funny news stories and clips and things. And there was- it was for a few weeks there when it was like Pokemon Go madness, the news channel would send out like reporters out to parks and things and it'd be like midnight and there'd be like 400 adults in a park trying to- and then the big great Vox pops which we could play. Check out these. And there'd be a lot of reports of people falling down open manholes.

It became like a bit of a cultural touchstone and a bit of a joke as well. Yeah, but that was because that's how it got so big that the three of us never played it, but we're semi-familiar with it. Yeah, absolutely. Which says a lot, being semi-familiar. That's so true. That's the zeitgeist. And it was a huge hit, according to BBC. Pokemon Go smashed download records on its release and has since been

downloaded more than a billion times. That's wild. Yeah. So that's the end of my report. I think we mentioned... Yes. I think we mentioned Pokemon Go on the Tromp episode. The Tromp family.

You know that mystery? Were they playing? I think people, one of the eyewitnesses who saw one of the Tromps just like run off into a park, they were only out at night because they were playing Pokemon Go. Gotcha. So that's, you know. It's a bad time for mysteriously disappearing because a bunch of people have seen you. because they were playing Pokemon Go. Ah, gotcha. So that's, you know. It's a bad time for mysteriously disappearing

because a bunch of people have seen you. Exactly. I was going to fake my family's death and move to another country. Not during that three month period where everyone went wild for it. I think Tajiri would be pretty happy with it. I don't know how, I'm guessing it was his idea or whatever,

but that was, he wanted to get people out and about and doing stuff with us. Yeah, that's cool. That's absolutely. Do we know if he's still alive? Yeah, he's still kicking. That's great. Um. It's obviously bigger than anyone ever predicted.

Like it's unbelievable that it's still, still going. And like if you go to shops now, go to the newsagents, I still see, I don't recognize the Pokemon anymore, but there's still Pokemon cards. So they're still very popular. Isn't that just life, you know? Yes. How life evolves. I don't recognize those Pokemon anymore. I don't recognize them anymore. Isn't that just life, you know? Yes how life evolves I don't recognize those part of Pokemon anymore. But I'm happy that people are playing because I love I love it I still got a big nostalgia for it

And the only video games that I really play are usually re-releases of old games And then a couple years ago on on the Switch they brought out Pokemon Pikachu and Eevee which was like an updated remake of Red and Blue. Okay, right. But just with like bigger and better graphics, nicer colours. And that was a great time for me. I think he, it looks like he worked, he was pretty hands on until it really blew up and then every game since 2005 until the last games that have come out out he's got an executive producer credit.

He's more of like a money for nothing baby. Overseer. Yeah. Gives him more time to go outside and flip over a rock. That's right. You idiots get out of my way stop playing Pokemon Go I've got to look under this rock. Also Detective Pikachu executive producer. And do you think they just bring the new pack one in and say what do you think of this?

994 I hadn't heard of this one before. Iron moth. Sure. They just go what do you think of that? And he goes pretty good. Iron moth. Yeah, they're not even mushin' words together anymore. But two separate words. Yeah. And there's one called. Should have been aro-oth. Mushem. There's one called hydrapple, which looks like an apple and there's a snake that's poking out from the from the apple. Oh, hell yeah. I love it. It's fun. Pretty fun.

And it was there like Super Smash Brothers that have like Yoshi, like Yoshi's crossed over in other games and stuff, maybe. You mean Pikachu? Pikachu? Yeah, Pikachu I think is in Smash Brothers. You can play Pikachu. And then there's also like, um, Pokemon levels that you can play on Smash Brothers where you get like Pokeballs and you throw them out and then like, on your side, like an Electabuzz

will come out and start zapping the opponents. Was the movie, the movie was a bit of a success, was it? The movie? I'm just looking at it. Yeah. Oh yeah, you said the- 150 million box office 450- oh sorry, I mean Pikachu Detective. Oh, sorry.

I thought you meant the original one you talked about. Because it, yeah, it's interesting they haven't that there hasn't been another one five years later, but maybe that'll be coming. Well, that's a huge budget. I wouldn't have thought the budget was that big on Detective Pikachu. I guess Ryan Reynolds probably got half of that. Yeah, he's not doing it for free. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

But I enjoyed it. Watched on a plane. Bit of fun. Yeah, I'm going to go watch it. I'm going to go watch it right now. Goodbye. Thanks so much. Do you want to head off? Oh, I probably should. Yeah, that is. Yeah, that's long. Long the. That's very long. That's a stint.

Nice time. So we'll say goodbye to you. Mayso, thank you so much for joining us. What a pleasure it's been. What a pleasure it's been. What a pleasure it's been. But back at you. Accusatorily. How dare you give me such a nice time, both of you guys.

Mesa, will you come back one day so I can tell you things about X-Men that you probably already know? Or the Transformers? Or maybe I'll come back and talk about the Transformers. Oh, that'll be fun. I was thinking because sometimes in the when I'll say, oh, Mesa is coming on in this thing, people like, I'd prefer to say, they'll comment below. I'd prefer to say that I'm from Mesa report. I'm like, you got a report and Mesa on the episode.

This is as close as you're getting to it. You haven't done a report in, you haven't done one for years. Mesa can't read or write. It's very difficult. Yeah, but that's why you just go straight from the top of your dome. That's true. You bring it in, you riff it all. All right.

But are you saying it's possible you get back on the tools? Maybe I'll get back on the tools. I would love to hear a Transformer report from your mouth. Will I get back on the tools? Uh, maybe. Uh. Do you think you can do a home improvement report? Probably.

Uh. That would be great. We did a nanny one. I think it's in the same ballpark. We could do a two-malon police report. That would have to be mentioned. What a great mugshot that is. Anyway, thanks so much for joining us.

People can find you of course online. That's right. You can go to the Weekly Planet. That's a podcast I do with a friend of ours, James. And we talk about movies and TV shows. And there's a Pokemon Detective Pikachu episode. Or you can go to the YouTube channel, youtube.com slash Mr. Sunday Movies. We got some Pokemon content on there.

We savaged the Pokemon movie, the first one. Oh, as adults. You watched it. Oh yeah, I had to watch it. Yeah, I didn't like it. It's bad. What about the other 24, though? We should get to the other 24. That's a real caravan of garbage sort of thing.

That's a real, that's a real... They probably get better, surely. Well, I'll commit to the other 24 and then we'll see. You know? Ah, thanks so much for joining us, mate. So hopefully we'll see you again soon. You will. But not if I see you first.

Oh, my God. That's right. All right. We've just spent some time saying goodbye to the great man, Nick Mason. We just shook hands in a three way handshake for 15 minutes. It was nice. It was so nice. A lot of eye contact as well. It was really nice.

Yeah, yeah. Which is hard to do in a three way. Yeah, yeah. But a bit for you. Bit for you. Back to you. It's like when you're performing in the round, you know, you've got to- it's not just the audience right in front of you, they're all around you.

Yeah. Give a bit of FaceTime here, FaceTime there. Yeah, yeah. We were doing that. We were shaking hands in the round. Yeah. Without an audience. But we didn't need one.

We weren't doing it for the- we weren't doing it for that. No, we weren't doing it for them. We weren't doing it for us. So Dave, am I right in saying this is now everyone's favourite section of the show? It absolutely is the time where we get to thank a few of our lovely Patreon supporters and remind everyone they can support us at patreon.com slash do go on pod and Matt, if I was to go there and sign up, what kind of rewards am I looking at? Oh my God, Dave, so many, four bonus episodes each month, every Sunday, basically,

apart from the months with five Sundays. You get a few and five between. Yep. You got a bonus episode, a bonus report, a bonus quiz or something fun like that, a movie club episode, and now our D&D campaign. That's right. A new installment into our ever-growing Dungeons & Dragons Duggo on universe. Yeah. People are like, oh, what's what's your character's name again, dude?

Terry Sharpener. What's Terry Sharpener up to this week? This month? What's he up to? What's he up to? So, yeah, people are people have been giving us very nice feedback about the very early episode of that. Yeah, thank you for that. But what am I talking about? This, that's one thing.

You also get access to the Facebook group, which has had a bunch of new members recently. And people come in and they go, it's everything we heard it would be. It's a lovely place, lovely community. And yes, you also get first dibs on tickets. You'll be the first to find out about live shows, get discounts on most shows, tickets. You get to vote like today's topic was voted on by the vast majority of the Patreons. Yeah, that's right. And it came down to one, literally one vote. So your vote, if you join on there, can actually change the show, which is amazing.

Like literally, I mean, not everyone votes who can, but over 700 people voted and it came down to one vote. That's so amazing. Yeah, quite interesting. But one of the other things you get to do, if you're on the Sydney Schomburg level or above, you get to give us a factor quota or a question or a brag or a suggestion. And then I read them out. In this section of the show, we like to call fact, quote or question, which has the jingle go something like this. Fact, quote or question.

Ding. We remembered the ding. Oh, and I remembered the sing. And you remember the sing. And the way this works is if you're on the Sydney Schomburg level or above, you get to give us a fact, quote or question or brag or suggestion, or really whatever you like. And you also get to give us a fact or quote or question or break a suggestion or really whatever you like. And you also get to give yourself a title. I read them out and I read four out most weeks, up to four.

And this week, that is exactly the number I'm reading out. The first one comes from Nate Ramirez, who's got the title of Greg. This is Nate's first fact, quote or question. Welcome, Nate. And Nate is offering a suggestion writing, hell, Matt. It's probably hello. Hello, Matt, Jess and Dave. Hell.

I have two suggestions for you today. The first is for your uncle's Italian restaurant in Long Beach. Let me read that again. The first is for my uncle's Italian restaurant. What are you talking about? I was like, really? I've got... That's very funny.

Mystery uncle? No, this is of course not mine, but Nate's uncle says, in Long Beach, California called La Paralaccia. I would provide you with phonetic spelling, but you're practically 100% Italian. Exactly. And we'll nail the pronunciation. I'm pretty sure I did. When you had previously announced venues for your North American tour, the show you had

planned in Long Beach would have been about five to seven minutes walk from this place. If you three ever make it out there or any listeners, then you should definitely go check it out. Great tip. I love Dave. We love going to an Italian restaurant. We love that. Going on tour or not. Exactly. We share a little pasta. Oh man. I love those big like you go to Italian restaurant. They have those big, you know, tortellini or whatever. So yeah, large ravioli type things and you're like, oh, there's only four on the plate.

And you go, that'll actually fill you right up. That'll do just nicely. Oh my goodness. A bottle of vino to share. And do you have any ice cream for dessert? And maybe a little gelati. My second suggestion is from my cousin's band, Cyborg Octopus. He's the vocalist.

That is a sick name. They're a metal band and while that's normally not my type of music, a lot of their songs have made it into my rotation. Please give them a lesson and a listen is what I think it was actually written. A lesson I'll never forget. Sorry for the long one and thanks for all the loves. Really looking forward to the D&D bonus episodes. Well, at this time you will have heard at least the first one. I hope you enjoyed it very much. What a brilliant entry. That's a fantastic debut from Greg.

Greg. Greg Nate Ramirez. He landed on his feet there. Oh, great stuff. Next one comes from Rachel Johnson. Actually, one of the suggestors of today's topic. Rachel Johnson, okay. Sometimes ham sandwich. Yes, it is's topic. Rachel Johnson, okay. Sometimes ham sandwich. Yes, it is ham sandwich.

It's so funny. Funniest nickname we've had yet. And can you tell me- remind me why? I don't know if there's anything- any reason for it, but once you read it out and it just really got me. That's so funny. I- man on my head is a sieve with something. Ham sandwich. It's so funny.

Rachel is- oh, this is- This is maybe the second entry in this. Favorite words. Didn't we have a- Oh, yes, we've had favorite words and least favorite words. All right. Rachel writes, Hello, Matt, Jess and Dave. Since it was discussed on a previous Fact Quota question a while ago, I started making a list of my favorite words. Here are my top words so far.

Plonk. Oh, that's a fantastic entry. Well, this one I don't know. Concon-conca-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-con-A-T-E-N-A-T-E. For informal language theory and computer programming, string concatenation is the operation of joining character strings and ant. For example, the concatenation of snow and ball is snowball. It's- Oh, that's very Pokemon handy. Yes, it is very, very good. Yeah.

Yeah. Okay. Fun. That's a fun word. What not and Higgledy Pickledy. Higgledy Pickledy is very good. Yeah, I like that a lot. I agree with Higgledy Pickledy. Look, I agree with them all. And Plonk, Plonk, because that's my favourite word, plop.

Oh, yeah. I like Plonk a lot more than plop. Oh, really? Plonk it right down there. Plop it right down there. Plop, yeah, plop, plop over in that seat, mate. Yeah. Um, plonk is also like a, that's a word for, well next time we go to the Italian restaurant, we'll get some ravioli and a bottle of plonk. Oh, a bit of plonk, as they refer to it.

Yeah, I think that's Italian. Il plonk. of Plonk. As they refer to it. Yeah, I think that's your time. Il Plonk. Il Plonk. Welcome back. Thanks so much, Rachel. Love that. I'd love to hear more. What a great, what a great list. Plonk.

Plonk. Justin McCain is the next one. Mr. Justin McCain plays a silly game. And just doesn't McCain. He's got the title of the OG and is using this for a shout out writing. At time of writing, it's a week out from my son's first birthday. So I wanted to shout out his first. I want to shout out his birthday and brag about how awesome

he is. Happy first birthday, Freddie. Here's to another amazing year. Yeah, Freddie. Woohoo! I was about to swear. We're not in a programme. No, no, no. We want Freddie to be able to hear this. Come on, Freddie. Happy birthday. All right. Let's do your first word, Freddie.

You ready? First word. Yes. Your first word is plonk. Plonk. Plonk. Plonk. Plonk. Is one- should it- you say words after one or before one? I think it varies a lot. Oh yeah. I think some under one, some quite a bit after one, yeah. Yeah, okay. Well, either way, Junior McCain. You've got to play Baby McCain a bit of

what's his name? Peter Coops and his classic song, Mr. Clickety-Cank. Where are all the kids in the street? They like to do the same. Was it? It's called Wash Your Face with Orange Juice. OK, fantastic. In brackets, Mr. Clickety game. And the last one this week comes from Adam Tripsinski, OK, official mover, shaker and producer. Oh, Adam.

Adam's got a fact for us writing. Love a fact. Hey, everyone, I decided to find another air hockey table for the Triptych club so Matt can actually touch it. Oh, that's fantastic. But Jess is not around, so I'm doing whatever I like. Yeah, yeah, yeah. She's not here. She's fine. But while she's away, Matt is absolutely doing whatever he wants. But this is so great. There's a second one.

You know what? This new one, perfect for Jess, because I've already iced up the existing one. This table can be used by everyone as a part of the club. Yeah. Except Jess, I'll be working on getting a trampoline next. Okay. Fantastic. Thank you. Adam, you tell you what, producer by name, producer by nature. If I could have a bit of a go on the trampoline. Producer by title.

Yeah, please. I'd love to. You can. I know it's Jess's, but she's not here. And I say, yeah, you can. She'll never hear this. I'm only afraid of her when she can hear me or see me. Say whatever you want. Yeah, Jess sucked in. Hey, here's a fun fact. And I'm putting up my middle fingers. That's good.

Thank you so much to Adam, Justin, Rachel and Nate. I'm not really afraid of a bit of a joke there. OK. I don't want anyone thinking that Jess is someone who's very scary and haunts my dreams. Why would you do that? That would be ridiculous. That would be silly. Thank you to our great fact quotes and questions. And like I say, if you want to get involved in that, go to the Sydney Schomburg level,

sign up there, patreon.com slash to gompod. The other thing, one of the other things we like to do is a few shout outs, Dave, to some of our other great supporters. Absolutely. Just normally comes up with a game. Maybe you could do that today. Well, what about just giving them each a Pokemon to represent them? Oh, yes, Dave.

I'll read out the names. You are probably in a better position to poke. Yes, I think I'm going to keep it to the first 150 because I'm sort of more aware of them if that's okay. I think that'd be fantastic. Cop that Mew. Cop that Mew. Mew's the cutoff. OK, 151. No, Mewtwo.

But no Mew. OK. OK. Wait, Mewtwo is in the 150? Mewtwo is 150. Oh. Mew is 151. And Mewtwo is a Pokemon that was created in a lab. Oh. Very powerful and it escaped. I think that's what the movie's about, the first movie. Oh, Mewtwo strikes back.

Yeah, very powerful, psychic Pokemon. Really gets in your head. I did have a quick look through and I think, I mean, there's the classic ones like Squirtle's such a great name. Jigglypuff, I like. Oh, Jigglypuff's great, you know what Jigglypuff does? Has a microphone and sings songs and it puts people to sleep. Oh, OK.

And in the TV series, she comes on once an episode, sings, puts everyone to sleep, then gets really pissed off because she wants to be like a pop star. Everyone falls asleep, so she pulls out a permanent marker and draws funny things on their faces. That's fun. Do Pokemon speak? Most, nearly all of them cannot. They can only say their own name.

In the TV show, there's an evil Pokemon called Meowth that can speak English. Oh, it's got a mouth in his name. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That makes sense. Jigglypuff just sings Jigglypuff. Jiggly just sings their name. The other one that stood out to me, which I'd never heard of before, Slowbro. That feels like that could be my Pokemon. I choose you, Slowbro.

But yeah, Jigglypuff didn't know that held a micron and put people to sleep. That feels like that's in my wheelhouse as well. That's great. All right, Dave, you ready? I'm ready. I've got the list here and I'm going to go through and pick some. like that's in my wheelhouse as well. That's great. All right, Dave, you ready? I'm ready. I've got the list here and I'm going to go through and pick some. We've got nine names here who are all about to get Pokemon.

First up, I'd love to thank for all your support from Derby or Derby in Kansas and the United States. It's Emily Gillihan. I'm going to give you the Pokemon Diglett. Diglett. Diglett. It's a digger. Diglett. Diglett. It's a digger? It's a ground Pokemon.

And it goes, yeah, it burrows underneath, goes, lives in caves. Oh yeah. It's a hider. Yeah, it's very cute too. Emily Gillahan. You are Diglett. Diglett. Emily Diglett Gillahan.

Next up, I'd love to thank from Pleasanton in California in the United States. It's Abishek Kasturi. Abishek Kasturi, I'm going to give you Electrode. Oh, it's like a toad? No, it's an electric Pokemon. It looks like a Pokeball, basically. It's round and red and white. But that's weird. That's quite big.

And it's just it looks like it's a red and white ball with like a little squiggly face on it. And it's weird. That's quite big and it looks like it's a red and white ball with like a little squiggly face on it and it's electric. They got, they started to get, I mean, not even started, this is right at the beginning. It is, and this is 101. They got their design, they have started to look around the room and see things they'd already designed. Yep. Oh, that's really fun.

That's a great one though. Iconic. Absolutely. From Prospect in Kentucky in the United States, I'd love to thank Fran Mastropaolo. Fran, I'm gonna give you another one of my favorites. Tangler. Tangler, which looks a little bit like

a blue spaghetti bolognese with feet and little eyes. Oh, that's fun. Yeah, it's a grass Pokemon, Tangler. Do you wanna have a go at Fran's name? I love the name and I feel like I'm not hitting it quite right. Fran Mastropallo. Let me have a quick look. Sorry, I've got to bring up the right page for these names.

Fran Mastropallo. I think that would say that Mastropallo. Thank you so much. And from Melbourne, right here in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, it's Miles Campbell. Thank you so much. Miles Campbell, thank you so much. And from Melbourne, right here in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, it's Miles Campbell. Thank you so much. Miles Campbell, thank you so much. And to me, you will always be Tentacruel. Oh, like Tintacurl?

It's a very big jellyfish. Oh. It's a water and poison Pokemon. Long little tentacles. They call it Tentacruel. Okay. It's not a nice one. Well, it evolved from Tentacool.

Oh, so it was cool. Now it's cruel. Okay. So it's like kind of your Raphael type. Yeah, yeah. Cruel but rude. Cruel but rude. Thank you so much to Miles from Stanhope Gardens in New South Wales here in Australia.

Love to thank Stefano. Stefano, to me, you remind me of nine tails, which is like a big foxy type Pokemon. It's a Sapphire Pokemon with a very big, big tail. Yeah, that's that sounds great. In fact, there are nine. OK, it does have nine tails. I'm like one big tail.

It's a real big name for it. It's like a plume. But I'm sure you could count nine individually if you wanted to. And I do. From Birmingham in Great Britain, I love to think. Mark Goethe. Mark Goethe, I'm going to give you Ekans, which is a snake Pokemon, and it's actually snake spelled backwards. Oh, that's clever.

See what they did there? That's clever. That guy really wanted to dinner that night. And I'm going to, I'm going to reserve the next one. Ekans evolves into Arbok, which is Cobra Buckwoods. And that's mine. Oh my God. That's me. Cobra and snakes.

They're two, they're both like snakes. Yeah. What are the chances? Is that a coincidence? Nah. From London in Great Britain, thank you to Jamie Garner Buchanan. Oh, Jamie Garner Buchanan. My goodness, what a lovely name.

But I more know you as Drowsy, the psychic Pokemon. That's another one that I feel an attachment to. Oh, you feel an attachment? I thought maybe. Drowsy. Yuri Geller might be having something to say as well about Drowsy, who evolves into Hypno, who holds like a thing on a string that to hypnotize its opponents with. Oh, and in that, it does that to the other monsters or will it do it to Ash?

Mostly to other Pokemon. Yeah, though in the show actually I think they can be attacked by Pokemon. So yeah, it probably would Hypnotize them. That's a good one. Good get Jamie Garner Buchanan from Barry or Burry Street Edmonds in Suffolk Great Britain, I reckon Kelsey Chodrick. Chelsea Chodrick, I'm going to give you one of my all time favorites. And Matt, do you associate with this one too? Snorlax. Snorlax. I mean, I'm never awake when I'm snoring, but I have a funny feeling I might. And in the game and in the TV show, sometimes you can't get somewhere because a snorlax has fallen asleep and they're so big. They're like very large animals and they've fallen asleep. You can't them up unless you have a Poké Flute, which is like a flute

that you play to wake them up. So it basically means you can't get to certain parts of the game until you complete like little missions. Right. And then you earn the Poké Flute and then you unlock the rest of the world. But I love a Snorlax. That's nice, so good. That was Kelsey, I think you called her Chelsea, which I imagine does not at all annoy.

Oh, I apologize. I don't have your name in front of me because I've got the list of Pokemon. Kelsey Chodrick. Oh, I call that, call them Chelsea Codrick. Oh yeah, that's pretty good. See what I'm doing there? I think that's what mates do. They spoonerize each other.

Yes. Don't we? Waved Dornachy. Yes. Don't we? Waved. Dornickey. Yes. That works. Finally from Westfield, Indiana in the United States. Can't be too far away from God's country. Gary, Indiana, which is right across from God's country, Ohio.

Please. And thank you to Dawson Stroud. Dawson Stroud. I love that name. Love the name Stroud. Byron Stroud. I love that name. Love the name Stroud. Byron Stroud is the bass player for Strap My Young Lad. Ah, Stroud. It's a great name. And for Stroud, I'm going to give you a very cute Pokémon, Cubone. Cubone. Cubone.

Which is a ground Pokémon. It has like a its skull on the outside. It goes over the top of its head and it holds a bone Okay Yeah, I'm listening. It's cool. It's cool Man, I love those first hundred fifty Pokemon. They're the best So good, thank you so much to Dawson Kelsey Jamie Marks Stefano Miles Fran Oh, I'm a check and Emily. I just remembered about Q-Bone, what that skull is.

Q-Bone wears the skull of its dead mother as a helmet. Oh. Full on, isn't it? Yeah. And Q-Bone will often weep at night in mourning of its mother. And because it is like, they're not individuals. They are like a species and they're all exactly the same. Yeah.

So that's just what they, if they, when they have a kid, they give them their skull. Yeah. On the night of a full moon, the crisis had to be especially terrible. Okay. Okay, Cubone. Okay, Cubone. Thank you so much for these great supporters. And the last thing we need to do, Dave, is welcome in a single member to the Triptych Club.

Oh my gosh, how good is that? It's actually also one of the people we just shouted out to because they messaged DM me on Patreon and let me know that I'd obviously missed their shout out for quite some time because they're in the same week getting into both the shout outs and the triptage club. Which is where we- it's a hall of fame slash clubhouse where we induct people that have been on the shout out level or above three consecutive years. So they've- we obviously missed them the first time around, but don't worry.

We welcome you in and it's a clubhouse, theater of the mind, I book a band, Jesse's the organiser's a snack. Yeah, a drink. I'm going to do that this week. organises a snack. Yeah, a drink. I'm going to do that this week. Poke bowls, which are not poke balls. Poke balls are like, aren't they like salads or something?

Sort of poke bowl. Poke bowl. Right. Yep. I think a poke bowl is like a salad and maybe the cocktails are, you name your Pokemon, who your favorite Pokemon is at the bar, and I'll make you an individualized cocktail for that Pokemon. Dave, give me, give an example of a Pokemon. If you came up, who's your favorite Pokemon? Oh, I'll just give you, what about Psyduck? Psyduck, okay. So. So side duck. I will have a cheat sheet next to me. So I know what that means. Side duck is a duck. Okay. So it looks like a yellow and what does it

do? It's like a cider, cider duck. Maybe. Yeah. So it's, it's a water type. Okay. So I duck water type. Okay. So what I do here is probably give you a glass of water on the side. And then, um, cause there's a water, it's a water type. Yeah. And then, uh, next that, yeah, be a glass of cider. Uh, so that's the kind of thing I'd come up with stuff like that real quick. That's awesome. And in the cider, I also put in some vermouth and a creme de menthe. Oh, wow. What a combo. Sounds awful.

Yeah. I panicked on that one. You can say hold the, hold the, the menthe. Hold the menthe. Hold the menthe. Dave, you booked a band, is that true? Yes, you're never going to believe it. I've actually booked Pokemon with a space in the middle there,

the artist behind the Pokerap that I mentioned before, they will be hitting the stage and doing all the Pokeraps. Wait, are they an official band? They were to do with the band, but they just released that song under the name Pokemon. Pokemon rap. I'm looking forward to hearing it as soon as we finish this episode. So Dave, like I said, just one inductee this week. So I'm on the door.

I'm behind the bar as well. That's fine. I can do things. I'm a multitasker. So I'm going to read out the name. If you hear your name, please head on in. Everyone else has already been in, which is, I believe, some 700 odd. I'm looking at like, it's got to be more than that, I think.

Maybe a thousand people. I'm not sure. Quite a lot of people. Wow, it's huge. It's getting bigger. It's getting bigger. Yeah. We're making renovations all the time. We're still working on our trip, trip ditch club for the nine year types. Yes. But that we don't, we've still got a year or two to. That's right. We're excavating for that.

But Dave, you're you're ready to hype them up? Oh, yeah. All right. So I'm going to read out the name. I'm going to run over by on the bar. You have them up and I'll tell you doing a good job, even though it's usually pretty weak wordplay. What you do based on the place that they're from or their name. Anyway, please welcome in from Pleasanton in California in the United States, it's Abhishek Kasturi.

Shek one two, it's Abhishek Kasturi. That's very good, he did it again. Thank you so much. Done it again. I needed that. Welcome in Abhishek, make yourselves at home. You've been waiting out on the line for so long. Oh yeah, hearing all the bands playing on the inside going, I should be in there.

Yeah, he should have been in here a year ago. Sorry. So apologies for that. But thank you so much for all your support. Make yourself at home. Please grab a drink of whatever you like. I'll make you something great. It could be cider with mint in it or anything.

Could be anything. Welcome in. Welcome in. Dave, anything we need to tell people before we go? Hey, don't forget you can support the show at patreon.com slash do go on pod or get in contact with us on Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, TikTok, all that sort of stuff. We've got an email, do go on pod at ggmail.com and a website that's open 24 7. dogoonpod.com. The internet never sleeps. That's right, that's so good. Please, yeah, follow us.

Wherever we are, just follow us around. Please. And I will always love you. Just a little remix there. As Matt remixes that song, I'll say thank you so much for listening. And I think I'm losing it. Yeah, I thought we should wrap it up now. Until then, until next week, I'll say thank you so much and goodbye.

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