Sonic Whammy

Your going by console reminded me of quite a few games: Classic Arcade: How can I forget about Arkanoid, Crystal Castles and Off-Road? Again, I'm sure there's more. Atari: Oh ho ho... no favorites? Kaboom, Keystone Capers, Pitfall are just a few of the ones that got a lot of attention from us. NES: Well, there's the original Mega Man & Ninja Gaiden series. Much time spent on those. And yes, the first two Zelda's. Gamecube: A former friend got me hooked for a while on a wacky racing "TV show" called Cel Damage. Look into it. Wii: Fortune Street, hands down. In fact, we're gonna do a live play on next Friday's Convention Attention podcast of this game.

Admittedly not into a lot of current games, mostly because busy teaching like means I don't have the time. So for me, it's the oldest of the old-school classics. Gimme a classic arcade cabinet that has Q*bert, Dragon's Lair, Gauntlet, Street Fighter in almost any incarnation, Sonic (I know, not arcade, hush), and I'm sure there's several others that just aren't coming to me right now. Google a show called Starcade if you really want to get into the good stuff like that.

I've found that there's an odd connection between wrestling and anime from a non-fans perspective. I notice that both get similar reactions because of the former being "fake" or "violent" and the latter being "cartoons", and both get the "why are you watching that at your age" question. People have to understand that just like anything else that we watch on TV, it's a scripted, storyline show. So we watch, we follow, and we hope the story goes in the direction we want it to. Of course, often times, we either get it totally wrong, as my team proved when we tried to predict this year's Wrestlemania matches, or we see the people who write these shows pull out such ridiculous story ideas that make you want to bang your head against the wall. But, again, just like any other show you watch. This one just has people throwing each other around in the process.

I'll offer this as a footnote to both of our comments. The more I've watched over the years, it's given me a chance to explain to family members (especially on my wife's side) who have no understanding of anime whatsoever and think it's "just cartoons" how complex the genre is and how it literally spans into its own genres of action, drama, romance, history, sitcom, etc, that match everything you see in live action TV and movies. There is something for everyone of any age that fits their individual tastes. The only difference is that it's drawn and not acted out by live people. How much said family gets that? Varies from person to person. I'd probably have better luck if I knew the body of anime well enough to give recommendations.

I will admit that one of my main reasons for the few times I get to watch anime is trivia research for my Game Show Megamix panels. But as I started doing more shows over the 10 years I've done these now, I tried to experiment with different shows to see what might grab my interest. Some were based on what I knew others were watching, some just taking a gutshot from the synopsis. Like anything, sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. But it's always fun trying.

There's only a select few artists that I ever truly got into, with the best being Billy Joel, Elton John and The Bangles. For the most part, that clearly makes me a pop guy, but I'm fans of individual songs more than I am about artists as a whole. My iPod has had a lot of different genres on it between rock, country, hip hop, hair bands and all that, but there's no clear dominator for artists save for the three I mentioned.

I'll back you on this. For what little anime I get to watch, I'm open to experimenting as long as I have the accessibility and time (dodging two kids for some content and all.) So when a friend of mine on my team said they were watching it, but didn't think it was suitable for the trivia that we write, so I took it as a personal dare. Soon as they got to that club in the first episode, though, I was like, "Yeah, this is too whacked out." She's told me after the fact how it all plays out and that the ending of the series is very satisfying. Tear-inducing, even. But getting to it is very taxing. Anyone here wanna back that claim up?

Well, there's a number of those questions that we're keeping open like that without specifying anime or games or so on. We want to see exactly what kind of answers we get without limiting it to one genre or another. If it should turn out once we get the 100 that the answers are all that spread out, then we'll split off and try it both ways. For now, just go with the first thing that comes to mind. As for the convention questions, they're there since, well, that's where we play these games. Hopefully, to a certain extent, even if you're not a convention goer, you have enough of an idea about what goes on there from maybe friends who do go to mooch off their experience for an answer. If it really comes down to it and you can't fake an answer for some of those, just say so and we'll find a way to make up the difference.

Yuuki, amazing shots there. Makes me wish I'd gotten on the Amazing Race many moons ago, probably would've had the chance to see it in person. Anyway, answering your original question, I am in northeastern New Jersey in a town called Saddle Brook, just about a half hour outside of world famous(?) New York City. We're a quiet town here, not much goes on most of the year, except for 5 nights during the summer when my church hosts its annual carnival, one of the biggest in northern Jersey. And we're sort of a hub town, too, because we have access to 5 major highways literally within 2 minutes of wherever you live in town. I've lived in this town practically my whole life, save for a few years in my youth when my family moved to the next town over, then back again.

I can fix the wording a little if needed, but to help: Disney: Yes, we're talking about if the Disney character was an actual D&D combatant. So your answer of Elsa makes sense in that regard. Sword: Any character at all, doesn't matter where they're from. If we're specifically looking for anime or video games, we'll say so. Heck, since you mention it, maybe we'll leave that up if we ever get a new rotation of questions going and see what we get for 100 on each side. First, let's see how this 100 goes.

It's not a problem if something's silly. Hey, maybe someone else said it too. And like I said, if you have to look something up and cheat, we're not worried. Besides, how would we know? Just for the record, which ones had you confused?

Hey gang. I hope that a lot of you can help me out. My team would like to try to host a Family Feud contest at our next convention (Castle Point) on May 19. It's just what you think, 100 people surveyed and all that. The catch, of course, I need the 100 people! If you guys can please help out in a drove and fill out the survey, it would help us out SO much! https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfMXRB2_MtqtRAMi8VrKDw3pS6uIXveXkiAIXB2H4P55w_Quw/viewform

Yep, con season is in full swing up here in Jersey, where spring feels like there's a con big or small every weekend. My team at Lost Silver Productions has already little cons NJIT MiniCon, KindaCon and Kogaracon over the last month. We have our biggest spring event, Castle Point Anime Convention, coming up on May 19-20, and then a month after we'll be in Brooklyn for BoroughCon. So five cons full of game show action that we bring to the anime fans. And there's a chance for us that at Castle Point, we could have one of our biggest winners ever. I'm getting very excited and scared for that possibility. SPEAKING OF... I have a request for one of those games, if everyone can help me. See Creative Corner or PM me.

Figured I'd ask, because we're fans of all kinds of things here. Anyone watching tonight, or watches in general?

Think I've seen a lot of the kids at my high school periodically playing some form of BS during the final days of school each year. It's that whole UNO-esque spin, right? First one tries to play at least one ace face down, then the next guy any twos, next guy three's and so on. And then if anyone calls your bluff, the loser of the challenge has to pick up all the discards.

Everyone talks about their favorite game of any kind. But I'll bet that a lot of people here and all around have a game or two from their past or present that they don't know that anyone else actually plays because no one else where they live does. And that's if they've even heard of it at all. I can think of several that fit this category, so I can reply to this several times, but I'll start with a card game I just broke back out a couple weeks ago: Mille Bornes Basic rules: You're trying to drive a distance of exactly 700 or 1000 km in each round before your opponent. To do so, you have to have a green light in front of you, and avoid hazards that can befall your car like flat tires, accidents and running out of gas. So, does anyone else play? And what games do you think you're alone in playing?

I don't mean to bump this post up, and if it's against the rules, I'm sorry. Just wanted to inform anyone looking at this that the poll has been updated as of yesterday with four new memes. There are now 8 memes to votes on. The scoring system as also changed, as I'm only asking for you to pick the Top 5. (Yeah, ranking them all will be nigh impossible by year's end, the Top 5 is plenty.) And I trust more will be coming soon. Either way, come join in the debate.

Oh, I almost forgot that I also on occasion, as recently as yesterday, also used the DBZ Abridged line about proper defense... "WHY DIDN'T YOU DODGE!"

I watched the first three eps of Neo Yokio last weekend. Will try to watch the other three soon. (First anime I've gotten to see in quite a while, actually, it's hard in this house.) When you say parody, that might fit in some people's opinion. I have a few friends who are debating because of the obvious irony in it among other things whether it's a "so bad it's good" anime or just "so bad". But like all things, you be the judge.

Old school is still the name of my game. You'll find me in front of Q*bert, Street Fighter and classic Sonic with a side of Dragon's Lair. Anyone ever see an old school game show from the 80's called Starcade? That could be my life if I had the money.

But an always tasty rabbit hole. Don't take me to a buffet where there's a sushi table. I'm afraid I'd get the John Pinette treatment if I really let myself. "You go NOW!"

Glad you enjoyed. The question material changes depending on the type of con we're at. You'll see some different stuff in the next one. And yes, we try to keep it amusing and pun-filled because I've learned from a friend of mine who's done these shows much longer than I have that trivia tends to be least audience-involving games to do, and thus the least exciting. We try, though. Everything Beocat suggested is true. At the same time, my team did a podcast on Con Survival 101 last summer. I hope that it can offer a little something extra.

Not from this side of the country off the top of my head, I don't, except for the big one, Anime Expo, which is 4th of July weekend in LA. Let me see... According to animecons.com, here's ones in the Golden State that it knows of for this year: Ani-Me Con (St. Patrick's weekend in Fresno), Placer Fan Fest (April 20-22 in Auburn), InterNexus (April 21 in Fremont), ASAHi Con (April 28 in Antioch), Fanime Con (May 25-28 in San Jose), Ronin Expo (June 2 in LA), Animanga Expo (August 3-5 in Pomona), SacAnime (Labor Day weekend in Sacramento), Crunchyroll Expo (also Labor Day weekend in San Jose), Super Dimension Convention (September 15 in Torrance), Kraken Con (September 28-30 in Oakland), CharaExpo USA (November 10-11 in Anaheim). So, lot of choices for you big and small. Hopefully a couple are real close to you. Well, let's find out, shall we? I'll bet you know more than you think. Here's a couple episodes of the pure trivia games that we run. Take a crack at them and let me know how you do. The Challengers: Episode from April 2017 and The "Covfefe" episode from May 2017 Strikeout: Our premiere episode from March 2017

Oh, is that the secret. But why is that? I'm not afraid at all to admit that I'm a Jersey guy and (from the video I've started to post in Creative Corner and hope to again soon), my team hits the all the local cons with our game shows, including the big ones like Castle Point, Liberty City and the new Anime NYC. But aside from that, didn't we all here say where we're from when we first introduced ourselves at this forum? And BTW, Beocat, for all that you do, I wish you would be at my cons. You'd probably kill at the trivia games we do and take home all my prizes.

So a couple months back, I was asking about what memes were big in 2017 for the podcast my friends and I were doing. Well, we're gonna do it again, only this year, we're going to get the ever-changing pulse as the year goes on. I've created a form below for everyone to cast their votes on. The object is to rank each of the memes in the list in order from the best to the worst. And as the year goes on and we add new memes, you'll keep updating your answer. I hope we can get a lot of response to this all year long, I want to really have fun with this, so help us out and thanks in advance. RANK THE MEMES OF 2018