A guy calling himself “Brentalfloss” decided he loved Contra for the NES so much, he just had to add lyrics to the game’s signature music.
And this… is that song.
Oddly, I never played much Contra on the NES. Odd, because I played a LOT of it in the arcade. It was a quarter raping monster and I was its sad bitch. It was the kind of game where if you were really good, total strangers would give you quarters to continue your game just so they can see what comes next.
I never got that good, sadly. Not for lack of trying. More for abundance of sucking.
But holy crap, I loved that game. There was something about it that just sucked you in where its dozens of lookalikes and clones did not. The Konami people had a way of pumping up the tension in the game so that you were completely adrenalized and pumped up just from playing. It is a goal every action game aims for but it is nearly impossible to achieve.
Contra did it. Man, did it ever. I would be sweating and wild eyed after playing it. I think if people saw me like that now, they would think I was tweaking.
No m’am, winners don’t do drugs! I just do VIDEO GAMES.
I was a quiet child, but very intense.
But for some reason, the NES version did not have the same effect on me. Maybe it just lost some of the magic without the overstimulating ambiance of a video arcade, with video game sounds and low lighting and people putting their all into making those precious, precious quarters last as long as they can.
One of my earliest and most shocking and depressing moments was when, after spending a mere hour in a video arcade, I found myself thinking “God, I have a headache…. why does everything have to be so damned loud in there?”
Then I caught myself and shuddered, thinking “Holy fuck, that is it. I am officially old now. ”
But as much as Contra completely blew my mind and sucked out my quarters, nothing could have prepared me for the effect Super C would have on me.
It was the sequel to Contra and (luckily) I played it on the NES,and loved it so very very much, because it was, hands down, the most exciting, amazing, mind blowing, pulse racing, brainfuck of a game ever. You never knew what would happen next. You would be climbing the side of a building shooting at robot butterflies and then get to the roof and a giant killer fucking robot would emerge from what you THOUGHT was the background and start zapping you with eye lasers and trying to rip you in half with giant metal claws and if you managed to live long enough to shoot open the glass dome concealing its brain and kill it, you then found yourself clinging to a jet fighter which was pulling high G manuevers trying to shake you off and you have to climb back and forth on the wings and fight off robot birds and shit while trying not to plummet to your doom and then….
Jesus, I am getting pumped just remembering it.
Point is, that game freaking rocked. It was really hard, and I never actually beat it until many years later, playing it on an emulator, but man. That is one of the games that made me a Konami fan for years.
Good times, man. Good times.
Entertainment : The story of Zach Anner
Jul 17
Posted by MegaWordMan in Entertainment, Internet, Links, Video | 1 Comment
I’m fairly late to the party on this, but the story really touched me, and so feel compelled to blog about it.
The first thing you have to know is that Oprah has launched her own television channel. This was completely inevitable. Her ego continues to grow, and after she launched her own magazine, it was obvious that having her own television station was next. I figure after this, the next logical step is nationhood.
In order to attract publicity and get content for her new television network, Oprah launched a contest where people could upload videos to her YouTube channel and pitch ideas for a brand new television show starring themselves to Oprah. Whoever got the most votes would win.
Enter Zach Anner. He’s a very funny guy from Austin, Texas who has cerebral palsy (the sexiest of the palsies). Here’s his audition for the Oprah contest.
That, my friends, is the full package. Funny, sympathetic, likable, and with great screen presence. Even if I was nothing but a coldhearted television exec with dollar signs for blood and ratings as my religion, I’d want to give this guy a show. Audiences will instantly love him. But, to quote LeVar Burton, you don’t have to take my word for it.
Because shortly after uploading that audition, and with the help of a few celebrity endorsements to get the ball rolling (including John Mayer, Harry Knowles, and The Hoff himself, David Hasselhoff, his audition clip exploded all over the Internet, and he went from 3,000 votes in Oprah’s contest on the morning of Friday, June 11 to a staggering 2 million votes plus by the evening of Saturday, June 12.
That put him well in the lead by a comfortable margin. The Internet had seen Zack Anner and they loved him. There was no question about it.
But that’s where this story takes a sad turn, because somehow, mysteriously, a contestant named Doctor Phyllis got a sudden surge of 300,000 votes in a twenty minute period, and surpassed him.
A lot of people on the Internet are crying foul, and suggesting the vote was rigged. It’s probably impossible to prove whether or not this is true, but it does leave a bad taste in the mouth of a hell of a lot of people, and there’s considerable anger and people saying “Oprah Winfrey hates disabled people” all over the blogscape. So what about the competition?
Here’s some Doctor Phyllis for comparison.
I have to admit, she’s not without charm or talent. She seems downright dull and generic compared to our boy Zach, but I can understand how she might win, being, let’s face it, Mini Oprah. Her stories are pretty boring, but she has her persona polished and delivers well, and those sudden 300,000 votes could very well have come from her legitimately getting the word out about herself and mobilizing voters.
There’s certainly nothing to suggest that there’s no way she could not have gotten those votes legitimately, so throwing around accusations of vote rigging and diabled person hating is, in my opinion, quite premature and downright irresponsible.
Sure, the cooler, funnier, more awesome entry didn’t win, but that’s mainstream mediocrity for you.
In response to the rigging rumours, Zach said this : “I sincerely doubt that Oprah would do anything like that. She’s probably too busy building schools and helping children to even notice someone like me. ”
That is brilliantly passive-aggressive, don’t you think? It sounds like he’s being really awesome and noble about the whole thing, totally taking the high road, but there’s that bit about “someone like me” at the end that kind of turns the knife of guilt on Oprah. Well done.
Myself, I figure somebody will give this guy a show, or at least he’ll make the rounds of the talk shows and gain a huge profile as a comedian because of all this. So don’t worry about Zach, he’ll come out alright from this, one way or another.
Like I said before, I’d give him a show in a heartbeat. I’d say the travel show idea works. He can travel with a crew, and riff, and play up to the camera, and play to his strengths, and they can edit together his strongest material into a half hour weekly show, and I predict it could be a huge hit.
I also noticed that he talks almost exactly like Emo Phillips. Here, compare :
Now, Zach talks that way because he has cerebral palsy.
What’s your excuse, Emo?
Tags: comedy, controversy, doctor phyllis, oprah, popularity, zach anner