Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Baseball Cards Are Not An Exciting Topic for a Video

Just because Chris has retired the Irate Gamer (and I’m starting to think he confused “retired” with “hiatus”), doesn’t mean I’m done mocking his videos. Far from it.

If you wanted to ask Chris if he truly did retire, Facebook is not the way to go. He’s disabled the ability for friends/fans to post on his timeline. I wonder why…
Or maybe Chris is trying to become an actor now, reporting that he was on the set of a horror movie coming in 2015. It will probably suck. Do you think the other guy has something to do with this? …. *shrugs*

Anywho, there’s a new 80s video up! Huzzah…
Today he’s going to cover… the hell is this? “Looney Tunes Comic Ball Baseball Cards”. Were Looney Tunes and baseball ever a thing? I know Looney Tunes and basketball were, Space Jam exists. Hmm… I’ll do my research when I find out what this is.

“The latest installment of this crazy series!” If by crazy you mean boring, then most certainly.

0:00 - 0:14: We get our intro, and what Chris is referring to is “Comic Ball Cards”. Oooh, those. Yeah those… I remember my dad collected DC Comic themed ones. Odd toy to make a video about…

0:14 - 0:54: Upper Deck was formed, modern baseball stock footage, modern business meeting stock footage (hiding their faces doesn’t hide the fact this footage was made recently)…
“Looney Tunes and baseball” You mean the MLB?
He explains more about them, how they got Chuck Jones to draw the cards… very generic history stuff.
IG tries to exclaim “they’re grrreat“, when Tony the Tiger appears out of nowhere and says it instead. What does this have to do with the subject at hand? ………….
Then IG attacks him. Oh please, Tony the Tiger would end your ass. He can play every sport nigh-perfectly, he is a champion mascot! You can’t even beat most games without cheating.

0:54 - 1:19: He brings up that the best way to read the “story” is to put them in card sleeves in binders, and if you’re missing one then it will “drive you mad”. This is shown by IG turning into the Hulk… smash his table (which is pound his fist once and the table disappears) then suddenly Gleek from the Super Friends appears….. REFERENCES BY THEMSELVES AREN’T JOKES! There is no joke from having Gleek appear out of nowhere!

1:20 - 1:49: He mentions how the cards had the Looney Tune greats, and notes the “longest story” involved Charlie the Dog, which apparently pisses him off. Who the fuck cares?
He’s about to say it’s “almost criminal” but then gets interrupted by Cookie Crook (the second Cookie Crisp mascot) and IG attacks him. Is this the Rule of Three gag for the video? Random cereal mascots interrupt him and he attacks them? Where is the sense in this? Did the cards come in cereal? Because I know they didn’t. … Even the writers of Family Guy would tell Chris to tone it down.

1:50 - 2:42: IG lists off some of his favorite “stories” (yawn), there’s a shot of him feigning enjoyment from reading (I am just baffled really…) and mentions the rare foil cards and how getting them all… makes you “super awesome”. Cue a stupid sketch!
It’s Kid Bores, and he collected all the foil ones. Then IG says Upper Deck released the full set with all the foil cards and then a bunch of other Kid Bores walk saying they got them all too. No word on how doing that diminished the cards value? Oh right, you know nothing about economics.

2:42 - 3:05: He brings up Series 2, and notes how this one combined the Looney Tunes with real MLB players. He does a bad set-up of “how crazy would that be” (the camera is set up so something will appear) and surprisingly Bugs Bunny in a baseball uniform shows up. Holy crap, a random guest that actually has something to do with what he’s talking about! But then he immediately ruins it when Bugs asks “expecting a different bunny?” and the Energizer Bunny appears… Always have to snuff the praise Chris. Like a candle.

3:06 - 3:40: Series 2 fixed issues he had with Series 1 (which he claims to be the issues of “many people” but “citation needed”) and noted that there was a set of puzzle cards. Then we get a joke of him trying to “decipher” one and it’s a picture saying “Ur a Screwball” (with the screwball being a picture). I’ll give this credit in that it’s actually a Looney Tunes joke, not random unrelated garbage.
He mentions that the stories added Nolan Ryan and Reggie Jackson as “an attempt to appeal to kids”. Uhh, aren’t the funny cartoon animals already the thing to appeal to kids? Pretty sure the addition of Ryan and Jackson are there for people that like baseball, of all ages. I think you have that backwards.
Then a bit with Kid Bores getting excited over a Nolan Ryan card, but then asks “Who’s that?” I can’t find the joke, is it supposed to imply kids don’t know who that is? Because if kids were collecting these, chances are they were baseball fans along with Looney  Tunes fans. Maybe this is just how Bores saw it as he probably only cared for the funny cartoon animals?

3:40 - 4:19: IG mentions that Chuck Jones didn’t do the art for Series 2, leading to a scene of Chuck Jones getting thrown out of the Upper Deck offices and the guy calling him a “bum”. Screw you Chris, Chuck Jones was a legend. I’m sure there’s a reason he didn’t do the second set, lack of money, lack of time, other commitments. Upper Deck throwing him out was very likely NOT a reason. Show some respect!
With Series 2’s “artistic makeover” (it looks similar…), he felt it was “lackluster” compare to the first. This causes Bugs to faint, IG to call out for a “doctor in the house” and… Dr. Phil appears. … WHAT IS EVEN THE POINT?!
He then mentions some of the stories that he liked.

4:20 - 5:12: Onto Series 3! He lists some of the MLB stars featured, including Ken Griffey, Sr. and Ken Griffey, Jr. But then he does a terrible joke with Ken Griffey Sophomore, Ken Griffey Freshmen, and Ken Griffey and the Tonight Show Band. Ugggggggggggggggggggh.
Chuck Jones returned for another set, leading to another “Upper Deck throws him out” scene. What do you have against Chuck Jones? This isn’t funny at all.
He mentions the stories aren’t memorable either… zzzzzz *slaps* I’m up!

5:13 - 6:20: There was one last series involving the NFL, IG skips over it as he didn’t like it, then another similar series called “Adventures in Toon World” involving Michael Jordan and the Looney Tunes, he mentions how this lead into Space Jam (with footage from the movie), and then a weird scene where he’s watching the movie on a “card”, then tries to sell it to a comic book dealer who finds a “microscopic crease” and only offers $2 dollars. Still bored…

Onto the verdict!
Nostalgic value, pain finding all of them, duplicates… gets a rating of “Mediocre”. Is there something lower than that Chris?

Then the video ends with…. Fuuuuuuck.
The video ends with Lionel Richie crashing through the ceiling and standing on it. You can clearly tell it’s just Bores with Richie’s face imposed over it (would this be considered blackface?) and IG says “If you can’t beat em, join em” and joins Richie on the ceiling as they dance to his notable song “Dancing on the Ceiling”. Then a bunch of other Bores come out, two of which I think are Evil Gamer and Not-Wilson. ……. LUCKILY THERE’S A FAMILY GUY! LUCKY THERE’S A MAN WHO POSITIVELY CAN DO ALL THE THINGS THAT MAKE US *slaps* Sorry, I lost my sanity there.

An odd mixture of boring and painfully stupid.
I wanted to do more research on these cards, but I really couldn’t find any info. Bores was probably the same as this felt very generic. The most we got was “There were multiple series, Chuck Jones did a couple of them, here are some of my favorites, now have a bunch of random shit”. So really, the history part was just blah and zzzzz
The jokes on the other hand, holy fuck they were annoying. Once again, references by themselves are not jokes. You have to make them work into the narrative or script. Randomly throwing them in there doesn’t automatically make them funny. I’ll at least give props for only doing the “attacking mascot” thing twice. But that’s stretching it thin.

I wonder if Bores will ever address his claim that he’s retired. I mean, if he really was, he would make a video about it on YouTube, not quietly place it on his biography where few people tread.

I want to see Bores try to release this episode on DVD with the Space Jam footage and the Lionel Richie song. Given the use of Power Rangers footage on the last DVD, it’s clear he doesn’t give a crap.

57 comments:

  1. More evidence that Bores is a collector rather then a gamer. Notice that the thing he obsesses over is getting all of the set then complaining about a full set being sold like that is somehow cheating?

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  2. "There was one last series involving the NFL, IG skips over it as he didn’t like it."

    I just love the idea of this. 'Hello public, I'm offering you a detailed and involved history lesson of niche products, but I'm going to blow over everything I didn't like.' He approaches his obsessions with the same tact and grace as evangelists approach the Bible.

    Back to the topic at hand: my mother once dated a guy who collected these damned cards. He had binders upon binders full of these ridiculous-looking Looney Tunes baseball cards that he swore up and down were worth a ton of money. He left them behind after he split, and they all ended up in a landfill somewhere.

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  3. "IG to call out for a “doctor in the house” and… Dr. Phil appears."

    Thanks for staining Dr. Phil's famed image with that horrid joke, Bores!

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  4. At 4:22, he definitely says "Comic book 3" instead of "Comic Ball 3."

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  5. I think the thing that bugs me the most about these (aside from the completely out-of-left field references) is that he never goes in depth with ANYTHING. WHY didn't you like one story over another? What is the PLOT for some of the stories? WHY is having the dog in the cards such a problem?! It's the same thing with the damn toy videos - he LISTS things. He does not EXPLAIN things. He liked them? Great! Explain WHY you liked them!

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    1. Hey Lewis, what do you think of Zyuranger actually being released in the US by Shout Factory!

      will you gave it a try?.

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    2. Thinking about the title of the blog post, you'd think that it wouldn't make a good video to talk about comic books either but you manage it because you do go into detail. I have a ok collection of action figures and i could make a list video showing each of them off just like Bores does and it wouldn't be any less boring. I know I'm not the best video maker but take a look at one of my food videos and see that you can make a video fun about something mundane.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=crWFQ1zluhQ

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    3. Meh. Didn't really care. Mostly because none of the cards had Mr. T on them...

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    4. If I took the time I could make a cake with Mr. T on it.....

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    5. Pretty sure Adam was referring to a running gag on Atop the Fourth Wall where Linkara doesn't care about "collectable" cards included with comics unless it has Mr. T on it.

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    6. Everything is better with Mr. T on it!

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N0KP87xkN_Q

      PS. I know.

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    7. It is true Mr. T makes everything whimisical
      More pokemon cards needs Mr. T playing with the pokemon on it

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  6. Um.. I know he covered the TNMT comics (using covered as loosely as weakly as M. Night used the word fan for Avatar) but how dose this connects past output of five years? Yet it still sucks hard and the...jokes...let me pause here, sidebar time!
    I understand humor is very subjective but this isn't funny stupid, this is just jingling your keys in front of yourself for the duration of a video. Cracking a joke at whatever your reviewing is fine for example in a Xenonauts or XCOM review A;"So, thanks for all the cool tech guys made killing you a lot easier but uh wouldn't have made more sense to sent well these 'cyber disk' or those 'mutons' and that 'Mechtoid'. B; Just wanted to celebrate this Christmas Holiday . A;oh Okay' Not really funny but it's try to give an explanation to the whole idea of sending nothing but grunts for round one of Earth Domination...or say sorting like "Well that's fairly odd, I wounder what there talking about...: swap out most of aliens dialog from a scene where they look at the camera with the Fairly Odd Parents cockroaches lines is anther option to take. All right Side Bar time done.
    Anyway anther pointless batch horrible jokes and a waste of memory space, so I guess he didn't retire the Irate Gamer since he's doing now what he always done.

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    1. Trying to make the X-com "sending in the weak-ass grunts" jokes doesn't work because the games go out of their way to explain why. SPOILERS

      UFO defense - Aliens have fuel problems and severe logistics issues. Mutons need psionic control to get there and so they send the small troops first because they're easier to send/more expendable for scout missions and base construction.

      Terror of the deep- Aliens are awakening from hibernation. The more hardy aliens are still frozen/asleep when the game begins. They still get lobstermen really early though.

      Apocalypse - The aliens don't want to send gun troops because gun troops are expensive and don't last long in earth atmosphere. That's why they try the brainsucker tactic first before the shoot everyone tactic. It also helps that their planet is literally dead.

      Enemy unknown (2012) - The aliens are playing games with the humans and deliberately trying to see what kind of soldiers and combat potential humans can have. They never expected the SHIV to be so deadly.

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    2. Hail my apologies , I was tired when I wrote it and that's on me. Side note, anyone else playing Hearthstone?

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    3. Not playing hearthstone. I tend to shy away from online games.

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  7. It's been over 5 years since this blog started, and somehow Chris has actually gotten worse, making almost yearn for his past work, at least that was laughable.

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  8. 4:20 - Chris actually calls it "Comic Book 3", rather than "Comic Ball 3".

    He can't even actively remember the name of the subject he's reviewing for five seconds!!! :D

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  9. Just painful. Almost none of the jokes were even tangentially related to the subject matter. The Ken Griffey joke would have been at least semi-amusing if it wasn't for all the other shite. Seriously, Lionel Richie out of nowhere? Why? Because he's a person that exists? What does he have to do with baseball or the Looney Tunes? It would have made a lot more sense for it to have been R Kelly, then it could have led to a "midget in the closet" joke involving Kid Bores. It would have been horrendous but it still would have been more relevant than what we got. Even The Cleveland Show's 90 second+ unrelated cutaways are more bearable than this.

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    1. *R Kelly did the song for Space Jam, hence why he'd be a better fit than Lionel Richie, not just for the midget thing.

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    2. The significance of the Lionel Richie joke is that his "Dancing on the Ceiling" song, video and album were made in the 80s, so by Bores' standards, it's one of his less random jokes. While still being incredibly random.

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  10. I have a better idea of what Chris's review of a dating site like OkCupid or PlentyOfFish would be like:

    Chris: What's fusterating is that whenever you send a message out to a girl, she never responds!

    Barney: *sneaks by with box of Cocoa Pebbles*

    Chris: RRRRRRR MY PEBBLES! *Chases after Barney and tackles him with a bunch of loud noise in the background*.

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    1. ok cupid? more like ok stupid. what a shit stopper! (insert random cameo of mike tyson as cupid).

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  11. It's like he doesn't even try anymore. (Bores that is)

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  12. Off-topic:
    25 years ago today, the Nintendo Game Boy was released in North America and completely revolutionized handheld game systems. With hit titles like Tetris, Super Mario Land, Pokémon Red Version and Pokémon Blue Version, the Game Boy was the king of handheld gaming systems. Along with its successors (Game Boy Pocket, Game Boy Light, Game Boy Color, and Game Boy Advance), the Game Boy sold over 118 million units worldwide. Even to this day, game manufacturers and developers owe their success and inspiration to the original Game Boy.
    Happy 25th anniversary, Game Boy!
    I wonder if Bores will report news on this considering how much he played a Game Boy as a kid (if that French magazine interview from 2009 is anything to go by).

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    1. I can imagine he'd find a way to insult Gunpei Yokoi, bless his soul; in the same manner that he insulted the Famicom's 30th last year. I've noticed that even when he talks about something he might like, it all just seems mean-spirited. Plus, there'd be canyon-sized holes in research, which I've always had more of an issue with than being "inspired" by you-know-who.

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    2. Bores never captures these things in a timely manner. Maybe in a week.

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    3. Try to imagine him talking about the Genesis, too... as it too, celebrates its 25th anniversary in America this year.

      Same with the Atari Lynx and TurboGrafx-16 (both of which were also released in 1989), although I'm not sure Bores would even know what those are...

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  13. Wow. His new video is a humor piece called "Rejected Skylanders Ideas." Should be smooth sailing for a hardcore Skylanders fan who's made dozens of comedy videos, right?

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    1. I don't know what's worse, the fact that bores thinks he has humour or that he thinks the video is satire. You know now that I think about it that word seems kind of pretentious coming from bores.

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    2. Well it does make sense that Bores can't use the word satire right. He is the one who made the spoof, that incredibly unfunny parody that stupid people laughed at before they realized it was dumb.

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  14. Hey, anyone hear of Bo En? He's this musician guy whose songs are... well, I can't think of any other term but unworldly. Like, there's seriously nothing else like any of the songs he's made. If you have the time, look up his songs on YouTube or something, it's all really cool.

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  15. Excuse me while I rant for a bit but I seriously need to get this off my chest. With the recent shutting down of Justin.tv I have been truly thinking about that copyright debacle. To put it simply I am completely sickened by gaming media as a whole considering that. How can someone truly raise that much of a stink about something and yet dig their heels into the ground and stay right where they are. Seriously how is that they might lose subscribers a valid excuse to not say 'Fuck you, Youtube' and essentially kill it off, even if it might be slow. have we seriously gone so long without a real conflict with actual dire consequences to just forget that even if it is a few people change will happen if enough people take action. Take what lead to the revolutionary war for example, most people at the time knew the risk of even trying to go up against the British Army of the time and yet they still went through with it. What I am saying is that humanity as a whole is going wishy washy. We say thousands of things that we should do but never take action, sickening. Most people nowadays probably consistently lie to themselves, I should know about that. Me who constantly thinks in my head about not doing my Let's Plays because I am embarassed about doing it when my parents are around and yet don't care when my siblings are. Me who consistently thinks less of myself and am far too hard on.

    Sorry about airing that out here but I really needed to say some of that.

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    1. Well just keep mind that A LOT more damage has been done trying to get things done in a timely fashion (or a moral panic) then by slowly changing things and working from high positions.

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    2. Yes, what I was really getting at is that there is this general air of game developers having to be absolutely perfect lest people jump ship entirely yet it is shown that when a developer messes up pretty much nothing happens. Basically what I am saying is I feel like gamers are starting to develop a superiority complex and basically act as if the consumer gets to decide everything down to even how much the thing should cost. What I feel is that some people are rather hypocritical hating on developers for mostly being from big companies yet reviewers get a pass simply because they are gamers while perceiving everyone at the developer to not be, basically a No True Scotsman fallacy. I know not all reviewers are essentially backed by big companies but to even get known you practically need to be, or know the right people.

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    3. In fact this whole thing is drawing some very uncomfortable parallels to a certain tragic event in history. I really hope I am just imagining it.

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  16. Hopefully this will be on a lighter note, but has anyone else found something just a wee bit off about people complaining Nintendo uses old technology. Now correct me if I am wrong but isn't the pc itself kind of considered old technology? I only say that since it seems like a lot of the people who do complain about old tech being used are pc elitists ( for wont of a better term.)

    Anyway I also find it odd that people seem to immediately trash something for daring to have a limitation. Wouldn't a truly great game take a limitation and make it an advantage, for example Silent Hill had a terrible draw distance so they covered it up with fog that just so happened to fit the atmosphere of the game. Have we truly gone to a situation where we are becoming perfectionists despite that such an attitude is extremely detrimental to everyone involved?

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    1. I'd believe the perfectionist thing if games were not being released in freaking Beta Form with more glitches than an episode of Marble Hornets

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    2. I believe that quite a few gamers appear to demonstrate a clear lack of social skill and display clear entitlement but that has more to do with games not emphasizing proper social interaction and the internet allowing people to be anonymous.

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    3. I wasn't talking about developer's having the perfectionist attitude. But yes a lot of gamers seem to just not know how to treat other people like human beings and that probably won't stop until FPSes go away for a good long while. Problem is the only way that might happen just might kill that genre outright. Not to mention that would probably make gaps in game releases even worse than they are now.

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  17. May Robin Williams rest in peace. I can't believe he's dead now... loved him in Aladdin and Hook!

    I can just (unfortunately) imagine what Bores would have to say in response to Williams' suicide, seeing what he said about JewWario after he committed suicide almost seven months ago...

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    1. I know, I actually felt sick after I heard about his suicide. *sniff*:'(

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    2. I was really sad when I heard about Robin Williams' death because most of the movies I've watched as a kid and are part of my childhood always feature Robin Williams. He will be dearly missed...

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    3. I actually didn't believe that he was dead after someone said on youtube comments that he was. I found out the sad truth shortly after though. Such a shame that this happened.

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    4. I only learned through randomly browsing TV Tropes on the day. I knew it couldn't have been a joke because the mods don't screw around. It really smacked my gob.

      Now I treasure my Broadway special DVD. Some top work there, especially the golf bit.

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  18. Anyone else feel something just not right about how Polaris decided to handle how Robin Williams died? It just seems odd that they would put his name in all caps in the title and then it isn't even the focus of the video and just something that probably seems tacked on at the end ( I don't watch the Daily Byte since they are pretty much everything I hate about game journalism these days what with the obvious click bait titles and misleading thumbnails.)

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    1. Agreed, it's just about 30 seconds. Matt sounds like a robot and seems completely uninterested.

      The way it's handled is pretty much what DSP did with his "tribute video" to Robin. The video is clearly titled "RIP to Robin Williams", but spends only 25% of the video talking about him. To make things worse, he enabled ads on that video, so he's basically profitting off of his death.

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  19. New video: 4 minutes talking about a new Skylanders POSTER that he doesn't even have a copy of. He brandishes a fake physical copy of it, but the closeups of it are hopelessly blurry and he repeatedly guesses what's actually depicted on it.

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    1. Holy crap! He really did hold up a blurry printout that came from (it looks like) a low quality ink jet printer. I like how he holds up his crappy printout and says he is pretty sure this will be the poster that ships with the new game. He does his trademark, "very coo" remark and in the last minute of the video he has at least three instances where he hangs on the "SSSSSS" sound like he is hissing. "Alright, guysssssssssssss!" Is he morphing into Cobra Commander or something?

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    2. Either that or his disguise as a sneaky snake is slipping. Of course that is an insult to snakes since they have way more ethics than bores.

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    3. *watches a bit of the video* Holy crap he mentioned Gamescom. So he does know it exists!
      Oh, but it only matters if it has Skylanders news. Of course... sick of this. His views are not as "monstrous" as he believes.

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  20. Off-topic:
    Nintendo added updates about the upcoming Super Smash Bros. titles for both the 3DS and Wii U, which include information on the Solo Play game modes, basic controls, and stages.
    Not to mention, Meta Knight is returning as a playable character.

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  21. Oh, this is rich while I probably shouldn't talk about this since it really annoys me but I am going to anyway. Well actually I show it.

    Because we want to help you. It may not seem like it, but we're all gamers and we want each other to share our enjoyment of games. It may seem like we're having an argument, but actually all we want is for you to enjoy your gaming as much as we do. -PCMasterRace

    Personally I am calling bullshit on that statement since the most ardent of them "helping" involves insulting anyone that dares try to play games differently from themselves. Seriously what is with this attitude of "play games the way I do or die," I might be paraphrasing slightly though.

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    1. Oh Christ. I don't hate PC gaming but I loathe PC gamers for their high and mighty garbage attitude. Onlly 7 year olds hate on each other for stupid crap like that. Enjoy the games, don't spend hours of your day sniping at people for using different technology than you to play theirs.

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    2. Yeah, I think that at this point I am kind of waiting what inevitably befalls a fandom that doesn't remove the assholes fast enough. Basically even the people that like it will get tired of the people bringing it down and basically the fanbase rots from the inside out and fades into obscurity. Needless to say it makes it really obvious who the bad apples in this bunch are. Although I might be generalizing with the whole of people who call themselves the PC Master Race if they, somehow, don't know the actual meaning behind their banner considering the fact that millions were murdered the last time someone tried to make a so called "master race." Not to mention that I wouldn't exactly brag about being the master race when piracy on the PC is actually a really big problem (despite their insistence that it isn't.) Not to mention certain elements brag on the forum of the game that they pretty much stole money from the developers.

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