Nope this podcast is totally boring now, moving to bombcast.

Ice COOOLLLLDD....

I'm listening as we spea--Ehh... Comment.

Jim, I had the same reaction to Little Shop of Horror. In 4th grade we went over the production and ever since then i've had affinity for (more) tragic conclusions and a disdain for these typical happy endings; not to say these endings are inconsequentially bad.

True Fact: My friend worked with Rutger Hauer on a small film, last year. Apparently, he was very nice. Eccentric, but very nice. That is all.

"I want more champagne, fucker."

To Jim, Jonathan, and anyone else wondering, here is the workprint footage of the original ending to the film version of "Little Shop of Horrors."

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8YYpkYrdxBo

Is it wrong that i got arroused when Holmes talked about his stinky butt?

It's drivel and i like it.

I'll just leave this here... Like last week.
http://sirtobbii.deviantart.com/art/District-DaFoe-Podtoid-290300062

District Defoe is probably my favorite Defoe movie alongside Muddy Buddies, the one starring the fish boy from Love Actually, and the one where he's screaming into a mirror while Danny DeVito is JOIKING ORFF.

Minnesota, Jim. Jesse Venture was the governor of Minnesota. I know because I visited relatives several times while he was in office.

It was sheer madness. Legal disputes were resolved via cage match with lawyers as tag team partners. He replaced all highway safety barriers with ring ropes. The state song became "I Wanna Be A Hulkamaniac!". If Tim Pawlenty hadn't come along and piledrived him into the Earth's core, God knows what would have happened!

my new favourite episode

District Dafoe may be the best Willem Dafoe movie pitch yet. I'd love it you guys could make shirts for these insane concepts, but I don't think you could get away with abusing Dafoe's likeness.

BTW Jim, have you played any of the Shin Megami Tensei games? If not you should. I'd recommend Persona 4, great JRPG. Persona 3 is really good too, but it's slower and all the OHKO attacks will probably drive you to madness. SMT: Nocturne is similar in that regard, along with being hard in general, so I wouldn't recommend it to you.

I think you are slightly misunderstanding outrage of mass effect fans regarding the ending of ME3. It is not only about lack of happy ending - dark/tragedy endings are fine for me. Its about breaking the rules of the game and storytelling. For 60+ hours people spend playing trilogy they shape universe around them, build relationships and decide fate of the species. Then in the last 5 minutes of the game you get introduced to completely new set of circumstances and lore (trying to avoid spoilers as hard as i can here ;]) and none of decisions you made before matter at all.

It's like Playing a 5 set tennis match for 5 hours, each player giving their best and finally there is a matchpoint. Then random person comes from the crowd to the court and says: "I am going to flip a coin and if its heads pink elephant will appear. If its tails, i am going to do backflips and vanish into thin air. Also, the match is over and winner is a judge". Sure, its entertaining, but it just doesnt make any sense.

I'm sorry but I have unsubscribed from the podcast. I love Jim and his humor for the most part.. but I can't make it through any of the new episodes. I don't even know what the last episode was that I listened to, but it was almost to an hour and there was barely any mention of videogames. I turned it off. I miss when Burch ran the show and things mainly revolved around games. It's like a cupcake now. The cake part is 'transgenderistism' and videogames are the sprinkles. It should be the other way around. With Jim and Holmes being delicious but not overpowering icing holding it all together.

Rewinding gameplay to make clones of yourself to do things REALLY sounds like P.B. Winterbottom. Except Blades of Time doesn't sound like a good game.

And thanks for answering my question!

Holmes talking about how he didn't want to stink up his pillows with his butt was the best thing I've heard all week.

I just started listening and, whilst only venturing back to CEREBRAL PAL-Z (which I didn't even finish so a completely uninformed and redundant statement), I think the show works so much better with just Jim and Jon - you know, my new super best virtual mates.

Also, I watched LSOH about 72 times on a shoddy recorded VHS when 'growing up' in those formative 8-11 years. So like, yeah.

District Dafoe's pitch is my favourite piece of surrealist comedy ever. Truly amazing.

Yeah, the happy ending was weirdly out of place in the film version of Little Shop of Horrors. Though I did like how after they show the happy couple in their perfect home, they pan down to their flower bed... and there's still a killer plant there. As if they felt that a sequel hook would be warranted, while at the same time saying "It's not all happy, mind you."

@travolta

It's funny because you're saying that, and it just makes me glad that I'm listening to this (total drivel) all the more.

*ME3 SPOILERS*

The anger over the Mass Effect 3 ending does make sense. You have to consider the fact that there's no true failure ending either. The Reapers are always defeated, just in slightly different ways. Worse is the fact that you don't actually see the impact of your choices, just a different colored explosion depending on your choice.

If Bioware is going to make a point of giving every other choice in the series multiple options with the intent of allowing fans to craft their own story, then the endings should be the ultimate culmination of that philosophy.

@ MowDownJo
Yeah that brings it back a touch. It was a complete missed opportunity though and should have gone with the stage ending. Speaking of endings generally and going off topic as is so au fait here *never played any ME so can’t comment* – some of my favourites are like the ending to Blue Velvet which is just so epic and glorious in its hyperrealistic deconstruction of suburbia. Sounds like total balls and probably is but if you haven’t seen it, ignore me and do. Also, sticking with Lynch for a moment, the ending to Twin Peaks (you know, when he came back on board again after it had gotten rotten to the core) at the other end of the ending scale, is equally awesome in its total anti-endingness. Two fingers to the studio that ruined everything.

For a more modern example, though there are so many to choose from and I H8 Robin Williams, check out World’s Greatest Dad. Beautifully subverts and debunks the faux Hollywood happy ending. That it isn’t to say that we have to equate these with a more ‘realistic’ fiction, in fact moreover that’s the point, everybody knows they can’t and shouldn’t try to get away with that with a straight face. Like so many based on a true story. It’s just wonderful and a delight when someone weaves a narrative, however removed, that doesn’t come with a prerequisite of pandering escapist drivel to get funding. Not to say happy endings can’t chime, another top 5 for me is Repo Man (1984).

@Lintire
Right on

I have to wonder if Jim ever played Infinite Space on the DS, probably the best JRPG since...ever.

Never thought I would say this but this episode was absolutely shite. Never laughed once but the magic of podtoid is there will always be something great to come.

@BrowneyeWinkin
But what about our relationship!!?

I haven't played Mass Effect, so I don't know what the deal is with that story, but in a story driven game where your main driving force to keep playing the game is to resolve a conflict in the game, it would make a lot of sense if having an ending that didn't resolve that conflict would make the player upset.

That being said I've never really been disappointed with an ending, so I can't really say what this might or might not apply to.

People are just disappointed that the series ended so lazily, NOT that it was "tragic/sad", at least not in my case. For fuck sake just two pretty much same possible endings for all those playthroughs and choices. SURE we enjoyed all that time but it could have been easily something more fair and rewarding as the end of the trilogy that it all has been built up to goddammit.

The 200th episode better be special, fat tits.

2 weeks late but who cares.

I could give a flying fuck whether ME3 had a "good" or "bad" ending. I just wanted a *complete ending* that was a bit more involved than a palette swap of an explosion. I also wanted more closure to the whole situation, sure there was some minor closure throughout the game but it was very superficial. What about the fact that the whole aftermath of the ending events are just non-existent. Why? Honestly, i think they held the "rest-of-the-ending" back for future DLC... but that's a whole different can of worms that is rage inducing. Here's one more thing that chaps my ass. For a game series that is so heavily weighted in the "choices have consequences" how could they have failed so hard by basically saying that all your choices basically boiled down to only one or two choices/outcomes to the whole thing? IMO it's either laziness (see: Tali's reveal) or dreams of future dollars from DLC (see: EA is involved now). Good, bad or ugly just give me a complete ending, that's all i ask.

I think Jim *totally* missed the point why people are getting mad. The good vs bad ending is not the issue, at least from everyone i'm seeing who has complained. It's about the fact that the end of ME3 was a sad, lazy and incomplete attempt at an ending.