Coyote Vs. ACME Experience

After years of delays due to studio interference, Coyote Vs. ACME was finally released into theaters due to the passionate protests of curious fans wanting to see the movie that the studio in all its infinite wisdom, decided it’d be more profitable to use the completed movie as a tax-write off, rather than release it in theaters.  Being a mix of live action and animation, it’s very much a spiritual successor to Roger Rabbit.  It might not reach the highs of that modern classic (the bar was astronomical) but it comes close.

This is not a review of the movie itself, but of my experience of going into the theater itself.  I personally hadn’t attended a movie theater in years, due to being unable to understand what was going on, or having a concise summary beforehand.  (The last movie I saw was a foreign movie with subtitles, Cache, that I was less than enthused about)  Even when I was told that there were captioning devices that could transcribe the spoken lines to curious deaf people wanting to attend, I still didn’t come.  I preferred instead to wait for it to be released on home video, or available on cable, even if it meant being a year behind everybody else’s pop culture knowledge.

This was the first time I actually had a movie I was actually interested in seeing that I wanted to share with someone.  A movie I was aware of, thanks to a leaked plot summary that was released back when it looked like Coyote might never see the light of day.  A summary that I decided not to see again until I actually saw the results for myself.  A summary I only had vague memories of, not having read it in over 2 years, and wanted to preserve some semblance of surprise.

There were references to other movies, such as Deep Throat from All the President’s Men, and courtroom corporate dramas such as Erin Brockovich, A Civil Action, Silkwood (a Oklahoma nuclear facility worker whistleblower) and Dark Waters (a lawyer braving against a corporation dealing with the dangers of Teflon).

But enough of that, I’ll get back to the movie experience.

Before getting to the theater, I prepared myself by asking my sibling about their experience with using the subtitles.  They mentioned that there was some trickiness with the cable, lining it up properly against the screen.  (More on this later) my sibling also mentioned that in order to use the captioning device, they had to hand over their ID, such as a driver’s license or Medicare card, so as not to let the theatergoer leave their valuable device with them.  I also didn’t know if the captioning went by lines as a whole per scene, or scrolled like during news broadcasts.

I arrived at the theater half an hour early to make sure I would be on time, but also to make sure that there would be enough time to get the captioning device and beat the rush.  Turned out there wasn’t much of a lineup for the middle of the day in the middle of the week.  As I said, I don’t have much movie-going experience.

There was some slight panic on my part as the guy who was supposed to hand out captioning devices wasn’t there, but was reassured that he’d be around shortly.  After which, I was given the captioning device without having to sacrifice my ID in return.  Making our way to the seats, I set about trying to figure out how to wrangle the device in the dim previews lighting.  There was a gooseneck cable that could be bent, and a base that was supposed to fit into the cupholder portion of the seat.  Only, the base wouldn’t “click” properly, and there was a metallic base jutting from an awkward angle, and it took considerable time before I finally mange to wrestle it into a suitable shape for comfortable viewing.  I like my captions to be horizontal to the screen.

There were three buttons underneath, one for turning it on, one for selecting the language, and one for selecting the theater.  It was important to select the right button for the right theater, otherwise, you’d wind up getting captioning for the wrong movie.  Turns out it’s very easy to accidentally click the wrong button in the dark.  I was constantly rotating through the other 32 theaters in an attempt to get back to the right theater, and then going over the limit again.  Like channel flipping too quickly that the only way to get back is to go through the entire directory.

To my surprise, there were captions available for the previews, which I was sure wouldn’t be available, as I asked my sibling about their existence beforehand, and was told there likely wouldn’t be any available, so seeing the dialogue for these features came as a pleasant surprise.  The captions showed up in rapid succession, 2 lines at a time at a speed I was accustomed to.  Then during the 3rd preview, no subtitles appeared, which I thought was fine, as only music played for a silent movie staring Shaun the Sheep.  But during the 4th preview, no subtitles appeared, particularly during when dialogue should’ve shown up.

When the actual movie started, it started off not with the slapstick antics I expected, but a prologue starring (Dr.) Peter Lorre, the perpetual toothy smile fishy-bedroom eyed caricature so omnipresent in numerous Looney Tunes shorts.  There was essential dialogue being spoken throughout, and I decided to rely on my live transcribe app on my cellphone, something I’d hoped I wouldn’t have to use, as one of the people in the seats ahead of me was using her phone, and it was distractingly bright.  (She thankfully turned her phone off for the movie)   I tried to minimize my screen on dark mode so as not to disturb the watchers behind me, while my friend went to the manager to get a replacement captioning device.

I was essentially looking at three different screens at once.  The movie screen itself, the captioning screen, and my cellphone.  In addition, the live transcribe’s latest update now posts the newest lines right at the bottom, so I was missing several micro-second details than usual.  There were a lot of onscreen Easter Eggs I missed because of that.

But even with a replacement, there were times when subtitled lines failed to appear, and I had to rely on live transcribe more than once.

Only getting every other

very annoying.

You might get the gist, but

is lost.

This wasn’t an isolated experience.  My TV would also

shows had important lines missing.

beginning sentences would be cut off.

single word.

constantly puzzle out the clues from the brief scraps I was

sometimes the captioning device would repeat the last line

moving onto the next

sometimes the captioning device would repeat the last line

where a solitary line of the next dialogue showed up.

When the movie was over, my friend went to the manager to complain on my behalf, and said I should have a refund.  Something I didn’t know was possible.  I captured about 85% of what was being said, which was quite verbose for a feature featuring silent pantomimic cartoon characters dealing in slapstick.  Ironically enough, the movie’s theme which was about dealing with faulty products was almost spoiled due to the result of a faulty captioning device.

I still feel a little bad about getting my money back, even though it sent a message that the theater could’ve worked on their captioning devices better.  When the time comes that this movie gets released on physical media, I’ll get my personal copy.  As for the captioning devices, there’s several tips I have to improve the design:

1. Make the gooseneck cord more flexible AND sturdier.

2. Have the base snap into the cupholder more accurately.

3. Regarding the above, shorten the gooseneck cord significantly so that it doesn’t wind up winding all over the place.

These are basic solutions that anybody who’d field tested these things in the field could’ve suggested during production.

After that experience, I think I prefer watching movies in the privacy of my home.

Weird Videogame Ads

Growing up on Nintendo Power, I greatly preferred it to the other gaming magazines on the rack, which were little more than gaming advertisements with occasional gaming screenshots included.  If you were lucky, you might even get more than one page of in-depth coverage of your favorite games with playthroughs included!  But that didn't stop me from browsing through their contents.

An amusing letter from GamePro #65.

Upon flipping through any of the multiple gaming magazines in their heyday in the 90s, you were likely to run across the same advertisements for terrible games multiple times, in a desperate bid to get customer attention.  Some of the more unscrupulous companies would try to show as little of the game itself, figuring the cover art would be a better selling point.

While most of these ads were fairly unforgettable, it's the ones that stuck in my mind for years that kept a foothold, long after the games were sold.  I was surprised to see that there weren't many online archives of specific memorable gaming ads.  At least, nothing I was looking for.  So, with the help of some online sources, I was able to blaze my way through a few years of several sources, and pick out the ones that stood out.

For example, ads for a franchise tends to be similar across gaming consoles.  But in a rare instance, there were two different ads for Wanderers From Ys III - in the same magazine even!  One from Genesis, one from the Snes.


I only intended to pick and choose a few samples, but the more I looked, the more I found some individual ads that were just utterly... weird.

Back before emulators were a thing, you could get a whole collection of Atari games on CD-ROM.  This was clearly aiming for the aging gaming market, back when there was such a thing.

Pipe Dream is a puzzle game involving putting pipes together, but this ad makes it look like you're traversing a plumber's nightmare, making the 7th level in Super Mario Bros. 3 seem tame in comparison.


It wouldn't be a gaming magazine if it didn't include ripping off gameshows.

Then there were ads that had nothing to do with games.  Take these ads of Blockbuster Video, back when movies and video games could be rented out for a day or two at reasonable prices, far below the original.  You didn't have to worry about keeping them - you just had to worry about finishing them before the deadline and returning it on time, lest you pay a fine.  And you had to be choosy in your choice to guarantee a good time.

That's pretty basic in itself.  But look at how they sold themselves!


Is this supposed to be appealing?  I suppose when you've got a monopoly on renting, you don't have to worry about the competition.

One thing that annoyed me about some ads was that it was sometimes difficult to tell the name of what was being sold.  Titles with font that made reading nearly impossible.

VT Boy?  AJ Boy?  If you can't figure out the first letter, how can you ask for it?
 
ElRienlo?  No, it's El Viento.  Cursive font is a curse.

The Misadventures of Hioh?  No, it’s The Misadventures of Flink.

VAP?  No, it’s VAY.

You can't see the title properly from here, so here's a closer look:

...yeah, that doesn't really help much.  Gvnres?  No, it's Gaiares.  You could hardly make it out from a lopsided angle and a distance.  How were you supposed to figure that out?

One of the strangest tactics some of these ads would take would be to tell you just how much time you could be expected to spend on a game.  Saying a typical Adventure game or RPG would take 60 hours isn't anything unusual, but these ads took that play value to absurd lengths.  One example I want to point out is this rather generic poster from StormLord.

In particular, I want to close up on this section here:

Games are lambasted for being notorious timesinks, but that time spent should be worth it.  It’s one thing to spend time tracking down a valuable treasure in a dangerous puzzle dungeon.  It’s another to be travelling a hostile overworld with no hints of what to do or where to go next.

This Equinox game takes this player so long to finish that he dies before doing so.  Most online archives have the above image, but they miss the follow-up tucked away in a corner on the next page:

Another example of reducing the player to a mere skeleton comes from Phantasy Star III.

 Here's the enlarged font of the relevant text:

Oh, and just for good sake, here's a close-up of the Concerned Sega Mom of Humans Against Genesis (HAG) who, surprisingly enough, didn't show up on very many gaming ads.

Oh, and if taking a whole lifetime to complete a game isn't long enough, how about taking multiple generations?


When it comes to taking your sweet sweet time, you'd be hard-pressed to find another that tops this one:

An underappreciated art of magazine ads was how they would continue across the pages on a regular basis.  When done badly, it disrupts the flow and is immensely distracting.  When done properly, it's worth coming back to over and over again.




Yes, it repeats the Power Glove ad above, but unless you were aware of it, you didn't make the connection until now.

Another feature was that a continuous theme would show across several pages:





Actually, this last image showed up first, all by itself.  The individual installments you saw came later.  What actually showed up was this:

No, that's just an advertisement for a shirt.  I only include it because it has "Shafted", which was cut off above.  The actual last installment is this:

...yyyyeah, that's not as memorable as what came before.  When you have those elements, you need a strong finish.

For some ads, space was a a requirement, and if taking up a whole page was too much, then a compromise could be reached.  The upper half could have game previews, and the bottom half was fair game.  This resulted in double-page half-ads, effectively spreading out a double-side page spread.

Nowhere was this used more effectively than the first print Sonic ad:

I never really understood why they used a proclamation point instead of a question mark at the end there.  Must be something similar to the Hollywood belief that movies with "?"s in them don't do very well.  (Who Framed Roger Rabbit f'rinstance)

These aren't sequential artwork, but these Earthworm Jim ads showed up at random intervals, and I've taken the liberty of collecting them all in one convenient place for easy viewing.

 


And now, I've saved the best for last.  In a show of sheer chutzpah, a magazine showed at random intervals in its issue, three separate full-pager of some guy named Fritz, with absolutely no context.  He didn't appear in any of the previews, or animated movies in the magazine.

Then, after forgetting about it for a month or so, the same guy showed up again, with no further explanation.  And not all of them were the same.  Some of these came from different magazines, and I had a heck of a time tracking these down.  Incidentally, a similar early ad was repeated, with different artwork, and different swear symbols.  Kicking blocks somehow seemed preferable than stealing ice cream from a baby.

It wasn't until his later appearances that the title Brain Dead 13 started showing up, but that didn't really explain much.  At least we now had a name to go with the guy.  There were plenty of gross heroes, and anti-heroes with cool extreme outbursts, which didn't make it that far out there that this guy was the protagonist of something.

So it came as a bit of a surprise to find out that this Fritz guy who'd been in the spotlight all this time was actually the henchman to a brain in a jar in a non-prompted animated game along the likes of Dragon's Lair.

It was a brutal advertising campaign, subtly hyped up early on, but I just wish it had been applied to a better game.  Compare the character designs between Fritz and the hero, Lance.  Which one stands out more?

The generic teenager, or the hunchbacked midget with hooks for hands and transferable weapons?  Why couldn't Fritz be the main character?  Just have a Metrovania player with rotating tools you find and swap them out when the situation applies.  Link does this all the time!

These are most of the gaming memories I was able to find, but not all of them.  What I most hoped to find was a few pages in Total 64, a U.K. publication that had a limited release.  It was printed at a bigger size than most magazines, which could make scanning understandably difficult.  In the back were amusing three-panel sprite comics, and the first issue had a very funny commentary on the fight against Bowser that I can't for the life of me remember.

What I do recall was a Mortal Kombat comic titled "Too many Ninjas" where the numerous Scorpion / Sub-Zero clones started gathering up more and more, with Reptile, Smoke, Ermac and Noob Saibot showing up in the 2nd panel, until the last screen had multiple recoloured clones, some of who I suspect probably became actual playable characters later on.

The second comic was titled "The Longest Game Ever".  I can't recall the exact dialogue, but it went something like this:

"How do I get to the Castle?"

To get to the Castle, you need a letter.  The letter is hidden behind the Forbidden Bookshelf, found via a Secret Passage, accessible only at night.  A soldier can be bribed with WildShade found only in the Meadow Field. He'll give you the Blue Castle Key.  Once you have the Blue Pass, the guard will ask for the Red Pass."

"Uh, never mind.  Where's the Bathroom?"

"To go to the Bathroom, you need the Bathroom Key.  The Bathroom Key is held in a cave in the Dismal Swamps behind the Forbidden Woods.  It is guarded by a ferocious monster who is weak against Magnesium, only found in the..."