Dan B.

I'd agree with Seinfeld - I don't dislike the first season but it definitely started to hit its stride by the end of season 2 (there are some s2 episodes I like a lot, like "The Statue," but "The Chinese Restaurant" was the first real classic). I'll throw in The Simpsons - the first season and most of the second definitely had some memorable stuff, but it wasn't quite cooked yet - the animation style was pretty rough (of course, IMO the current style since it went HD is *too* clean, but...) and a lot of the characters were still being worked out. Recentering the series with Homer as the overall main character instead of Bart around season 3 was the right call. But, then, I mostly fell off the show after season 10 or so.

On the 1994 Mickey UnRapped album, Tag Team followed up "Whoomp! (There It Is)" with a sequel featuring Mickey, Minnie and Goofy, creatively titled "Whoomp! (There It Went)". On the single cover, even Tag Team themselves look like they're pretty much done with the whole "Whoomp!" thing at this point.

On the "Jessie's Girl" track, we could also bring things back around to wrestling with Jimmy Hart's (legit great) response song, "Eat Your Heart Out Rick Springfield!" Went to an NEW show back in April and Jimmy was there for the signing and a brief special appearance to welcome the crowd at the show's start. When he was done talking he led us in a sing-along of the song's chorus!

Aw, I was all set to add "Devil Comes Back to Georgia" and the "Space Oddity" sequels, but already beaten to it before hitting Post! Anyway, one offhand, Dream Theater's "Metropolis Pt. I: The Miracle and the Sleeper" off the Images and Words album got an entire concept album as a sequel with Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory. Metallica's "The Unforgiven" and "Unforgiven II" for an easy one.

Don't bring me down, Bruce

When Beastie Boys' "Intergalactic" first came out - and for probably an embarrassingly-long time afterward - I thought the line "You've got gall, you've got guile" was "You've got corn, you've got cob" Relatedly, I still want to hear somebody work the line "I'll stir-fry you in my wok" into a wrestling trash-talk promo.

Yeah, actually, I'll grant that; there was some solid stuff in the '90s - Garth and Shania did have some songs I like (I always saw Shania as more on the "pop" side of the country-pop spectrum anyway), and while I never specifically listened to a whole lot of (D.) Chicks stuff I do appreciate their more bluegrassy leanings. In fact I almost said "'80s" instead of "'90s" but could already think of plenty of exceptions there too - for instance, Juice Newton's version of "Queen of Hearts" is not only about as perfect a pop-country song as you can get, but is also one of the more nostalgic songs of my childhood years as it was on the radio *constantly* back then, and I'm a fan of Dwight Yoakam, though he's really more of a honky-tonk artist who happened to chart a few pop hits. I'm sure if I tried hard enough I could probably even find an exception or two from today - offhand, I do like what I've heard of Chris Stapleton, for instance, though he might fall more into "country that's popular" moreso than "pop-country." But yeah. The whole, as Chuck Klosterman called it, "Walmart Country" genre, and especially the meathead "bro-country" subset of that, I can definitely do without. Incidentally this is probably the most I've talked about music on a message board since the late '90s-early 2000s AOL boards, so... fun thread!

Oh, for sure. I thought of putting this as one of mine but didn't know if it was really "controversial" enough. I love the classic stuff; grew up listening to it, and there's certainly still good country music being produced - usually called "Americana" or "roots" or whatever - but the modern mainstream pop-country genre is terrible (personally I'd say at least since the '90s). Sorry, but putting a steel guitar under bland, generic Creed-grade rock doesn't a good country song make. I don't think Hank done it this way.

Yeah, in addition to Hair Nation my presets include Ozzy's Boneyard, Underground Garage, Classic Vinyl/Rewind (I think the button's actually set to Vinyl but the two are just a click apart), Lithium (which is also one click from First Wave), the '80s station (which is easy to use to get the other "decades pop hits" ones), Real Jazz, Soul Town, Symphony Hall, Bluegrass Junction, and I think I do have one for the '50s one too since they moved it away from the "decades" lineup. I'm sure I'm forgetting a few. It's a good way to show passengers just how interesting and eclectic I am, right? 😛 I think I do still have one set to the old-time radio station, but I rarely listen to it only because I'm rarely in the car at the exact time a show's starting. I usually just use an OTR streamer app for those.

Second that. To quote The Wrestler, "Like there's something wrong with having a good time." One of the presets in my car is set to Hair Nation. One I've had since high school: Blues Traveler ruled. Their '90s studio output, the first five albums from when Bobby Sheehan was still alive, were amazing. Their albums since have been a little more hit-and-miss IMO but they've still had some good stuff. Dunno how controversial this one is, but Train have routinely some of the most fascinatingly-bad lyrics I've ever heard. I've thought that if I somehow got roped into doing standup comedy, one of my routines would just a line-by-line analysis of "Hey Soul Sister."

Some of these have already come up, but... Astrosmash on Intellivision. I'm more of the NES generation, but my first system was my dad's hand-me-down Intellivision. I'd played at least a couple of arcade games before - I definitely remember playing a Pac-Man cocktail cabinet at a pizza place in the mall when I was around 3 or 4 - but I'll never forget when my dad hooked up the Intellivision for me, with Astrosmash (his favorite of the games he had for it) and taught me how to play. So this one's more for personal reasons than anything from the game itself. Super Mario Bros. Coming from the world of largely simple, largely single-screen Intellivision era games, playing SMB the first time was mind-blowing for just how *open* it felt. The feeling of exploration and possibility, showing just what games could be, was unforgettable and probably unmatched. Super Mario Bros. 2 (US). Largely the same reasoning as SMB1, if not quite as intense. I'll never forget the first time, being stuck at the beginning of 1-2, and finally coming to the realization that hey, I can jump on the magic carpet, throw the Pidgit off and then fly the carpet myself across the gap! Super Mario Bros. 3. Same reasoning again as SMB1. The sheer amount of content was amazing at the time. Mega Man 2-4. I loved and still love them, but I've played them so many times that there isn't much challenge left. I remember it being an accomplishment in, say, 3, to have a password that had one or two of the Robot Masters defeated. I left off 1 because due to its design, that one still gives me a good challenge, and 5-6 - while still great games - didn't quite have that same feel of accomplishment (5 especially was pretty easy overall - plus I was a bit older when they came out, and already a veteran of the first four). Final Fantasy VI and Chrono Trigger. Two of my favorite - and, for my money, two of the greatest - game stories ever created. It would be great to go through them for the first time again; not knowing what will happen and exploring them with fresh eyes. ToeJam & Earl. My all-time favorite two-player game. I first completed it with one of my oldest friends and we still play it when the rare opportunity comes up, but it'd be fun to get to Funkotron for the first time again. Shadowgate and Deja Vu. I love the MacVentures but have played through these two so many times I can pretty much just walk through them every time. It'd be cool to do it without knowing the solution again. At least I still haven't finished Uninvited or Deja Vu II (via the Casebooks of Ace Harding cart on GBC), so there's that. Maniac Mansion. Same reasoning as the MacVentures, though this one does at least hold up better to replays due to the different character and ending possibilities. I don't know if I would've thought of it unless it had already been brought up, but I'll throw Myst in too. Looking back on it now, it's hard to see it as much more than a CGI slide show, but it was pretty remarkable at the time - a point & click game, but stripped down of almost everything unessential including the kinds of UIs the MacVentures and Maniac Mansions and Kings Quests and such used, and starting you with nearly no context so that you had to discover even your purpose as you went. The combination of its images and music also gave it atmosphere for days.

This brings back fond memories of perusing the old Nintendo Power Source and Doctor Gamewiz message boards on AOL in high school. I definitely remember all of these being bandied about. Also a lot of theories about Gogo's "true identity" (and/or possible ways to reveal it), with frontrunners including Daryl, Emperor Gestahl, General Leo, Banon, Arvis, Wedge, Vicks, and pretty much any other character that had been killed off/disappeared in the first half of the game. Also rumors that Cecil from FF4 was somehow unlockable, I think because Draco (the male opera singer) had a unique sprite that resembled Cecil's Dark Knight armor. Turns out, Gogo is just... Gogo. There were also rumors and theories - of which I don't recall specifics - about how to find and recruit Schala in Chrono Trigger and Luigi in Super Mario RPG. And, of course, how to get a human Frog in your party in Chrono (of course, you actually can see him as a human in the ending, but only if you make... a certain choice during the game, and you'll never actually get to play as a human Frog/Glenn).

If we're talking classic westerns, one of my very favorites is the original 1957 version of 3:10 to Yuma with Glenn Ford and Van Heflin. Much of it plays out as a morality play/chamber drama with no easy answers as to the right way out of his situation for Heflin's character. Your mileage may vary of course - it actually has generally decent reviews, though I though it was awful - but I wouldn't bother with the 2007 remake (w/Christian Bale & Russell Crowe). I thought it seemed like they wanted to turn it into an action movie, when the original, a scene or two notwistanding, wasn't a guns-blazing action western at all - and (attempting not to spoil either version) didn't really bother to explain Crowe's character's action at the end like the original did for Ford's interpretation. It is very possible that I'd have a better opinion of the 2007 version if the 1957 version had never existed. Also regarding westerns, it might be a little too recent for a "classic cinema" thread, but I'll throw in a recommendation for Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man (1995) as it's usually described as an "acid western" and also happens to be my #1 favorite film of all time. It's out there and definitely not for everybody, but I love everything about it. As many times as I've seen it I still find rewatches rewarding as there's always something I didn't notice before, or some new angle of something in it to think about.

There's always room for a healthy dose of "Werner being Werner" after all!

The Great Race is hugely underrated. It also has one of my favorite movie cars, the Hannibal 8 - basically an early 20th-century Bond car, except nothing on it works right - and the mother of all movie pie fights. Regarding Herzog, I'll throw in a recommendation for The Enigma of Kaspar Hauser for his narrative films, and for his documentaries I can't recommend Cave of Forgotten Dreams enough; it's actually my favorite documentary period. Some of the commentary on the sheer *age* of the cave paintings is mind-boggling. That said, one of my single favorite Herzog things is this forty-second clip of him talking about chickens.

Great movie that I should watch again sometime; I havent seen it in years. I'd argue that if anything it held up *too well* - it may as well be a documentary on modern media. Couple of quick random suggestions - If you have even a passing interest or curiosity in film noir, see Double Indemnity and The Third Man sooner than later. A little more obscure one that probably won't appear in any of these lists, but if you want to see just how out there some of the stuff in the silent era could get, check out The Unknown starring Lon Chaney (Sr.) from 1927. A truly bizarre story and IMO one of the best Chaney performances (of which there were many great ones). Directed by Tod Browning, who later did the Bela Lugosi Dracula as well as Freaks. And if you like that there's lots of great Lon Chaney movies (one of my favorite actors, silent or otherwise). For a real tearjerker - and another of his best performances - see Chaney in Laugh, Clown, Laugh (1928); the range of emotion he was able to portray through clown makeup is incredible. And of course there's the big ones - Phantom of the Opera and Hunchback of Notre Dame. The Penalty is a good crime movie starring him. He Who Gets Slapped is another fun, strange thriller story; it's directed by Victor Sjostrom who later acted as the lead in one of my top five favorite films, Ingmar Bergman's Wild Strawberries.

I've played a lot of Final Girl (a dedicated solo) lately, so I recommend that especially if you're into slasher movies: https://www.vanrydergames.com/finalgirl Getting everything for it can get a bit pricey though, so if you're on the fence maybe get the core box and one film box (Hans/Camp Happy Trails is probably the best to start with) and then get the other four film boxes if you like it. One of the hooks is that with multiple film boxes, you can mix and match player characters, villains and settings for more replay value. There's a second season (five more film boxes) coming out next year. Vagrantsong (https://www.wyrd-games.net/vagrantsong) is also very cool and can easily be played as a solo (even with one player controlling two or three characters works), though it's at its best with another person or two as a co-op.

That damn Creature from the Black Lagoon is actually the one monster my GF and I haven't managed to beat yet. Completing his boat track always takes just long enough (especially if he "rocks the boat" and sends the marker back a few times) that we always run out of time with him, after dealing with whatever other monsters were on the board. We last played it as a distraction on election night. Each of us with two characters (archaeologist/detective for me, I think mayor/scientist for her) vs. Mr. & Mrs. Frankenstein and Wolf Man. We won with maybe two or three turns left, but probably took longer than we should have because we forgot til late in the game that you get to move Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride a certain number of spaces after using an item on them. At one point I lost one of Dracula's coffins and used Ravensburger's free replacement policy to get a new one (they actually sent an entire extra punch sheet), and later found the lost original, so we've had the idea of at some point trying a game with "Super Dracula" by putting up to four extra coffins on the board at the start.

Update: we played our first round of Luchador: Mexican Wrestling Dice today, with a best-two-of-three falls match between Bam Bam En Fuego and Anita Dinamita. The gameplay is pretty simple; four "wrestling dice" are rolled to determine what happens in each round of the match; every unblocked "hit" result or successful counter allows you a roll of the Hit die to score damage. If you have two hit die rolls, you can trade them for a roll with the Lucha die, which allows you to perform one of your wrestler's signature moves (or crash and burn). If you roll a "pin" result on the wrestling dice and the opponent's health is low enough, after hits are scored you can then try rolling the Pin die, which can either let you go for a pin (opponent has three chances to save to represent the three-count), play to the crowd for a health boost, or if you're unlucky, the opponent can reverse the pin attempt! The game comes with both a flat play board for quick games or a snap-together 3D ring to roll your dice in, and there are 9 colorful fictional luchadors and luchadoras to pick from, each with their own strengths and weaknesses (for instance, the giant dog-masked El Perrito deals bonus damage if he lands a forearm smash or chokehold, but is too heavy to to dropkicks and they count as misses if rolled). There's also rules for tag matches (either two players using two characters each, or four players on two teams) and a few other variations. Also, one of the luchadoras is named "Ay Yi Yi Dolores," which needs to be somebody's actual ring name yesterday. Our Bam Bam En Fuego vs. Anita Dinamita match ended up coming down to the wire as, in the third fall, Bam Bam kept falling off the ropes and stunning himself while going for his flying moves via bad rolls and taking Anita's hits, but Bam Bam was ultimately able to hit his "Rain of Fire" signature move (from the written description, it seems to be a quebrada/Lionsault) for big damage, then finished Anita off by putting her through a table and scoring the pin. Decent tabletop wrestling-themed games can be tough to come by, but this one definitely gets my recommendation. The gameplay's fast and easy to learn, and there's lots of variety in characters and match types to keep it interesting. Would probably be especially fun to play with a bunch of wrestling fans before watching a PPV or something.

The Creature FTBL has been our most problematic monster too; he has that annoying tendancy to "rock the boat" to send the boat marker back and make us have to collect more items. The Mummy's scarab puzzle can also be annoying when on a time crunch, but for us the Creature takes the cake. We once tried to do a "Monster Squad" game with each of us playing two characters vs. Dracula, Wolf Man, Mummy and Creature, but it didn't go so well - just too much to deal with in the time constraint. Fun to try though. It might've actually worked better if we stuck with just one character each, since then the monsters would only be getting half as many moves. In a similar vein we've also been playing a lot of Abomination: The Heir of Frankenstein lately (my lady's a Frankenstein enthusiast and is actually currently writing a new stage adaptation of the original novel). The premise of this game is a direct sequel to the original novel, and has players tasked by Frankenstein's monster to create a companion for it, before Captain Walton closes in. (In timeline it's comparable to Bride of Frankenstein, but much more in line with Mary Shelley's original work than James Whale's). To do that you have to conduct research and collect body parts and other resources to gradually build your creature and bring it to life, while trying to maintain your own humanity (or not...) It's definitely not for the squeamish as some of the artwork and text descriptions are very grisly, but if you're into worker-placement games it's another good one. One I recently picked up and haven't played yet, but hope to soon, is Expedition: Northwest Passage, which plays into my pet interest in polar exploration. It involves resource management and a Carcassonne-like mapbuilding mechanic to give, from what I've seen in gameplay videos, a pretty accurate representation of dealing with the conditions those searching for the Passage and the Franklin Expedition had to deal with. Finally, more on topic to EWB at large, I also just got Luchador: Mexican Wrestling Dice, which I'll hopefully get to soon as it looks like a whole lot of fun. It even comes with a little 3D ring you can put together to roll your dice in!

My girlfriend and I played this for the first time on Thanksgiving. It's officially-licensed by Universal Pictures, and is a cooperative game pitting players against two or more of the classic Universal Monsters (choices being Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster and the Bride of Frankenstein (who always go together), the Mummy, the Creature from the Black Lagoon, the Wolf Man and the Invisible Man) to save the village. Each monster has a different procedure required to defeat them. There are seven archetypical hero characters with various abilities to pick from, and certain events may trigger NPC villagers to appear on the board, all of whom are secondary characters from the various films and can be guided to safety in exchange for bonus abilities (Abbott and Costello even make an appearance as a villager token!). It gets pretty hectic as you're also on the clock twice over; the number of turns are limited before the monsters run amok, and there's a "Terror Meter" that goes up any time a player or villager is defeated by a monster and ends the game if maxed out. (When defeated, players respawn at the hospital on their next turn, GTA-style, so the game continues until the players either collectively win or run out of time). We did the suggested beginner game, with myself (as the Professor) and her (as the Scientist) vs. Dracula and the Creature from the Black Lagoon. We managed to defeat Drac without too much trouble, but the Creature gave us some difficulty until we finally overcame him last-minute. Working out teamwork strategy is definitely a key part of this one, which is a refreshing break from player-vs-player games. At any rate, it's great fun and I recommend it especially for fans of classic horror movies. We're planning to fight Mr. and Mrs. Frankenstein the next time we play, with probably either the Mummy added to the mix for an all-Karloff game, or maybe the Invisible Man to go against the full James Whale collection. I also look forward to defeating the Wolf Man for the first time, just so I can make the requisite Monster Squad reference ("Wolf Man's got nards!")

Thanks! Quick ones I noticed: -Set King Kong Bundy to Deceased (3/4/19) -Set Justin Credible as Semi-Active Wrestler

While I'm primarily a retro gamer, and the NES is my system of choice, there are plenty of great modern games out there and I did consider some of them for this question (I'm a big fan of the Elder Scrolls and Rockstar sandbox games, for instance, and I consider the first BioShock an absolute masterpiece). But there are two I kept coming back to: For more story-based games, Final Fantasy VI, which would also probably get my top pick if we were talking personal favorite as opposed to objective-best. An expansive ensemble cast of mostly very well-developed characters you grow to love or hate, arguably the best version of the classic FF battle system, and one of the best villains in game history that twists the "save the world" trope. For both games that are more skill-based, and from a pure design standpoint, I can't help but support the votes for Tetris. Simple, elegant, the perfect embodiment of "seconds to learn, but a lifetime to master." I think it really is the perfect game.

Great work as always, thanks! Couple of quick things: HOH Twitch Television Championship: -Current (and so far only) champion is Willie Mack, won on April 4th, 2018. He has 10 defenses so far. (I'm still pretty new to how the TEW updates work, so since HOH is closed in-game by default this info might not be added to the belt lineage until Mack loses it - so you may already have it) -Here's the best image of the belt I could find: https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DaMHpT5V4AA4UAX.jpg Katarina Leigh: -Short name: Katarina -Based in: Southwest (USA) (Los Angeles) -Languages: English: Fluent; Central European (German): Fluent -Change Nationality to English (perhaps debatable - born in Germany but to at least one British parent; she also identifies as British and is still a UK citizen) Kris Stadtlander: -Face gimmick: Alien (Gimmicky) -She seems to have changed the spelling of her last name to "Statlander" -She and Max Caster are Dating Create A Pro Wrestling Academy: Graduates that are already in the game: Max Caster and Maxwell Jacob Friedman (2016), Bryce Donovan (2017), Kris Stadtlander (2018), Bobby Orlando (2019)

I've only just recently switched to TEW16 from EWR, so please forgive any formatting errors or things that have already been suggested in this or any future posts I make. I should learn quick. Just a couple of quick things: -Cary Silkin's birthdate - Nov. 1956 -Set Family Wrestling Entertainment's closed date to March 2015 and their owner Jordan Schneider to Out of the Business (AFAIK he hasn't been seen since then). -For Madison Square Garden: set "owned by" to "none" -Add the Mid-Hudson Civic Center to Locations: