082 · THE KARATE KID

• Introductions
• The Movie
  • Part I
    • Daniel LaRusso fights Cobra Kai’s Johnny for the title
  • Part II
    • Goes to Japan and new challenger Chozen in fight to death
• First Impressions
• Tales from the Manual
  • Lackluster Enemies page shows you really only have 3 enemies.
• Gameplay
  • Tournament Start
  • Beat Em Up
    • Crane Kick and Drum Punch
  • Minigames
    • Chopstick Fly Catch
    • Ice Block Break
    • Swinging Hammer
  • Bosses and Ending
• Sequels and Spinoffs
  • Part III
    • A weird finale to protect his title against Sensei John Kreese
  • The Next Karate Kid (94)
    • Hilary Swank is the new KK but Miyagi stays
  • The Karate Kid (2010)
    • A remake of the original film set in Beijing which stars Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith
  • Karate Kid TV Series
    • A short-lived animated series spin-off also called The Karate Kid aired on NBC.
  • Cobra Kai (2018)
    • follows Daniel and Johnny rekindling their old rivalry after Johnny reopens the Cobra Kai dojo
• EGL (Mike, Sean, Joe, Sam)
• My thoughts:
• Hitbox is beyond ridiculous
• You can’t move and strike?
• Feels like I always just miss
• Should be more like how it starts. More consistent changes to gameplay dictated by the story
• Prom Action
• Barter to have Miyagi take you to Okinawa
• The Minigames are a nice addition - EXCEPT that stone one.

Auto-generated transcript. Each paragraph starts with its timestamp. Speakers are not identified.

00:00 The Karate Kid, Master the Martial Arts.

00:18 And welcome to NEStalgia, a chronological exploration of every NES game released in North America. I'm Mike. I'm Sean. And I'm Joe. Guys, today we are talking about The Karate Kid. Whether that's the movie, the second movie, the first video game, the only video game, you decide. I think it's the only video game. It's the only video game is correct. That there ever will be. That there ever will be probably for The Karate Kid unless somebody, you know, gets nostalgic for the Jaden Smith movie and winds up making like an HD remaster but in video game form.

00:52 Of the movie. There's no HD remasters of movies, right? Unless they go back and scan the film and 4K. I mean, that's what they did with like DVDs and then they did that with Blu-rays. Do you think a DVD? But they never say like, we're remaking this movie from the ground up. Well, no, that's actually what... That's just remaking a movie. Wasn't that Dracula? Dracula? No, not Dracula. What's that? Psycho. Oh, with Vince Vaughn. Remember the 1998 version? With Vince Vaughn. It was a shot for shot remake. Oh, okay. Yeah. Just then corrected. It's like, why have a director? Why did they hire that guy?

01:22 To make sure they did it right. Yeah. He must have been excited when he saw any kind of money in that paycheck. You know, like, wow, I just get away with this. It was actually Christopher Nolan, Mike. It was Christopher Nolan? Yeah, he directed that. Before the following? Yeah. Yeah, the following is Christopher Nolan's first film. For those of you that don't know, it's pretty good. Is it The Following or is it just The Following?

01:41 It's following, not The Following. The following is something I say when I get movies incorrect. Right, okay, good. Just checking. But since we're on the subject of movies, do we want to talk about the Karate Kid movie? I would love to talk about the Karate Kid movie. Okay, so let's just focus on part one for right now. Yeah. And it's important why we even mention the other parts later on. But just part one, Sean, just take me through your feelings about the Karate Kid movie. All right, so Karate Kid was one of my cultural blind spots, like, up until a few days ago.

02:12 I had never seen it. I only knew that, you know, Mr. Miyagi's a funny old man that says wax on, wax off, and then there's a really goofy 80s fight at the end. And I didn't really give it much thought, didn't really want to see it. Then I had to see it.

02:27 And I actually really liked the movie. It's a really fun movie, and it's not as goofy as I thought it would be because there's actual, like, heartwarming parts. Yeah, I actually, I don't remember a ton of it. It's just been a long time. But I do remember really liking it when I was a kid, and I imagine it holds up. Yeah. But I've actually seen, well, we weren't talking about this, but I've seen the next Karate Kid more than the one with, and I forgot her name. Who plays the? I don't know. You said it earlier. But that's not the next Karate Kid. That's the movie called The Next Karate Kid.

02:56 That's what I mean. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Hilary Swank. Yeah, Hilary Swank. More than I've seen the original, but I have seen the original. Yes, yeah. And that's actually Karate Kid 4, the next Karate Kid. Right, yeah, yeah. I don't know why I saw that one, like, before I saw the original. That's fine. Yeah, I think it's interesting. Well, maybe you just had, like, a DVD copy of it. Yeah. I saw it on TV, like, multiple times or something. Laser disc? Maybe. Also, The Next Karate Kid came out in 94. Which is more of our time. Yeah, exactly. The other ones came out, like, mid-80s to late-80s.

03:25 Anyway, I wanted to say, when it comes to the Karate Kid movie, upon re-watching it now, you know, it kind of feels like Rocky Jr., right? Yeah. Like, in many ways, especially his, Ralph Macchio's performance. It's really great. At times, yeah, it's really good, but it also reminds you of Sylvester Stallone a lot. Oh, yeah, he's got that, like, oh, I'm from New York, I'm from Jersey. Right, and that's not the problem with Sylvester Stallone, either. I'm not knocking his performance in Rocky. I think it's a great performance, too. So, I just think it's, like, funny that, like, it's almost like the kids needed a version of Rocky to look up to, rather than watching, like, prize box fighting. So, they were like, let's just do a karate version for kids.

04:03 Also, martial arts, pretty hot around this time, right? Yeah. Like, I feel like everybody wanted to wear, like, a karate black belt. But was that because of, or because of Karate Kid? I think it's because of Karate Kid. Okay. Yeah, if we're being honest. Also, one other tidbit, the Mr. Miyagi thing. So, I had a really good friend in high school, Mike Diagardi, and that's very Italian, that last name. And his dad, who was very Italian, looked just like Mr. Miyagi. And I didn't see the movie until I was in high school.

04:34 And I just remember everybody calling him Mr. Miyagi and then watching the movie and just, like, blown away by not only, like, Mr. Miyagi's character, but also, like, just that this man who's in the living room with us as we're watching the movie looks exactly... You watched it with him? Oh, Papa Dio is what we call that guy. Papa Dio. Yeah, he's a great guy. I thought you called him Mr. Miyagi.

04:56 A lot of nicknames. A lot of nicknames for, yeah, one parent in the school system. So, that's Karate Kid Part 1. I don't think we're going to, like, do any more talking about that. I just want to say that, since I think we're seconding into talking about Part 2... Yes. I didn't watch it because I just didn't have the time to, but I did read the Wikipedia article. And when I found out that they just threw Allie to the wayside just to get, like, a new leading lady... Hey, she stood him up a prom. This is ridiculous. She wouldn't do that. She's Allie. Yeah. Also, like, it wasn't just stand him up. It was like, I left with another man.

05:34 From UCLA. Like, no, Allie wouldn't do that. It also kind of, like, invalidates the whole, like, first movie. I watched the trailer for Karate Kid Part 2, and it was a lot of just, like, the whole promotional language was just, this is the real karate movie. Like, the other one was fun and games.

05:51 Now, and I mean, like, to be honest, yes, because at the end of Part 2, there's literally a fight to the death between Danny and Chozen. Chozen. Chozen, whatever. I don't... I think it's Chozen. Chozen one. Yeah, yeah. I just thought, like, if you were going to make that into a real name, it would be, like, Chozen. Sure. Yeah. I think Cho's more of a last name. But... Okay. Very cool. Joe, did you watch Part 2? I did not. Okay. Never seen it, and I didn't watch it this time. I am very interested in this fight to the death, though. Yeah. Because it gives it, provides some context for the game we played.

06:22 Well, you played it. Right. And that's a good point to get to, too. Yeah, because I have some things I'll mention later when we play it that I was surprised about. But now it's sounding from the movie. Maybe some of this stuff is not as out of place. Yeah, yeah. No, the movie definitely... The movie definitely... So, for those of you that are uninformed, the Karate Kid NES game is based on the Karate Kid Part 2. For the most part.

06:44 Yeah, okay. I know what you're going to get to, but let's just save that for when we talk about the actual game. I know, but it's for the most part. It's barely true. It's for the most part. Yeah, but whatever. I don't know what you're talking about. Yeah, yeah. Don't worry about it. I can't wait. So, if you didn't see the Part 2 movie, like most people probably, because the box office differential is quite large between Part 1 and Part 2. Oh. If you didn't see Part 2, there's a good chance that you bought the Karate Kid Part 1 and were thinking, like, what's...

07:07 Like, this isn't what I remember. But also, like, I guess you wouldn't care, right? You're just playing as Danny kicking up a bunch of... Yeah, I feel like at this time... Guys. Guys, yeah. I feel like at this time, buying a video game based on a movie, you're generally not expecting it to follow the movie necessarily, even at all. Yeah. I'd say so.

07:28 Yeah, well, even in the game's manual, it lets you know, like, right off the bat, that, like, there's only three enemies in this game. There's Chosen, Chosen's, like, henchmen, and then guy with, like, a guy with a spear. Yeah, guy with a spear is pretty crazy. The spear was the thing that I was... Is that in the movie? I was like, I thought we were in, like, a karate tournament and I was, like, training, and then these guys come out with spears at me. Right, well, we'll have to get there. Yeah. Yeah, because I'd like to do it chronologically, but yeah. Sure, sure. So, let me put it this way.

07:59 I don't remember Ralph fighting anybody with spears in the movie, but it wouldn't surprise me if they were in the area or environment. Yeah. They're in the background guys with spears. Yeah, exactly. And then they just figured, oh, those guys have been good enemies. But now somebody at home can remind us of, like, that entire cutscene. Yeah. Cutscene. The entire part of the movie where he fought five guys with spears. So, just go ahead and call us out. Five guys. Okay. First impressions on the game. Sean? It's pretty jank. My first impression was this is jankier than Jaws, and it's also jankier than Goonies.

08:37 But I also liked that it was sort of just throwing you between scenes from the movies. I knew that there were scenes from the movies even after the first level. But I thought that was a different way to do it instead of just throwing them into a completely different situation that never happened in the movies a la Goonies.

08:57 But yeah, that's my first impression. Joe? So, first off, I thought these controls are very sticky and, like, hard to do. Yeah. That was the first thing that jumped out at me, and it never went away. I just got used to it eventually. But the controls being aggravating was the first thing that jumped out at me. And I don't mean, like, the actual... I mean, some of it is, like, the actual what inputs you need. But it's really just, like, they stick, and they're not responsive enough. Yeah, you know when... This is my first impression. You know when you have that dream where you have to, like, fight somebody, and then you suck at fighting? Yeah, your arms are spaghetti. Right, your arms are spaghetti. That's how you feel playing this game.

09:38 As Daniel, for some reason, like, you can't, like, really move that well and kick at the same time. Or there's a lot of times where you go to, like, kick or punch, and you're just, like, what looks like a millimeter away from hitting the guy. I was wondering if you guys were going to talk about that because I thought maybe I was just being too picky. I was like, but I feel like I should be hitting him. They must be blocking. Like, there's definitely a sound effect that happens, but I don't know how to block.

10:04 I don't remember that being mentioned in the manual, but it wouldn't surprise me, I guess, because to think that I'm always, like, throughout the entirety of the game, just a little bit off on each of my punches or kicks was very interesting to me. But I did like that the game starts by having you, you know, in the tournament.

10:23 Yeah. From... The first one. The first move, yes. So you do get to start off with, like, a little recap of Karate Kid Part 1, even though you don't get to know that you're fighting, who's that kid, Johnny, right? Johnny Lawrence. Johnny Lawrence from Cobra Kai. Yeah. You don't know that you're fighting him, right? Like, in the finals. I mean, I knew that we were because I had just watched the movie, but it doesn't look like him. They could have just even said, though, like, finals versus Cobra Kai or something. Yeah. I mean, at least he's wearing a black gi. Yeah. I think that's the only thing that tips you off. Okay. Yeah, I guess that's a better tell than nothing, though. I mean, it'd be weird if he showed up with a blue gi or something.

10:58 So I guess we can go right into the gameplay then, because the tournament start, did you guys have a hard time getting through that? It's like four or five rounds, right? Yeah. I think it's four, right? Four sounds right. It's four. I would usually get through the first three fights without dying, but the health you lose rolls over to the next fight.

11:18 Which is weird to think about, that you don't get a chance to recover, but the ref's like, okay, next kid, get him now while he's down. And then they all have their full health. Like, weren't they fighting someone else before me? I think it's recreating the idea that you are maimed several times in the movie. Like, he gets his knee messed up. Yeah, they go for his legs a lot in that movie. Yeah, sweep the legs. You're giving them a lot of credit. Yeah, I think that's why. I don't know, man.

11:45 Sean's version is now canon. It has been accepted. I like it. But yeah, then I would usually die, or whatever, be defeated on the final round once. But you get three lives, so then I would obviously beat it the second time. And they're not lives, they're chances. Chances, I'm sorry. Yeah, yeah. You get another chance. I like the idea that the ref says, like, give him another gun. Like, you sure you didn't beat him? Like, get back in there.

12:11 But then also, this is an interesting segment because this is like Street Fighter-esque, right? We haven't really seen too many things like this. You get the one-on-one where it's just, I thought that the whole game was going to be a fighting game. Well, that's what I thought, too. And I thought it was going to be, oh, here's your first tournament, and then you go to World or something.

12:29 Like every other, like, wrestling. Yeah, like a training level, and then back to the match. Makes sense. You could even get a little more creative with the enemies and do, like, you know, similar to Street Fighter, where now all of a sudden it's like, there are guys who are regular humans, and then there's Blanka. You know? That could have happened in this game. Why not? I also thought that the enemies that you fought were going to have a bit more character and weren't just random fight guy number one or two. Right. But yeah, that's what sort of like led me to believe that, oh, this is going to change. Yeah. And in terms of your combat, since it doesn't change when you go from the fighting mode to the beat-em-up mode,

13:06 what did you guys think of your move set in general? We talked about the complaints of feeling like the hitbox was a little weird, but any other general thoughts on punching and kicking? Yeah. Um, it's immediately, it's very hard not to waste your specials in this game because if you just double tap,

13:25 you're doing a crane kick or you're doing that special punch, and you waste them. And I would rather save them for when I usually needed them, but the nature of the game doesn't even allow you to have much strategy at all because you seem to be walking through mud and flailing your arms around. So even if I did save those special moves for more like the boss at the end of the level, I probably would be just as incompetent in this game. And the special moves are the crane kick and the drum punch.

13:57 Yeah. The crane kick is cool. It's cool to see it in there. Right. And you can't get those until you, you can't get those in the first round, right? No, you can only get them once you get the beat-em-up mode. Should we just mention then that after, I don't think we've clearly stated that after the first round in the ring, you're suddenly now on a side-scrolling like what do you call it? A platformer beat-em-up?

14:17 Yeah. Yeah, and you're in Japan. Yeah. You've now like flown all the way to Japan. You're now in Karate Kid 2. And that's the rest of the game. Yeah. Level one is like a tournament. And then level two and three are just these like sides and four are these like side-scrolling adventure game-esque things. Yeah. That don't really look that different.

14:35 No. For what it's worth. Yeah. They could have tried a little harder to make it feel more unique. I think we talked about this even in like the Goonies. The Goonies 2 by comparison did a great job. Right. Yeah. Of making the areas feel unique. But I complained about that in the Goonies 2 episode. So you can only imagine how devastated I was by Karate Kid 2's landscape choices because the other than like there was one stage that had like a little more wind. Yeah. It was a typhoon. Yeah. From the movie I didn't see. Right. But it was funny to me because like yeah the first stage was just where are you in like a... You're in the arena. No, no. I'm sorry. The second stage.

15:08 Islands. You're in the Oniwaka Islands. Okinawa. Okinawa Islands. Yeah. And then the third stage looks exactly the same but with wind. I think you're always in Okinawa but... Right. But then the fourth stage is like... I'll just think about what it says to you on screen. Oh I see. The fourth stage is like desert or something. So it's like two... Oh yeah. Stage two and three are like exactly the same with like a little... With rain in it. And then the fourth one is like a new world. It's gotta be just mountains.

15:33 I don't know. It was just like the color of desert. Right. But the gameplay loop itself doesn't feel great for me at least because these enemies just... They only really spawn like two or three at a time. Yeah. I think two is really what I experienced. So the game kind of punishes you for sticking around. Yeah. You need to just kind of keep moving. Like it's like Super Mario Brothers. Keep moving to the right. Keep going. Yeah. Kung Fu. If you guys remember that from episode five.

15:58 Yeah. Kung Fu was to me was much less frustrating because I think the... For this you know what you just said with the you know them spawning randomly kind of over and over again combined with the janky controls and like the way you get stuck led to me constantly getting like trapped by these guys. And then like as soon as I would as soon as I would like kill the two that were on the screen I'd be like I gotta I gotta jump over this tiny little thing this step but I think I would be like two more guys would come and trap me there again.

16:28 And then you've got knock back that goes like a quarter of the screen. Right. And like usually straight into like a pit or something. Yeah. Which to be fair in the Karate Kid 2 like I've I you know Danny got kicked back pretty far a lot of times like like more than a normal human would take from like a blow. Okay. You know like these karate moves are really doing a lot of damage in those movies.

16:49 I think that for me noticing that the was that like the upper kick where you go for their head that was like the best move for me. It was like pretty much the only move I started using. I barely use the punches in the game to be honest unless it was like really close corners and something about just like my understanding of timing it almost became like a rhythm game with those guys like they come on the screen I come right up to them kick keep moving keep moving keep going forward. That's really all I had to do to help me beat this game.

17:17 Yeah I I didn't have the same epiphany. I thought that the amount of the the fact that it's not quite level the levels aren't all a straight line and there are these differentials between your height the height of the ground that you're on the height of the ground that your enemies are on. I think that makes you have to switch it up sometimes and I was not in rhythm with that at all. Okay. So I couldn't use the same move over and over at least. I don't know. Well you know remember how in Kung Fu and I think the reason we're talking about these games so much is because they are very similar to gameplay is that in Kung Fu when those guys got close to you they they hugged you.

17:56 Yeah. That's true. You just kind of shake them off like oh stop hugging me we're fighting. I mean in Karate Kid they just if you get a guy on both sides of you you're just stuck as like a perpetual punching bag. You don't get any invincibility frames at all I don't think. I think that was like for me that was the biggest setback is when you get stuck between two guys and since the knockback

18:16 is so strong one guy punches you all the way to the left the other guy punches you back into the other guy. Yeah you're just having like comically fast. Right. And here I am just trying to like kick them in the head you know. Yeah. What sound strategy is that? I wonder what that would look like in 3D when you picture what I was doing in this game. Did you guys have trouble like turning?

18:35 Yes. Like every time someone's coming behind me I'd have to hit the you know the left button a million times before we turn and by that time I'm Clearly the game doesn't want you to go back. That's all. It just wants you to keep finishing it. But there's enemies behind me. So it ended up being where someone's coming behind me I ended up just like letting them chase me for a while. You always turn your back to your opponent.

18:52 That's in Karate. Yeah. And one thing that was you know like a good note for it at least is that the enemies will catch up to you. Like you can't just outrun them. Yeah. So that's something I've noticed now in certain games that we play that like a game that's at least somewhat tested will make sure that you can't just like outright dodge enemies and leave them behind and just avoid all perils. Because when I was watching the speed run for this game which was you know I wouldn't say it was like anything spectacular. It's just like they always hit everything on the first try no problem.

19:24 It wasn't really that like interesting compared to like other speed runs of games we've watched where it's like I never even thought to do that or use the strategy or I don't think I could actually pull that off. Whereas like watching this Karate Kid speed run I was like I mean like nothing's stopping me from doing that except for the fact that I feel like I'm just worse at timing when I'm right.

19:45 Yeah I noticed that if the most fun games to watch speed run are the ones where you can just skip half the game. Right right. And coming up with creative ways to do that. And Kung Fu it forces you to fight everybody. Right. And so then the only other thing we haven't talked about is the minigames.

20:33 That was, yeah. Yeah. I have thoughts, but. Oh, come on. The minigames are the best part. They are the best part. And that's all I was going to say. I didn't like the minigames either. Which one didn't you like? Probably Swinging Hammer. Swinging Hammer. Swinging Hammer, I thought, though, was the least, like, at least I understood what I was supposed to do. Like, you know, you have to dodge the hammer by, you know, timing the button press at the right time.

20:58 But you have to, correct me if I'm wrong, but I think you have to turn around to face the hammer in order to dodge it. Yes. Which is what I have trouble turning. So I hated it because I was like, this is impossible to turn and dodge it. I don't know if it was just me, but I also had to use, and it doesn't count towards your total when you're in the minigame, but you have to use the drum punch to block. I didn't. Otherwise you get, like, knocked off. I didn't even realize that. Because if you jump over it, it doesn't count. It doesn't count, right. Yeah.

21:22 I got first. That's what I was doing. Yeah. You got none. I'm like, what do you mean? I didn't get hit. I was like, I don't think I really understand what we're supposed to be doing here. I'm surprised to hear that from you, Joe, because I thought that the chopstick fly catch had, like, first off, the best art in the whole game. Right? You'd be like, that's Ralph Macchio. You know that that's him. That's a good art. And then he's got these little chopsticks, and then you just wait for the flies, and you go.

21:46 Right. So I'll say, I only tried that one once, and I will say yes. Yes, the art was fine, and the precision of it is impressive, but I don't think it was, like, a fun game. Well, at least I assume it's precise. The flies are pretty small. Yeah, yeah. So it's like, you know, I felt like it was very, very, very difficult to get any of those flies. I don't know, man. And if you just look at them, they're just doing little twirly lines, and I got all six. I'm pretty good at that game. See, I only did it once, and I got maybe two.

22:15 Yeah. Maybe I got to try it again. I think it's the best mode, so I played it a lot. Yeah. I don't know. I thought that that was kind of drinking, and then the last one being the ice break. The ice block break. Yeah, which I, that's the one that I actually, admittedly, don't really understand what you're supposed to do. I actually didn't even come across that one. Really? Yeah. See, I noticed that the swinging hammer was coming up more than anything for me. I got the chopstick fly catch, like, maybe twice.

22:40 The ice block break, I wouldn't say, like, it doesn't come up nearly as frequently as the other two, but you're not really missing anything by... It's just like a power meter, right? Right. You just hit the button at the right time. Yeah, but it has similarly good art compared to the chopstick fly catch. Like, whereas I'm just confused by swinging hammer. It looks like they started designing a level, and then they're like, oh, you know what? Like, this could just be a mini game.

23:04 Because that's something that happens, I'm pretty certain. In part two, there's, like, something where they do the swinging hammer technique or whatever. That has to be. It's too, it's too specific. Right. And so at the end of each level, you come across the boss. You wouldn't know it. Yeah, they're all the same. But there they are.

23:22 It's one particular... So you can actually get to the part where the boss is, and the enemies will try to, like... There's three of them usually on the boss section. So, like, imagine, like, a platform for you, and then a bigger platform for where the bosses are. So you want to jump onto that platform. However, if you just kind of stay over on your side... I noticed this in the speed run. The other enemies will all just, like, run, jump, try to jump to catch up to you, and just fall off the side, and then that counts as... It's not even AI. Yeah. So there goes that playtesting thing we were talking about earlier. Because all you would have to do is just try that once.

23:58 Just be like, oh, I wonder how they react if you're not on there with them. But the boss isn't necessarily, like, any harder or anything like that. It takes a few more punches, and it's about par for, like, what the tournament boss is. Yeah, it's maybe, like, one of the first guys in the tournament, right? Yeah. Well, if we want to talk about the final boss... We can get there. Yeah.

24:18 That throws a couple more things at you, in that you have who I assume is the love interest from the movie... Yes. ...just sort of crouch down in the middle, and if the fight gets too close to her, she'll start to run away until she just falls off. Yeah. I thought, like, the wind was blowing her. Yeah. Like, the wind from our, like, punches and kicks was, like, blowing her off.

24:38 She's just trying to get out of the way. Yeah. So you just didn't save her in time, so you don't get the good ending. Yeah. And then... It's not true. I know. I just don't want to confuse people. Multiple branching storylines. And then it sort of, it removes the idea of cheesing the opponent to a degree, in that if he gets knocked off, he just respawns and jumps back on the platform.

25:00 And I guess that that's a fix, but it wasn't, like, that much fun of a fight. Right. And it still feels like as long as you just play incredibly aggressive, you'll be okay. Yeah. I mean, like, was that your strategy? Like, how did you fight these bosses? Well, specifically the final boss, I had to stop rushing him, because I kept rushing him and we would meet in the middle and then she would just jump off the platform.

25:27 So I just had to wait. So I was actually being more... I was turtling a little bit. So I was just, you know, kneeling down and getting him in the groin. You were sweeping the legs. Sweeping those legs. There you go. Joe, how'd you feel about the final boss? I only had her fall off the edge once and I assumed it was because we were too close to her or something. Or I thought maybe, like, oh, do I have to, like, run over there and, like, save her before she falls off? But then the second time, before I even had, like, enough data to figure out what was happening, the second time I just, like, stayed away from her and he kind of came to me and just had the fight, like, over there. And then, like, nothing.

26:00 And it was a very short fight. So I don't know if she would have fallen off if it had taken longer. But, yeah, that was it. So I was like, I guess it has to do with where you're standing.

26:09 So it was very unclear to me. Right. And you mentioned Kumiko, who is the love interest, but Mr. Miyagi is in the game, too. And you can get him... Yeah, a life-level bonus thing. Which I don't think I've ever seen that. I think she's a pickup, too. She is, yeah. But I don't think I've ever seen that where it's not like... You don't get, like, a Mr. Miyagi's head icon that you pick up. It's just the full body of Mr. Miyagi. Like, full size. Like, you pick that up for your health. And also there's...

26:35 I don't think I'm going to say this right, but Sato or Sato, he's the guy who has, like, the wooden blocks over him and he looks like he's, like, been crushed by them. He's also a level up as well. I never found him, though. But it's just... Well, he's there.

26:50 Okay. But it's just weird that Kumiko shows up as a level up thing, but then also, like, oh, yeah, and then somehow got caught and is in the final battle. I guess it's more a collection of fragmented memories of the movie. Yes. There's no... It doesn't even tell you how he got to these points. And now the typhoon. Right. It's like, why is there a typhoon? Isn't that, like, the name of the level, too? Yeah. Like, and here comes the typhoon. Like, the first level is, like, a location.

27:18 And the second level... It's really just for people that have already... I mean, yeah, everyone's gonna... Who would play this game probably saw the movie, and I'm an outlier, but... The level of assumption there is funny. It's just weird that LJN... This is an LJN game. Yeah. They came up with this. Like, let's try to follow it a little bit, but then also assume that people have seen it so they don't have to explain too much. But then they also just came up with an incredibly complex scheme for Jaws.

27:42 And Goonies. Yeah, and Goonies. And it's like, Karate Kid, they're just gonna phone it in? Yeah. I mean, like, look, if we're gonna base it off of the movie... Right? Where, like, let's see the prom. Right? That he gets stood up in. Let's play that scene. That's true. Where, like, you know, and you'd be that person. Have him fight the guy from UCLA. Right. Or make, like, maybe a series of text-based decisions where you have to try to barter with Mr. Miyagi to take you to Okinawa. You know? Like, he didn't want to take him in the movie, so maybe you have to try to make those same choices. Or if you want to make it more about the entire series and not just mostly two, have a level where you paint fences and paint houses.

28:18 You see? These are all things they could have done. Yeah. It seems like there's not enough love for the franchise in this game. And I joke about the elements that I was thinking about including, but I did write them down. I was like, I mean, if we're going to go all in on the movie, right, it just seems weird that we start with that tournament setup.

28:37 And then we go right into beat-em-up, and then we never change again. Right. I think that this game should have been either more like how it starts or just continue to change the gameplay for each level. Like, why weren't the minigames maybe just, like, more evolved things that were separate plot progressions? Like a more involved Catch the Flies, where that's a full level that takes, like, five to ten minutes to do. Yes, exactly. That's what everybody's looking for. Yes, I know that's what I want. Anybody who's played the Fly Swatter minigame in Super Mario Maker knows that they would play that. They would totally play that game. And I would like to just have that selectable in the main menu. Same. Because I like that game.

29:17 There is one other option in the main menu, though, to play against another player in a, like, basically brawler, not beat-em-up, but in the Street Fighter mode, I guess we're going to call it, like, regular fighting game. E-sports is how we're going to refer to it. You know, they don't play the Karate Kid at Evo. Yet. Yeah. But I'm sure, like, I would love to see, like, advanced strats. Not that there are any, but just, like, watch, like, two top-level Street Fighter V guys go and play the Karate Kid and see how they do. Well, I mean, what's that game where you can only... Is it Dive Kick? Isn't there, like, a pretty big...

29:54 You guys don't know what I'm talking about. I have no idea, but keep going. I think there's a fighting game, I think it's called Dive Kick, where there's one button and then the rest is just timing, that actually has quite the scene.

30:07 So it could be done with a game as simple as this, but definitely not a game as janky as this. Gotcha. Yeah, yeah. And I think it's just, like, this has now lost to time. Yeah. But maybe, you know, now that Cobra Kai is on YouTube Premium, maybe there'll be, like, some kind of resurrection for the love of the franchise. Because it's the only game. It's the only game we have. It's amazing. If we have nothing else to talk about gameplay, Joe, you feel like you... Well, the only thing about that multiplayer mode that I just noticed, I just thought it was a quirky, like, an interesting thing that I don't know if I've seen other places,

30:38 is that you face off against each other, right? That's what we're talking about. Yes, that's what we're talking about. You're facing off against each other, and you can knock people back, you know, in one direction or the other, but the stage is endless. So it's like you're on a full side-scrolling level of the game in this battle. So you could just, like, run to one direction. Like, it's just weird to me that you're not in, like... In the game, you're in an arena.

30:59 So it's weird to me that, like, in the multiplayer mode, you're not just in an arena, that you can just go infinitely to the left or the right. Now, what's that game that you really like on PS4? Nidhogg. Yes. But that's part of the game. Yeah, right. This is not incorporated into it. I don't think it's a problem. I just thought it was interesting, like an interesting choice.

31:17 That's all. I just wanted to talk about LJN in general. Yeah, okay. You want to do, like, a little report card on them? So do they... So they have a really bad rap, right? Really bad rap, and we said we weren't going to judge them, and then I proceeded to judge them pretty hard, like, minutes later. Yeah. I have... I mean, I still think that LJN is doing a bad job, but I can't really... I can't blame them for the way that they're trying. I think that a lot of it is... They're lacking a little bit of effort in terms of, like, how long these games are. Like, they're all... You can complete these in a day if you know what you're doing from the beginning. Not even just, like, after you've learned this game for too long.

32:00 But I do like that they have multiple, like, multiple modes to them. Like, they're very modal games, and it's not all the same thing over and over, like, in Mario, where you just jump to the right, jump and run to the right, and jump on stuff for the entire game. I know that. I'm just kidding. I know that. But I do like that they try and switch it up with different modes that you alternate between. Whereas, I mean, not so much in this one, because you have... It's a fighting game for maybe 10 minutes, and then it's a brawler.

32:33 But in Jaws, they had several, like, gameplay loops. And in Goonies, they had two different kinds of gameplay. I like that they're trying stuff like that, because there haven't been too many games, I don't think any, that we played that do that. And Goonies was LJN? Yes. Because I enjoyed Goonies. Like, I wouldn't give that, like, a terrible rating. I still call that Jank. Goonies was not LJN. It was not? Sorry. Gotcha. We've just been playing too many... It's okay. Gotcha. ...too many movie games. Right. Well... I can find out who did Goonies 2 for you, but Gotcha was another one of them. So now knowing that, how do you feel?

33:10 I changed that to movie games, because there's only been three, and that's the ones I was talking about. Okay, great. No, I think that that's fine. The Goonies 2 was done by Konami. Now that's surprising, right? I thought that was LJN. No, Konami's killing it, right? Did we not talk about that in the episode? I think I just brushed a show on the back of the day. Now you know how low of my memory... My memory's terrible. Yeah, because it's only been a few weeks. I didn't remember either. I was seriously asking. Well, movie games. That's what I meant. Right. LJN, still on the table. What's weird is they make a bunch of NES games, but we're not going to see them for a while after this.

33:50 Huh. So it's just like, you know, they're going to make two more games in 88, then they release like a bunch in 89. So we got a while before we really get into the thick of it, but I can't wait to play hits like Beetlejuice, Friday the 13th, NFL Football. Oh, no. Yeah, that could be interesting.

34:09 Who Framed Roger Rabbit? So they do make a bunch of these tie-ins, then. Yes, yeah, yeah. They do a bunch. I mean, the X-Men, Wolverine, WWF, three WWF games. That's great. Okay. There's got to be at least one person that during the first part of my statement was just furious at me for calling Goonies 2 and Jaws LJN games. I've made more than enough mistakes for all of us on this podcast. Yeah. All right. So I'd kind of, if we're good on the gameplay, I'd like to go into the sequels and spinoffs section that we usually do. Because there are no sequels, except for movie sequels. Let's continue the Karate Kid franchise.

35:23 So you have Karate Kid Part 3, a weird finale to the trilogy. He stays in Okinawa, right? No, he now has to protect his title against John Kreese. The guy who was... That crazy dude. The crazy dojo master. Yes, the dojo master of Cobra Kai. He now has like a, that kid embarrassed me and now I'm going to take his title from him and everything like that. And it's like, yeah, but how much older are you than him?

35:57 It doesn't really, I guess I see how they're trying to make it wrap back to the first one. But if it's me, that's Karate Kid Part 2. And then Part 3 is this fight to the death with Chosen, you know? That felt like it had bigger stakes. Yeah, that's a big climax. Instead of just going back into a tournament sort of thing. Yeah, just watch the trailer for Part 3. You definitely don't have to watch the whole movie, but watch the trailer and you get this weird vibe of like, why is that old guy trying to beat up this kid? In the first one, at least, I sort of saw him as like Dark Hasselhoff. Like that was just the bizarro version of David Hasselhoff. I don't know why. Okay. That's just a random thought.

36:33 Yeah. Actually, I see it even in the third one. He still kind of looks like Hasselhoff. Yeah. He's got this weird hair Hasselhoff thing going on. The hair is very similar. The jerry curl? I don't know. Yeah, yeah. Is that what it is? I don't know. Okay. Is that what the guy from Boy Meets World had? Did you ever watch Boy Meets World? Yeah.

36:48 Mr. Turner. Yeah, Mr. Turner. Yeah, he had that. Yeah, very cool. And then, Joe, maybe this is your segment now. The next Karate Kid. And so it's not until 1994. That's five years between releases. Right. But finally, we get to figure out what's happening on the next Karate Kid. And I believe it's the same Mr. Miyagi, right? It is, yes. Yeah. Canonically. It's not just like a reboot either. But I honestly don't remember a ton about this either. I remember there's a rock garden. I remember there's something with Mr. Miyagi wearing earplugs when she plays loud music.

37:21 And that's really all. So knowing that, okay. Knowing those major details of the movie. Knowing those things, are you upset that they didn't make a game on the Super Nintendo for it? Not if it was going to be anything like this game. I'm happy that they didn't. It probably was going to be. Then, yes. I'm happy that it didn't happen because this was a frustrating experience. Yeah. And legally, they probably weren't allowed to make Part 3 because that would have been some form of abuse to have. You're fighting an adult who's fighting a kid.

37:49 Although, I guess, how old is Daniel at that point? Obviously, he's not. They age at the same time. They age in real time. But there's between a 25-year-old fighting a 15-year-old and a 35-year-old fighting a 25-year-old. And so the trailer for Part 3 also says now it's his time to become a man, right? Playing on the Karate Kid. Now he'll become the Karate Man. But I'm like, didn't he become a man when he won a fight to the death? Wait, did he kill the guy then? No. Okay, so. Okay. Spoiler alert. So just like, you know, maybe you skip ahead for a little. But basically, at the end of Part 2, that's what he says to Chosen. He says, like, life or death. And Chosen thinks about it and then says death. Death. And then Daniel goes, wrong choice.

38:34 And, like, grabs him by the nose or something. No, he, like, grabs him by the nose or something weird. And performs, like, this finishing move but does not kill him. That's good, Daniel. Yeah. You're a good kid. Only the Japanese kill, apparently. Because Chosen was totally ready to do it. Like, I just know, you know, like, I don't know. What was the lesson? Why would he agree to the fight to the death if he wasn't? He's just a bad guy. Okay. He's just a bad guy. I got that. Yeah, I guess that was weird of me. Yeah. A little bit of a generalization there, I think. Got you. No biggie. And then we get the Karate Kid.

39:07 The reboot. It's rather a reboot and a remake, I guess. Because there was probably plans to make more movies. But a remake of the original film, now set in Beijing, with Jackie Chan and Jaden Smith. Yeah, I didn't quite understand why that was made. I haven't seen it. I don't plan to see it.

39:28 This was ahead of the curve, too, of, like, franchises from the 80s being rebooted or remade, right? Like, it wasn't like, and this wasn't necessarily... What year was that? 2010. Wow. So it's not like it was going to make gangbusters anyway. Like, it's not like Karate Kid 1 had, like, oh, everybody who saw that movie would take their kid to see it. But, and also, I don't think, like, at the time, Jaden Smith didn't have, like, a ton of memes about it. He was still young. So that worked in their favor, too. Like, I don't think that they cast it incorrectly at that point.

39:58 Jackie Chan is a big name. So it's weird, but it didn't make enough money to bring any sequels in. And I personally haven't even seen it, so I can't speak to how good it is. I did see it. I remember thinking it was fine. I thought it was, you know, fine. I don't think we needed it either, but I thought it was a good movie, a decent movie or whatever. I remember thinking, I don't remember much about it, but I remember thinking it was anticlimactic at the end. Okay. So it was still a good movie? I thought it was okay. I don't know. It was normal? I'd have to watch it again. But, yeah, it was like one of those movies you go see, you kind of forget. It was like, oh, there was nothing. It didn't jump out. I wasn't bored. I enjoyed it. Okay. But, yeah.

40:34 And then we have the Karate Kid animated series. Oh. On NBC. When was this? This was like right after part two-ish. Wow. They put on, like, it was a very mini-series thing. And the animation is about as poor as you would think, but like maybe similar to like G.I. Joe quality. Did you ever see those G.I. Joe? Yeah. Nice. I can see it. PSAs. Yeah, it looked like that. And Ralph Macchio does look significantly older in this series. Body massage? Or at least taller. But Mr. Miyagi wears like Jurassic Park gear. Like, you know, he's wearing like that. He's wearing like safari gear. You know? Jurassic Park. Well, I always think of that guy in Jurassic Park.

41:17 So you're saying that he looks like... Jeff Goldblum. Not Jeff Goldblum. No, not Jeff Goldblum. Who's the other guy? The old dude. Yeah, the old dude. It was John Hammond. John Hammond. Which was funny because like you would think that that would like bring a realization to me. But I know who I'm picturing. But I also don't know that guy from anything else. I think that's really his only thing. Thank goodness. Spare no expense. All right. So that's the animated series in a nutshell.

41:40 It's very short-lived. And now, of course, Cobra Kai on YouTube Premium. I had no idea that it had anything to do with the whole series. Yeah. I just kept seeing them push it. It is the guy who originally played Johnny. Yeah. He's basically like the main character. But it follows both Daniel and Johnny rekindling their old rivalry after Johnny reopens the Cobra Kai dojo. Is Ali in it?

42:05 Ali? With an I? Oh. You know, to be honest, I don't know. Like I have not watched the series at all. Yeah. I wonder if this series, I mean, it considers the whole thing canon, right? All three of them? I think so. Yeah. All three of them. Yeah, probably. So even the... Oh, but it's Johnny. It's not the old guy that... Right. Not the old guy. Johnny Lawrence. Not the old John. Yeah, yeah. This is the... But like I remember actually I did get to see the first like three minutes of this because I had YouTube premium for one month for free. Yeah. I've never paid for that.

42:35 It's funny that they're like trying to make you pay to get rid of like a thing that no one wants. Yeah, I know. Like, you know, we're restricting these features for you. Please pay. But I watched like the first three minutes and I just remember thinking like, oh, this is like... This is an uncanny valley of filmmaking. Really? Because it's... It should be good. Like it's YouTube, which is Google, right? So they have a lot of money. So it should be produced well enough that it looks like a movie or a TV series. But it's got like this weird thing where it also feels kind of fan made at the same time. So it's got like the... It's got the high budget, but with the look of a fan made... That's so weird.

43:12 You know, Karate Kid TV series. I guess I'll have to watch at least a trailer for it. Yeah, definitely check it out, the trailer. Anybody who's interested to check out the trailer because I think like it's a neat approach to bringing back the Karate Kid series. They're all in their 40s now, right? Or 50s. Yeah, yeah. 40s or 50s.

43:29 And, you know, I think his performance in it, those first three minutes, I didn't feel like, oh, he's a really bad actor. So at least he was able to do himself in that regard. But like, I just think like the quality of the show was off-putting to me. I was surprised. Huh. All right. Let's go into the Essential Games list.

43:51 All right. You guys know the rules by now. If two people voted Essential, that means that it's going to become an Essential Game and you all must play it once it becomes Essential. Mandatory. Will it live up to the ranks of The Legend of Zelda and Super Mario Brothers and Stinger? I always like to pick like one of the weirder ones that we've done, Stinger, because I will not mention Slalom, which is on there. You just did. Which is on there. You ruined it. As of right now. Sean, what do you got? I would first like to preface this by apologizing to our listeners for thinking that Jaws and Goonies 2 were LJN.

44:30 I would secondly like to say that this is not an Essential Game. It is just too bad in every regard. I don't have any way to describe it other than that. But I do like the fly-catching game. Great. And so for that, you would put that on like maybe recommendationsforaddictinggames.com. The fly-catching game itself would be Essential, right? Yeah. Yeah, if it was like, yeah. Just a fly-catching game. I thought it would be a good like prequel to Mr. Mosquito for the PS2.

45:04 Oh, good call. Nice. I like that. You got to check that out. You seem like you don't know what that is. I don't know. Check that out. I'm actually, until you chimed in, I don't know if he was just like messing with us with like a fake title. It's weird how much we know about like fly-catching because I mentioned the fly-swatter game earlier for Super Mario Maker, but it's also from, that's originally from Mario Paint. So this even has like a legacy of its own. Wow. And then there's also that episode of Hey Arnold.

45:28 There's that episode of Hey Arnold where grandma teaches him how to catch the bug with his hand. Yeah, yeah. I remember this. And that's why I kill bugs with my hand like that. Why would you say to everybody that you killed bugs? Right. You are a monster. Grandma from Hey Arnold did not teach to kill. Oh, to catch. Right. Yes. Catch and release. Guys, you know why I killed them? Because they're trying to suck my blood. Yeah, but. Mosquitoes. Okay. That's what they're called. Mosquito, vampire, same thing. You don't know it's a mosquito and not a vampire until you've killed it.

45:58 Mosquitoes don't historically. They might. They're bats. That's true. We might have the folklore wrong. That's true. That would be a good move on the vampire's part. Right. The vampires have been spreading all this yellow journalism about.

46:12 About them being bats. They're actually mosquitoes. Yellow journalists. Just pulling that out from 9th grade AP history. Okay. You took 9th grade AP history? They did. What? Yeah. Joe? Okay. Before I start the essential games list, I do want to mention one stray thought that I kind of forgot to bring up before. Is it more stray than bugs and catching them? It's less stray than that. But when you beat this game, you get a screen of Mr. Miyagi. And there's music playing. Maybe we can play the music now. There's music playing.

46:49 And the text comes up. Mr. Miyagi is praising you. It says, you have successfully guided Daniel-san through all of the challenges and have become a martial arts master. The end. And it basically just... No, he winks at you first. He winks at you. Then the music just cuts out and it just... The end. Abruptly. It's like very... I don't know. Maybe it was just me, but it was very jarring and unceremonious to me. I think that's why Sean thought that The Goonies 2 was an LJN game. Yeah. Because if you remember at the end of that game, it says game over. You beat it.

47:23 Anyway. My essential games list vote. So, I was thinking back to games like Muscle and a couple of other fighting games we played back then. And I honestly, I think I would rather play one of those than this. And the reason why... Stay with me here. The reason why is because this game is just playable enough to get me to want to keep playing. Like, I could beat this game. Yeah. Which, where it's like Muscle, I'm pretty quickly like, well, this game sucks. Like, I played it. Like, I get it. I'm not going to go any further. Where this, I'm just like, it just made me want to keep playing because, like, out of like spite. So, it's essential.

48:00 No. Because it was a very frustrating experience to beat it. But I, you know, I kind of had a feeling it was short. So, I thought I could beat it. And it was just... And I did beat it. But it was just not fun.

48:11 It's never good when it's a chore to beat a game. Right. But also when you follow up on that chore. Because I did the same thing. I knew there were only four stages. I got through the first stage pretty fast. I said, well, might as well finish the game. We're going to be talking about it for like 40 plus minutes. Should probably play the whole thing. And it's such a chore to beat this game.

48:32 I really don't know what to say that you guys haven't. The only thing I'll add is that this game started kind of strong for me by switching between those two modes and then just chose to just drop the ball there. You know? The hit boxes in this game really threw me for a loop in how I felt like I was just missing everybody. So, that's why I just switched to kicking only. And that became very not fun. It was just basically like, oh, this is my... Yeah. This is my move. This is what I do. I just imagine like Daniel in Japan just kicking everybody he sees in the face.

49:08 Also, what's up with like the limited amount of enemies? Like, we've seen better things by now. Yeah. I think that this probably made a lot of money because it has the Karate Kid name on it. The Karate Kid seems like it would translate pretty well into a video game. So, why not buy it for 60 bucks, right? Well, I think a lot of kids got tricked probably around that. I mean, like we're coming up on Christmas time now in 1987. Oh, yes. So, you know, this would be prime time for people to hope that they can get Karate Kid 1 on NES. But based on part 2, I just can't get over that either. That's just strange. But that's going to be video games in general, right? Like, we already had Goonies 2, which was not even based on anything.

49:46 Just based on the Goonies 1 Famicom only game. I feel like... Just going off topic for a second. I feel like the mermaid in Goonies 2 is sort of just like Mr. Poopy Butthole in Rick and Morty. Like, it just assumes you know that it is. Yeah, it's kind of like, and me, the mermaid.

50:05 Your friend. That's never going to get old for Sean. You just can't believe that they put a mermaid in that game. I love the mermaid. Anyway, it's not essential for all of the reasons that we've already mentioned in this podcast. So, I need not say any more. Don't waste your time on this one. I think, honestly, go back to Kung Fu. Like, that's... Yeah. It's... That game is... It was almost essential. And it's really weird. Like, the art style in that game feels like nothing else that came out in 85 and also just doesn't feel good anymore.

50:36 Looking at it, it dates itself immediately. And then there's that voice synthesis in that. But this is not me recommending Kung Fu either. I'm just saying that if you have any interest in playing Karate Kid, maybe consider Kung Fu before you start. I would say Kung Fu. Head and shoulders. No contest over this game. Very interesting. Just because of the way it controls.

50:56 But that fly-catching, chopstick game. Yeah, that's true. You can't catch flies in Kung Fu. Perfect game. Kung Fu, but with a fly-catching game. Yeah. And you play as Sylvia. Yeah, exactly. Who was the woman who was kidnapped in Kung Fu. Right. Anyway, that's all the time we have for this episode of Nostalgia. Thank you so much for listening. If you want to hear more, you can go to www.nostalgiacast.com. There we have thoughts on all other games, episodes, links to those other episodes, recommendations on what you should play. A comprehensive tagging system where you can search for the tags of things and then see everything else that those people have made. So if you see like Miyamoto, click on him and then it'll take you to all of Miyamoto's games.

51:40 That's really cool. Yeah, we've got like HTTPS now. Yeah. You can log in. It's a secure website. There's no logging, but it is HTTPS. Wow. Guaranteed. That's great. Another thing that we do. Web 2.0. Right. We don't sell anybody's email addresses. So you can't say that about Google. Yeah. We don't have trackers. Right. Wait, unless like Squarespace just puts them on there. But also on an unrelated note, if anybody is willing to buy email addresses, please email us and let us know. Yeah. We would love to know. We would love to get into that business.

52:11 I think, yeah. And whether, you know, whether we might just be sitting on emails. I'm not saying they're your guys' emails that you've been giving us as you contact us, but you can contact us. There's a little contact form. And there's also, we have like nostalgiacast at gmail.com. You can do that. But I think the contact form to the website is the best way, honestly. Or Twitter. A lot of people DM us on Twitter. I like that. Thoughts. People tag us in things. Slide into them. Slide into my DMs. I'm Michael Esposito. You can find me on at Esposito Film on Twitter. And I'll talk to you soon.

53:09 And welcome to the post show. We got a little post show today. Wow. This is a surprise. Yeah. Just karate in general. Just karate. All thoughts on karate. Because we, you know, this is the karate kid. But I didn't really get the feeling that we did any talking about karate. You're right. We didn't. Knowledge of karate. Yeah. What do you know about karate?

53:27 Very little. My stepbrother was taking karate when I, like, met them. And that's really it. I know he had a yellow belt in his closet. And I never took it. Yeah. And what I like about the belts in karate is that they're soft. They're soft belts. Yeah. They're, like, you know, like, they're made of a nice quality and everything. They're not, like, belts that you wear around your dress page. Wear one of those to work. Yeah. Why not? It's comfortable. Why not wear, like, a full gi?

53:55 Right. Yeah. You should. And another thing that I don't like, though, are people who have the belts that are actually seat belts. You know? Like, seat belts are fine. In general? Seat belts are essential in cars. Yeah. But people who put the seat belts around their pants, you know? Are we just talking about, like, alternative attire?

54:12 They're, you know. I know that, like, the buckle part. In karate? I've seen the buckle. Not in karate. No, just in belts in general. You're talking about the buckle part of the belt, right? Yeah. The seat belt buckle. I was imagining, like, the material of the seat belt. You know, that's fun. Like, a really, you know, stupid way. Something you can only probably pick up at Zoomies or, um, what's that other store? Hold on. People might go to Zoomies.

54:32 Or wear seat belts. Buckle belts. Yeah. People should wear, yeah, people should wear seat belts. Yeah, definitely wear your seat belt, folks. Even in the back seat. Why not? Especially in the back seat. You can get thrown forward. I don't get why people don't wear it in the back seat. Speaking of seats, too, like, we should probably just tell everybody that it's important that you guys invest in a good chair. That's true. We are sponsored by Lazy Boy.

54:54 We are not. Why are we throwing that out? We're just giving them free advertising. In fact, you know what? I'm not exactly sold that Lazy Boy is worth the money. It's not very expensive stuff for what seems to just be a lot of padding. See, I feel like Mike only came up with this idea because he definitely doesn't want to be pro Lazy Boy, and he's trying to make sure people don't think we're sponsored by them.

55:16 Well, Sean's sponsored by Lazy Boy. I'm sponsored by me as a person, wherever I go, whether I'm on the podcast or just on the subway, I'm just spouting praise to Lazy Boy. Well, that's because you're part of their eSports team. I am. You're on Lazy Boy Gaming. Virtuous pro Lazy Boy of division. Yep. And you Twitch stream on a Lazy Boy sofa. It's true. I'm, do they have ats in Twitch? Yeah, they have. Yeah, I'm at Lazy Gamer Sean. That sounds convincing. Yeah. Yeah, they don't have ats on Twitch, you idiot.

55:48 Lazy Game Boy. Ooh. Lazy Game Boy. Who said that? I don't know. Nope. And so that's our post show about karate. We didn't talk about karate, though. Oh, interesting. Okay. Yeah, yeah. So anything else? People think karate is just martial arts, right? No. In general. It's all of it. It's a form of martial arts.

56:08 It's a martial art. I think it's very American or skews American, but there's like, martial arts is like, there's like just so many different types of things. I'm very impressed whenever I see any kind of form of martial arts. Just like rum chata. Yeah, that's not a martial arts. That's a mixed drink. Oh. Not a mixed martial art. Oh. I didn't know that. There's kendo, which is like basically lightsaber fighting. Kombucha? No. Right? Yeah. Kombucha is fermented something, right? Yeah. Fermented coffee? Okay. I thought that was like the, I thought that kombucha was like the Brazilian one.

56:45 The people who drink kombucha and the people who are either on this show or listen to this show, those Venn diagrams don't touch. I've had kombucha before. I've never had kombucha. See? This is what I'm talking about. This is me telling you you're off the show.

57:02 But if you listen and you drink kombucha, just know. Mike is judging you. We know. No, no, yeah. You're like one more strike away. George. Watch out, George. One of these times we're going to get the name accurate with what we're talking about and it's going to be mind blowing for that person.

57:21 Yeah. Okay. I've got nothing else. I have nothing else to say. And that's when three people say that, that means that it's the end of the show. Sounds like Mike had something else to say. Nope. I just wanted to be the last person to talk. All right. Well, that's all the time we got. Good night, everybody. Good night. All right. Well, goodbye. Bye.