Nintendo Cartoon Hour

Pop-ups (19 · 6 fan picks from YouTube comments · 1 clip to watch whole)

1. Fans point here

   3:10

   2 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 114 likes.

   I'm not secretly watching the Dodger game or something on another TV. I'm just raw-dogging it, fully focused. You're mentally raw-dogging this pod. Yeah, just, whew, it's rough. I'm just raw-dogging it right now. But,… — Akiva

2. Fans point here

   5:02

   1 YouTube comment timestamps this moment, 8 likes.

   It's the astronaut episode of The Simpsons. You also inadvertently quoted my favorite line of Kevin Costner in Robin Hood, Prince of Phoenix. Oh, when he says... No, the other half. The latter part of it. Oh, sorry to…

3. Fans point here

   8:47

   2 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 2 likes.

   And so you don't want that to be the last thing you see before you try to fall asleep. Um, I did text Matthew Reese because we are pals ish because so did I, so did I. Yeah. And what do you say? Well, I had a great… — Akiva

4. Quumpets and the Quid

   15:48

   A listener term 'quids' is said aloud and Seth pronounces 'quumpets' with a laugh, a callback to the British listener name.

   One detail here is not in the transcript.

   The quids. Right. The quids.
   Quid

5. Brexit and the buoy-boy mix-up

   16:37

   Seth jokes that a Brit mispronouncing buoy as boy is a Brexit problem, a longstanding bit on corrections.

   I blame Brexit. This is a Brexit thing.

6. I'm Chris Nolan, but on Naked Gun

   19:24

   Akiva adapts Nolan's praise into a bit about what counts as genius, a callback to Nolan's MacGruber fandom.

   I'm no Chris Nolan, but on Naked Gun, I'm Chris Nolan.

7. Quaid Army in the New Yorker crossword

   23:10

   A New Yorker mini crossword clue reads 'Army' with the note that Quaids are the fans of the show, a callback to Quaid Army.

   or Quaid for fans of the Seth Meyers podcast.
   Quaid Army

8. Winter soldier style

   24:15

   A reference to the Quaid winter soldier joke appears during the crossword discussion.

   New York Times trying to winter soldier us
   winter soldier

9. Fans point here

   30:17

   2 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 5 likes.

   Yeah, he's very good. By the way, Jeff, I don't even think when I started, I knew I was going to burn you. Yeah, I know. I knew. I felt so authentically like I was complimenting you that I realized. It's like as he's…

10. Greg's intro and the gift card joke

    31:39

    Greg Chun's jingle intro gets a riff, with the hosts telling Quaids to send gift cards to his P.O. box.

    Offer only available to members of the Quaid Army.
    Quaid Army

11. How Nintendo Cartoon Hour began

    32:49

    The guys explain that Nintendo Cartoon Hour was made for a Channel 101 Saturday-morning-cartoon theme, made when they had little money but a Nintendo NES and a Hi8 camera.

    Our agents introduced us to the only people they introduced us to almost that whole first year

12. Hi8 camera and the NES footage

    35:48

    Their camera was a Hi8 with RCA inputs, so they could record gameplay directly from the NES and import it for editing in early Final Cut.

    we realized we could play Nintendo on the teeny little screen on this camera if we wanted

13. Final Cut 'Gimme' and 'Beta'

    36:37

    Akiva and Jorma joke about early Final Cut version names, a bit they build on as a running gag about versions.

    Final Cut Gimme. Yeah, Final Cut Gimme. Then there was Final Cut 1. It was called First Cut.

14. Final Cut Gimme

    36:37

    A joke name for an early Final Cut release, which gets a laugh and foreshadows a bit about the gimme.

    Final Cut Gimme. Yeah, Final Cut Gimme.

15. Still-frame cutouts from game footage

    37:04

    Because they had no real compositing tools, they made JPEG stills from footage and cut out characters, a technique that became part of the short's look.

    So what we would do is we would do a still frame. So it just became a JPEG.

16. Power Pad mat and Nintendo dance mats

    40:13

    The Power Pad was an NES mat accessory that looked like Twister; the hosts recall almost nobody owned one.

    There was a power pad thing, which was a mat that looked like Twister

17. Watch the whole thing

    Nintendo Cartoon Hour

    42:29

    The hosts play this one in 10 parts from 42:29 (168 seconds of it in all, talking over the rest). Watch the whole thing here, from thelonelyisland on YouTube.

    Watch the whole thing (2:57) thelonelyisland on YouTube

18. Fans point here

    45:35

    2 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 4 likes.

    I'm okay. MCMI. People call me Milk. What's the name of the song, Keith? I'm racking my brain. That's what you got. You got it good. So if you understood, it's going to get to it in the chorus. Stop looking and looking…

19. Four-player NES adapter

    50:28

    A splitter accessory let the NES host four players at once, which Seth says he never knew existed.

    that game came with this extender piece, like a splitter, and you could play four players at once on the NES

20. Free NES games from a Salvation Army

    51:13

    Much of the early game library came free or from a thrift box, which Seth frames as a lesson in feeling rich despite having no money.

    we're at a Salvation Army and found a box. That's where all this other stuff came from.

21. Eating canned chili and kava kava

    51:51

    The guys describe early LA life: canned chili, Budweiser, and kava kava pills from Jorma's studio apartment.

    we would just eat canned chili, drink bottles of Budweiser, and take cava cava

22. Fans point here

    53:08

    7 YouTube comments timestamp this moment, 21 likes.

    I'll just call Stacy. So the over-the-top game, Spy Hunter, that I know, this one looks like OutRun, but I don't think OutRun was on the Nintendo. I think this was OutRun, though, isn't it? No, OutRun is a convertible,…

23. Richard Harris, Downhill Racer editor

    53:54

    Akiva praises Downhill Racer's editor Richard Harris, a legend who also cut Terminator 2 and Titanic.

    I was like, I know we always said we're not Richard Harris, but watch this and tell me we're not.

24. The quump bump

    57:55

    Seth and Akiva check the view count and call it a possible quump bump, a term for a viewership spike from the show.

    This might be the biggest quump bump.
    qumpQuaid bump

25. Changing old YouTube uploads to HD

    59:18

    Akiva describes a trick where early YouTube let them swap an old video for a higher-quality version without changing the URL or view count.

    here's the link to the standing video that has all the hits. And here's the one I just did that's private.

26. Burrito and fake IDs

    1:05:13

    Jorma's fake ID story: a cop finds his fake ID in 1990s California and lets him go.

    I was like, you're just going to let me keep this? Hell yeah.