I love Popeye. The Editors and Staff of Mr. Blog’s Tepid Ride love Popeye. This blog would be something very different without Popeye. Who doesn’t love Popeye? This guy.
From Wikipedia, the Wimpy of websites: In 2001, Popeye (along with Bluto, Olive, and twin Wimpys) appeared in a
television commercial for Minute Maid Orange juice. The commercial, produced by Leo Burnett Co, showed Popeye and Bluto as friends (and neglecting Olive Oyl) due to their having had Minute Maid Orange Juice that morning. The ad agency’s intention was to show that even the notable enemies would be in a good mood after their juice, but some, including Robert Knight of the Culture and Family Institute, felt the commercial’s intent was to portray the
pair in a homosexual romantic relationship—an allegation that Minute Maid denies.
Popeye, orange juice, friendship? How much more wholesome can this be? I can’t believe this could possibly be homosexual. Let’s see the evidence.
Well.
That’s just… well.
Okay, moving on, here is another Popeye commercial, this one from the long-ago days of 1983.
Watch!
Three screens! WOW! The technology is AMAZING!
But to be honest, I love that game. Up until last year, I even had it on my cell phone. (Until I got tired of it, that is. After all, it only has three screens.)
So I learned a valuable life lesson on Thursday: It’s beyond humiliating to die on the first level of Burger Time while a 7-year old watches.
I suppose that odd epiphany merits a drop of explanation. Unfortunately you can’t get the whole story….yet. So for now, let’s just say that on Thursday, Mr. B and I had cause to be in a certain New Jersey town for a certain appointment, which we will definitely both be writing about in the near future when we are able. And during our stay in that certain town, we passed the coolest vintage arcade, where I beclowned myself in front of a slackjawed kid.
This was the coolest old-school arcade, they had all the BEST games from when I was a kid:
So of course, I basically dragged Mr. B in. Not that he needed much convincing, I could barely tear him away from the Turbo machine when it was time to go.
I was a fat, four-eyed nerdy kid with a big mop of unkempt hair (I’ve changed plenty over the years – I’m going bald) but when I walked into the arcade, it was my dojo and I was the black belt star pupil. I’d go for an hour on Centipede, or beat you in Street Fighter 2 faster than you could say Hadoken Shoryuken! How good was I at these things – any and all of these things? Let’s put it this way: I beat Street Fighter 2 on one quarter using Zangief – and I didn’t once use his spinning piledriver. Now you probably had a life, so the last paragraph was gibberish for you, I’ll translate: I WAS THAT. DAMN. GOOD.
So I swagger in, still on a high from that certain appointment, and I see all my old favorites, and I’m so excited……until I start to play.
And die. And die. And die.
The fail started quick, when I lasted all of 20 seconds on Donkey Kong Jr. I mean c’mon, I do complicated data mining operations every day at work, and I couldn’t get any traction on this:
And it wasn’t just rust either. In successive order, I was quickly dispatched on the following: Spy Hunter, Double Dragon, Alien Syndrome, Mario Brothers, and Zaxxon, before bottoming out on Burger Time in front of the kid.
It’s kind of deflating to be defeated by primitive pattern-based 1981 programming. I rallied at the end with a good run on Mrs. Pac-Man (kind of a gimmie really, but I needed some something to salve my ego)
I suppose I enjoyed playing all those cool old games from my youth again, but stinking up the joint (and paying for the privilege) kind of takes the bloom off the rose. So what did I do? I went home and proceeded to get absolutely skunked at Call of Duty on my X-box. Some days you just can’t catch a break!
In the meantime, there’s a Donkey Kong kill screen coming up if you’re interested:
Mr. Blog's Tepid Ride 
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