Ho boy. Ho Jo. This should be interesting. Most of us have stayed at a hotel that's supplied guests with Nintendo or Sega systems to be rented by the hour. Sometimes you've gotta pay for 'em at the desk, other times they're already in your room waiting to be played at the push of a button. The selection of games is limited, and in most cases, the games are way outdated. On a recent trip to Atlantic City, I was faced with the opportunity of shelling out ten bucks for a quick game of "Donkey Kong Country" for the Super Nintendo -- a wonderful title, but at this point, you could just buy the dang game for that kinda money. I don't think many kids would care how old the video games are; when you're stuck in a boring hotel room with nothing to do, it's either playing old games or go for a spirited round of "hey let's find out if the vending machine stocks Dr. Pepper." Cranky Kong's probably dead by now, but I'd rather make him snort than reread the check-out rules over and over again.
During the 1990s, fabled hotel chain Howard Johnson went after this untapped market in a big way. The availability of video games became one of their strongest selling points -- they'd subversively advertise towards parents, making veiled references to how less annoying their kids would be if they spent the trip focused on Sonic the Hedgehog. I've got no idea how well the campaign worked out for 'em, but it was successful enough to warrant a two volume set of Game Gear video tips starring the two most disgusting human beings who've ever walked Earth.
"Sega Game Gear Tips," volumes I & II, challenge kids to spend the night at the "Sega Zone," venturing to "play cool, be cool and live forever." It's all on the back of the box. So I get these tapes the other day, and I'm figuring they'll be just like all of the other video game tip videos I've seen. Cheesy and no longer useful, but fun to watch nonetheless. Nope. Apparently the videos' previous owner knew that these were "reviewable," having seen the events unfold and growing absolutely confident that he held the worst set of videos ever produced. And he did. And he sent them to me. Not sure if I'm supposed to thank him for this.
I was never a big Game Gear guy. I had the system, but didn't receive it until well after its hot period. My friends had already moved on to other, more expensive things. I only had two games -- "Sonic the Hedgehog," which was a lot of fun, and "Mortal Kombat," which...nah, it wasn't for me. Seeing Sonya do that weird upside-down kick thing with such fluidity seemed amazing to me (at least when compared to Nintendo's "Game Boy"), but I couldn't get past the fact that Goro, almighty Goro, was roughly the size of my dirtiest toenail. As I recall, an intrusive piece of dust managed to get under my Game Gear's front screen, so whenever I played anything, I'd have to really focus my brainpower to avoid devoting full attention to the Speck from Hell. I lost many games, and lives. No more than three weeks after receiving my Game Gear, I threw it in a box and said "t'hells wich chas."
I've got no emotional attachment to any of the games shown on these tapes. I'm not blinded with the kind of loyalty needed to write off the villainy of what's shown as mere innocence and inexperience from the poor Howard Johnson janitor they hired to film it. While the games covered vary in the two videos, all of the live action segments remain the same. As I soon found out, this was the worst news anyone could've given me.
 
Things kick off normally enough, with a shot of a generic Howard Johnson hotel beaming through the rainy gray clouds. A guest pulls up; he's alone, probably away on business, and all he wants is his comfy temporary bed. At this, the video's fifteen-second mark, we've now expended all scenes contained within that didn't make me want to break my own spine. Thankfully, the videos only run about twenty minutes a piece.
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There's the cast. The entire cast. The guy on the right is the hotel guest -- a fat guy who apparently took acting lessons from the School of How To Make "Why Me?" Faces And Do Nothing Else. On the left is a more worthy enemy...the hotel guy. Hotel Guy is sort of a combination of Bill S. Preston, Wayne Campbell and Ninja Turtle Michaelangelo; he's a party animal with a day job, and Hotel Guy knows the truth we've so readily denied: a person could, in fact, manage to work the word "bummer" into every sentence they spoke for a solid twenty-minute block.
Hotel Guy insists that Fat Man try out a Sega Game Gear, because Howard Johnson spent a lot of money on 'em. Fat Man is less than enthusiastic about the opportunity, responding with a grunt that was far too loud and long to be anything less than a fart masker. It's never explicitly said that you'd have to pay to use the Game Gear, but I'm assuming that's how it worked. Not like they went handing those black beauties out to every Tom, Dick and whore du jour that drunkenly wandered in the place at 3 AM. Even stranger is the fact that the video is aimed at parents, not kids. This is supposed to be the big sell for families to base vacations at a Howard Johnson hotel. You've gotta wonder just how many people over the age of three could stomach more than thirty-seconds of Hotel Guy shoving his face in the camera and spraying an ancient spell that makes all who hear it want to destroy he who spoke it. I'm coming for you, Hotel Guy.
 VIDEO: Meet the cast. Try not to kill them.
 
To Howie's credit, there's a shitload of tips on each of the videos. Way more than you'd expect, and though I've never played most of these games, the hints did seem fairly useful. Unlike some of the other tip videos, Howard Johnson actually showed you the precise point of the game to correspond with whatever silly tip they were spreading. I won't catalog every title covered (and I'm sure you thank me for that), but check out the following clip for a better feel of what went on. It's about some Power Rangers game. Back in the days of Rita Repulsa and that guy with all the cute little clay monsters. Before the dark times.
VIDEO: The Power Rangers are so tiny on Game Gear yeah.
 
Back to the live action (YES!), we quickly learn the running gag for these videos. Hotel Guy isn't just Hotel Guy -- he's also Pool Guy, Lunch Guy, Maid Guy and oh God please kill him. Just as quick is Fat Man's descent into madness, neither understanding how Hotel Guy is every guy or accepting the fact that he himself is only like, 4/10ths of a point less annoying than his oppressor.
Did I mention the special effects? Aside from all of the jump cuts (which number in the thousands), there's a recurring effect involving strobe lights. Sometimes, everyone bathes in the beating, beeping, grating illumination of a strobe light. Other times, no strobe light. The background score alternates between porn twangs and a rockin' beat that I'm sure was the result of an off-camera stagehand making gurgling sounds while punching tables. I'm really interested to see if either of these schmucks were ever in movies -- perhaps they were diamonds in the rough, just waiting for the right teacher to come along and help scrub the skin of annoyance from their putrid life shells. Nah. The director probably just hired people he owed money to.
 
The saga continues. Fat Man wants lunch, but Hotel Guy is too preoccupied with Sega to take his order. Some of the menu choices included, and I'm serious: Sonic Salad, Knuckle Knockwurst, Shining Force Sandwich and a Robotnik Rueben. Occasionally, a video box will pop over a window with a guy inside telling everyone how great the hotel is. I have no idea what to make of all this. There's enough lines and video game jokes for me to see that it's scripted, but at the same time, how could the spoken atrocities be anything but misconceived ad libs? Maybe Hotel Guy just wanted to interject a little personality into his part, usually through words like "tubular" and "gnarly." Maybe this is just one of those tapes that you finish watching, look up, and see Satan holding a sign reading "hey stupid you're dead and in Hell."
Fat Man responds to the insanity with an appropriate "what are ya talkin' about," only he says it with such fierce, piercing pestilence that I kept rewinding the tape to see if it lost its unholy power after the 65th viewing. It didn't. Even after viewing #66, I still wanted to murder.
VIDEO: Fat man wants lunch, crazy idiot won't let him eat.
 
Hotel Guy stops being Waiter Guy and turns into Pool Guy, and Fat Man just can't handle it. Understand? Actually, this is the real money scene of the video in terms of sheer horriblech, as Fat Man runs the emotional gamut from "distressed" to "angry" to "holding his breath to make everything jiggle" in a scant six seconds. Pool Guy is just like everyone else -- he's not interested in showing off Howard Johnson's many amenities...he just wants everyone to play play Game play yo Game Gear play yo yo Sega HO-JO! This is how he says it, folks. At the tail end of an exchange that makes 1st season Sam & Diane seem absolutely Shakespearean, Fat Man unleashes a line so unbelievably brutal that my VCR sprouted two eyes and lips just so it could give me a pissy face...
"I don't wanna play your Game Gear, I just wanna go for a little swim, mooookay??!!"
Pool Guy backs off at that one, mostly because Fat Man looks nearly Metaluna in those goggles. Metaluna and stupitt. You'd hate that scene even more if you knew what it led to. I'll show you. And then you'll hate that scene even more. Flawless victory.
VIDEO: I JUST WANT TO GO FOR A SWIM!
 
Fat Man solemnly heads back to his room, saddened by yellowed waters and Pool Guys who look and talk like Hotel Guys and Waiter Guys. Eh. As our gigantic hero enters, he notices a leggy maid fixing the bed. We share in Fat Man's glorious view of her glorious ass, and since he's away from home and all, why not push for a little infidelity? With that, we're treated to scenes of Fat Man oogling a shapely behind, licking his fingers to fix his hair, and making sure the changes in his groin area remain neatly tucked by a pair of swimshorts three sizes too small.
Oh, if you were hoping that we'd see Fat Man from every possible camera angle imaginable -- half-naked -- this is your night.
 
Yes, of course, the maid was really Hotel Guy, shaved legs and all. Fat Man's finally had all he can take -- he faints on the spot, causing a loud "thud" to swiftly spread through Howard Johnson's halls with a mixture of vibrating walls and animal sick. By the way, you've gotta hear Fat Man's pickup line. "Do a good job with those pillows, miss." Jeez. If you look like Fat Man, you'll want better material than that.
Fortunately, this final incident breaks his spirit. He's ready to give Game Gear a try.
VIDEO: Radical dude thinks he has a puddy.
 
Hey, how about that? Fat Man loves it! He loves Game Gear! Following sitcom tradition, Fat Man starts playing an intense game the second he turns on the power, skipping the whole "stage select" bit. Why do they always do that? The people who'd be turned on by seeing video games played on television or in movies know that it doesn't work like that. It just pisses everyone off and makes them transform into demons, or worse, critics. More importantly, this must be Fat Man's first experience with acting like he enjoys video games, because instead of playing like any regular human being, he seems to go through the motions of fission while chirping and beeping aloud.
VIDEO: Video games make people chirp and beep.
 
It's a storybook ending. Fat Man forgives Hotel Guy for the previous inconveniences, and he's even honest enough to return the Game Gear after his cab begins its slow crawl towards to the airport. Then, in a strange twist, Fat Man magically turns into Hotel Guy. I'm not sure why it happened, or what it was supposed to symbolize. I'm just glad it's over.
As stupid as the videos are, I don't think we should come down too hard on 'em. Like I said earlier, kids would've been thrilled to see anything having to do with video games in an otherwise flaccid hotel room. Even if that "anything" was a video starring Fat Man and Hotel Guy. Obviously, only the least up-to-snuff Howard Johnson hotels would still be stocked with Sega Game Gear systems. It's a dying trend. Speaking of dying trends, here's a whimsical novelty score for the videos:
Four and a half Alex Kidd Ass-Monsters. Out of a possible 600.
-- Matt (3/09/04)
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