Süper Mario

 Do you like Mario? Of course you do, but would you like it even better if he was: 

A, Turkish,

 and B, an obscure TV programme you could play along on your touch tone phone in order to... well I don't know Turkish at all, so there may not be any point to this all.

Bonus background on this, for a while, we've been bringing back a bunch of tapes thrown in the recycling bin at work, tossed during lockdown. They are from, I'm guessing, a Turkish house clearance, as they are all from Star TV from back in the 90's, with a few home broadcasts thrown in (some Top of The Pops and Sabrina Live at Montreaux festival is on the one pictured below along with..).

Gost Bastes 

I've dug out my old Video grabber and along with OBS, am currently going through these tapes and grabbing anything interesting and obscure on the way. Hence our current find of Super Mario.

SO WHAT IS IT.

Remember those times on Going Live where you would play a game using a touch tone phone. Those with the highest score would win, it was normally something like, Top Banana or such, but there were other games as well.  Well Süper Mario is exactly like that but drawn out into a whole show.

You essentially play Mario World, until all your lives are lost, the first Yoshi's Island bit via an old Touch Tone Phone, indeed most of this are just long beeps as you try to jump and fail. The host, Gül Ozan, gives words of encouragement and when its game over, a cheeky wave. but apart from that, well your guess is as good as mine. Those with the highest score after all this get.. well I don't know.

There doesn't seem to be much more to add, except that it's up at Archive.org as its too big for my paeon Youtube account, without splitting it down.

Süper Mario

With that all I have to do is give you a wave good bye.

Welcome to despair.

 Short one this, but have been going down memory lane again.

Met an old friend from school I haven't seen for about 25 odd years. Just walking down the street, a chance encounter that, had I gone my usual route, would not have seen at all. We got talking, and said he still sees some of the old crowd from BTEC days and that he's married now.

Further on I decided to look up another person I worked with back in the day and actually fancied at one time. She has a website up and does mixed media art, and I have to say its pretty good. Though as a massive nitpicker the cactus is actually Gonialoe Variegata (previously Aloe Variegata) but I'll let it stand.

You can visit it here.

In other news the Byuu post has been updated, and I've been slowly scanning bits and pieces, mainly old bits from the Brian Lamb exotic collection. I have a few old journals to scan, and for all you Hardy fans, have started on the Hooded Hawk mystery original, which is another extended directors cut, nothing major different yet.. 

Travel Channel tape

 Currently going through this tape, which contains part of a Panorama (I think) Documentary on X ray damage, and the Hugh Grant / Robin Williams film, 9 months, on Sky with bonus Kleenex sponsorship. We've come to a part where the film has ended and were in entirely unknown territory. 

Like the Power Rangers tape which contained some Mr Masturbator (Motivator) keep fit bits and some CITV stuff, we're now into some Travel Channel stuff from I'm guessing 1996 or so. There's some ads from one of those CD box sets (70's music rather then the more usual Classical Collections), trails for Birds of A Feather on SelecTV, and a healthy dose of Technical Difficulties complete with a channel logo and easy listening muzak.

Travel Channel is no more now, just like Bravo and the aforementioned SelecTV. It lasted to the middle of the year where an update from SKY put it out to pasture. It was a go to in the past year as they used to show Andrew Zimmern  shows at 9pm. If for some reason you wanted to see Bizarre foods America or the World versions of said shows, this was your go to. 

Not bad shows either, mostly keeping watch to see what he would actually eat, mostly offal with the occasional ethnic niche treat. Can remember him eating Shaved Ice in Hawaii, and visiting the ever present Nouvelle Cuisine ponce, straight out of somewhere like Seattle or Brooklyn for the win.

But most of the time its somewhere deep in the country, eating roadkill or freshly hunted stuff with the local backwoodsmen or at a local fair. 

Am I sad to see Travel go, kinda. It was OK and apart from that never really had anything to interest me. Maybe an update when I've finished the whole tape.

A full on tat upgrade.

 Both Hidden Harbors are done now for you now, you can judge for yourself just how racist this book is, and then burn it seeing as its 2020. Get it from here and here

A note on the remake. We never really got a version of Hidden Harbor in the UK, I guess its due to violence and themes. I previously attributed it in House on the Cliff to a prescription drug smuggling theme that wouldn't translate whilst overlooking the sheer amount of guns involved and shoot out at the end. 

Hidden Harbor has similar themes, whilst the "racism" of the original would preclude it from being a substitute as The original Melted Coins was used, thanks to the new versions summer camp plot. 

The Hardys being demolition experts in the remake and blowing up a submerged tree with dynamite, would bar it from sale here, especially as the whole IRA were in full terrorist mode in the UK at the time. 

So like House on the Cliff, I've decided to anglicize it as if Armada were bringing it here back in the day. It's not the full American text, I guess its about 99% the same with a few bits and pieces changed here and there for period descriptions. It's not much an Amphibian plane is changed to  sea plane, and extra l's and u's are added to words.

New Scan stuff.

Thanks to redecorating, I now have a whole bunch of stuff to scan. A few booklets and loose stuff are done and I've found some Frosties cards from a Gameboy promotion. The art is something, and it's not the whole set but I'm slowly scanning these in. 

Favourites are 

Hair metal Simon Belmont looking like Wolf from Gladiators.

Retarded Paperboy.

And a whole clusterfuck of bad Gauntlet 2 art.