If you’ve been following along with my series of abysmal interviews, you’ve no doubt been disappointed in at least one of your childhood favorite gaming icons, if not all three that I’ve spoken to. I couldn’t go on like this. Sure, its inevitable that in a month or two me and Diddy Kong are doing a dine and dash at an Arby’s while I ask him about his childhood, but for now, I just wanted a break, man. I thought maybe it would be a fun change of pace to interview someone from gaming’s past, so we dug out our old 32X* and activated it and waited for someone to come through the door!
(*For the younger gamers reading this, the 32X was a peripheral introduced by Sega in 1994 to attach to the top of the Sega Genesis console that allowed users to effortlessly travel through time. When paired with the Genesis and the Sega CD drive, it was truly the best gaming setup of the era. Sadly, poor sales and a resistance to altering the fabric of the space time continuum led to the 32X being a commercial failure. We still have ours, though!)
The door opens. I’m not sure why there’s smoke, but smoke rolls out. Here comes this guy. He’s got a red polo shirt on, some video game lanyards, and a name tag that says “Scott.” Poor Scott looks scared out of his mind. He wanders towards the table in our little interview room. I wish it was a more welcoming environment. My Hard Drive office sadly resembles a generic police interrogation room more than anything. I’ve put up a Mario poster, but he doesn’t even notice it.
Scott (FuncoLand Manager from 1996): What… what the hell is happening? Am I dreaming?
Hard Drive: No Scott, you’re not dreaming. You’ve been transported into 2023 so that I can interview you for my video game website. Welcome to the 21st century!
Scott: What? No really, what’s happening?
Hard Drive: My guess is that you were the closest human soul standing to the 32X back in 1996 that this unit here is synced up with. It’s kind of like Bluetooth, I guess?
Scott: What? Bluetooth?
Hard Drive: Oh, right! The ‘90s! It’s like, uh, I don’t know. Cordless shit. It’s… Bluetooth, you know? No one knows how it works! And it doesn’t always work. Frankly, I’m relieved we got you here intact. Last time I tried it all that came through the portal was a bloody shoe.
Scott: My feet do hurt a lot.
Hard Drive: Do they feel like they’re bleeding?
Scott: No.
Hard Drive: Cool! Looks like that soldering that Kevin did worked. What a relief.
Scott: Are you going to hurt me?
Hard Drive: No Scott, I just need to interview you for my website.
Scott: Wh-what’s a website?
Hard Drive: Oh damn, I was hoping you’d be ahead of the curve on this stuff. I guess not. Okay, so I’m thinking in 1996 websites were starting to pop up but maybe you hadn’t checked them out quite yet. Do you remember seeing any movie previews on TV and at the end they’d be like “Find out more at The Crow: City of Angels dot com?” or something weird like that?
Scott: Yeah, I do remember seeing that honestly. I didn’t know what the hell it meant.
Hard Drive: They were telling you about a website. If you got onto a computer, you could’ve digitally traveled to a little online place that probably had some cool desktop wallpapers of The Crow for you to download, maybe let you look at pictures of the cast and things like that.
Scott: *starts crying* I don’t understand what’s going on!
Hard Drive: Scott, Scott, it’s okay! We’ll get through this interview together.
Scott: And then you’ll send me back to 1996?
Hard Drive: Huh? Oh. Yeah. We know how to do that. Sure.
Scott: Fine. Let’s just do this then. Do you have anything to drink?
Hard Drive: Of course. Hey, can someone bring a Red Bull in here for Scott!
Scott screams and hides under the table. He begs me to call off the bull.
Hard Drive: Oh no! Haha, you think I’m talking about a real bull. Red Bull is a soft drink that really caught on over the last 20 years or so. Check this shit out.
Scott: Wow, that is really tasty. Is this a soda?
Hard Drive: No, that’s the best part! It’s actually an energy drink. All the cold, carbonated pleasures of a delicious soda with the extra kick you’d get from a cup of coffee.
Scott: It’s delicious, absolutely delicious. Oh, so is this the same “Red Bull” that your hat and shirt are advertising.
Hard Drive: Yes, it is, the exact same.
Scott: So you guys are like, sponsored by Red Bull, or?
Hard Drive: No! Why would you think that? I just thought a delicious Red Bull would hit the spot at a time like this. Although, let’s be honest, is there a bad time for a Red Bull? I sure don’t think so! Whether you’re at home and have to get some work done, or you’ve just base jumped off of the highest building in town, nothing goes down like a Red Bull. It gives you wings!
In hindsight, I really wish I hadn’t given him that Red Bull. It got him all fired up. He’d never touched the stuff before and we gave him one of those giant ones. I never stood a chance. He punched me a couple of times in the face, and then started choking me out with a Secret of Evermore lanyard he was wearing. I played dead and he took off into the unknown.
I got up and did my best to go after him as he escaped into the cold night. I tried calling after him, but when I think back on it, I’m pretty sure I was yelling out the name “Shawn.” The company car was out of gas, so I couldn’t chase him. Oh well, what was I gonna do if I did? It’s not like I could send him back. The 32X is a one way ticket, I’m afraid. I think Scott sort of figured that out by the end, and that’s part of why he took off. Pretty perceptive guy. That’s probably why he was made manager of FuncoLand.
Oh yeah, so how does this work? Did anyone reading this used to work at FuncoLand in 1996 and one day their manager Scott stopped showing up? I might know why. Let me know in the comments.
I wonder what Scotty’s up to out there. Maybe looking up his old friends. Maybe being shocked about the price of retro games these days. Oh shit! I should’ve asked him something about retro games. Damn. Looks like I blew another interview.
And finally, Scott, if you’re reading this, there’s something I gotta tell you:
Don’t go lookin’ for the City of Angels website. It ain’t there no more.
(Editor’s Note: Red Bull has insisted that they do not support or condone any of Hard Drive’s recent behavior, including interfering with the fabric of the space time continuum.)
