I don’t know what I expected Crash Bandicoot to be like in real life, but it wasn’t this. To start, he’s 40 minutes late to meet me at the diner he chose. That part’s not so weird. One time Ms. Pac Man left me waiting in a hotel lobby for three hours while she decided what bow to put in her hair. No, what’s strange is when the star of over 20 Crash Bandicoot games blames car trouble for his tardiness, even though I watched him spin his way into the parking lot like the Tasmanian Devil. He keeps stepping outside for cigarettes the entire time we’re together. He stops the waitress four different times to ask her if he can get an apple, even though she’s told him they have none. He’s just a little off.
Still, although he was grumpier than I would’ve liked, and the conversation ultimately took an unfortunate turn, it still was truly a remarkable experience, sitting and chatting with an icon of my childhood.
In between cigarettes, that is.
(Note: Excerpts of the following interview have been edited for clarity, and we took out a lot of the apple stuff.)
Crash Bandicoot (returning from outside): Hey, sorry about that. This would be so much easier for the both of us if we could still smoke in diners, you know?
Hard Drive: Yeah, you’re right. It’s no problem. I’m glad you’re here. Thanks for doing this.
Crash Bandicoot: No problem. Let me see one of those menus, okay? You’re paying, right? You said you’d cover?
Hard Drive: I don’t think we said, but sure. I can grab lunch.
Crash Bandicoot: Breakfast. It’s breakfast for me. I just woke up.
Hard Drive: It’s 3:00 PM.
Crash Bandicoot: Yeah, but I’m a bandicoot.
Hard Drive: Oh, sure. That’s right.
Crash Bandicoot: If I wasn’t famous, I’d be sleeping in a nest with my boys all day.
Hard Drive: Aww.
Crash Bandicoot: But also without Hollywood doctors I would’ve died like 20 years ago.
Hard Drive: Damn!
Crash Bandicoot: Yeah, it’s crazy. A lot of people criticized me and said I ‘went Hollywood’ when I moved out here, but Bandicoots generally only live two to four years on their own, so you know. On the plus side, that backlash all sort of died down as everyone back home, uh, died down. Hey you think they’d bring me an apple if I asked? Where’s the lady?
Hard Drive: They might.
Crash: Apple! Someone! An apple!
Hard Drive: Hey sit back down, Crash.
Crash Bandicoot: You think I’m being rude, huh? You just don’t know what it’s like for a big ass bandicoot. It’s really fucking hard, man. You think I like wearing jean shorts? I hate these things. I just need to make myself look like a little bit of a dork so no one’s scared of me. My first game was almost rated M for that reason, you know? On account of children being scared of actual bandicoots. Which is insane, by the way. There’s no reason for a child to be afraid of bandicoots, unless that child smells like earthworms. Then they’re in trouble. I’ll give you that.
The interview carried on in bursts, in between Crash’s frequent visits to the bathroom and trips outside to smoke another Marlboro. A lot of the exchanges were difficult to transcribe, bordering on impossible, due to the erratic nature of Crash. He would shout at people who recognized him, insisting he wasn’t Crash Bandicoot. For some reason, everything made him ornery. Every interaction, every topic.
I asked him if he followed sports and he yelled that they were all rigged. I asked him if he’d been enjoying the weather, he slammed his fists on the table and said it was all rigged. Try as I might, I couldn’t help the situation.
I lost my patience once he wandered into the diner’s kitchen and demanded the staff tell him how “everything works back here.”
Hard Drive: I wish you wouldn’t keep fucking around like that.
Crash Bandicoot (returning to his seat): Yeah, and I wish they still made Crash Bandicoot games!
Hard Drive: Didn’t Crash Bandicoot 4 come out a few years ago?
Crash Bandicoot: Oh yeah. I forgot about that. Cool!
Hard Drive: So what are you so upset about? What is it that has you so agitated?
Crash Bandicoot: Do you mean, like, politically?
Hard Drive: Not necessarily. Could be jungle shit or whatever. Relationships. Whatever’s bothering you.
Crash Bandicoot: I feel like you’re trying to take this down a political path, and I really don’t know if that’s the best thing to do here.
Hard Drive: No, I don’t want this to get political at all. Really.
Crash Bandicoot: Look, I’m supporting Ron DeSantis. I know it’ll surprise some of my fans, but I just think he’s the guy for the moment.
Hard Drive: This is not at all what I wanted to talk about, Crash.
Crash Bandicoot: The woke mind virus was the real pandemic.
Hard Drive: Oh geez. Okay Crash, is this why you called us? To get some talking points out? I used to love playing your games, man. What happened to you?
Crash Bandicoot: I started watching some really good things on my phone. Some really, really powerful things.
Hard Drive: I don’t know what to say. Can we change gears here? Hey, was it fun making that Crash Team Racing game? Or was it pretty intense?
Crash Bandicoot: I’m starting a streaming service with Kevin Sorbo and James Woods. We’re working on a sketch comedy show where they dress up like girls and I poop in the safe space they work at. Most of the sketches are some variation on that. It’s called America Plus. And the sketch comedy show is called Triggered, but I wanted to call it Crashing the Party.
Hard Drive: I don’t think that sounds very good, man.
Crash Bandicoot: Hey, that’s fine. We knew this would offend a lot of people.
Hard Drive: No, I’m not offended. It just sounds pretty bad.
Crash Bandicoot: Oh, I gotcha. Hey, I’m gonna go have another cigarette.
And with that, Crash spun away, the same as he arrived. I’d technically received answers to most of my questions, but the interview hardly felt like a success. Never meet your heroes, folks. And if you must, do your best not to get stuck with the bill after they heavily damage a public bathroom.
