Post by Jeff on Feb 2, 2004 11:49:16 GMT -5
Ep 10: The Secret Code
In typical good guy/bad guy storyline style, the bad guy had to learn about the Super-Sizer technology and find a way to spoil it for the good guys. I was so familiar with this overdone format that I didn't even bother to explain how Fred's forces knew. I guess they wouldn't be the bad guys if they didn't.
I didn't have a bad guy base in mind at this point. Fred's forces came to Earth in Prime's space ship (theoretically, theirs is still floating wherever they left it in space when they snuck onboard), and it hadn't yet occured to me to use the computer as a base of operations. Instead, I situated them in a sort of city scene, created just by throwing together the extreriors of whatever playsets I had lying around. That included the Super Powers Hall of Justice (the inside of which is the Autobot base), the Secret Wars Tower of Doom (the inside was later used as Satan's base), and the Return of the Jedi Death Star Playset (which I resold shortly after). I used this city scene idea several other times after (most noticably in Poseidon's parade in Episode 80), but the buildings kept moving closer and further apart. So much for consistancy.
McDonalds is really just a metal shelf in my toy room, with a purple pencil sharpener for a counter, and that same McDonalds logo used on Poseidon's bag at a larger size and put on the wall. This shelf is about 3 feet directly above the card table where the rest of the scene (and most of ACT, in general) is shot. The shelf was later used as the interior of The Twinkie Store, as well as the police chief's office in the Al Gore episode.
I think Battle Buffalo's "periodically interrupted by urgent messages" statement was a little confusing. In my experience, a lot of readers didn't understand that I meant television commercials. Back in the day, children's shows always said "____ will return after these urgent/important messages", but I guess that joke was lost. It left people already confused by the time "secret code" was mentioned, so that instead of saying "what secret code?" which fed into the punchline, they just felt entirely lost. Regardless, this is still one of my favorite punchlines in all of ACT. Of course, anyone under the age of 20 will have no idea what it means. To explain this one as well, it was a jingle in McDonalds commercials, and if you could sing it correctly, you got a free Big Mac, or something like that.
Wow.
It's always a bad sign when you have to explain your jokes. Still, for this particular episode, I regret nothing. It makes me laugh every time.
Incidentally, the title of this episode always reminds me of that moment in Pink Floyd: The Wall, where the teacher takes Pink's poem and says "What do we have here? A secret code?". And the world is a better place now that I've explained that entirely useless fact.
Episodes 10 and 11 were made and posted on January 20th, only two days after episodes 7-9 went up.
In typical good guy/bad guy storyline style, the bad guy had to learn about the Super-Sizer technology and find a way to spoil it for the good guys. I was so familiar with this overdone format that I didn't even bother to explain how Fred's forces knew. I guess they wouldn't be the bad guys if they didn't.
I didn't have a bad guy base in mind at this point. Fred's forces came to Earth in Prime's space ship (theoretically, theirs is still floating wherever they left it in space when they snuck onboard), and it hadn't yet occured to me to use the computer as a base of operations. Instead, I situated them in a sort of city scene, created just by throwing together the extreriors of whatever playsets I had lying around. That included the Super Powers Hall of Justice (the inside of which is the Autobot base), the Secret Wars Tower of Doom (the inside was later used as Satan's base), and the Return of the Jedi Death Star Playset (which I resold shortly after). I used this city scene idea several other times after (most noticably in Poseidon's parade in Episode 80), but the buildings kept moving closer and further apart. So much for consistancy.
McDonalds is really just a metal shelf in my toy room, with a purple pencil sharpener for a counter, and that same McDonalds logo used on Poseidon's bag at a larger size and put on the wall. This shelf is about 3 feet directly above the card table where the rest of the scene (and most of ACT, in general) is shot. The shelf was later used as the interior of The Twinkie Store, as well as the police chief's office in the Al Gore episode.
I think Battle Buffalo's "periodically interrupted by urgent messages" statement was a little confusing. In my experience, a lot of readers didn't understand that I meant television commercials. Back in the day, children's shows always said "____ will return after these urgent/important messages", but I guess that joke was lost. It left people already confused by the time "secret code" was mentioned, so that instead of saying "what secret code?" which fed into the punchline, they just felt entirely lost. Regardless, this is still one of my favorite punchlines in all of ACT. Of course, anyone under the age of 20 will have no idea what it means. To explain this one as well, it was a jingle in McDonalds commercials, and if you could sing it correctly, you got a free Big Mac, or something like that.
Wow.
It's always a bad sign when you have to explain your jokes. Still, for this particular episode, I regret nothing. It makes me laugh every time.
Incidentally, the title of this episode always reminds me of that moment in Pink Floyd: The Wall, where the teacher takes Pink's poem and says "What do we have here? A secret code?". And the world is a better place now that I've explained that entirely useless fact.
Episodes 10 and 11 were made and posted on January 20th, only two days after episodes 7-9 went up.