What Measure is a Trope?

In the vein of the last post, here are 5 TvTropes entries I like:[1]

• You enter a dungeon, get past several devious puzzles, and avoid all sorts of nasty traps through your psychic powers and reflexes. As you you walk through the final door you find... your love interest lying on the ground and her kid brother on crutches mourning over her. How did they get there? They Took A Shortcut.
• You can shoot fast-moving vehicles with you missiles, but can't attack stationary buildings. Some building time and resources later, You Have Researched Breathing, and you can do that. Also prone to happen in any other type of game with character customization or unlockables (you can't wear boots until you play enough...).
• A seemingly trivial obstacle cannot be circumvented or removed with brute force. There are several variations of the Insurmountable Waist Height Fence, such as: The Adamantium Door,The Impassable Forest, The Gentle Slope of Unlclimability, and The Ledge of Instant Death.
• No matter how urgent your quest is, you can always take your time achieving unnecessary goals before finishing the main one. On a smaller scale, even the most pressing, immediate tasks, such as rescuing a fellow character who is dangling off a ledge at five hundred feet in the air, can be done at one's leisure.[2]
• Hot Skitty on Wailord Action (HSOWA). Any work of fiction in which two grossly dissimilar species are somehow capable of interbreeding. This pretty much misses the point of the term "species", which is supposed to indicate which animals can breed successfully.

My interest in the site actually derived from the HSOWA entry on Bulbapedia.

[1] In general I avoid TvTropes because it is the most sticky of wikis.

[2] But see: Timed Mission

The Good PokeShip Hippop[otas]

For a while I've considered The Muppet Wiki as the world's best fanwank after Das Trekkers' Memory-Alpha. But Fuck Yeah PokeMeme has me reading Bulbabedia a lot lately, and I gotta give those kids credit.

Following are my five favorite entries (ephhwiyi: I find these genuinely interesting p_^;;; )

• Legendary PokéMon, A to Z. DYK: The Weather Trio is based on the Old Testament?
• Cartoon characters' clothing. DYK: Ash pretended to be a girl to enter Celadon Gym?
• 130+ romantic relationships. DYK: 13 of the entries feature people/PokéMon pairs?
• CODs/Characters of the Day. DYK: Ash's combatant in EP076 was Pete Pebbleman?
• PokéMon World & Universe. DYK: Most game locations can be mapped onto Japan?
• A Catch Rate for a PokéMon. DYK: Rarity of finding a PokéMon is unrelated to this?

How could you NOT love that? I mean, besides not being a dork. But, if you're not a dork, how'd you even find this? Mad suss, son...

Top Ten Tea Em

Google's new database of court cases is pretty sexy for those of us without WestLaw or LexisNexis. But even more importantly, it has some ridiculous IP-infringement cases.

Carson v. Here's Johnny Portables (6th Cir. 1983)

For all you kids out there, Johnny Carson was a more sedate (and successful) Conan O'Brien. Ed McMahon — he's was akin to an untalented Max Weinberg — would announce Carson's coming onstage, by saying "Hereeeee's Johnny!"

Well, as you may or may not know, "John" is another word for toilet[1]. So a portable-potty company took the name, and appended "The World's Foremost Commodian," in order to make "a good play on a phrase," which was the 80s equivalent of "see what I did there?"

The 6th Circuit Court of Appeals ruled it didn't violate ™ acts because nobody in their right mind would confuse a "Here's Johnny" chamber pot with the actual Johnny Carson (the same could not be said of Ed McMahon. Hi-ooooh![2]). However, the company did violate Carson's "right of publicity" which is a thing that was made up. Lawyers call that "common law."

Cher v. Forum Int'l Ltd (9th Cir. 1982)

This is actually a pretty boring case, something about magazines "exclusives." The ∆ again failed on "right of publicity." I'd just like to point out the document really listed just the one name for Cher. This is actually a good segue into...

Abdul-Jabbar v. General Motors Co. (9th Cir. 1996. [En Banc, bitches!])

Kareem Abdul-Jabbar was a basketball player who converted to Islam back when it was cool. He didn't even have to go to jail first! About 30 years later, GMC aired an ad comparing its 88 Oldsmobile[3] Consumer Digest[5] award to Kareem's awards in college. But, see, Kareem's name wasn't "Kareem" then; it was "Lew." GMC figured when you change your name you lose your rights to it.

GMC lost on account of douchiness.

The New Kids on the Block v. [Star & USA Today] (9th Cir. 1992)

Two newspapers ran 900-number polls on which was the hottest New Kid. NKotB sued them both, arguing that it looked like they were sponsoring the newspaper polls. Judge Kozinski absolutely tore into NKotB, saying they were a "blitzkreig" trying to create a "hegemon," and proclaiming they don't have "the right to control their fans' use of their own money."

The case also cites a bunch of interesting ones I won't abstract, including the Kellog/Nabisco "shredded wheat" debate, the landmark Disney/Air Pirates satire case, and Nintendo's unsuccessful fight against the Game Genie.

FYI: USA Today and Star made a combined $2500 from the phone lines, and USA Today donated its profits to the Berklee School of Music. And people wonder why I hate NKotB.

Sid & Marty Krofft Television[6] Prod. v. McDonald's Corp. (9th Cir. 1977)

The makers of H. R. Pufnstuf sued Mickey Dees for stealing their aesthetic to make McDonaldland. Again, for the kids, H. R. Pufnstuf was like 'Saul and the Mole Men,' but sincere and, thus, more frightening. McD's ad agency had been calling the Pufnstuf people asking them to license the rights, then suddenly stopped, hired people that used to work on the show, and went ahead with the ad campaign anyway. The Pufnstuf characters were actually replaced by the McDonaldland ones in the Ice Capades.[7]

McD's tried to use the 1st Amendment as a defense! More like Mc'Dicks. Hi-oohhh!

Nat'l Comics Publ'n v. Fawcett Publ'n (2nd Cir. 1951)

Ohhh shoot, it's the mid-century 2nd Circuit, aka The Judge Learned Hand[8] Show!

Nothing really cool happens in this case. Basically Fawcett made a bootleg Superman called "Captain Marvel," so DC sued them. All Hand did was remand it because the District Court somehow didn't understand the concept of plagiarism. Eventually DC ended up owning Fawcett, leading to the awesome fight embedded at the right, and setting precedent for...

Warner Bros. Inc., v. ABC (2nd Cir. 1983)

During the 80's had a show called 'The Greatest American Hero,' about a man given a super-powered suit by aliens. How could they remake 'V' and ignore this‽‽‽ Anyway, the 2nd Circuit affirmed a ruling against DC, which had felt TGAH was onein a long line of Superman bite-offs. It's likely the greenlighting of 'The Greatest American Hero' was precipitated by the cinematic success of the Christopher Reeves Superman films, but that'd be like if Fox sued Universal for making 'Battlestar Galactica' after Star Wars. Oh, wait, they did? NM lawl

Sidebar: The Greatest American Hero had The Greatest American Theme Song.

Parks v. LaFace Records (E.D. Mich. 1999)

Rosa Parks sued Outkast because they made the song "Rosa Parks." The court ruled that nobody would think she sponsored it, because, y'know, people don't sponsor songs. ...Yet. Roc Nation, get on that.

Universal City Studios v. Nintendo Co. (2d. Cir 1984)

Universal sued Nintendo because people it was afraid people would confuse Nintendo's "Donkey Kong" with movie character "King Kong." Because, of course, King Kong was about 10' ape that threw barrels at plumbers in succeedingly complex — yet always incomplete — architecture. Nintendo actually ended up suing Universal for licesning King Kong to Tiger to make a bootleg Donkey Kong.

At the end of the case, the court compares Universal's claim unfavorably to the Cowboys' against Debbie Does Dallas. So, if you wever wanted to make that connection in your mind, go ahead.

Finally we come to my all time favorite number one case[9]:
Univ. of Notre Dame Du Lac v. 20th Century Fox (N.Y. App. Div. 1965)

Notre Dame sues Fox for optioning a book involving the school's football team. Since Notre Dame lost this case, I wonder what happened to the film. I feel if it had come out, we'd all have heard of it. Here is the plot description:

The Muslim king of a fake Arab state sends his son to Notre Dame, but the kid doesn't make the football team. Lusting for revenge, the king, forms his own team to defeat the Fightin' Irish. He hires — and this is where it gets cookin' — John Goldfarb, a Jewish CIA operative on his way to Russia who accidentally lands in the kingdom. Somehow the king parlays this into blackmailing the State Department to send Notre Dame over. Once they arrive, the Irish are rendered sick by a meal of spiced mongoose and lose the game (which, for some reason, was being ref'd by the CIA's Director). A female American reporter on the king's side ends up scoring the winning TD when — at the last minute — oil springs from under the field and pushes her past the goaline.

You're going to sit there and tell me you wouldn't watch that? While I didn't find it on IMDb, I did find 1998's Goldfarb: "A team of high school idiots are hired by a suburban mad scientist to track down and destroy a rogue zombie." I can't decide which has the better plot, probably because both are far too fabulous for me to comprehend.

Sadly, the "50 Cent v. Mexcian Club Promoters" case is not in Google's database. Anyone with WestLaw can hit up 2008 WL 4648999 (S.D.Fla.)

[1] I'd tell you to look it up on UrbanDictionary but I imagine the first hit would either be about prostitutes or some disturbing sex act.
[2] Ed McMahon:Hi-Oh::Mike Meyers:That's What She Said. nOrly.
[3] For people from the future[4]: The 88 was not the year: it was the flagship "full-size" Oldsmobile. Oldsmobile was a line of vehicles that GMC bought in 1908 and phased out in 2004. GMC was a car company in Detroit. Detroit was a city in America. We now know America as the half of the Obama Socialist Kingdom of Kenya that allows slavery.
[4] I totally stole this gag from Bill Simmons. Sosumi.
[5] Who remembers Zillions? I loved those CD/mutual fund/bond racetrack charticles.
[6] The Bluebook has abbreviations for "telegraph" and "telephone" but not "television."
[7] About 20 years after first hearing about them, I now realize "Ice Capadaes" is a pun on "escapades." Like they said in the 80's that's "a good play on the phrase."
[8] Yes, that was his real name. One time he was cited by Judge Minor Wisdom, and it totally blew the minds of a bunch of Boalt burnouts.
[9] Not counting cases that involve "loss of consortium." ::giggles::

ポケモン Movie Money (OR Squirtle Sequel Specie)

***
In honor of the Transformer DVD's release today, the fact that I spent at least an hour today sending messages from Optimus Prime, and being too upset over 松坂 大輔, to watch baseball, I figure now's a good time to explore the latter half of Google Docs & Spreadsheets.

***

South Korea, Mainland China and Japan were far-and away the largest non-English markets for Michael Bay's Transformers, and in that order. My surprise at this has three layers of diminishing affiliation to anthropomorphic automobiles:
1) Transformers is based on Japanese toys, the cartoon had more iterations in Japan than it did in the US, and the Japanese localization also roped in old voice actor[s?], yet in Japan it grossed less than half of either Pirates or Potter. In the US, it outgrossed them both.
2) For some reason I assumed Japan was a more sophisticated movie marketplace than Korea. However, through October 7th, the Japanese box office is averaging ≈$14M[1] a week for 21 movies, and RoK $16M on a whopping 60 movies.
3) 'Pokémon 2007' was the #6 movie in Japan when Transformers opened. All told it's made ≈$42M, a good $8M more than Transformers grossed there.

Even considering residual hype from the 2006 release of Nintendo DS PokéMon games, such revenue seemed really high; at the time it was Japan's biggest home-grown hit.[2] I went back to see how the other films in the series did.

[3]

Guess it's that's not that weird after all.

Next time, 宮崎 駿 v ゴジラ, the Fantastic Four Double-Feature in Korea, Stomp-ing the Yard in Japan, and Tonic Google Presentations.

[1]US Dollars (exchange rates perplex me). FTR: the PRC's weekly average is 9 movies and 45.8M 圆/圓
[2]Since surpassed by Hero, an adaptation of the same-named TV series
[3] Grosses 2003-2007 are from Japan only.

Worldwide Wii Poll #f00: The Future

I'm prepping for the release of Super Paper Mario by giving its GCN predecessor a test-run. This requires firing up the not-so-ol' Wii, and I love checking out the Everybody Votes "channel." As a bit of a numbers n3rd, I'm always trying to uncover variations hidden by the macro yes/no numbers. DYK:

—Michigan and Kentucky really love basketball, but Vermont is non-plussed
—Puerto Ricans have weird teeth-brushing habits
—Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado residents are the only ones that prefer mountains to beaches.[1]
—Females are significantly more likely than males to think a woman will win 'American Idol'

I bring this up because the latest result fascinates me: 58.9% of Wii users worldwide[2] would rather know their own future than the planet's future. Given humans' tendency to ignore what happens past their lifetime, that shouldn't be surprising. The funny part is which countries are most self-interested: Austria, Germany, US & the UK. We all know the US is selfish, and the UK just bites America's style. Austria and Germany, though? While the obvious joke to make here is about WWI alliances, this breaks down once you consider that the US didn't really care about Europe's infighting until Germany courted Mexico and that, in any case, I have heard only one funny joke about WWI.

For the record, Denmark, Scandinavia, and Portugal are running the bottom. I presume Scandinavia just cares about global warming. Portugal, I don't know, I'm lost. There's something funny in all this; I just can't find it yet.

On the current round of polls, I would rather meet Einstein than Edison, prefer the window to the aisle, and am pretty sure comedy beats the action. The last one is a real test of the Wii's gendering, though. I'll make sure to check back in four days from now. Meanwhile, much respect for/hate on "Mark" for getting to Everybody Votes before I. Honestly, I wanted to cover this in print but I can't convince an editor[3] that it's important enough.

[1] New Mexico seems torn. So much for "the grass is always" greener, non?
[2] The non-response bias on these questions may be crazy high, and without sample size the polls' validities are anyone's guess, but I don't feel like qualifying the statement more than I already have so nyaaaah.
[3] Of course, I just barely convinced myself it was worth blogging about.

Mario Kart Double Dash

What it Is:

Why I Wanted to Play it: I loved Mario Kart for SNES, the N64, and the DS. Double Dash itself is #48 on Metacritic's list of all-time top Gamecube discs, making it the fourth best-received racing game on the third most popular no-longer-next-gen system. Mostly, though, I'm a ヨッシ fan, and he's not in SSX3.

Why I Hadn't Played it: Console video games and failing college don't mix.

Why I Just Did: On Tuesday I bought MLB 2k7 for DS, because I'm a statistics wonk and baseball is just numbers. Unfortunately, 2k7 is the worst video game I have ever played in my life; it's like a throwback to the pre-Tecmo Super Bowl technology when you couldn't save any games, except it completely lacks any of the compensatory charm of the era. To cleanse my gaming palette, I fired up Mario Kart DS to remind myself that DS games *can* look good, only to remember I recently bought a better, brighter version of it in the form of Double Dash.[1]

Why I'm Glad I Did: While I've seen what better hardware can do for Nintendo characters in the trailers for Smash Bros Brawl, the Gamecube is more than adept at handling the cartoony-aesthetic of Nintendo mascots. A realistic Mario falls squarely into the Uncanny Valley anyway.[2]

Double Dash still dazzles with course design. No course better emphasizes this than DK Mountain, a jungle track with guard rail-less turns, avalanches, and teetering rope bridge right before the finish line. Of all its features, however, none is more satisfying than the giant barrel — visible in the embedded video — which catapaults you over a chasm and onto an anthropomorphic volcano. If it wasn't so difficult, it would be adorable, which leads us to the cons[3].

Why I Wish I Hadn't: Despite having beaten all the Mario Kart games — save the Game Boy iteration — I haven't even unlocked any new courses on Double Dash. That same variety which would make racing against humans so thrilling becomes heartbreaking when I'm seconds away from Mario Circuit's Finish Line and Pirahna Plant jumps at me, allowing the randomly chosen Best Computer Character to pass me.

Granted, Double Dash isn't a racing sim, but most courses are ludicrously non-racing-friendly. I would rather have another Baby Park — seven laps around a simple elliptical track — than be frozen by one more obnoxiously oversized Slipice. Of the 12 original tracks, I only like three: Baby Park, Toad-Circuit-on-Steroids Mushroom City, and the ヨッシ-shaped Yoshi Circuit.

Don't even get me started on the whole "double" angle of the game engine. I'm grateful all my favorite tracks from Double Dash are included on the DS game (which somehow packs in twice as many tracks the GCN disc), sans the two-characers-per-car feature.

[1] One of the first things I did once I became gainfully employed was buy a Wii, and one of the first things I did after getting a Wii was buy a bunch of GCN discs. I now have three GCN discs for ever Wii one I have. This may turn into a ludology blog and fast.
[2] Don't worry; these are not pictures of Bob Hoskins
[3] And I don't mean no Noonien Singh