december/january 1995 GAME DEVELOPER MAGAZINE GAME PLAN GGAMEAEM The Dark of Editor Larry O’Brien [email protected] the Electric Pickle Senior Editor Nicole Freeman [email protected] Managing Editor Nicole Claro [email protected] n the end, I didn’t even have a what you want to be.” Sha-la-la, Editorial Assistant Deborah Sommers chance to light my pickle. In my indeed. [email protected] best shot yet at Andy Warhol’s The Bradys had station wagons Contributing Editors Alex Dunne promised 15 minutes of fame, I and convertibles, symbols of consump- [email protected] blew it, but it all might have been tion and status. In contrast, the Par- Barbara Hanscome different had they just given me the tridges had that most poignant of all [email protected] chance to demonstrate to the world symbols of freedom from the status Chris Hecker [email protected] the miracle of the electric pickle. quo—a schoolbus with birds painted on David Sieks II’m often the target of joke e-mails the side. [email protected] purporting to be from various people, Where the Bradys had an emo- Editor-at-Large Alexander Antoniades but I couldn’t dismiss the one purport- tionally stunted servant woman in Alice [email protected] edly from Danny!, the daytime talk (why did she need Sam the Oh-So- Cover Photography Charles Ingram Photography show. Danny! (exclamation point Blue-Collar Butcher to validate her mandatory), of course, is a vehicle for worth?), the Partridges portrayed a Danny Bonaduce, who, if you’re a cer- much more complicated world, in Publisher Veronica Costanza tain age, you’ll remember as the red- which one has to dance with the capi- Group Director Regina Starr Ridley haired and mysteriously edgy moppet talist devil even as one decries its from The Partridge Family. excesses. This complex enigma was Advertising Sales Staff embodied in the work of one actor— Western Regional Sales Manager Danny Who? the young Danny Bonaduce. Steve Nikkola (415) 905-2256 Yes, The Partridge Family, a show that So, of course, I returned the call. [email protected] has been strangely unwelcome in the Promotions Manager/Eastern Regional Sales Manager current “rediscovery” of the 70s. Unlike A Genius and Holly Meintzer (212) 615-2275 the Brady Bunch, there’s been no Par- A SCUBA Master? [email protected] tridge Family movie, no stage produc- There was to be a show on brains vs. Marketing Manager Susan McDonald tions, not even a regular slot on Nick at brawn, and my pro-nerd work over the Advertising Production Coordinator Denise Temple Night. Why? Because the Bradys years had not gone unnoticed. “What Director of Production Andrew A. Mickus played to the status quo, then and makes you think you’re so smart?” they Vice President/Circulation Jerry M. Okabe now—sprawling suburban house, ser- asked me. “I don’t think I’m smart,” I Group Circulation Director Gina Oh vants, an affluent and secure whitebread answered, “I just edit a magazine for Group Circulation Manager Kathy Henry home in which sons and daughters hap- smart people.” “It’ll have to do,” decid- Circulation Manager Mike Poplardo pily embrace the bourgeois. ed Producers Julie Knapp and Rita Newsstand Manager Debra Caris The Partridges, on the other hand, Whack. “What can you do for the tal- Reprints Stella Valdez (916) 729-3633 were darker. In the cluttered, claustro- ent competition?” phobic garage in which they practiced, My immediate answer: “Program a Chairman of the Board they gave birth to songs, not about computer faster than anyone who’s bet- Graham J.S. Wilson President/CEO “Sunshine-y Days,” but about doubts ter, and better than anyone who’s Marshall W. Freeman Executive Vice President/COO and fears. “Stop! I Think I Love You”? faster,” drew a stony silence. I tried Thomas L. Kemp Senior Vice President/CFO Why couldn’t he be sure? What was sports: “Throw a Frisbee-brand flying Warren “Andy” Ambrose Senior Vice Presidents David Cassidy saying? That corporate disc 120 yards fairly accurately?” Not in David Nussbaum, H. Verne America, by co-opting the language of a studio. “Hold my breath while wear- Packer, Donald A. Pazour, Wini D. Ragus Vice President/Production romance, had stolen the emotional ing diving gear?” Not exactly riveting Andrew A. Mickus Vice President/Circulation compass to the point where none of us, television. “Ride a mountain bike over a Jerry Okabe Vice President/Software Development Division in fact, could go forward with confi- moderately sized stick?” Stony silence. Regina dence. The Bradys on the other hand, “I can juggle a little. Just three balls, Starr Ridley told us that, “When it’s time to change, though.” There was a long sigh and I Miller Freeman you have to rearrange who you are and could hear the sound of a hand rubbing A United News & Media publication 2 GAME DEVELOPER • DECEMBER/JANUARY 1995 GAME PLAN a forehead. “Bring your SCUBA gear. women in the audience here!” Then, to no idea what to do in it. I gave some We’ll figure it out.” put the audience in stitches, he acted thought to duct-taping my mouth and Breaking deadlines left and right effeminate and waggled his tongue sug- nose shut and doing push-ups to show (sorely testing the good humor of manag- gestively. Quentin had appeared on that one could be fit without being ing editor Nicole Claro and, over at Soft- several talk shows, which is apparently bulky, but I didn’t even know if the pro- ware Development, Barbara Hanscome), what young comics do nowadays rather duction staff could find duct tape in the my wife Tina and I flew out to Chicago than actually develop a witty routine. few remaining minutes before taping Thursday night, the night before the tap- time. It was then that I was saved by the ing. Impressive as it was to be picked up electric pickle. at the airport by a limousine, it was less One of the guys replaced by the impressive that the driver had lost the car The Partridges idiot comics was willing to lend me his in the parking structure, missed the exit pickle and a lamp cord. As I’m sure you from the airport, and got lost again on the know, when 110 volts of alternating cur- way to the hotel. I mean, I don’t know rent flows through a pickle, the result is a Chicago, but does it normally take two were darker than coronal discharge that dances like green hours to get from O’Hare to Evanston neon, what the Romans would have with no traffic? called an aurora cucumeralis if only they’d Three-and-a-half hours of sleep spent a little less time building aqueducts later, it was time to get up and get to the Bradys and and a little more time installing cheap, the studio. Finally, I would know if universal electrical service. green rooms were really green and if So I reported to the backstage area television sets had as much good food newly charged with confidence. There as movie sets. Tina and I debated sang songs about are few things that one can know with whether I should drink two or three metaphysical certainty, but one is that cappucinos to give me a little bounce or electrifying a pickle on national televi- whether the resulting quaver in my sion would be a “grabber.” It’s got all voice would come across bad on televi- the elements of great drama: surprise, sion. I didn’t have the choice. By the doubts and fear. danger (electrocution and explosion time I got to the (not) green room, I being distant, but real, possibilities), couldn’t even find real cream for the and visual appeal that can’t be beat. dregs of a pot of Maxwell House coffee. Then, sad to say, it all came apart. “Stop! I Think I Intimidated by the jeers of the crowd, Show Us Your Pickle tongue-tied by the insistence of the I was introduced to my fellow “brain” staff that I “know what you’re going to team members, and it was here that say before you go out,” tired and cranky things started falling apart fast. After Love You”? Why from lack of sleep, I went on and, in a meeting Alan, the systems analyst, and word, bombed. I was asked to step Charles, the biochemistry graduate stu- aside, to support my team, to be seen, dent, I was introduced to Quentin and perhaps, but not heard. And then it Gary, two stand-up comedians who wasn‘t he sure? was over. The judges decided that Jose, were planted in our panel apparently one of the “Macho Maniacs,” was the because the producers weren’t sure we’d most interesting of us all, a decision I be amusing enough. Quentin would couldn’t disagree with, based on what eventually “win” as the most interesting What was David made it onto television. of our team, despite the fact that his But I can’t help but think what “talent” was telling an offensive joke might have been. I can’t help but that was stupid when Eddie Murphy dream of the electric pickle. ■ first told it 10 years ago. With his Cassidy saying? Larry O’Brien chunk-gold jewelry and mock inner- Editor city speaking cadences, this guy was popped straight from the Play-Doh When Larry O’Brien is not singing Create-A-Comic kit. When he finally Still, the stand-up comics at least Brady Bunch and Partridge Family tunes, got on TV, the first words out of his knew the talk-show drill, which gave he can be found at Game Developer mag- mouth were, I swear to God, “Hey, them a distinct advantage over me.