Nerding Day: Sissyneck's Arcade (Patreon)

Well it was a long time ago in hot dog history indeed that Brockway real conslicely gave us a Whatever Happened To: That Kid from A Christmas Story and what happened was that he was givin his dirt-bike sensual baths

That gif was forged way back in 2020 and it hasent lost a bit of its power or magic. I encourage us all to find a way to share it with our friends and coworkers, you know they will thank you. Well except LaRene didn’t thank me when I showed her she said what the hell but you know what I mean.

And now of course we see that kid in less filthy movies, but he isnt a kid anymore his name is Peter Billingsley and now he is handsome and in Marvel films.

But, sort of like another beautiful and special blue-eyed boy, the time in between childhood and man is not as much known about for Peter, as if a respectful vale of silence has been drawn across those tender developmentle moments. As if we’d all mutualy decided we’d give the boy a bit of privacy instead of shining a light all over his awkward and undignified adolessent times. But what if we decided not to do that actually and instead just pushed through the curtain of discretion and good taste to see what behind there might lay in the way of tender and juicesome fruit ‘pon which we might slake our bottomless hunger for content an’ entertainments?

This is one where I feel like its put me in kinda a 1900hotdog vortex cause: see that full moon entertainment logo down on the left of that poster there? Full Moon is another one of those outfits they love around here, run by actually a maniac and probably often a asshole, but one who is still truly and enthusiastically devoted to producing stuff for our particular tastes and consumptions.

In this case the aughture in question is named Charles Band, I’m bettin a lot of you here are probably more familiar with him than me. He started his creative endevers back in the 70s and he’s still going to this day i guess, although my brain started flickerin pretty bad when I tried to watch the trailer for one of his newer features:

And when I went looking I saw that Chuck’s artistic hand has actually been felt on our hot dog hearts a couple times already,

So Charles loves makin movies very much and when he looked around in 1993 and saw that video games and virtual realities were all the rage his creative and commercial juices just started FLOWIN and he knew just who to call to helm the Full Moon attempt at Lawnmower Man glory:

Yes, Al Pyun, Him who we have thanked here before for his fullmoon collaborations and artistic contributions such as the aforementioned Dollman and Dollman 2 but I gained another level of appreciation upon actually seeing the man in the behind-the-scenes video about Arcade and the joyous nature of both his demeiner and also too his hairstyle:

Again, I’m sure most here are familiar and probably friendly with this fellow, but let us still give ourselves just a lil whitman’s sampler of Al’s work: First let’s remember together Cyborg, where Jean Claude Van Damme shows that weakling Jesus Christ how real men handle a crucifixion.

Albert wanted Cyborg to be a 2-hour black and white rock opera but

So Jean Claude replicated the self-savior moment from the movie in his real life and rescued his career from death by editing the movie his damn self.

This parallelalism appeals to my Christ-allegory-lovin’ mind. In this case I guess Al Puyen is God who has to abandon his only belovened son (wait, JCVD…J? C!?) completely so that he can arise stronger and anew.

We sadly lost Al in 2023, but may we all live such a life where our wikipedia contains these kinds of heights and triumphs

Hell yes good job Pyun, you folks know as well as me that the VSDA aint out here honorin just anybody. Also: I don’t know if I’m more upset that Ice-T didn’t get blue text or that Chilli didnt.

And then one time Al probably accidentally used up like the whole education budget for Guam:

“Max Havoc Curse of the Dragon” is probably not what you want to hafta say when the Governor of Guam says “Wait, what did you spend all our money on?”

But i feel Al’s vitteries outway his failures. I mean excuse my french but geez louise imagine if you died and got a vanity fair obituary that included that you made a unofficial sequel to Streets of Fire that looked like this:

Anyway, I didn’t mean for this to be a Albert Pyun love letter, but you know what, sometimes you catch a wave and sometimes a wave catches you. So lets just say we know we are in good hands as we enter:

Pretty cool! So yes lets meet our players of course we have Ralphie but in this one his name is Nick and you can see we perhaps caught him at a time when the apple-cheek Cherub of the past is starting to succumb to the future Marvel Hunk, but not goin down without a protracted and awkward wrassle with puberty.

Yes he says the actual eff-dash-dash-dash word multiple times and it is destablizin to my mind every time. He doesnt just lose pushin fights to pretty girls though, he is real good at video games and also parking cars, as the movie just really takes its time to show us:

Pyun showin us a lil of what he learned from Depalma there, very nice. Okay and who else is in this, well the bad guy is Q from star trek and he is known as Dafford. Here he is wholesomely connectin with the local children at the arcade:

And then we have some folks where if you were of a certain age and orientation in the 90s theres a good chance this movie might have caught one or more of your teen crushes. Like here’s our heroine Alex, played by Megan Ward, famous from Encino Man when sean astin insisted that yes she would too pee in his mouth.

As you can probly tell from the kinda dim-at-noon lighting of that clip, Alex has a dead mom but doesnt let that stop her from lookin real my-so-called-life fabulous through the whole film; she’s all thrifted layers and cute bags and boots and bangs. Nobody else seems to appreciate her satorial efforts tho: considerin she is just a teenager in this its kinda weird how many people in the movie call her a bitch, but I guess maybe thats just 90s ‘tude for ya. Shes also good at parking the movie insists on telling us:

Good job Alex, those inclines can be a little tricky with a stick.

And then hey, speaking of my so called life we also have as AJ Langer as best friend:

She does a real good performance but that does not save her from a tragical succumbin to VR consumption. AJ’s career was a pretty weird one, I learned, she went from My So Called Life to Baywatch to bein a actual official Lady and then Countess.

Powderham Castle! The name just fires up the anglofile ‘magination. Although, lil tip: you only say powderHAM if your a subcultured peasant, a real gentleman like myself knows that its pronounced like what you say if someone asks you what should I do if my nuts keep gettin sweat rash. O What I wouldn’t give to be led around those nobility gardens and country houses by a kindly british dame who could show me the cullanary treats on offer there!

Oh hey they made that for me! Thanks, God or the universe or Oprah or whoevers in charge of manifestin currently. What's next, a Edgar wright adaptation of Stephen King!? hahahah!

Anyway and then Seth Green is also in it. We dont have to talk too much about him, here he is in his pure form: gettin slapped for bein mouthy:

So you can probably guess most of the movie: we’re dealin with a group of teens who are very cool, but troubled, and therefore suseptable to the siren call of radical VR gear:

I think reading all of Merrit’s articles is having a affect on me cause even though I know all the real world parts of this movie were shot in California, they still look Canadian to me. But luckily we are in for a special fx treat when we enter the computer world:

One thing I would not like as a teen actor would be to wear a tight black bodysuit that showed the world every topagraphicle detail of my changin’ body, but such are the demands of art I guess.

The plot is…well I watched this like three times and I still dont really know. The kids have to go into a computer and do video game stuff like find a key:

…that unlocks a dead mom trauma cut scene:

And then look out Ralphie put down your orb here comes a cyber-dragon!

And it all looks great:

Except, huh, there’s something weird here and what it is, is: There’s two versions of Arcade (1993) out there. In the one we’ve all seen and watch all the time and love, the “skycycle” chase looks like this:

Very beautiful, in spite of we never get to see them parking. But in another EARLIER version (which: i endevvered pretty hard to find it for us), it looks like this:

Equally beautiful? Well you and I might say so, but ‘parently not every one thought the same as us! Let’s check our imdb trivia for clues about what happened:

Haha okay, that’s a fun one, but not exactly pertnent to our query, let’s look again:

Alright alright, settle down IMDb. I cant believe Im saying this, but honestly thats enough hot dog connections for today. Okay how about one more try:

Hm, well maybe Disneys legal team missed didnt see the opening credits that makes it clear theres no litigable similarity here:

Well in spite of this incontravertibel proof of originality, the Full Moon folks had to go back and redo all the CGI before they could give Arcade the release it deserved (straight to video, 3 years delayed). Who’d they get to handle the changes I wonder?

Peter Michaelsen, hm I never heard of him before UNLESS WAIT A SECOND:

Yup, Ol’ Pyun and Band, at it again, decidin that what’s good enough for TimeCop is good enough for The Dirtbike Kid, saying: if your career is so tender and fragile that you need a movie you made to actually come out? instead of just saying fuck it and making 10 more that year? Well maybe ask Santa for a copy of Cinema 4D instead of a beebe gun and edit it yourself Ralphie.

So when you gather with your kith and kin this holiday season for the much beloved tradition of watchin Arcade together by a chestnut fire you can share with them that: Some say this clip of Peter Billingsley shouting HURRY UP YOU ASSHOLE at another frantic and hassled computer guy…

…well that’s just the real life miracle that brought Arcade to life.

In the name of jesus christ amen.

This article was brought to you by our fine sponsor and Hot Dog Supreme: Ted H, who makes his own CGI in a barrel in his basement and it isn't any of this fake hollywood stuff it seems.

You can read this article and every other one on the much better in every way 1900HOTDOG.COM