spk_0:   0:34
Hi and welcome. The half with history. I'm Jonathan

spk_1:   0:36
and I'm Kylie's.

spk_0:   0:37
And this is a show where we talk about the upcoming week, but a long time ago.

spk_1:   0:41
Not very long ago for me?

spk_0:   0:43
Oh, certainly, very not long ago for me either.

spk_1:   0:47
Oh, who I am in 1939.

spk_0:   0:51
Well, I am in 1996.

spk_1:   0:54
Oh, so you are really close already. Then I go first. Produced

spk_0:   1:01
in years? More than 20 years even.

spk_1:   1:03
Yes, you are correct. Good, sir. Um, so I go first, then. All right. So my topic is on February 28th 1939. The erroneous word doored is discovered in Webster's new International Dictionary second edition, which prompts an investigation. Doored. Yes. Doored. Okay, so we're gonna play around a little bit with Entomology. Entomology. Sorry way we could play with bugs. Actually, we'll get to flame. I was gonna say we might play with bugs. Who's to say, um

spk_0:   1:44
well, I I'm to say I will mind his

spk_1:   1:46
own bugs. Oh, All right. Well, that's fun. Don't like the creepy crawlies, atom

spk_0:   1:53
ology and Entomology all wrapped up in one.

spk_1:   1:56
You know, what's really weird is that Entomology and Entomology are literally just one letter different. And they mean such vastly different things.

spk_0:   2:06
That's language for you.

spk_1:   2:08
Yes. Well, speaking of language, we're gonna play around with language a little bit. So, um, couldn't you fathom a guess as to what doored could mean?

spk_0:   2:20
It's when you are in a wrestling match. And instead of getting the metal chair, someone just pops up with the door, get gored.

spk_1:   2:32
I like that answer. I think that should be it. Okay, Getting doored. I short episodio. While that is not actually its definition because it doesn't actually have a definition, it's not a real word, but it's somehow snuck its way into the dictionary like the published dictionary. And it wasn't discovered for four years. You're a and curious. Yes, s. So how could this have happened? You may ask,

spk_0:   3:02
How could that have happened? May I ask?

spk_1:   3:05
Well, we're about to find out.

spk_0:   3:06
Oh, boy.

spk_1:   3:08
Um, so on February 28th 1939 and editor was perusing the dictionary because I'm assuming that's just what they do for fun. Um, but he was perusing the dictionary when he found a word that he didn't recognize the entry for doored was odd because it lacked an Entomology and example of use that usually accompany dictionary entries. So startled by these emissions, he went to the files to track down what had happened and what needed to be done. And there he found at first a three by five white slip that had been sent to the company by Austin and Patterson, who was the dictionary's chemistry editor. And he sent the slip on July 31st 1931. And it bore the notation D or like uppercase D or lower case D. Kant density. And it was intended to be the basis for entering an additional abbreviation at the letter D in the next edition. And the notation Kant was short for continued, and it was to alert. The type is to the fact that there would be several such entries for abbreviations that d. So a change in the organization of the dictionary possibly added to confusion that then ensued. Um, in the first edition of Webster's entries for abbreviations and words had been intermingled. The abbreviation LB for pound, for example, would have been found immediately after the entry for the word lazy, so they were all kind of like just thrown in there willy nilly. Um, in the second edition, however, abbreviations were supposed to be collected in a separate abbreviation section in the back of the dictionary, which, honestly, to me, makes more sense to have or I guess I don't know. I feel like having the abbreviation next to the word is being abbreviated from makes the most sense. But I'm also not making a dictionary. So I could

spk_0:   5:04
see you having all of your, like, normal usage words in one spot and then just having ah, you know, like an appendix at the end being like, here are abbreviations.

spk_1:   5:15
Yeah, and I and I think that's what the intention was was that, instead of having them all intermingled like that was to have a separate section where you're like, these are abbreviations. If you're looking for an abbreviation, this is where you're gonna find it, right? Yep. So the slip was intended to indicate that it was one of those abbreviations. But after the original slip was typed for editorial handling, it was misplaced. What's so a new slip was prepared, and presumably whoever prepared it assumed that it was a regular entry and assigned a part of speech, noun and a pronunciation. Eventually it came to be treated with the words rather than with the abbreviations. And the would be word was not questioned or corrected by proofreaders in their defense. Who hasn't missed something when proof reading, I still find errors for my thesis. So, like we're human like they're human, they're just trying to do their job like everyone's gonna miss something. So I genuinely feel bad for, like, the editors who are probably I can't believe I missed that. Yeah, like you're human is not your fault. So anyway, the entry appeared on page 771 of the dictionary around 1934 like the year 1934 between the entries for dark ops is a type of a small kangaroo and door, a golden in color end of the side Note. If anyone has the second edition of Webster's Dictionary, please go look and see if the word door does in yours and send me a picture because I desperately want to see it, because I think you'd be really funny. So the editorial stylist who received the first typed version should have marked or to be set in italics to indicate that the letters were abbreviations like uppercase D or lower Case D. But instead she drew a continuous wavy line underneath to signify that D or D should be setting bold face in the manner of an entry word. And a label was added physics and chemistry, which I'm not entirely sure who decided that it was physics and chemistry. But that's beside the point. Um, since entry words would be typed with a space between letters, the editorial stylist might have inferred that the type the type ist had intended to write d o R d so like there should have been a space in between each one, Um so the mysterious continued was ignored. He's a risk should have been caught when the word was retyped on a different slip for the printer. But they weren't. And the stylist who received this version crossed out the continued and added the part of speech label and for now on and the Entomology. So the last slip in the file added in 1939 Light for the file for doored was marked plate change, imperative. Urgent. The entry was so the entry for doored was deleted and the space was closed up by lengthening the entry that followed for the door a meaning the golden in color or whatever. In 1940 bound books began appearing without this ghost word, but with a new abbreviation in the list of meanings for the abbreviation D or D appeared the phrase density physics. Philip Babcock Goave, an editor at Miriam Webster who became the editor in chief of the third version, or the third edition, wrote a letter to the journal American Speech 15 years after this whole debacle occurred, in which he explained how it all happened and then remarked that it was too bad the word door got removed for Why shouldn't doored mean density? So apparently he thought I should just live there. That's totally fair. Why the heck not? I would lift it. I know. Saying come So the fact that door it has become so famous is definitely a tribute to lexicographers exacting standards, and they're fastidious accuracy with which they compiled dictionaries. Such errors are, in fact, incredibly rare. Despite the huge potential for small oversights to sneak into, uh, dictionary makers work what's somewhat worrying to me, however, is that it appears that whoever inserted the pronunciation and the physics and chemistry category appears to have done so just kind of willy nilly without any research whatsoever. Like there's really nothing to back it up potentially other than the fact that the slip was sent from the chemistry editor. But that still doesn't explain the inclusion of physics. So the real mystery here is how many other words have potentially made of information attached to them?

spk_0:   9:54
I'm assuming you have a list.

spk_1:   9:57
Not of that, actually surprisingly, um, So I did come, So Oh, what I was when I was researching, I came across Ah, Snopes article and I panicked because I was I was terrified that Snopes was about to debunk my entire topic. Bright side. I didn't have to redo everything because it is in fact, true. Um, so in the spirit of dictionary mistakes, I was curious about what other ones there might have been, or at least which ones have been caught. So I do have a couple of other of those for you. Cool, Cool. So a Nurlita English language example was the definite definition of past urn. Um, and the Dr Samuel Johnson's famous apparently 18th century dictionary of the English language defined pass turn as the knee of a horse, which it isn't. Ah, the fete lock is the knee of a horse of a pest. Earn the pest. Earn is a long portion of the leg immediately below the fete lock. So he was apparently a little confused about, like, location. I guess

spk_0:   11:09
it would be like if we called Arnie. Are Shin.

spk_1:   11:12
Yeah, Yeah, the EPS like that kind of thing. So apparently he was eventually asked by a woman, Um, what made him make this error, which I feel like That's kind of a weird question to ask in the first ways. But Johnson allegedly replied, Ignorance, Madame, pure ignorance, which I thought was funny. I'm like, Hey, at least you least you owned up to your mistake like, that's pretty good to be like, Wow, I messed up and it was just like, pure ignorance, like that. Kind of like being very honest about it. I appreciate that. Eso another, um ghost word or mistake in the in the dictionary is not a ghost toward Actually, this one doesn't go story. Ha ha. Um, in the first edition of From 1987 of the Collins Co build English language dictionary. Um, it contained an entry for a verb Hink Hank. Yes. And it was conjugated hinks thinking kinked. And you Could you imagine what it might mean? Take a stab at it.

spk_0:   12:19
No, I don't

spk_1:   12:21
know. Um so is defined as follows Quote if you hink you think hopefully an un realistically about something

spk_0:   12:30
hopeful thinking Jesus.

spk_1:   12:33
Ah, yeah, s o the entry is a ghost word. Um, and it was included by editors to, um supposedly it was included by editors to trap plagiarists. Um, the wording is the result of an in house joke. Apparently, um, I could not find out what that job waas, but, um, some reviewers, however, took it seriously and speculated, for example, that it's clearly an error for think like they thought that someone just missed misspelled. Think, Um, although that Well, that doesn't really make sense, though, because it wasn't it would be in ages, so it wouldn't be like someone just forgot the Tian think when they were addict, like typing. Um, so it was, in fact, in the right section, as like, if someone were putting it in as a regular word. Right? Um, the word was removed from later editions. Like once the error was found. Now, if you look up the word hink, it's labeled as obsolete in everything that I found. Um, and a lot of them actually have an old definition where it means a reaping hook like a seif, I think is what that means. Okay. Yeah, I I was very confused by that part. If anyone could explain that to me, that'd be great. Eso urban dictionary also had some Ah, creative entries.

spk_0:   13:54
Oh, no,

spk_1:   13:55
I'm not going to read them. I just I looked at it went Yeah, okay. I'm moving on to

spk_0:   14:00
mark our episode explicit, and we don't really want to do that.

spk_1:   14:04
Well, I said I'm not going to read it. I'm not going to tell you whatever in dictionary said,

spk_0:   14:08
I know, I was just explaining why.

spk_1:   14:10
Okay, Um okay, So although dictionaries are often expected to be flawless, most lexicographers and people who frequently use dictionaries are, in fact keenly aware that all dictionaries you contain some errors. The preparation of dictionaries requires immense time, expertise and concentration, and they're never sufficient human or financial resources available to ensure the complete accuracy of a dictionary. In the words of Samuel Johnson himself, dictionaries are like watches. The worst is better than none, and the best cannot be expected to go quite true. Okay, I'm like, Wow, you've turned into a philosopher. That's a fair. Yep. Um, they're human. So prior to the existence of the Internet, the dictionary was the final arbiter of what did or did not constitute a word. From one perspective, the Web has changed this by introducing a culture where errors air tolerated on dhe spelling and grammar don't matter so much. Yeah, um, but then again, the Internet's effect on English, one of its most dominant languages, has been, in the words of one linguist, too increased the expressive richness of language providing the language of the new set of communicative dimensions that haven't existed in the past. Uh, and many of the Internet's words actually make it back into the dictionary like Mim N s f. W. And digging my favorite kind of pants. Oh,

spk_0:   15:42
for some reason, I was thinking of it as a verb, not as a noun when you said it.

spk_1:   15:46
Oh, like

spk_0:   15:47
And I'm like, What the heck is Jackie?

spk_1:   15:48
I was gonna say, How do you jag that?

spk_0:   15:51
That's what I was thinking to

spk_1:   15:52
have no idea. Um, So what makes these words that make it back into the dictionary different from other words like doored and Hank, is that they actually have a kn origin story and that they've been used as words. So in other words, they haven't Entomology. No physicist or chemist has ever used doored. But N s f W is used all the time.

spk_0:   16:17
You

spk_1:   16:18
usually when I'm asking Lewis if I can open a video he sent me, The answer is always now

spk_0:   16:24
the answer is all.

spk_1:   16:25
Never opened it at work.

spk_0:   16:27
Sorry, Louise. We don't open any of your things at work.

spk_1:   16:30
Nope. And most of the time I go kit, should I open this here? And usually he goes, No, Uh um, So, yeah. So the English language is ah, super duper weird. As evidenced by the fact that it took four whole years to discover that there was a random word added to the dictionary. Um, and that's the story of the accidental inclusion of a fake word in the Miriam Webster dictionary.

spk_0:   16:53
Very cool,

spk_1:   16:54
Tena. Getting back to my roots in the, like, riel riel stuff. Yeah.

spk_0:   17:03
Okay, so I told you I was going to talk about bugs a little bit. So you already have that as a hint? Yeah. So my topic is on February 27th of 1996. And with that alone, a good amount of people and apparently Kylie, since I just heard a snort over there already know what I'm talking about? But for those who don't, I'll drop some more hints, and you can see where you catch up.

spk_1:   17:29
The other part of it is we are, in fact, recording on that day.

spk_0:   17:32
Yeah, it's

spk_1:   17:33
so I was on Facebook today. Yep.

spk_0:   17:37
So, stepping back a few years to somewhere between 1965 and 1975 we can see a kid playing outside. His nickname was Dr Bug, and he was fascinated with you Guessed it bug collecting. Dr. Bug would watch the insects as they walked around how they ate and how they interacted with their environments. When it was time to go inside, he would slather some honey on the underside of some bark for the bugs to eat until he returned the next day to start all over again. Okay. As Dr Bug grew up, so did his surroundings, his neighborhoods, Ah, lot of urbanization. And each year Dr Bug would see less and less of his critters. He also saw less and less of his friends, as it was now 1978 and everyone in Japan was inside, playing their first real video game hit, Space Invaders by Tyto Corporation, with less bugs and people outside. Dr. Bug wanted to use the video game medium to bring his hobby to everyone, but didn't really know where to begin.

spk_1:   18:37
Fair enough.

spk_0:   18:38
So as time went on, Dr Bug, also known by his real name, Satoshi Tajiri, grew up and started putting a heavy interest into how video games worked and what people were playing. He founded a magazine to help others in learning more about video games, providing tips and tricks to the games that he played. Enlist fun things like Easter eggs, a k pop culture references hidden in games that he would find a subscriber to the magazine. Ken Sudi Morey saw the content and figured that he could add a little stray shins to really help the publication pop. And like that game Freak was up and running. It's probably a bunch of name drops in there for people who may be caught on already. I'll keep going with the charade in case someone hasn't yet.

spk_1:   19:20
Yes, pray continue.

spk_0:   19:23
Satoshi and Ken would produce the magazine together with a few other employees until they noticed that games hit kind of a slump and quality wasn't really being poured into the games anymore. So in 1984 Satoshi decided to put some time into learning learning Family basic, which was a coating consul created by a Nintendo to help create other games.

spk_1:   19:44
That's me.

spk_0:   19:45
Yeah, I didn't know that that existed, so maybe someday I will do an episode on that.

spk_1:   19:51
That's actually really cool. I've been learning the back end of how to use an access database recently, and oh boy,

spk_0:   19:58
it's a lot.

spk_1:   19:59
It's complicated, and this one is like a beast of a database to it's absolutely insane.

spk_0:   20:07
In just five years, in 1989 Satoshi and his company would transition from being a magazine to a full fledged gaming company. A short time later, in 1990 Satoshi, Ken and a few others in Game Freak start on a journey that would end up changing the world.

spk_1:   20:26
They start on a journey.

spk_0:   20:29
It started with Nintendo releasing the Game Boy and with the Game Boy came a neat little port that other games didn't really have. It was a port for a link cable designed to let people compete against each other in real time on their own systems. It was novel for sure, but Satoshi saw something different. He described seeing the cable for the first time and being reminded of a time when he was called Dr Bug. As he looked at the cables, he thought of how cool it was that one game boy was giving another game boy data about what it was currently doing. And soon that visualization in his brain turned into the data, seeming like little bugs crawling back and forth from one system to another.

spk_1:   21:07
That's less cute.

spk_0:   21:10
So she would think that if they're sharing data, who's to say that one system shouldn't be able to keep the data from the other system for itself? And one of these little bugs going back and forth could just stay in their new home, and one player could have a piece of the other player with them. So so started the work of Satoshi and Ken, along with most notably, Masako Nishida, Shigeaki Mori Moto and Jean Uchi Masuka. We'll get back to them in a second. So for six years the crew worked tirelessly at creating their game, and at one point, game Freak had nearly gone bankrupt. And five other employees a big number for a very small team ended up quitting because no one, including Satoshi, was getting paid anymore.

spk_1:   21:54
Oh, no.

spk_0:   21:56
And they needed to do something fast.

spk_1:   21:58
I would also quit if I wasn't getting paid you Yeah,

spk_0:   22:01
this is like definition like labor of love type stuff.

spk_1:   22:04
Although wait, that's what this is won't want. Ah, quit. Just kidding, eh? I don't know.

spk_0:   22:12
I'll focus on the DND podcast. So they reached out to Nintendo the inspiration for their game and even made a comic to try and explain their wild concept. Unfortunately, it didn't work in intend owes. Investors were just kind of left confused.

spk_1:   22:30
No,

spk_0:   22:30
except for one Shinjiro Maya Moto, who would take the time mentoring Satoshi in order to help his admittedly unique, impossibly far fetch oh concept grow. With Shakira is backing. They were able to secure lofty funding from another company called Creatures Incorporated. In return for this help game Freak promised 1/3 of the game to Nintendo and another third of the game to creatures. This gambit began to feel risky, though, as they were nearing the end of development because a Nintendo was nearing the end of the game voice products life. When it was released, it was behind the curve of technology. But it's portability. Great battery life and robust design made it highly sought after. But six years later, this almost stopped being the case. So they were almost out of, ah, consul for their game. But their game was complete. On February 27th of 1996 Pokemon Red and Pokemon Green version launched, and while the start was rough, a secret within the game came to light in the world was passionate to find it. Remember the people I mentioned earlier? Junichi Matsuda, fade all of the music and sounds for the game, including every individual Pokemon cry. Masako Machida was the powerhouse for pumping out Pokemon designs that Ken Suki, Morrie would polish into what we know today. However, her design of one particular pocket monster didn't really need that much improvement. Can you guess which one that was

spk_1:   23:58
get you?

spk_0:   23:59
It was Yes. Yep. So, uh, Asako Machida was the creator of Peek atyou.

spk_1:   24:06
Got to

spk_0:   24:07
sow Shigeaki Mori. Moto. Not only did he create the battle system, that was the core of the Pokemon experience, but he created a Pokemon himself is Well,

spk_1:   24:18
who do

spk_0:   24:19
you want to guess which one that was.

spk_1:   24:20
No, wait, no. Is that the book guy? That Dr Bug?

spk_0:   24:25
No, no, Dr. Bug. Is Satoshi

spk_1:   24:27
okay? Never mind. Then we'll quick,

spk_0:   24:28
fun facts. Satoshi is one of the options that you can choose for the protagonist name in the game. So she is also the Japanese name of the enemy character Ash Ketchum.

spk_1:   24:39
All righty, then. That explains a lot, but no, I don't want to guess.

spk_0:   24:45
Shigeki created Mu.

spk_1:   24:48
Okay, That tracks that makes sense. Never would have guessed that. Yeah.

spk_0:   24:53
So mu almost single handedly saved Pokemon and Nintendo's handheld division. Who? Yep. It was a really unorthodox decision to make, but it was one of the team knew they needed to do from the get go. They needed a Pokemon to uses a post launch material, which is unheard of for games at all back then, having some sort of downloadable content. Um, and it wasn't downloadable because it was already part of the game. And this is something that they decided to do right from the beginning. And that can be proven in the fact that the name you was trademarked before pocket monsters. So they ended up trademarking the name you, and they let it sit all the way until they were done developing and post processing the game for bugs. And right before publishing, Shigeki and the programming team remove their bug protection code and added the code for a 151st out of 150 announced creatures. This is most likely the reason for people having conflicting years when Pokemon was released a cZ well, because the advertisements found in magazines around the time said that Pokemon was slated for release in 1995 and even the game's opening screen says 1995. But there's a good chance of the team was waffling around on move, removing the bug protection to Adam you just like their original plan was. And it's a good thing that they ended up stalling and doing that because it worked out in the end. That's the rumor that mu existed fueled so many purchases of Pokemon and Game boys that the game boy was able to extend its product lifecycle out to 2003 when it should have ended before to 1996.

spk_1:   26:37
Wow, that's a lot of power for one cute little pink Pokemon.

spk_0:   26:41
Yeah. I mean, it's also like one of the first times that, like there was a secret in a game.

spk_1:   26:46
Yeah,

spk_0:   26:47
that, like, wasn't just a glitch, but you had to use glitches to find it. And it was, like, intended.

spk_1:   26:55
Yeah, that's a very I feel like that would have been really complicated to, like, program and stuff like, That's a really interesting concept.

spk_0:   27:04
Yeah, So with a revenue of $90 billion Whoa. Today, Pokemon is the largest entertainment franchise of all time, followed closely by Star Wars at 42 billion under half of what Pokemon is.

spk_1:   27:20
I did not know that poem common was the like, highest value. Ah, franchise. Whatever. Yeah, whatever you said. Yeah,

spk_0:   27:30
following Star Wars is Harry Potter at again. Half of that value. 25 billion.

spk_1:   27:36
Admittedly, it's only had about half a cz. Much time to get. They're So there's that

spk_0:   27:41
Harry Potter.

spk_1:   27:42
Yeah.

spk_0:   27:43
Harry Potter started around the same time. It's Pokemon.

spk_1:   27:45
No, no, I mean, Star Wars. I was referencing Star Wars. Like what? Darwin has started a lot earlier than Harry Potter.

spk_0:   27:54
Okay, I thought you were saying in reference

spk_1:   27:56
to a monster. I have. Except, uh, I've accepted the fact that polka Martin is way like, just way off in the stratosphere like rain, its own rank. Like there's no competition. I was meeting. I was saying that Harry Potter's only had about half a much half.

spk_0:   28:12
That's true

spk_1:   28:13
of the time to get to Star Wars. And Star Wars had has had to get to that point.

spk_0:   28:17
So yep. So Harry Potter had 25 billion and Lord of the Rings and James Bond are tied for fourth at $6 billion.

spk_1:   28:27
All right,

spk_0:   28:28
so even less than half like that, Yeah, I was surprised at just how separate these, like franchise like gross revenues are.

spk_1:   28:35
Yeah, it's interesting.

spk_0:   28:37
It's half two or more than half the all the way from from Pokemon to Star Wars to Harry Potter, the Lord of the Rings and James Bond.

spk_1:   28:43
So I feel like this. The moral of this story is if you make a playing card game out of your franchise, you're better off. I

spk_0:   28:51
mean, probably because,

spk_1:   28:52
like,

spk_0:   28:53
you know, they just produce so much of it.

spk_1:   28:55
Yeah, just incessantly rolling out, poke among cards.

spk_0:   28:58
Yeah, So there's even the possibility that, if not now, very soon Pekka Chew, maybe more recognizable than the original king of cartoons and fellow mouse Disney's Mickey Mouse,

spk_1:   29:10
Oh, now

spk_0:   29:10
has created all the way back in 1928.

spk_1:   29:13
You cannot dethrone the mouse.

spk_0:   29:15
Well, a mouse might be doing it

spk_1:   29:17
well. Piggy chu No, stop! He could you stop? Stop your nefarious rampage.

spk_0:   29:24
I mean, right now, if you look at it, Peek atyou has probably made more money than Mickey Mouse directly has, even though Mickey Mouse is probably a more, um, pervasive icon like you see, like three circles together and you immediately see, like Mickey's head in his ears, right? But apparently Peter Chu is almost just that recognizable already.

spk_1:   29:50
Wow, that's impressive. So now that

spk_0:   29:52
we've caught up, what are some other notable moments in Pokemon history? Well, we're gonna go back to 1990 When Satoshi first pitched the game for two Nintendo in the form of a comic, the cover of that comic featured two creatures in a battle that were likely prototypes of the Pokemon gang are in Torino. This battle is an absolute classic to any Pokemon fan, because when you loaded up Pokemon red or green for the first time, it was the very first thing you were shown. A gang are in a nunnery, no fighting each other until Professor Oak would interject and tell you all about the world of Pokemon that you're about to enter. The animal also opens with this gang garnet arino battle

spk_1:   30:32
on.

spk_0:   30:32
Very recently, the phone game Pokemon Masters revealed that the iconic scene was none other than Professor Oak and his knee. Torino taking on one of the elite for Agatha and her gang are fact, that battle was the fight when Oak was still like a Pokemon trainer.

spk_1:   30:50
Ah, yep, that's cute.

spk_0:   30:54
For those who are unfamiliar, the games are pretty simple. You play as a kid who leaves home with a Pokemon friend on a journey to collect more monsters and eventually become the best Pokemon trainer in the world by beating a series of eight gym leaders or stronger trainers before being invited to fight in the Pokemon League. The league is led by four trainers, known as the Elite Four, who prevent you from taking on your final challenger, the Pokemon League champion. Beating them grants you the title of champion and your Pokemon earn a spot in the league Hall of Fame.

spk_1:   31:23
Or if you're like me, you get to the point where you are supposed to fight the elite foreign. You do everything, but

spk_0:   31:29
that is

spk_1:   31:29
true. I'm like I'm good. I'm just going to go run along and try and catch every single Pokemon instead of battling the elite for Did you ever battle them? No. Oh, my God, man. Highly did it to it. I'm doing great of losing.

spk_0:   31:51
Oh, boy.

spk_1:   31:52
And I have the legendary too. So, like, um, was

spk_0:   31:58
so this point, I'm starting to realize that I could probably talk about Pokemon forever, so I'm just gonna pick out one more import in part of Pokemon history at least to me, and we'll talk about that until the end of the episode.

spk_1:   32:12
All right, fair enough.

spk_0:   32:13
So we're going to skip ahead to one of my favorite Pokemon memories. It was called Twitch Plays. Pokemon now twitches a video streaming service where traditionally you watch other people play games. But in one glorious experiment that started on February 12th of 2014 it became much more than watching someone play a game. This is because the creator modified his red version toe let the chat window where Spectators interact with streamer control, all of the movements of our protagonists in the original Pokemon gamely, God. In the beginning, things weren't that crazy because there weren't that many people playing and you know, just a few people entering ups. Downs Left, writes A Bee's Start selects at the beginning of a game that's mostly tort. Tutorial was entertaining to watch and bumble through, but it wasn't like all that difficult because they didn't really have much traction. But literally days later it went viral, and within the first few days thousands of people were inputting commands intothe no. So now our occasional bumping around and goofy things were devolved down into our protagonist just spinning uncontrollably for our side.

spk_1:   33:29
Oh, poor ash.

spk_0:   33:31
Yeah. Um, So nevertheless, our little pixel protagonist persisted and somehow kept catching more Pokemon, giving them awful names as we tried to navigate a street. Two examples of this where our charm and er that was named a B, B, B, B, B, B, K, and our first cop, Pokemon was erotica named J L ve WN n o the community Calo clearly called these Abby and Jay Leno.

spk_1:   34:02
Oh, my gosh.

spk_0:   34:05
So other fund blunders were when people got stuck in the options menu in the game that you couldn't

spk_1:   34:11
write

spk_0:   34:11
collectively navigate away from it. And this resulted in hours of us specifically clicking on this, um, one item that we had attained called the Helix fossil. The item does nothing because just a fossil of an extinct Pokemon called on the night. But the craziness of this viral experiment made it so that we were determined that our character, in order to break from the insanity of thousands of inputs every second, would occasionally need to take a break and consult the wisdom of the God Mighty Lord helix because just every time we got into the menu. Somehow our menu keys would get all the way down to item and just click on the helix fossil and would just say, You can't do that here Or did it happen? So we just the community as a whole just pretended that poor red Satoshi Ash, whatever you wanna call him, was just constantly consulting a fossil for wisdom.

spk_1:   35:04
Oh, my goodness. And clearly not doing a great job at it either. Yeah,

spk_0:   35:11
so on February 23rd was a not fun blunder that we got hit with as we got stuck in another menu. But this time it was inside of our Pokemon storage box. So whenever you catch six Pokemon, that's the amount max amount that you can carry with you and anymore. Go straight to this box. And the reason we needed to go to this box was that we caught Zab dose, which was crazy to me. Zap toast was like one of the hardest Pokemon to catch like by myself. When I was first playing this game, it would just has, like, an incredibly low capture rate, and it's pretty good at wiping out teams and, you know, it, You know, the anything could happen. We could have killed it like, just by accidentally pressing the wrong button, because it's thousands of us in putting on keys. But we somehow caught Zap dose and everyone decided we need to have zapped dose on our team. So we had to go to the box between we had to navigate menus, which means we had to be able to switch out another Pokemon out of our party to put our news Aptos into the party.

spk_1:   36:16
Did someone accidentally delete it are like, transfer it.

spk_0:   36:21
So in the withdraw polka mama box, there is another option, and it's called release.

spk_1:   36:29
Oh, no.

spk_0:   36:30
So the release Pokemon that get caught go back into the wild and you never see them again.

spk_1:   36:37
Oh, no.

spk_0:   36:38
During our attempt to get the zap does out, some of our team members got put into the box and therefore became subject to the button release. Uh, so this would go on to be known as Bloody Sunday by the community, as 12 of our very limited amount of Pokemon were killed during the seven hour process of trying to retrieve zapped Oh!

spk_1:   37:04
Oh, my God, that's insane.

spk_0:   37:05
or a very released escape Our storage pucks.

spk_1:   37:09
Who has the time to just mean? Oh, no, Jonathan,

spk_0:   37:15
it was 2014 which is like, the thing is, the end of my sophomore year of college, and that was a very lonely, depressing time for me. So I spent a lot of my time doing Twitch Place Pokemon.

spk_1:   37:29
Oh, my God.

spk_0:   37:31
I was a very heavy participant in this.

spk_1:   37:34
You are such a nerd.

spk_0:   37:36
Yeah. So another notable moment was when we got stuck in team rockets hideout. For those who are unfamiliar, it was a maze of a room. It had floor tiles that forced everyone to travel in the direction that they were pointing in. And playing this is a single player was difficult enough. And, you know, just again, with everything having thousands of inputs at one time made it nearly impossible. There's a chance that it actually made it impossible because we spent 24 straight hours throwing our poor characters body at these panels that would spin him around in circles forever. Way could not make it through the maze. So this was really interesting because I didn't realize that the Creator was actually actively engaging with this. I thought they just kind of put the Rahman the you know, the game emulation and left in just like let it let it do its thing. But they must have been paying attention because after the 24 hours, there was an update pushed to the game and the update was called Anarchy Verse. Democracy.

spk_1:   38:40
Oh, no.

spk_0:   38:42
So the game was already played in anarchy mode because basically, every time you pressed a button, it would tell the game, do this thing. So if 10 people pressed up in one person pressed down, the character would move up 10 times and then down once, regardless of how you know how many times things were put in

spk_1:   39:00
her

spk_0:   39:01
so democracy mode could be activated by a super majority vote of the Chak Rupe. So if you typed in the word democracy, it would put one vote towards democracy. If you put if you typed in the word anarchy, you put a vote towards anarchy. So if the number of people who were actively participating got a super majority of people typing democracy, the game mod would switch over and in democracy mode, it would count all of the inputs for 10 seconds and then move the character in the input direction that was most commonly chosen.

spk_1:   39:34
Her

spk_0:   39:35
so it would every 10 seconds. It would make one move based on the popular vote

spk_1:   39:40
like majority rule kind of thing.

spk_0:   39:42
Yep. And if you wanted to get back into anarchy mode, it just took a simple majority to do that. This created crazy amounts of politics and factions within the community because there were people who were dedicated to the game being anarchy mode. People were dedicated to trying to finish the game, so they need democracy mode. And it was really, really fun watching all of the arguments go by and chat as people are also currently just typing up. Arrow down, arrow up our left their a B start, select

spk_1:   40:15
Oh my God! And then there's just anarchy, democracy, anarchy, democracy. This poor league game is just being like, utterly destroyed by these people.

spk_0:   40:24
Just tortured, just a poor, tortured soul. Red ash Satoshi

spk_1:   40:28
was saying

spk_0:   40:30
so Yeah, it was a really fun addition to an already wild game. So on March 1st of 2014 conveniently also this week, I might add for like

spk_1:   40:39
half of

spk_0:   40:39
history. After 16 days, nine hours, 55 minutes and four seconds we beat Pokemon Red. All 1,165,000, 140 players.

spk_1:   40:55
You people are insane.

spk_0:   40:56
Yeah, I was not expecting that to ever be the outcome. There are so many spots in that game that just seemed nearly impossible to do going through the safari zone where you have a limited number of steps to complete it before you get kicked out forcefully.

spk_1:   41:12
Oh, my gosh. We

spk_0:   41:13
made it through the safari zone and you need to make it through the safari zone to get the, um the move surf, which is the only way to get to one of the gym leaders who is out on an island.

spk_1:   41:24
All right,

spk_0:   41:26
And then, like Victory Road had a bunch of other like, you know, environment puzzles. And I just I can't believe that it actually was accomplished. And it was it was funny, because I remember when I was playing it that I was like, I will do this for a day, and it'll probably get boring is we'll probably never leave like Pallet town, and, like, maybe if we leave the starting town, maybe will be like the first gym leader, but there's no way we're getting through the because there's a cave that's completely dark and it literally turns your screen black.

spk_1:   41:52
Oh,

spk_0:   41:53
and like that was hard as as a kid to play as well. So I'm like,

spk_1:   41:57
there's no way

spk_0:   41:57
we're getting through Mount Moon. This isn't happening. And then just over that, the course of a few days, I'm like, Oh my God, we're going

spk_1:   42:04
somewhere like

spk_0:   42:06
in this on all of this insanity for going somewhere We're winning battles. We have multiple Jim badges like,

spk_1:   42:13
Oh my God, that seed!

spk_0:   42:14
Yeah, pretty much so. I'm like, I'm gonna stick with it. And we did. And it was 16 days. Um,

spk_1:   42:20
Von Kerry's

spk_0:   42:21
Yeah. In total, 36 million people watched this stream. Wow. Yep,

spk_1:   42:27
that's that's a lot of people

spk_0:   42:29
which actually had to restructure their chat environment to upgrade their like They're competitive tournament chats that they have, like band with four. Because there were so many people in twitch plays Pokemon that this the website in general couldn't keep up.

spk_1:   42:45
Oh, my gosh.

spk_0:   42:47
Unfortunately, I think I'm gonna have to cut my notes short and save more Pokemon fax and Pokemon history for another Pokemon day in the future. So I just want to end with one short thing. And that's I'd imagine that Satoshi is probably incredibly happy with Pokemon as of late, not just cause it's wildly successful for the last 20 years. 20 something years. It's more than that now. My God,

spk_1:   43:09
yeah, I feel

spk_0:   43:11
it, Yeah, but specifically because of both Pokemon Go and the new Pokemon Sword and Shield games, Pokemon go. Because not it not only gets people collecting and trading with each other like all of the games, dio, but it also got a lot of people spending more time outside and do it while doing those things. Which is exactly what he envisioned as a kid and when he first thought of the game in 1990 then Pokemon Sword and Shield because it has heavy themes of industrialization and themes, of maintaining the outdoors through the industrialization. And that was president in this game, more than any other Pokemon game to date and in certain shield, it's almost like the Pokemon kind of get a say in this industrialisation as well as they grew with it rather than be named for rather than needing to be forced away from it. It's not like the cities were pushing out wildlife at all. Um, so this draws really heavy parallels again to his time as a top as a child in Industrial Japan. And I think so. She probably loves that because I bet Dr Bug would have loved a world where the bugs live peacefully with people and its progress

spk_1:   44:16
and only can use Harden Theo only moving new. So that's my topic. That's fun. Yeah.

spk_0:   44:27
I had fun reading more about Pokemon

spk_1:   44:29
and did not know a lot of that.

spk_0:   44:31
Yeah, I knew a good portion of that, but it was There were definitely some little things like the development of Pokemon that I wasn't fully aware of.

spk_1:   44:39
Yeah, that's really cool.

spk_0:   44:41
And I love talking about Twitter. Play spoke monks. That was a wild experience.

spk_1:   44:44
That's insane. It? Yep. That guy

spk_0:   44:48
actually continued doing twitch place Pokemon for every single Pokemon game.

spk_1:   44:52
Oh, God.

spk_0:   44:53
They recently completed sword and shield in the same manner.

spk_1:   44:55
Oh, my goodness. I can't even imagine.

spk_0:   44:59
Yeah, apparently the sword and shield they only they did it in, like, six hours

spk_1:   45:02
total. My gosh

spk_0:   45:04
or no, Not six hours. Six days?

spk_1:   45:06
Well, that's still impressive.

spk_0:   45:08
10 days shorter than they did Pokemon,

spk_1:   45:09
huh? Well, I mean, I would assume there probably aren't near there aren't quite as many people engaging in it.

spk_0:   45:15
Yeah, I imagine as well

spk_1:   45:17
novelty probably wore off.

spk_0:   45:20
Yeah, I tried playing through, like, continuing on when they started up the second generation of Pokemon. But I was like, Nah, this was a really big hi to end on meeting already, but, you know, good for that guy first, actually. Sticking all the way through every game.

spk_1:   45:36
Now he's got to do the, um whatever this one is. Wait,

spk_0:   45:41
I said that He just finished that one in six days.

spk_1:   45:44
Oh, yeah. Sorry. I was getting you confused. The last one.

spk_0:   45:49
Sun and moon.

spk_1:   45:49
Yes, that one. Okay.

spk_0:   45:53
So, onto our call to action, you can find us on Facebook and Twitter at half wit history. You can find our website at half wit, dash history dot com and you can send us e mails at half a pot at gmail dot com.

spk_1:   46:06
We really appreciate comments, feedback, um, topics, suggestions would be great. You know, if you have something that you'd really likes learn more about or, you know, I have this deep well of knowledge and want to hear people talking about it, like that kind of thing because I always enjoy hearing things that, like, I know a lot about being talked about by other people because, Michael, someone else actually appreciates us. Um, so, yeah, just send us an email and let us know what you like to hear about.

spk_0:   46:33
Yeah, absolutely. Um, and thank you to the fishermen for the use of our theme song. Another day you confined his link to his soundcloud down our show notes.

spk_1:   46:44
You should go check him out. It's pretty good.

spk_0:   46:46
Okay. Are you ready for fun? Facts

spk_1:   46:49
on facts.

spk_0:   46:50
Okay, My fun. Fact is on February 28th of 1983 the finale episode of MASH titled Goodbye Farewell in amen. Airs on CBS to a record 125 million viewers. Wow. It is the largest finale to date.

spk_1:   47:08
Yeah, and, ah, you get a little call back to when you talked about mash in one of our other upsets. Yeah, that's true. It's,

spk_0:   47:15
um, the one that's called Hobbit. What? What episode number is that?

spk_1:   47:19
I don't remember.

spk_0:   47:20
I'm gonna look it up because it's good to call back to our past episodes. Yes, because people should go listen to him if you're not listening in order.

spk_1:   47:29
Yeah. Go. Listen.

spk_0:   47:31
Episode 16 was hobbit, and that's where I talked about MASH. And obviously, Kylie must have talked something about Lord of the Rings.

spk_1:   47:37
Did talk about Lord of the Rings. Actually, I talked about the Hobbit.

spk_0:   47:40
Oh, the Hobbit.

spk_1:   47:41
Okay, okay, so my fun fact is, from March 1st 16 42 Georgie on a Massachusetts becomes the first incorporated city in the United States. Oh, it didn't I keep that name?

spk_0:   47:55
No, I don't know of a Georgiana.

spk_1:   47:58
Can you guess what it became known as

spk_0:   48:01
into city? No, I don't know.

spk_1:   48:04
Well, it was a bit of a trick question, because it's actually York. Maine. Yeah. First incorporated city in the U. S. Is a main city, Massachusetts city. You king, go jump off a cliff. Well,

spk_0:   48:20
as always, I have been your half wit.

spk_1:   48:22
And I'm your historian.

spk_0:   48:23
And when you hope you'll listen next week