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Speaker 1: All right, everybody, welcome back to our series on the

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games of nineteen eighty one. Level three Froger.

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Speaker 2: All right, everybody, welcome back to the Shirley You Can't

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Be Serious podcast. Today we're continuing our series on video

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games of nineteen eighty one. Today we're going to be talking.

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Speaker 1: About Froger, one of the best video games of all time.

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Speaker 2: It is. When I was looking at this, did you

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ever think when the two frogs are on the log

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that they're actually copulating during the game.

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Speaker 1: So you say the frogs are hogging on the log? Okay, friendly,

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here we go, Okay, all right, so Froger, So Froger.

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Speaker 2: Froger released June fifth, nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 1: Yes, So, we talked in our previous episode about the

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development of pac Man, and there are a couple of

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things that we need to kind of understand before we

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jump in here. So we've got multiple video game companies

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on both sides of the pond, Right, You've got video

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game companies in Japan, video game companies in the States.

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But the interesting thing is not all of the games

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that are successful in Japan are going to be successful

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in the United States, and vice versa. Right, Right, I mean,

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we talked about how Radar Scope was second only to

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pac Man over in Japan, but once Nintendo got it

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over here, they couldn't sell but a third of their

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small quantity of them in the States, right, And so oddly,

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the same thing almost happened with pac Man. And it's

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because of this cultural difference of cuteness tolerance, Like Japan

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loves cuteness. It's all about the cuteness. And we talked

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about the Magna art we taught you can look at

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all of the various characters that have come over from

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Japan that are big and fluffy and cute and even.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean all the anime, all the Pokemon stuff.

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The Japanese culture loves cute, cute.

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Speaker 1: And when pac Man came out, he was cute, right,

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And the ghosts were cute. They had the eyes that

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looked like cartoon eyes, and it was just a perfect

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little maze like you would have his little kid. Fantastic

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for Japan. But when people from the Amoa Show in

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nineteen eighty looked at what pac Man had to offer,

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they ignored it. They're like, Eh, that's too cute, I

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don't I mean, our American folks are not going to

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be interested in playing this cute sea game, and bally

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Midway literally took a chance because it needed titles and

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pac Man was cheap, and so it said, you know,

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what the heck have you seen the hutsucker proxy? No,

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he keeps drawing a circle and he keeps going, you know,

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for the kids, and it's like a ball on a

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hula hoop ands all this stuff. Right, so they thought,

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this is a cute see kids game. This is a

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Namco game. Yes, it comes over and becomes the most

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successful game in history up until that point. So how

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does this all relate to Frogger? You're asking me, I'm

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asking you, would you agree that Frogger is cute? Frog

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is cute. It's definitely cute. Right, It's not a manly

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man game. It's cute.

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Speaker 2: It's a frog jumping across the street.

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Speaker 1: Right, Frogs are cute. And so whenever it came, it

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had been created over in Japan, right, right, Actually, the

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guy who came up with the storyline was just trying

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to think of an idea and was driving in traffic

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and literally saw a frog trying to make it across

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the road, stopped his car. If my wife listens, to

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this episode, she's gonna be like, oh my gosh, I

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had to do this as an early married person. All

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the time. I didn't rescue frogs, but I rescued a

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ton of turtles. I have scars on my arm arms

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where I've been bitten by a dog trying to rescue

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a dog that was stuck next to the side of

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the road. So he gets out, he rescues this frog.

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He gets it to the other side of the road,

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and he thinks, I've got my video game idea. They

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create it, they develop it, they send it over to

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the States, and everybody that looks at it goes too cute,

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too cute, too cute. So our hero in this particular

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story is a young lady who is a grad student

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at the University of San Diego. Okay, she's working for

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the paper. Okay, they have this yearly book that comes

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out where they try to promote commerce by highlighting different

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businesses around and her job is to go look at

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these new computer enterprises that are popping up all over

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San Diego. And this is before the Internet, obviously, so

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this involves her driving around in her car looking for

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shop fronts. Sure, and one of the one that she

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happens upon is this new video gaming company called Grimlin. Okay,

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so she goes in and she's she likes video games,

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she's a gamer herself. So she starts talking to the

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founder named Frank Fogelman. She's asking him all these questions

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and at some point she says, so, how do you

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know if a game is going to be a success

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or not? And he didn't have an answer for her,

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and so she says, you need to hire me, and

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he's like, no, you're overqualified. I don't know. She's like, listen,

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you need a marketing research person. I have experience with

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this other company. I know what I'm doing. You need

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to hire me. He says no. She calls him back

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the next week and he says no, and she calls

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him every week for two months, and finally, after two

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months he says, fine, bring your resume in. He hires her,

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and her first job is to find a game for Grimlin,

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who has recently been purchased by Sega and now Sega Grimlin. Yes,

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find a game for them to license from the library

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that they have of all these submissions that they get,

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And so she goes in this dark, nasty library room

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trying to find these things. She's literally putting in VHS

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tapes trying to find some good pitch for a game,

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and she comes across Froger. She brings it to him

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and she's like, this is great. Why haven't we licensed

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this one? And he's like, well, because we've already had

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a frog game and it was a total flop.

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Speaker 2: That game is called Frogs.

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Speaker 1: Yes, have you ever played it? I think I've seen

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it before. It's the frog is jumping up in the

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air trying to catch flies. It's kind of like kind

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of like duck Hunt, you know, like the flies are

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flying around and you're trying to guide your frog, okay,

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to catch the flies, and he's just floating along on

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a lily pad. It's not I can see why it

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wasn't a big success, all right, It's OK, but duck

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Hunt esque. And then they also noticed nobody else's license

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this Frogger game either, So that's another indicator this is not.

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Speaker 2: Going to be why would we want it?

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Speaker 1: Right? So they were banking on this game called Eliminator.

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They thought it was going to be their next big hit.

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It's the only four player vector game that has ever

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been made. It's like Starcastle or Tempest, you know, except

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they were like, you could have on the table set,

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you could have four people on each end of the table,

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and it was in color. So they're like, oh, you know, Tempest,

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big success, Ours is in color. This is going to

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be great. But it wasn't at all. And so she

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keeps saying, we need to do Frogger. They say, listen,

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if you can convince management to go for it, then sure,

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that's fine. But they knew how that was going to go,

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right because management were the executives from Paramount, Like, it's

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the same company owns Paramount, owns Sega Grimlin, and so

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it's a bunch of old men's who probably knew something

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about business, but didn't know anything about video games. Sure,

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and so she comes in, she's this young, like twenty

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early twenties girl in this manly man world. To make

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her pitch for this game. She's got little booklets that

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she's made on why she thinks it's going to be

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a success. She hands them out to each of these

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old executives from Paramount. She starts her pitch and one

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of them immediately throws it back in her face and says, look,

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we've already rejected this. It is just a woman in

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kids game. Why are you wasting our time? And she says,

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oh am I talking to the same group that rejected

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pac Man. Oh wow, and that shut everybody up. And

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so when she realizes that, everybody's like, oh crap, she

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just went there, and so she starts making her pitch,

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realizing that they're kind of backtracking on their aggressive rejection,

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and she says, listen, easily memorizable patterns, attractive presentation, yes,

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great soundtrack, all of the exact same things that pac

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Man had going for it. We have going for this.

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And all I'm asking you for is ninety days for

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us to license it from Konomi and see if we

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can get somebody to bite on it. That's it, ninety days.

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And one of the executives says, you know what, giver

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her GD kids game, we'll see what happens. And they

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let her have it sixty days. Paid thirty five hundred

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dollars for a sixty day license. Nice. So they get

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it put together, they take it to one bar. This

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time it's called Spanky Saloons Spaky Saloon in San Diego. Okay,

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who's your favorite little rascal?

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Speaker 2: Spaky?

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Speaker 1: Is it Alfalfa or Spanky. This saloon has almost exclusively

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guys in it. But they play tested there. Okay, it

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goes nuts, it goes nuts, got all kinds of attention,

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it's all it took. And when they showed it at

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the AMOA, which is the Amusement and Music Operators Association show,

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when they showed it there, it immediately took off, and

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Frogger is born. Nice. Nice. It becomes Sega Grimlin's biggest

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hit of the time. It's so big that Parker Brothers

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buys the home video game rights. Not only they'd buy it,

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they bid on it. They've been a quarter of a

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million dollars to get the home video game rights. Parker

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Brothers did because they had lost some other game and

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they were really angry about losing the game. They got

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turned down for the quarter of a million dollars, and

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the president was so intent he offered them half a

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million dollars from the home video rights to this game,

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which was obviously a huge boom. And let's just think

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about that for a second. In nineteen eighty one, they

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got half a million dollars. They were a company that

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didn't really exist on the rate are and they get

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half a million dollars. If not for the young grad

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student standing up to these suits, we probably would not

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have had Sega Genesis. Yeah, wouldn't have Sonic The Hedgehog. Wow,

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think about it. That's amazing. You're exactly right.

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Speaker 2: Frogger and its success due to this girl.

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Speaker 1: Yeah gave us signed the Hedgehog. Yeah. Wow, that's fantastic.

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Speaker 2: Hey, you know the the home video game, the Parker

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Brothers Atari twenty six hundred Yes, cartridge, they marketed the

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Frogger game and the Empire Strikes Back cartridge at the

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same time. They spent ten million dollars marketed in them.

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Speaker 1: Yeah.

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Speaker 2: George Lucas and Lucasfilm spent six million dollars marketing the

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actual movie Empire Strikes Back.

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Speaker 1: Uh huh.

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Speaker 2: So that's how big video games were. Okay, before we

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talk about gameplay, let's talk about the music.

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Speaker 1: Okay.

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Speaker 2: And once again, I'm not Japanese. I've never been to Japan.

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Like I said last time, the most Japanese thing I

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know is mister Roboto. So here's the deal. One of

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the things that is kind of distinctive about Frogger is

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the music involved in yep. Okay, So the game's opening

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tune is the first verse of a Japanese children's song

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called Inu no i'm asan.

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Speaker 1: Let me translate that for thank you, dog Policeman.

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Speaker 2: The dog Policeman, thank you.

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Speaker 1: Cutesy kid music it is.

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Speaker 2: It's sort of like Mary had a Little lamb or

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Yankee Doodle or something like that over here. It's just

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something everybody knows. It's a kid's song, but it's super catchy.

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Other tunes that are played during gameplay include the theme

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to the anime Hano No Call Lunn.

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Speaker 1: And you can quote me on that.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, I got this one though, and finally

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Rascal the Raccoon.

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Speaker 1: Right right, Okay. When they brought it over to the States,

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they replaced I think that second one with Yankee Doodle.

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There you go. Yeah, a little easier for the Americans

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to pronounce it. Yes.

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Speaker 2: And the reason why I bring these up is because

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when you play Frogger, you have that super prominent music

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playing the entire time.

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Speaker 1: It's part of the game experience, absolutely, and one of

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it's kind of interesting. If you go back and look,

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I mean, we're going to talk about Defender. I don't

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think there is any music in Defender no, just sound effects. Right,

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So eighty one games are just really starting to get

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soundtracks at that time. I mean pac Man had it,

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but not a whole lot of games did, and so

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that cuteness plus the kid music really added to the

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appeal in a way that they didn't expect.

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Speaker 2: Before you get into gameplay, I wanted to mention something

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to you. Yes, Activision was a company that had split

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off of Atari and created cartridges for the twenty six hundred.

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One of the Activision games that I had was a

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game called Freeway, right right, And this was a game

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where you would playing you had a chicken and you

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were trying to cross the road.

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Speaker 1: Yes, chicken cress in the road, get it. It's like

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a joke. I wonder why why.

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Speaker 2: I don't know why. Maybe to get to the other side.

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But the interesting thing, so I always thought that either

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Froger copied Freeway or Freeway copied Froger, but that in

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this case that wasn't Yeah, that didn't happen in this case.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Allegedly they were developed at the same time on

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opposite sides of the Pacific Ocean. Yes, that's that's what

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I read too, And one of I don't really get

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to play games on my phone much anymore. But when

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I first had and we first started playing games, one

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of the first games that I remember getting was Crossy Road,

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which you go, yeah, a chicken going across the road,

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except it was more three D, and I was like, gosh,

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this is Frogger. This is Frogger right here. Yes, but yeah,

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they ended up having to sue quite a few folks

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just to make sure that their game wasn't infringed upon,

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and one about one point eight million dollars doing it too. Wow.

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Speaker 2: All right, so let's talk about gameplay for a second.

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Go okay, So in Frogger, you are a frog hopping

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across a street, yes, occupied by cars going different direction, yes,

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some fast, some slow. Then you get to this median

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where you have a safe spot, break a break, and

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then you have to jump on either turtles or logs,

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and then finally you jump into a home space frog

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home where the frog lives right right and you have

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to do that continually until.

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Speaker 1: You fill I think five frog homes. Five frog homes. Yes.

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Speaker 2: The cool thing is is that the turtles will dive

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and sometimes there's a croctile, sometimes there's a snake, and

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it's just.

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Speaker 1: It's just fun.

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Speaker 2: You're just hopping across.

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Speaker 1: To go home, you know. At the time, I mean

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we're talking about it being a kid's game, but at

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the time it had more ways to die than any

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other video game in the ARCT.

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Speaker 2: Yes, more ways to die.

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Speaker 1: And when you get hit by a car, it was

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like this gruesome death skull and crossbones epic sound effect.

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Speaker 2: And it wasn't like, yeah, Mario just sort of had

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this dizzy thing and fell on his back. Yeah, this

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was like a full on splat.

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Speaker 1: Yeah. Yes, so you could die. You could die by

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getting hit by a car. You could die by running

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into a car. Yes, you could die by jumping into

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the water in some weird universe where frogs can't swim.

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I guess right. You could die by riding a log

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off into the side of the screen. Yes. You could

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get eaten by a snake on one of the logs. Yes,

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there are. Sometimes the logs were crocodiles, and if you

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jumped on the mouth side, Yep, you could die that way.

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If you hit the hedge instead of hitting inside the

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frog home, you could die that way. Sometimes there were

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alligators inside the home and you could die in that way.

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I think that's eight. I don't know what too, I'm missing,

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But there were all kinds of ways to die on it. Yes,

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the turtle could dive on you and you could drown. Right,

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the turtles go under you and you could run out

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of time. Oh right, the time limit. There you go.

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Speaker 2: Yep, most ways to die in a video.

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Speaker 1: In nineteen eighty one and nineteen eighty one. All right, Jason,

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as far as Frogger goes, there is a number you

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ready for this, Yes, eight hundred sixty thousand, six hundred

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and thirty. Do you know the significance of that number?

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High score? Yes, but who's I don't know, Hey, look

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at the high score GLC George Lewis Constanza. That's not you,

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is it, Yes? Oh, that would be George Costanza, who

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held the Frogger record at the Pizzeria in Seinfeld on

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the Froger Seinfeld episode, which ends with them stealing the

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game and trying to run it across the highway, much

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in the same way that the frog tries to cross

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the road.

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Speaker 2: That episode is hilarious. George trying to cross the road

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with the video game. Yes, it doesn't make it, that's awesome.

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Speaker 1: Spoiler alert. It doesn't make it. I played a ton

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of Froger. Yeah, me too.

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Speaker 2: This was nominated as one of the greatest video games

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of all time.

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Speaker 1: It absolutely is. I can't believe how many good games

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came out in that scene year. It's just amazing. It

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is amazing iconic games.

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Speaker 2: Frogger. Let's just recap real quick.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, Donkey Kong.

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Speaker 2: Gave us Super Mario Brothers, which ultimately gave us Nintendo,

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the Nes, the Super Nes, the Nintendo sixty four and

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all the things that come of that legend of Zelda,

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all that stuff. Yes, Froger gave birth to Sega, which

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then in turn gave us Signed the Hedgehog and the

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Sega Home Genesis and all the stuff that comes with that.

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Speaker 1: Yes, these are hugely impactful games. Absolutely. And the other

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games that came out that year were Miss pac Man,

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which led to a ton of pac Man spinoffs, Yep

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or was a part of a ton of pac Man spinoffs, Galaga,

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which became the gold standard for the space shooter games

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that had absolutely started with Space Invaders YEP, and Defender,

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which literally turned Space Invaders on its head.

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Speaker 2: And that doesn't even cover games like Kicks and mouse

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Trap and gorf.

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Speaker 1: Is it kicks or quicks? I call it kicks? What

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is it called? I don't know what do you call it?

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I call it quicks? Okay, it's qi X. Yeah. It's

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a fantastic game that did not get the notoriety that

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these That game's freaking fun. But it is a great,

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great game where if you don't remember it, it's the

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one where you're you're just a dot on the frame

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of the screen and you come out of the frame

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to make little boxes, and your objective is to fill

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up most of that space without getting hit by the

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little floating.

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Speaker 2: Play a little zappra running around.

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Speaker 1: Yeap. So that wraps up this episode. We have more

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video games coming next week in our series on the

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best video games of nineteen eighty one.

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Speaker 2: Come back next week where we talk about mispac Man.

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Speaker 1: Thanks for joining us.

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Speaker 2: Go to our Facebook page, go to our Twitter page,

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go to our Patreon page. Send us an email us.

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Speaker 1: Know how we're doing, ye Jason, you get any quarters?

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Speaker 2: Yes, I do, but I'm saving them for myself.

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Speaker 1: Put my quarters up on the screen.

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Speaker 2: I got next, I got next

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Speaker 1: Brogger in the front, liquor in the bag,