I recently watched a short TV miniseries called Merlin, and it made me realize something odd. I wasn’t really interested in the story, though I like Arthurian myth as much as anyone. I didn’t really care about what happened to Merlin or any of the characters really, though I thought Sam Neill did a pretty good job playing the wizard. I didn’t even laugh at the laughable parts, like the hammy performances (Martin Short especially) and some of the most incredibly dated special effects you’ve ever seen. Just think: a live fish necklace! A CGI dragon on loan from the D&D sequel! Computerized blood! (Kind of pointless, really.) Why did I keep watching? The answer is CD-I.
Don’t dispute me on this: Merlin has to be the most CD-I TV show ever. When a wizard fails to solve a problem, a tyrant king orders a guard to “take him away,” complete with hand gesture. When Merlin meets his love Nimue, he asks her for a kiss, which he refuses (though she doesn’t think he’s kidding). Later, when Merlin saves her from drowning with a long piece of wood, she says, “I suppose that’s deserving of a kiss.” After a long battle scene, Merlin’s voiceover says “I had won,” just as Link said at the end of Faces of Evil. Even smaller parts brought CD-I to mind, like the scene where Merlin’s mom gives him a cloak and tells him that it’ll be “enough,” or the occasional cry of “You must die!”
I write as if those phrases and actions came exclusively from CD-I. Apart from “Squadallah!” (which I still haven’t been able to trace), everything funny about Poop sources existed long before they did. That explains why the dialogue seems to crop up in so many films and books. A fatherly character in Barry Lyndon makes a point of calling Barry “my boy” in every line. A British policeman in Gandhi orders some other policemen to “take him away.” An angry anime character says "That's Mr. Kaneda to you, PUNK!" in Akira, echoing Mama Luigi's famous catchphrase. Emperor Palpatine says “You will die” before spraying lightning from his hands in the end of Return of the Jedi. Plus, I’m sure that several villains have said “You MUST die” at one point.
Still, for some reason, the traditional Youtube Poop sources figure strongly in my mind, and in the minds of poopers everywhere. When one game reviewer saw the Stone Tower Temple as a symbol of masculinity and anti-feminism, the members of this forum just saw “FOR.” When Jim Carrey channeled Orson Welles and Bela Lugosi in A Series of Unfortunate Events, we only saw a live-action I.M. Meen. When we saw the Lizard in Amazing Spider-Man, we couldn’t help noticing that he looked a lot like the Goombas from the Super Mario Brothers movie. When we saw the cover of A Confederacy of Dunces, we instantly thought “Morshu.” (Who can blame us?) When we watched the dreadful Felix the Cat movie, we couldn’t stop comparing its ending to Faces’ infamous conclusion. Could it have been simple coincidence that both works end with the hero defeating the villain by throwing a book?
Beyond works of fiction, we’re constantly reminded of CD-I. We see signs advertising “spaghetti dinner” on campus, and we see offers of “spa dinner” in the newspaper. Everyday products come with enclosed instruction books. People tell us that we “gotta help” them. We may even hear “you will die” from a friend or creepy stranger, and we definitely hear parents calling their sons "my boy." Hell, it happens all the time where I live. When my class read Othello, I laughed when Othello said “my boat departs early next morn” or something like that, even though I probably shouldn’t have. Around voting time, there were signs all over my city saying “No on prop B: BAD MEDICINE.” Evidently Yoshi is into politicking. Masses at my Catholic school sometimes include a song called “Your Grace is Enough” (no explanation needed there).
Why do CD-I, Super Mario World, the Sonic cartoons, and everything else poop-related have such strong powers of association? I’ve seen Battleship Potemkin multiple times and I’m very familiar with the “Odessa Steps” sequence in which a baby carriage rolls down a stairway in the middle of gunfire. Somehow I sat through a long scene in The Untouchables that clearly and officially paid homage to Potemkin and didn’t realize it until reading about it on Wikipedia. And yet I immediately think of CD-I and Youtube Poop the instant someone says something as common as “my boy” or “spaghetti.”
I can’t throw out my own background, of course. I’ve known about poop for six or seven years. That’s one-third to almost two-fifths of my life. It makes sense that I associate many things in life with Poop stuff. Still, I know that several poopers haven’t been in the scene as long as I have, and they still associate anything vaguely King- or Mario-like with the CD-I games. It might be that we subconsciously prefer those things that we encounter frequently, as the mere-exposure theory states. Or we might deliberately seek out parts of life that remind us of Pooph. Is there any good reason why we Youtube search “The King Must Die”? Because we like Elton John? Hell no. We want to be reminded of Youtube Poop. It brings us back to what we love doing, and it makes us laugh in a special way; i.e. "wow, did they actually just do/say that?" I'm convinced that a video like "Youtube Poop" could only come from the desire to find every poop reference ever. Why else would someone willingly watch an episode of Everybody Hates Chris?
We even had a whole thread solely dedicated to finding CD-I and other Poop references in real life. They extend from “Send Link” on a control click to our mothers observing that “the birds are singing.” If I remember correctly, the thread had over 15 pages (it's archived now). It’s like we can’t escape our own culture, if you could even call Youtube Poop a culture.
And sometimes, it does seem like Poop has its own world. This is a world where plumbers travel through time, royal figures engage in disgusting sexual acts on a regular basis, and everyone has a stuttering problem. Even the things that weren't originally part of the sources - "Gay Luigi," "double n***er," "a fuck for luck" - have kept us constantly thinking about Poop. And it doesn't even stop there. Not only have poop sources cropped up in real life, but poop itself has become synonymous with any kinds of crazy editing. Some of us might think we're watching one when a DVD skips or an experimental movie uses mirror and twirl effects, though it usually takes more than that.
Soon, though, those Poop references will no longer be unintentional. Actual knowledge of poop is still low - I only know 2 people in my area who watch it - but awareness seems to be growing. Somewhat recently, a Regular Show animator came out in his love for Youtube Poops, and openly acknowledged them as a major influence for one of the show's episodes. We're used to a world that doesn't care about us, though. TV writers can write "toast for dinner" or "you gotta help us" without meaning anything else. What will happen when those writers are in on the joke and specifically targeting us? Will the joke lose its flavor? It will for me. I wouldn't have laughed as much at Merlin if its creators knew how closely they hewed to CD-i tropes. I don't want to sound like one of those "I liked it before it was popular" people, but on the other hand, I'd prefer not to lose any of our in-jokes, no matter how esoteric they might be. Most of us don't poop anymore; those references just might be our last connection.
Whatever the reasons, the tendency of Youtube Poop to influence our view of the world deserves mention. It might just be another one of the odd things about Poop, but it seems too powerful for that. We will remember these quotes for the rest of our lives, and no one will understand why, not even us. And that's fine by me. I’ll bet you anything that we’ll still be calling our sons “my boy” well into adulthood.
Don’t dispute me on this: Merlin has to be the most CD-I TV show ever. When a wizard fails to solve a problem, a tyrant king orders a guard to “take him away,” complete with hand gesture. When Merlin meets his love Nimue, he asks her for a kiss, which he refuses (though she doesn’t think he’s kidding). Later, when Merlin saves her from drowning with a long piece of wood, she says, “I suppose that’s deserving of a kiss.” After a long battle scene, Merlin’s voiceover says “I had won,” just as Link said at the end of Faces of Evil. Even smaller parts brought CD-I to mind, like the scene where Merlin’s mom gives him a cloak and tells him that it’ll be “enough,” or the occasional cry of “You must die!”
I write as if those phrases and actions came exclusively from CD-I. Apart from “Squadallah!” (which I still haven’t been able to trace), everything funny about Poop sources existed long before they did. That explains why the dialogue seems to crop up in so many films and books. A fatherly character in Barry Lyndon makes a point of calling Barry “my boy” in every line. A British policeman in Gandhi orders some other policemen to “take him away.” An angry anime character says "That's Mr. Kaneda to you, PUNK!" in Akira, echoing Mama Luigi's famous catchphrase. Emperor Palpatine says “You will die” before spraying lightning from his hands in the end of Return of the Jedi. Plus, I’m sure that several villains have said “You MUST die” at one point.
Still, for some reason, the traditional Youtube Poop sources figure strongly in my mind, and in the minds of poopers everywhere. When one game reviewer saw the Stone Tower Temple as a symbol of masculinity and anti-feminism, the members of this forum just saw “FOR.” When Jim Carrey channeled Orson Welles and Bela Lugosi in A Series of Unfortunate Events, we only saw a live-action I.M. Meen. When we saw the Lizard in Amazing Spider-Man, we couldn’t help noticing that he looked a lot like the Goombas from the Super Mario Brothers movie. When we saw the cover of A Confederacy of Dunces, we instantly thought “Morshu.” (Who can blame us?) When we watched the dreadful Felix the Cat movie, we couldn’t stop comparing its ending to Faces’ infamous conclusion. Could it have been simple coincidence that both works end with the hero defeating the villain by throwing a book?
Beyond works of fiction, we’re constantly reminded of CD-I. We see signs advertising “spaghetti dinner” on campus, and we see offers of “spa dinner” in the newspaper. Everyday products come with enclosed instruction books. People tell us that we “gotta help” them. We may even hear “you will die” from a friend or creepy stranger, and we definitely hear parents calling their sons "my boy." Hell, it happens all the time where I live. When my class read Othello, I laughed when Othello said “my boat departs early next morn” or something like that, even though I probably shouldn’t have. Around voting time, there were signs all over my city saying “No on prop B: BAD MEDICINE.” Evidently Yoshi is into politicking. Masses at my Catholic school sometimes include a song called “Your Grace is Enough” (no explanation needed there).
Why do CD-I, Super Mario World, the Sonic cartoons, and everything else poop-related have such strong powers of association? I’ve seen Battleship Potemkin multiple times and I’m very familiar with the “Odessa Steps” sequence in which a baby carriage rolls down a stairway in the middle of gunfire. Somehow I sat through a long scene in The Untouchables that clearly and officially paid homage to Potemkin and didn’t realize it until reading about it on Wikipedia. And yet I immediately think of CD-I and Youtube Poop the instant someone says something as common as “my boy” or “spaghetti.”
I can’t throw out my own background, of course. I’ve known about poop for six or seven years. That’s one-third to almost two-fifths of my life. It makes sense that I associate many things in life with Poop stuff. Still, I know that several poopers haven’t been in the scene as long as I have, and they still associate anything vaguely King- or Mario-like with the CD-I games. It might be that we subconsciously prefer those things that we encounter frequently, as the mere-exposure theory states. Or we might deliberately seek out parts of life that remind us of Pooph. Is there any good reason why we Youtube search “The King Must Die”? Because we like Elton John? Hell no. We want to be reminded of Youtube Poop. It brings us back to what we love doing, and it makes us laugh in a special way; i.e. "wow, did they actually just do/say that?" I'm convinced that a video like "Youtube Poop" could only come from the desire to find every poop reference ever. Why else would someone willingly watch an episode of Everybody Hates Chris?
We even had a whole thread solely dedicated to finding CD-I and other Poop references in real life. They extend from “Send Link” on a control click to our mothers observing that “the birds are singing.” If I remember correctly, the thread had over 15 pages (it's archived now). It’s like we can’t escape our own culture, if you could even call Youtube Poop a culture.
And sometimes, it does seem like Poop has its own world. This is a world where plumbers travel through time, royal figures engage in disgusting sexual acts on a regular basis, and everyone has a stuttering problem. Even the things that weren't originally part of the sources - "Gay Luigi," "double n***er," "a fuck for luck" - have kept us constantly thinking about Poop. And it doesn't even stop there. Not only have poop sources cropped up in real life, but poop itself has become synonymous with any kinds of crazy editing. Some of us might think we're watching one when a DVD skips or an experimental movie uses mirror and twirl effects, though it usually takes more than that.
Soon, though, those Poop references will no longer be unintentional. Actual knowledge of poop is still low - I only know 2 people in my area who watch it - but awareness seems to be growing. Somewhat recently, a Regular Show animator came out in his love for Youtube Poops, and openly acknowledged them as a major influence for one of the show's episodes. We're used to a world that doesn't care about us, though. TV writers can write "toast for dinner" or "you gotta help us" without meaning anything else. What will happen when those writers are in on the joke and specifically targeting us? Will the joke lose its flavor? It will for me. I wouldn't have laughed as much at Merlin if its creators knew how closely they hewed to CD-i tropes. I don't want to sound like one of those "I liked it before it was popular" people, but on the other hand, I'd prefer not to lose any of our in-jokes, no matter how esoteric they might be. Most of us don't poop anymore; those references just might be our last connection.
Whatever the reasons, the tendency of Youtube Poop to influence our view of the world deserves mention. It might just be another one of the odd things about Poop, but it seems too powerful for that. We will remember these quotes for the rest of our lives, and no one will understand why, not even us. And that's fine by me. I’ll bet you anything that we’ll still be calling our sons “my boy” well into adulthood.
