Episode 123 - It's Full of Stars

It was a Starfield wedding and the old folks wished them well.

I’m excited to welcome back Jason Plays (@jasonplaysNMS) to the show to discuss a variety of topics.

First up, Starfield has been out for about a month now and we were both super looking forward to it. How has Jason found the game so far, his likes and dislikes, comparing it to both past Bethesda games and space operas like Mass Effect. I’ve been slow playing, where Jason is on his fourth playthrough, so while there are discussions of characters and missions, a lot of the big spoilers are not discussed, since I haven’t gotten to them yet.

Then, of course, we talk about No Man’s Sky, which dropped an update and expedition right before Starfield’s launch. How did Jason cope with trying to consume and play both at the same time? We discuss the most recent expedition and how it feels like Hello Games just might be making adventures to put a burr in the saddle of speedrunners.

We also chat about the upcoming Metal Gear Solid remastered releases. Jason was a huge Solid Snake fan in the day, so we talk about our memories of the games both good and bad (Raiden, I’m looking at you).

Then we shift gears for a long chat about the James Bond franchise. We discuss our favorite Bond actors and films, the out-of-continuity movies, serious spy films vs funny/campy pictures, other favorite spy properties and more. There’s also a lot of random popular culture chat, including (again) the greatness of Green Acres, the early years of having a VCR, life as a video game streamer and attracing an audience and other stuff.

I want to thank Jason for his time for doing a long episode, especially since we started late, thanks to a seemingly interminable traffic jam on my way home from work, which pushed back the recording time.

The Plot - Episode 4 - Inspector Clouseau / The Inspector

The Inspector and The Matzoriley Brothers, from The Great De Gualle Stone Operation. (C) 2022 MGM.

In this episode, we look at what happens when a studio makes a sequel without its creator and without its star and its more successful cartoon analog.

In 1968, Mirisch Films decided to make a third Pink Panther without Blake Edwards, Peter Sellers and Henry Mancini. And we got Inspector Clouseau, directod by veteran comedy producer/director Bud Yorkin and starring Alan Arkin, in between making The Russians Are Coming and Catch-22. If every a film was less than the sum of its parts, it’s this film, which just doesn’t work on so many levels. But its an interesting study in what happens when you remove the creators that make something special.

We also take a look at The Inspector, the animated film/tv series that actually preceded the aforementioned film by three years. The second animated spin-off series from the Pink Panther franchise debuted a year after the first Pink Panther cartoon won an Oscar. The Inspector (and his assistant Doux-Doux) are voiced by Pat Harrington Jr and The Commissioner is originally voiced by the recently-departed Larry Storch and later by Paul Frees. There were 34 cartoons eventually made for either the movies or Saturday morning TV, with such great episodes titles as Napoleon Blown Aparte and Toulouse La Trick. Full of traditional cartoon gags like exploding bombs and surrealistic situations, your tolerance for them in 2022 may be determined by your tolerance for comedy French and Spanish accents.

The Plot - Episode 3 - Secret Six / Showcase 43

Introducing the team in Secret Six issue 2. (2) 2022 DC Comics.

We’re back with a new episode of The Plot and it’s back to the spies, this time in comic book form with two topics for discussion

First up is Secret Six, the seven-issue DC Comics from 1968 and 1969. We look at the creation of the book, its fairly obvious inspiration (see Episode 1), the members of the team, their mysterious leader and an issue-by-story description of their missions. We talk about the book’s premature end, the unsolved mystery surrounding Mockingbird and how that was unofficially resolved and how to read it today. (Note: This is about the Silver Age team, not the Gail Simone books of the 2000s.)

And then, it’s Showcase 43, cover dated April 1963, the DC Comics adaptation of Dr. No, the first James Bond movie starring Sean Connery. We look at the comic’s original home, how it got to DC Comics. how were it’s sales since it was published before the movie was released in the US and some of the major and minor changes back to the movie versus the comic. We also touch on, 60 years after being published, it’s quite the rarity in the collector’s world.

Special shout out to comics scribe and font of knowledge Mark Waid for research help. Check out the Irredeemable Kickstarter still going on as this episode debuts. And remember to check out the other podcasts on the When It Was Cool network.