Some intellectual properties are like PFAS. Once introduced to the environment, they will never go away, just sitting and warping whatever they touch. The Hannah-Barbera archives are a superfund site of these, and no property has stuck around like Scooby-Doo. Night of 100 Frights has the distinction of being a very faithfully created 3D version of something that wasn’t great in the first place, attached to rote 3D platformer gameplay.

We also discuss exercise games, Scooby-Doo honoring the victims of 9/11, and mourning Dolly Parton and Tim Curry.

They made a fun Pong game for the PlayStation. ANYWAY, did you know that we both got Covid-19 in Las Vegas? Let’s rank the symptoms!

DJ Boy is a beat-em-up on roller skates. Roller blades? No, skates. The most hip-hop conveyance imaginable. That’s because this is a game steeped in a very removed Japanese understanding of US hip hop culture, which comes with some extremely uncomfortable racial depictions. Also, it’s time to hear about Kaye’s dental woes instead of Gary’s!

Balan Wonderworld is so infamous that sometimes you wonder if it could actually ever be that bad. Chat, it’s very bad. It ranks right behind chronically mistreating his workers on the list of worst things Yuji Naka has ever done. It’s so bad that we remain on topic for the whole episode.

Portal didn’t invent the story about the banal cruelty of corporate super science, but it sure did it better than Whiplash. You play a weasel who has a rabbit chained to you, hopping and bopping to try to escape from a laboratory. And while it promises sweet grappling hook action, all it delivers is disappointment. We also talk about Gary’s evolving battle with, and respect for, the Tree of Heaven.

We understand why you all voted for Flix and Chill 2: Millennials in our episode poll. Look at that title. Little did you know that it’s also a viciously uninteresting adventure game in the guise of a dating sim. Millennials are strange birds, we are led to believe. Also, Kaye invents a fun new game to play with your friends.

The Powerpuff Girls was a fine cartoon. It hit a lot of people at the right age, and its groovy 90s aesthetic was instantly iconic. So it probably deserved a better game than this, a very sloppy brawler and asset hunt. We also talk about the differing legacies of Nicktoons and Cartoon Network classics, how sometimes a cat is a cartoon in real life, and ways to integrate a Venture Bros.-ass TV phone into your daily life.

Riddick Bowe Boxing, known as “Chavez” in some regions, is actually a very good boxing game for the Super Nintendo. So we return to the old topics of boxing in general, how quick and brutal real fights can be, Kaye’s dwindling number of pockets for pocket sand, and the bizarreness of “free use” pornography.

Everyone knows the Rugrats, the hideous Nickelodeon babies who taught us about Passover. Well, they also traveled through time, at least on the GameBoy. And it didn’t turn out very good for anybody. Maybe they should have stopped David Crosby from writing a very creepy song.

Everybody get up, it’s time to talk about the Space Jam video game now. And it’s just a weak NBA Jam byproduct, with zero cartoony wackiness to be found. We also talk about the Space Jam sequel and how it was the height of cynical corporate IP management.