You Guys are No Fun

A knife and kidney go to together like an Aussie in Sydney. Today we’ll learn what Rian is willing to do for $20, as well as the lengths Charles will go to in order to protect “the brand.” But first, this week is all about Wink Martindale!

Winston Conrad “Wink” Martindale (born December 4, 1933) is an American disc jockey, radio personality, game show host, and television producer. In his six-decade career, he is best known for hosting Tic-Tac-Dough from 1978 to 1985, Gambit from 1972 to 1976 (and again from 1980 to 1981), High Rollers from 1987 to 1988, and Debt from 1996 to 1998.

Martindale’s first game-show hosting job was on the show What’s This Song?, which he hosted for NBC (credited as “Win Martindale”) from 1964 to 1965. From 1970 to 1971, he hosted a similar song-recognition game show, Words and Music, again on NBC. His first major success came in 1972, when he took the emcee position on a new CBS game show, Gambit. He spent four years hosting the original Gambit and later hosted a Las Vegas-based revival for 13 months in 1980-81.

The emcee role for which Martindale is most widely known is on Tic-Tac-Dough. He was tapped by Barry & Enright Productions to host the revived series in 1978 and stayed there until 1985, presiding over one of the more popular game shows of the day. During this time, Martindale decided to branch out and form his own production company, Wink Martindale Enterprises, so he could develop and produce his own game shows. His first venture was Headline Chasers, a co-production with Merv Griffin that premiered in 1985; Martindale had left Tic-Tac-Dough to host his creation, but the show did not meet with any success and was cancelled after its only season in 1986. Martindale’s next venture was more successful, as he created and, along with Barry & Enright, co-produced the Canadian game show Bumper Stumpers for Global Television and USA Network. This series aired on both American and Canadian television from 1987 until 1990.

After hosting two short-lived Merrill Heatter-produced game shows (a revival of High Rollers and the Canadian The Last Word), Martindale went back into producing and launched The Great Getaway Game on Travel Channel in 1990. Two years after that program went off the air, Martindale teamed up with Bill Hillier and The Family Channel to produce a series of “interactive” game shows that put an emphasis on home viewers being able to play along from home and win prizes. Four series were commissioned and Martindale served as host for all four. The first to premiere, on June 7, 1993, was Trivial Pursuit, an adaptation of the popular trivia-based board game. On March 7, 1994, the list-based Shuffle and Boggle, another board game adaptation, premiered and were much different from Trivial Pursuit which was presented more in a traditional game-show style. These two programs, along with the Jumble-based show that replaced Shuffle on June 13, 1994, after its initial 14-week run ended, were played more like the interactive games for the home viewers that were the focus of the block. Except for Trivial Pursuit, none of the interactive games was much of a success; Boggle ended on November 18, 1994, while Jumble came to an end on December 30, 1994. Trivial Pursuit ended on the same day as Jumble, but continued to air in reruns for sometime afterward, finally being removed from the Family Channel schedule in July 1995.

In June 1996, Martindale became host of the Lifetime‘s highest-rated quiz show, Debt, which had debt-ridden contestants compete to try to eliminate their debts. After Debt ended in 1998, Martindale did not host another game show for over a decade.

On June 2, 2006, Martindale received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame. In 2007, he became a member of the nominating committee of the Hit Parade Hall of Fame. On October 13, 2007, Martindale was one of the first inductees into the American TV Game Show Hall of Fame in Las Vegas.

Martindale was one of the hosts featured in the NBC special Most Outrageous Game Show Moments, alongside Bob Eubanks, Jim Lange, Ben Stein, and Peter Marshall, but was not featured in any of the subsequent episodes ordered by the network.

Martindale has appeared in various TV commercials, including a stint as a pitchman for the travel website Orbitz. Until 2007, Martindale had a daily three-hour show on the syndicated Music Of Your Life format, which is heard on around 200 radio stations. On June 2, 2009, Martindale signed with the syndicated Hit Parade Radio format. The format began operation on February 7, 2010, with Martindale as afternoon drive personality. The syndicator stopped operating on June 6, 2010.

In 2008, Wink appeared on GSN Live, an interstitial program during the afternoon block of classic game show reruns. Several times during 2008, Martindale filled in for Fred Roggin on GSN Live while Roggin was on vacation. Martindale’s last program was the GSNoriginal series Instant Recall, which premiered on March 4, 2010. Instant Recall was the first show Martindale has hosted since Debt aired on Lifetime from 1996 to 1998.

In 2012, Martindale returned to radio, as host of The 100 Greatest Christmas Hits Of All-Time. The nationally syndicated show is produced by Envision Radio Networks.

In 2014, Martindale started his own YouTube channel, called Wink’s Vault, featuring episodes of game shows, game show pilots, rare clips from various game shows, and more.

Martindale made a special guest appearance on the December 2, 2014 episode of the GSN show The Chase hosted by Brooke Burns and featuring Mark Labbett.

In October 2016, Martindale appeared on the daytime soap opera The Bold and The Beautiful, as a minister.

On April 21, 2017, Martindale appeared in a KFC advertising campaign featuring Rob Lowe as astronaut Colonel Sanders giving a JFK speech spoof/homage about launching the Zinger chicken sandwich into space.

He married Madelyn Leech in 1954, and was divorced in 1972. Martindale married his second wife, Sandy (née Ferra), on August 2, 1975. He has four children, all from his first marriage: Lisa, Lynn, Laura, and Wink, Jr. He also has seven grandchildren: Emilee, Stephen, and Blake from Lisa; Matthew and Hannah from Lynn; and Erin and Tara from Laura; plus four great-grandchildren from Emilee—Emma, Charlie, Ellie, and Crosby.

Wink has a few dogs named after the various game shows he hosted.

Rian has been playing Agents of Mayhem and – surprise – he loves it! It’s got the sense of humor of a Saint’s Row game with the animation style of a Justice League cartoon. He also brags about how many of his friends own breweries, but to be fair it is a lot more than Chester or Charles.

Chester recaps his impressions of Shadow of War for Charles. Overall: he approves. He also gives his first impressions of the new Assassin’s Creed: Origins – a cross between Skyrim and Red Dead Redemption set in ancient Egypt.

Finally, we’ll check the Yelp reviews for Charles’s dick – it’s doing pretty good. The man himself, however, has been playing NBA Live ’18. Apparently, NBA 2K has gone so overboard with micro-transactions that they’ve started charging money for in-game haircuts and shoes. He’s also been enjoying his new SNES Classic, which we discover does not have Chrono Trigger which is bullshit. Eat a Dick, Nintendo!

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It’s another week, so here’s another episode! Charles is out again, and Marc is back in! This week is pretty heavy on the video game conversation. But first, we kick things off with another round of Good Swill Hunting, aka Bad Beers.

Following that, we discuss the new Shadow of War, which is fucking bad ass. Bro – you can ride dragons! Chester tells us about The Foreigner, Jackie Chan’s new film. The boys discuss spoilers and how much they are or aren’t bothered by them. Marc tells us about the latest Rocket League expansion. He also shares the story of his epic console trade as well as modding the SNES Classic. Chester pre-approves of Red Dead Redemption’s multiplayer mode because he’s a Rockstar fanboy. And finally, we tell EA to eat a dick – you can’t abbreviate Eat A Dick without EA.

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We fire up another episode by playing our new game: Good Swill Hunting!  The new game where we torment ourselves by trying the worst beer we can find.  We found some really shitty beers this week and spent waaay too much time talking about them.  We’ll also learn all about Rian’s Stock Options, as well as how sandpaper is rated!

Finally, we’ll get to Chester’s idea for the dark comedy: Defibrillator! The story of the old hero with the young heart.

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It’s no secret that Charles dislikes a lot of the things that Rian and Chester love. That’s why we keep him around – not because he’s intelligent or funny! However, there are a lot of things that we can all agree on, like telling certain companies and corporations to eat a dick.

We start a new segment this week, in which we drink awful beer. I’m calling it “Good Swill Hunting” until we come up with something better. We also discuss Kingsman: The Golden Circle and ask the age old question, “What would you elbow an old lady for?”

This week’s Eat a Dick contestants are Nintendo, GameStop, and Amazon.

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We’re back, baby! And only 1 week later! Along with our entirely new name, we’re bringing you a slightly tweaked format. Having been the Casual Cowards of Gaming originally, we felt as though we’d painted ourselves into a corner. So, we’ve decided to loosen up and discuss a wider range of topics. Having said that – this week we’ll be discussing video games! Sort of. This week, our topic is the term “PC Master Race”.

The PC Master Race, sometimes referred to by its original phrasing as the Glorious PC Gaming Master Race, is an internet subculture, internet community, and a tongue-in-cheek term of superiority for PC gaming used among gamers to compare PC gaming to console gaming.

In current parlance, the term is used by PC enthusiasts both to describe themselves as a group, as well as their belief in the superiority of the PC platform in comparison to consoles, often citing features like more advanced graphics, smoother framerates, free online play, backwards compatibility, modifications, upgradability, customization, lower cost-over-time, open standards, multitasking, and performance. Popular imagery, discussion, and media referencing the term also commonly describes console users who find console better than pc as “console peasants” and people who play on PC as the “Glorious PC Gaming Master Race”.

– Wikipedia

The joke here, of course, is that “PC” has a double meaning – “Personal Computer” as well as “Politically Correct” – and referring to yourself as part of a “Master Race” is anything but politically correct.

During the show, we give our opinions on the modern age’s sensitivity (or lack thereof). We also discuss the origin of the “Triggered” meme, and go on a journey of self-discovery. A journey that leads us to view things from many sides. Many sides.

So slide in your ear buds, relax, and don’t clench as we fully penetrate your mind, heart, and soul.

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Having been The Casual Cowards of Gaming for over 4 years, we’re very excited to announce that we’re shedding that skin and re-branding ourselves so that we can bring you the exact same show with a brand new name! It’s like the opposite of a Hollywood reboot.

Due to certain circumstances that I won’t get into here, we chose to change the name of the show and potentially lose our entire fan base forcing us to start from scratch after 4 years of hard work, blood, sweat, and beers.

To kick things off, Charles teaches us how to use Instagram to get laid. Apparently there’s only three things required:

Next, we find that Liam Neeson has announced his retirement from action films, which makes sense – the dude is old as fuck. Chester then gives a brief review of “Logan Lucky”, which I *think* was positive… it’s hard to say. We also discuss the upcoming film “Hard Powder”, the sequel to the 1995 film “Powder” and “True Lies” reboot in the form of a TV series, produced by the same executive producer of the hit TV Series Lethal Weapon.

Rian shares some news about the upcoming God of War sequel. Certain staples of the franchise are going away, like collecting EXP orbs and the quick-time events. This leads Charles to conclude that, with no quick-time events, there won’t be any sex scene mini-games.

Charles tells us all about Destiny 2. According to him and Rian’s brother, it’s the new hotness. I wonder how long that opinion will last. Regardless, we know one thing for sure: Rian will never play it. Finally, Charles rags on Gearbox for dropping the ball in the Borderlands arena. The Pre-Sequel was garbage, and Battleborn just couldn’t compete with Overwatch. Oh well, hopefully they’ll get their feet back under them eventually.

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