Category: sundaysundry

Sundry Sunday: Major Death Cutscenes From Lego Star Wars

The Lego Star Wars games (in fact, almost all of the Lego video properties) are very funny, even though they’re not all made by the came people. The games are made by Traveler’s Tales, the movies by Warner Animation, and the made-for-video productions by at least one separate group. And yet, they all share a certain light-hearted and irreverent sensibility that I find really appealing.

Star Wars has a lot of character deaths, but the Lego games do a good job of making them fun instead of tragic, as befitting their style. In this compilation of scenes from Skywalker Saga, note particularly how Darth Maul “dies”:

All Major Deaths in Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga (Youtube, 12 minutes)

Sundry Sunday: The Ballad of Mike Haggar

It’s 11 years old now but still as ringing and fun as when it was new. If you’ve never before encountered the video tale of the afterlife journey of the shirtless mayor of Metro City from Final Fight, here you go! If you have seen it before then why not have a second look?

The Ballad of Mike Haggar (Youtube, 9 minutes)

Sundry Sunday: Super Mario Bros. Played with Live Instruments, Again

Playing the Super Mario Bros. theme live with a variety of instruments has been an internet video staple for a couple decades now. Here it is with accordion and a harp-like instrument called a bandura:

Thanks to Kevin Rothrock for finding this, and to Maks for finding it on Youtube!

Sundry Sunday: Louie Zong’s Garlic Jam

Louie Zong makes a bunch of fun song videos! Once in a while they’re game related. This one’s a short album made with Warioware D.I.Y’s composition feature. Even though it’s only about 12 minutes long, there’s ten songs squeezed in there, and each come and gone so soon that none have the opportunity to bore your brain.

Sundry Sunday: Elegy for Waluigi

Let’s explore further the Youtube archives of Matthew Taranto, a.k.a. BitFinity, a.k.a. the Brawl in the Family guy. Last time we met Eario, Janitor of the Mushroom Kingdom. Now we meet his supposed son Waluigi, who Nintendo themselves have never quite known what to do with, and sort of the breakout character of BitF.

Waluigi has long been excluded from the Smash Bros. games as a playable character, at beast appearing as an assist trophy. This video is his lament at his perpetual status as outsider, set to Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah, which scans precisely with “Waluigi”:

In a way though, this video is an echo of an earlier song, a closer tribute to Hallelujah featuring Waluigi, which has sadly seems to have been taken off of Youtube, but lives on in a number of imitators that are easily searchable.

There’s quite a few other Waluigi videos, lying around Youtube like broken dreams. We’ll get to those in due time.

Sundry Sunday: Eario, Janitor of the Mushroom Kingdom

From the files of the old webcomic Brawl in the Family, which has been gone for years now but is still fondly remembered in some circles, and who’s website is still on the web for as long as Keenspot’s servers survive, is this voiced version of the story of Eario. You know, Wario is Mario with the M upside down, so Eario is Mario with the M… sideways. Kind of.

This working-class version feels like it’s a bit more in keeping with Mario’s blue-collar roots. He wasn’t always the hero of the Mushroom people, he was just a carpenter working on a construction site one day when a gorilla went crazy, grabbed a lady, and climbed a tall building. Mario’s had many adventures since then, and a lot of job changes. Eario is the Mario who wasn’t so lucky.

Sundry Sunday: Lego Dimensions has GlaDOS meet HAL 9000

Lego Dimensions was much too awesome for this decayed world. Sadly, many of its greatest moments were part of DLC locked to various figures you had to collect individually.

But if you had the right bits of plastic, you could witness moments of pop cultural crossover greatness. Witness then this meeting between Portal’s GlaDOS and 2001: A Space Odyssey‘s HAL 9000, with the voices of each, sort of interacting with each other in their various impersonal AI ways.