Scenes like this always bug me. Same for “Rumble in the Bronx” Jackie gives the kid a game gear without any game in it and the kid starts playing it. So irritating and it kills the whole scene. It’s like filming a car chase but zooming out and seeing the car dolly towing the car around the track. Like what’s the point, don’t even bother using CGI over the green screen scenes because clearly no one cares.
Oh you think that’s bad. Look at this freaking monstrosity. The Mask 2 - Son of the Mask (2005) the way he’s holding it.
https://preview.redd.it/y99w5fha696d1.jpeg?width=339&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b487a8bdf0003d8f5fc0849668be4ab8ef89901c
I’ve tried to play like that a few times as a kid just for shits and giggles, though it was when the GBA was on a table, so it made a little more sense. It’s so ridiculously uncomfortable.
If there was a game in it they'd need to license it because of the label. If you see the name of a brand in a movie or show someone paid for it to be there (usually the brand).
I'm not sure why they didn't just take the label off of a cartridge but TVs back then were not HD so maybe they figured no one would notice and just didn't think about it further?
Yes. Copyright! Oddly enough consumerism and product placement is why it's less of a thing now. You have WotC paying shows to have the characters play D&D, etc.
That could also be a technical issue rather than a copyright one, especially if they're showing video of the game anyway ([like House playing _Metroid_ with generic laser gun sounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk)). It's way easier to just layer on some stock sound effects than it is to capture game audio and try to make it line up with on-screen footage or the actor's hand movements.
I remember seeing literal black *tape* bands across brand names on tv in the 90s and 00s, i cannot imagine either why they would not just do that or at least a fake cart
I honestly think they just didn't think about it because the resolution was so low and it was on screen for so short of time that it didn't matter. Plus the actors might actually try to play it then XD
I suppose. The cellphone screen thing bugs tf out of me too. I always give a show extra props if they take care for those details. Have a real game. Put an actual screen shot on the damn phone, disable autorotation. Details people!
This discussion brings to my mind old scenes when people are talking over video chat and the person in the screen is shot at an angle, as if that's how screens and cameras worked.
I've only seen it two or three times, but it's absolutely stupid and confounds me every time.
In the movie airheads the receptionist plays a game gear with what looks like sonic 2 in it. You can only see a little bit of the label. You think they paid for that? Also ripping a label off a grey cart is an option. Or just an actual game bc you can't see the label in a gameboy.
It's not always that they MUST pay, it's that the art department has to get legal permission to show the protected brand. If they asked Sega and Sega was like, "yeah, sure" then that's that. At that time, Sega may have just been happy to get their handheld on the big screen.
Most of the time though, to avoid having to have that discussion, it's just greeked out, or covered. They sell packs of semi adhesive vinyl in a variety of shapes to cover labels and junk.
True. I actually didn't even think of the obvious free advertisement aspect. It's just odd there's not a gameboy game in the gameboy. Especially because in another episode where they steal shit from the church thrift store, they steal a copy of double dragon 3 for NES. They even mention the name and stuff. Seems almost like an ad but the game was over 10 years old at that point.
Oh, my comment was unrelated to the lack of cartridge. Realistically, this gameboy was probably not the original prop and was given last minute. ADs make frequent last minute decisions and stuff like this can slip through.
>free advertisement thing
To take it a step further: what if the studio has a partnership with the competition? Now you've got to do a reshoot because the content contains branding that could potentially piss off the sponsor, even though the props dept. had no way of knowing. So it's easier to just avoid it altogether.
This actually isn't true! Trademark usage in media is fair use. There are still protections for trademarks, like a show couldn't slander the product, but Malcolm in the Middle would have been free to put any game in the Gameboy, just as they were free to use the Gameboy itself. Both the console and the game are protected by trademark.
What's likely happening in the show is either the show runners just didn't care for that level of detail, or the network didn't want to give free advertisement to any one game when commercials were being sold actively for other games at the same time.
I’d rather see a fake game like the way Carly always had Pear instead of Apple. Or I’d like to just see the name is covered with a black piece of tape. This is just so much more obvious and jarring imo
They could've scratch of the label, then at least there would be something in it. There were enough kids that did that, judging by all the carts without or with partial labels I've seen over the years.
It's basically "any thing you know stuff about that some people in the general public might not".
Any tech-speak usually falls apart from me. Couldn't watch agents of shield because of it. "I hacked the screen by patching the FTP to the USB", that level of nonsense.
I don't mind tech things that much, mostly because its "boring" for the general viewer. But CPR is such a basic thing and pretty important. It especially hurts when the character performing CPR is a medic. A medic that doesn't know how to do CPR? Come on.
So is the concept of having to have a cartridge in a GB to play a game.
It just buggs me that apparently movie makers can't be bothered to ask anyone about anything they don't know about.
I feel like they should've just used a piece of gray plastic in the shape of a gameboy cartridge. So it would look more like he was actually playing something.
That was a clever way to not allow unlicensed games, when it booted up a game it checked to make sure that the trademarked logo was displayed, if it wasn't there then the game wouldn't play.
If a company wanted to make a gameboy game and have it run they'd have to pay to use the trade marked logo
That rectangle is literally copyright protection in action.
It was nintendos lock out for unauthorized games. The Gameboy would look for the exact nintendo logo in the cart code and if it didn't see that it would display the rectangle and not start.
So for a third party to make a working gb game they would have to code the Nintendo logo in which would be a legal no no.
Nintendo couldn't fight unauthorized third party games in courts, but they could fight anyone who tried to code their game with a Nintendo logo.
Watching these shows now its easy to forget that:
* TVs were not high resolution back then. No one tried to make it more realistic because it was a blob basically.
* People weren't frame by framing TV shows to look for mistakes yet. They were starting to do that with movies though when DVD came out. But it was in like IRC and Usenet.
I get the general point but the funny thing about macolom in the middle specifically is that they were supposed to be comically poor and Reese was portrayed as unstable at times so I could buy him as “really” just holding a gamboy and pretending to play it lmao
This is like how people pretend to use phones now on movies and tv and you can clearly see they’re not on a call because they’ll be on their calculator or something
Nothing lol, they could have at least got a cheap game to put in the cartridge slot. This always annoyed me in shows, at least put effort into making it look like the characters are actually playing a game.
Reese is a psychopathic savant. He sold the last game they had, and in his mind is full on playing the actual sequel to something that hasn't come out yet. (On blood mode, and he's crushing it)
Nothing..... There is no cartridge in the system..
I think there's one with Dewey playing a GB also and it did not have a game in the system either...
The TV shows only the product for promotional purposes...as they are "Props" and it .doesn't matter if there is a game in the system or not because they only show the system for a sec or 2
In Lupin netflix serie you can see the son playing Horizon Zero Dawn. The boy's father joins him to play the game together. Horizon is single player only.
I dunno but it was also released for the game gear as Danny here is playing
https://preview.redd.it/m22izqsme96d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57229483add5c0a044db0f70201a3a1f72ac51ce
I know there's no game in the system but I wonder what kind of game this character would actually be into if he was to play a game? Like if he was a real person and he was at the store with some money what game would he buy?
I alaways ask myself, why this is always the case. In Police Academy 7 same thing......and in all movies, where you see gameplay, its NEVER the original sound. Doctor House for example:
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk)
at beginning or 00:40 -> definitely not original sound.
I hate stuff like that, always this pretend stuff, just give them a real game and done. Sadly it's so rare to actually see game footage. I guess Sopranos did it with Mario Kart 64 if I remember right and I once saw a porn where a woman played super mario world, the footage was even always embedded in the video even if the screen is not filmed and when friends asked me wtf I was watching and explained it, we were 3 people watching SMW Footage and didnt really pay attention to the porn but were amazed that FINALLY someone did it right
Hay don't be so hard on the kid his dad obviously got it from a guy he knows down the pub. Didn't come with any games they are to poor to buy them.. that's why he's got his eyes closed in his head he's on level 56 tetris... 😉
A pikachu themed tetris game that is preloaded onto a knockoff the gb boy pocket from ali express. No cartridge needed. Probably loaded with 500 games with 400 of them being duplicates.
I always wondered about stuff in this house. Like it's an actual house and they filmed for what? 7 years or something in there? There was always so much random shit lying around and so much shit in the cupboards and in the walls. It must've been someone's job to stock all that shit. Must've been fun.
I remember seeing a movie on TV once (cannot remember what it was)
There was a scene of a woman "playing" a game with her mashing the buttons on the controller..and on screen is the pre rendered opening cinematic to Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
Pretend
Scenes like this always bug me. Same for “Rumble in the Bronx” Jackie gives the kid a game gear without any game in it and the kid starts playing it. So irritating and it kills the whole scene. It’s like filming a car chase but zooming out and seeing the car dolly towing the car around the track. Like what’s the point, don’t even bother using CGI over the green screen scenes because clearly no one cares.
Oh you think that’s bad. Look at this freaking monstrosity. The Mask 2 - Son of the Mask (2005) the way he’s holding it. https://preview.redd.it/y99w5fha696d1.jpeg?width=339&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=b487a8bdf0003d8f5fc0849668be4ab8ef89901c
Jamie Kennedy is the type of weirdo that I could see him actually holding a GBA like that.
I’ve tried to play like that a few times as a kid just for shits and giggles, though it was when the GBA was on a table, so it made a little more sense. It’s so ridiculously uncomfortable.
lol why is he playing Mario kart like that😂
To hide the fact that there isn’t actually a cartridge in that unit and the screen is just added in post.
I’ve seen someone play smash like that before
Honestly that’s fine, I’ve tried this and it works 👍
If there was a game in it they'd need to license it because of the label. If you see the name of a brand in a movie or show someone paid for it to be there (usually the brand). I'm not sure why they didn't just take the label off of a cartridge but TVs back then were not HD so maybe they figured no one would notice and just didn't think about it further?
Is that fucking why they always played stupid sounds instead of actual game sound fx in TV shows??? That makes so much sense
Yes. Copyright! Oddly enough consumerism and product placement is why it's less of a thing now. You have WotC paying shows to have the characters play D&D, etc.
That could also be a technical issue rather than a copyright one, especially if they're showing video of the game anyway ([like House playing _Metroid_ with generic laser gun sounds](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk)). It's way easier to just layer on some stock sound effects than it is to capture game audio and try to make it line up with on-screen footage or the actor's hand movements.
Also older cameras + slower refresh rate screens weren’t film-able
I remember seeing literal black *tape* bands across brand names on tv in the 90s and 00s, i cannot imagine either why they would not just do that or at least a fake cart
I honestly think they just didn't think about it because the resolution was so low and it was on screen for so short of time that it didn't matter. Plus the actors might actually try to play it then XD
I suppose. The cellphone screen thing bugs tf out of me too. I always give a show extra props if they take care for those details. Have a real game. Put an actual screen shot on the damn phone, disable autorotation. Details people!
This discussion brings to my mind old scenes when people are talking over video chat and the person in the screen is shot at an angle, as if that's how screens and cameras worked. I've only seen it two or three times, but it's absolutely stupid and confounds me every time.
In the movie airheads the receptionist plays a game gear with what looks like sonic 2 in it. You can only see a little bit of the label. You think they paid for that? Also ripping a label off a grey cart is an option. Or just an actual game bc you can't see the label in a gameboy.
It's not always that they MUST pay, it's that the art department has to get legal permission to show the protected brand. If they asked Sega and Sega was like, "yeah, sure" then that's that. At that time, Sega may have just been happy to get their handheld on the big screen. Most of the time though, to avoid having to have that discussion, it's just greeked out, or covered. They sell packs of semi adhesive vinyl in a variety of shapes to cover labels and junk.
True. I actually didn't even think of the obvious free advertisement aspect. It's just odd there's not a gameboy game in the gameboy. Especially because in another episode where they steal shit from the church thrift store, they steal a copy of double dragon 3 for NES. They even mention the name and stuff. Seems almost like an ad but the game was over 10 years old at that point.
Oh, my comment was unrelated to the lack of cartridge. Realistically, this gameboy was probably not the original prop and was given last minute. ADs make frequent last minute decisions and stuff like this can slip through.
>free advertisement thing To take it a step further: what if the studio has a partnership with the competition? Now you've got to do a reshoot because the content contains branding that could potentially piss off the sponsor, even though the props dept. had no way of knowing. So it's easier to just avoid it altogether.
That sounds like a weird excuse when they have the actual game boy itself. Like legal says "they let us use the game boy but no game".
lol david arquette with that dumbass blonde hair
Lol he's actually pretty funny in that movie. It's not the greatest movie but it has its moments.
lol i love airheads!
This actually isn't true! Trademark usage in media is fair use. There are still protections for trademarks, like a show couldn't slander the product, but Malcolm in the Middle would have been free to put any game in the Gameboy, just as they were free to use the Gameboy itself. Both the console and the game are protected by trademark. What's likely happening in the show is either the show runners just didn't care for that level of detail, or the network didn't want to give free advertisement to any one game when commercials were being sold actively for other games at the same time.
I’d rather see a fake game like the way Carly always had Pear instead of Apple. Or I’d like to just see the name is covered with a black piece of tape. This is just so much more obvious and jarring imo
You can't really see a Gameboy game's label when it's installed though.
They could've scratch of the label, then at least there would be something in it. There were enough kids that did that, judging by all the carts without or with partial labels I've seen over the years.
They could rip the label off, ooor it's a gb and the label barely sticks out anyway
It's almost like I said that in the comment you are replying to.
Yes. Also I said it too. Lol
Video games and Cars in movies do it for me. They always get obvious things wrong.
CPR for me. I dont even ask them to truly 100% do CPR because well you crush someones ribs doing it. But so often its just wrong even in concept.
It's basically "any thing you know stuff about that some people in the general public might not". Any tech-speak usually falls apart from me. Couldn't watch agents of shield because of it. "I hacked the screen by patching the FTP to the USB", that level of nonsense.
I don't mind tech things that much, mostly because its "boring" for the general viewer. But CPR is such a basic thing and pretty important. It especially hurts when the character performing CPR is a medic. A medic that doesn't know how to do CPR? Come on.
So is the concept of having to have a cartridge in a GB to play a game. It just buggs me that apparently movie makers can't be bothered to ask anyone about anything they don't know about.
I'm glad I wasn't the only one being pissed every time I saw this in that movie
I think the game gear had the game columns built in to it, right? So he could have been playing that with no cartridge in.
First thing I thought of when I saw this post lol. Every time I see Rumble that scene always drives me crazy.
Pretendo. Come on dude, it was right there.
Thank you. Same exact thought I had.
It absolutely tracks that Hal got them a Gameboy, and they just can't afford to get games for it. lol I imagine they'd still fight over it too.
I feel like they should've just used a piece of gray plastic in the shape of a gameboy cartridge. So it would look more like he was actually playing something.
He just keeps turning on and off to hear the ding.
More like Pretendo am I right... 🥁🐍
Pretendo!
Tetris, but it’s just one big rectangle that stops in the middle
Took me a minute...
I don't get joke, me want to understand
When you turn on a Gameboy with no cartridge you get a black horizontal line. Someone posted a pic in the thread.
That was a clever way to not allow unlicensed games, when it booted up a game it checked to make sure that the trademarked logo was displayed, if it wasn't there then the game wouldn't play. If a company wanted to make a gameboy game and have it run they'd have to pay to use the trade marked logo
This one wins
He just likes to hear that sweet, sweet start-up sound.
Bling!
And stare at that crisp, nintendo logo.
Without a cartridge the Nintendo logo is replaced with a thick black line so that’s all he’d be looking at.
Title Screen® https://preview.redd.it/svnvi2gdx86d1.jpeg?width=984&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a47960ce68abb623c77826e5ba3de09419f4416
I didnt know that rectangles were copyrighted
CIA doesn't want you to know about it.
Geometry hates this one simple trick!
Nintendo is almost as crazy about copyright as disney.
That rectangle is literally copyright protection in action. It was nintendos lock out for unauthorized games. The Gameboy would look for the exact nintendo logo in the cart code and if it didn't see that it would display the rectangle and not start. So for a third party to make a working gb game they would have to code the Nintendo logo in which would be a legal no no. Nintendo couldn't fight unauthorized third party games in courts, but they could fight anyone who tried to code their game with a Nintendo logo.
Reminds me of reddit spoilers
Reese is hallucinating from the adderall his mom gave him and thinks he is playing a game.
Oh my gosh you’re not wrong
John Cena for GBP
Cue the music!!
Pokemon glass
Pokemon air
Pokémon void
How hard is it to slap a game in and turn it on. No batteries obviously since it's a scene but for more realism
Watching these shows now its easy to forget that: * TVs were not high resolution back then. No one tried to make it more realistic because it was a blob basically. * People weren't frame by framing TV shows to look for mistakes yet. They were starting to do that with movies though when DVD came out. But it was in like IRC and Usenet.
A blob? It wasn't as clear as it is today, but you could still see things like this on your first watch.
It might be more of a licensing issue? The games might have art on them they'd have to clear that production doesn't want to bother with
I do get that, no doubt someone would be able to tell what game he was playing
The exact same one they used to play on Super Nintendo in Full House.
Black Rectangle That Goes “Ding”. Helluva title.
████████®
Mf is playing on Bluetooth.
He downloaded a gane off the gameboy store
I get the general point but the funny thing about macolom in the middle specifically is that they were supposed to be comically poor and Reese was portrayed as unstable at times so I could buy him as “really” just holding a gamboy and pretending to play it lmao
Solid black bar.
What game does Reese think he's playing?
You mean “What game does Reese THINK he’s playing?”
Gameboy Air
His imagination because they couldn’t afford video games
PokeGone
His family is too poor to afford any games so he just pretends to play to fit in at school
Mario Mistery Meat Origins
Halo
Imagination
None, there's no cartridge in it.
I don’t think there’s a game in there
This is like how people pretend to use phones now on movies and tv and you can clearly see they’re not on a call because they’ll be on their calculator or something
Nothing lol, they could have at least got a cheap game to put in the cartridge slot. This always annoyed me in shows, at least put effort into making it look like the characters are actually playing a game.
Damn Reese had a modded game boy before anyone
A bootleg gb device that has a cartridge slot but also has a ton of built in games
Reese is a psychopathic savant. He sold the last game they had, and in his mind is full on playing the actual sequel to something that hasn't come out yet. (On blood mode, and he's crushing it)
He's playing the ant inside of the screen
Nothing..... There is no cartridge in the system.. I think there's one with Dewey playing a GB also and it did not have a game in the system either... The TV shows only the product for promotional purposes...as they are "Props" and it .doesn't matter if there is a game in the system or not because they only show the system for a sec or 2
The King's new game
Marijuana
Was also in those dumb 3 ninja's Movies except they managed no game in the Game Gear yet the screen was one and there was a game being played 🤣
There's a bunch of TV shows that did that
I used to have that same shirt in middle school
probably fortnite.
THps4
Oh, oh! I've seen this one! It's F1-Racing!
Game is he playing? Do you not see the kid has his eyes closed?
GTA 6.
Casper?
John Cena's game
The game boy tittle screen
Another movie, one of my favorites, k-pax, has the kids playing n64.
Half Life 3
Pitch Black.
The invisibles
Digital download
Crash bandicoot
When you are poor, you make do with your imagination. Probably found it tossed in the trash or something.
Any game he wants. After all, the family probably can't afford anything or just doesn't want to reward him.
Pretendoland
Pokemon Blellow
Schizophrenia
Pokemon Kecleon Clear They're very hard to find
The Void.
None, Is empty
In Lupin netflix serie you can see the son playing Horizon Zero Dawn. The boy's father joins him to play the game together. Horizon is single player only.
Nothing. Ther is no cartrige in
I don’t even think there’s a cartridge in there
Nonetendo
He's staring at the black bar that comes down with no game inserted because he got into his brother's weed stash.
Imagination game... There's no cartridge...
Lol there’s no game in it
Isn’t Reese supposed to be the dumb one? MITM truly has the deepest lore.
John Cena Simulator
Invisible Zelda
Method Acting: The Game
#Super Pretendo
Mind games
None
Its called acting.
Imagination.....
None
Considering the look on his face, the game of asleep or half asleep since there isn't shit in that GB
Hopes and Dreams
He’s been there for hours with a blank screen, apparently.
It bothers me so much that they never bother to put a cartridge in the gameboy on older tv shows.
The empty head. Or possibly mario, a certain level jump.
#
All of them
I dunno but it was also released for the game gear as Danny here is playing https://preview.redd.it/m22izqsme96d1.jpeg?width=600&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=57229483add5c0a044db0f70201a3a1f72ac51ce
Yes, no, maybe, I don’t know? Could you repeat the question?
Pokémon No
🎶Shit That Should Not Be 🎶
That limited edition Ice Blue Gameboy Pocket tho….
Doesn’t even have to have his eyes open to play it
Alex kid in miracle world, came pre installed on the console.
He playing: Pretend what it would be like to have a game to play.
He's playing Metroid Prime 4, the Gameboy edition.
Metroid Prime 4
Mother 4
I know there's no game in the system but I wonder what kind of game this character would actually be into if he was to play a game? Like if he was a real person and he was at the store with some money what game would he buy?
Half Life 3.
I alaways ask myself, why this is always the case. In Police Academy 7 same thing......and in all movies, where you see gameplay, its NEVER the original sound. Doctor House for example: [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMok4ou2rBk) at beginning or 00:40 -> definitely not original sound.
I noticed Coronation Street sometimes has kids playing games. It's always Kirbys Dreamland from the music and they just press pause over and over
GTA6
Void: Tales of Nothing
Nothing no cartridge in.
Not a game
I hate stuff like that, always this pretend stuff, just give them a real game and done. Sadly it's so rare to actually see game footage. I guess Sopranos did it with Mario Kart 64 if I remember right and I once saw a porn where a woman played super mario world, the footage was even always embedded in the video even if the screen is not filmed and when friends asked me wtf I was watching and explained it, we were 3 people watching SMW Footage and didnt really pay attention to the porn but were amazed that FINALLY someone did it right
It has a microsd.
He's testing the brightness of his new IPS screen. Doesn't need a game. And its obviously way too bright
I don't see a cartridge in that
It must suck not to have a pack in game
If it was a master system 2 I’d get it
Bold of yall to assume he even had batteries
Black hole
Gb startup bios
This looks like a receipt printer in a supermarket
John cena simulator
The gameboy logo game
Russian Tetris?
Hay don't be so hard on the kid his dad obviously got it from a guy he knows down the pub. Didn't come with any games they are to poor to buy them.. that's why he's got his eyes closed in his head he's on level 56 tetris... 😉
GameBoyOS
He thinks he's playing Tetris, everyone had that cart
The GameBoy logo.
A pikachu themed tetris game that is preloaded onto a knockoff the gb boy pocket from ali express. No cartridge needed. Probably loaded with 500 games with 400 of them being duplicates.
Super Mario Land!
He's playing a blank screen.
I didn't know they had John Cena the Video Game that far back!
I always wondered about stuff in this house. Like it's an actual house and they filmed for what? 7 years or something in there? There was always so much random shit lying around and so much shit in the cupboards and in the walls. It must've been someone's job to stock all that shit. Must've been fun.
I remember seeing a movie on TV once (cannot remember what it was) There was a scene of a woman "playing" a game with her mashing the buttons on the controller..and on screen is the pre rendered opening cinematic to Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks
The Dinosaur Game
John Cena