X-Entertainment | Suckerman & Clue.



	My dying wish is for an owl/camel hybrid, which I call camowl.

Suckerman & Clue.

Hey hey hey. Spent yesterday in the city doing a fun little side project involving taking pictures of street vendors and broken bicycles with a cell phone camera. Hit some of the usual idiot spots in Times Square, namely the giant Toys R' Us with the ferris wheel and the giant Candy Land section suspiciously filled with things that are neither candy or lands. Some pics are below.

There's a new article up, about the return of Mattel's 1978 creature of infamy, Suckerman. Found him at a toy store that also sold several rubber albino alligators. Also, if you missed it, there's an article from yesterday about Clue's stupid old VCR Mystery Game, which I will never play or look at again in my natural life. Enjoy, and have a weekend full of drugs and mirth.

Posted by Matt on 04/25/2003. E-mail me!

Discussion Thread: 62 comments

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HURRAY FOR SUCKERMAN! HURRAY FOR CLUE! HURRAY FOR DINOSAURS! HURRAY FOR BOSTON PUBLIC!

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 04/25/2003 5:14 PM

Im more excited about all those lovely G1 Transformers rereleases..

Chestnuts roasted by Bloodcat @ 04/25/2003 5:29 PM

I like how they caution you when throwing it at glass, as if a seven-ounce piece of rubber will shatter a window.

Chestnuts roasted by Sargasm @ 04/25/2003 5:54 PM

I don’t know what wrong with Matt, but I didn’t have a problem learning the rules to the Clue VCR game, and I was playing it before I was ten years old. It really wasn’t that difficult.

Matt also says he used glasses from Captain EO to read the answers, but that movie did not use the old-fashioned red and blue glasses. Matt lied to us. Coupling that with the fact that he was unwilling to learn the rules, I can only conclude he hates us and wants us to die.

It was annoying to have to rewind and rewatch scenes over and over again in Clue. I remember you were supposed to write down the numbers on your VCR’s timer so you’d know where the scenes started. They also warned you not to leave the tape paused too long because it would degrade. And as Matt said, it’s pretty fuzzy, which can make the game difficult because sometimes you have to look for tiny details. It would work a lot better on DVD, but I doubt anyone will revive it.

I thought it was fun to figure out the mystery; it was all a big logic puzzle. I still have no idea how they fit so much detail into the rather short story to provide so many clues. I remember one clue was about people with facial hair, and that included Madame Rose. The later games were more complex, with multiple murders, multiple murderers, murderers getting killed by other murderers, the same weapon being used for more than one murder, and so forth.

By the way, Parker Brothers later released an update of the board game called Clue: Master Detective, which incorporated the new characters and weapons from the VCR game. But it basically had the same rules.

Chestnuts roasted by Action Jacktion @ 04/25/2003 6:58 PM

Three people who sat here with me can vouch for Clue’s mysterious way of telling the rules. As for EO, you’re right, I lied.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/25/2003 7:03 PM

Maybe it’s just that I have superhuman intelligence. Or your friends have a stupefying effect on you.

Chestnuts roasted by Action Jacktion @ 04/25/2003 7:27 PM

Probably both.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 04/25/2003 7:27 PM

i remember something similar to the clue vcr game, it was a "scary" board game called atmosphere.

you would play a rather standar bt spooky themed board game, untill a big guy in a hjood, looking a bit like a poor man’s skeletor, would appear on the screen and get us all to say stupid things to him. it was daft.

but strangely fun.

we all stood around saying, "ooh hello gate keeper" and must hav looked daft to passers by.

Chestnuts roasted by 'tin man @ 04/25/2003 7:34 PM

I like how they tell you to be careful with it around glass, then tell you to stick it to windows.

Chestnuts roasted by Stacey @ 04/25/2003 8:06 PM

Yeah I was going to say something about the captain E-O thing too, but I have been a bit snotty with my recent posts so I thought I’d lay off. The glasses they used were polarized glasses. They looked like lightly tinted sunglasses.

Chestnuts roasted by Gozer @ 04/25/2003 8:56 PM

I have a better "video" Clue for you. I have it for my CD-i machine, but I know they also made a version for the PC. You also get to interview the suspects (although you don’t get to ask any questions–the questions are asked for you for the most part by the game, but it’s not like I’d know what to ask. Heck I can’t even solve a Scooby-Doo episode!), send stains to be tested, and explore the room. You need a board game-style action to go from room to room, then waste a turn to drag some schlub who’s not in the room into the room to ask him or her something.

The acting was pretty good, kind of like that old PBS "Mystery" series" or Masterpiece Theatre, except it doesn’t put you to sleep. The CD-i version has two different Clue games, but the PC version collected both games into one disk. I even played alone, since I could never talk anyone into playing with me. (One friend thought the board game was boring and wouldn’t believe me when I told him this version actually required detective skills and not just finding out who had one card. Darn bias friends.)

If you can find it in a version you can play, go for it!

Chestnuts roasted by ShadowWing the Technorganic Autobot @ 04/25/2003 9:53 PM

Tin Man,
I’ve played the same thing, but I recall it being spelled Atmosfear. Or maybe I am imagining that to forget the creepy hooded guy. Man he was a jerk. He always said I had to stop playing because he didn’t like my shoes or something.

Chestnuts roasted by Potato @ 04/25/2003 10:02 PM

i was checking out the fruit roll up commercial, and i’ll be damned if the kid at the end of it on the left who takes a bite of his buddies roll-up is non other than a pre-wonder years jason hervey. wayne arnold ruled.

Chestnuts roasted by naturekid @ 04/25/2003 10:09 PM

I used to have the Clue CD-ROM game. It too had a weird butler that insists that he DIDN’T do it. There were a lot of hidden cameras in the mansion you could look threw. Most of them consisted of Col. Mustard eating cheese.

Chestnuts roasted by Mr. Mr. Mr. @ 04/25/2003 10:23 PM

It was called Nightmare. We called out "Fuck you, Gatekeeper!"

Skeletor wannabe.

http://www.angelfire.com/games/zombiereviews/reviews/nightmarervw.html

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 04/25/2003 11:13 PM

haha. ive played that nightmare game. that gatekeeper scared the piss out of me.

Chestnuts roasted by pupitre @ 04/25/2003 11:20 PM

Okay, "Fuck you, Gatekeeper!" isn’t that clever. But we were sixteen! And he called us maggots. Maggots!

In retrospect, though, the guy probably just had self-esteem issues. Just a Skeletor wannabe trying find his Snake Mountain niche.

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 04/25/2003 11:20 PM

I remember the game being Atmosfear too. But that’s defintly the same Gatekeeper and "write down worst fears" in Nightmare. Maybe it had different names?

Chestnuts roasted by Bento Bunny @ 04/25/2003 11:41 PM

Yeah, I think that they might be either marketed under different names, or they may be parts in a series. Apparently there’s some sort of RPG online game, and a DVD (the fuck!?).

Nightmare/Atmosfear Page
http://members.aol.com/DarkWolff/nightmare.html

Chestnuts roasted by Molten @ 04/25/2003 11:58 PM

Yeah, I own the Clue VCR Game too, and after reading the article on it I knew one thing: I HAD TO FIND IT, WATCH IT, AND MAYBE EVEN TRY TO PLAY IT! Well, after about 6 hours or so, I finally found it in my basement with a bunch of other games and such, so the only logical thing next was to watch it!

Which I did, and man oh man, if my name was Ebert (which thankfully, it is not), I would have to give it two thumbs up! Just because its so corny and bad at the same time, and It reminded me of a bad b-movie, and I like bad b-movies.

So, having found it, and watched it, the only logical thing left to do was TRY to play it! I asked my family to play, but they didn’t want to, so I called some friends up, and they weren’t all that interested. So, I decided to play against Me, Myself, and I (which are the usual suspects I get stuck playing board games with).

Luckily a lot of the pieces, cards, and papers were gone. Cuz, If we had played, Myself would have creamed us all. You should see him when we play Candy Land, dude takes no prisoners, he’s a maniac!

Chestnuts roasted by Travie Yak @ 04/26/2003 3:11 AM

ack that IS wayne arnold

Chestnuts roasted by mols @ 04/26/2003 4:14 AM

the whole anglo/american name change thing often really confuses me!!

The board game "AtmosFear" which i spelt wrong 1st time, must have had its name changed from the american "nightmare" because in england there was a show called nightmare, where kids put on a hat so that they couldnt see and walked around a blue rom as their mates told them what direction to go in.

on tv it looked like they were in a dungeon or something.

it was very popular but i dont think they ever maqnaged to get their own figures or anything.

Chestnuts roasted by 'tin man @ 04/26/2003 5:30 AM

Man, I was obsessed with that stupid Clue game when I was little. Never played the damn thing, not once, but I think I watched the movie maybe 15 times. The Babysitter would come over and ask me what I wanted to watch and I’d say "Clue." Maybe it has something to do with the strange juxtaposition of the rules of a game and fiction. Man I remember, not necessarily finding that stupid video scary, but tense and dramatic nonetheless. And Ms. Scarlet always got me going too.

And I distinctly remember spending a year of my life obsessed with finding Clue 2 (yes they made a sequel). Everytime I’d hit the mall with mom and dad we’d look for it. Never found it though.

And GOOD GOD there’s a site with BEHIND THE SCENES photos from the set of both game flicks!!! (looks like it in the middle of an update or something at the moment)

http://geocities.com/cluevcr/

Chestnuts roasted by Brad @ 04/26/2003 9:59 AM

I had the Isaac Asimov Robots board game, but I don’t think I ever actually played it.

Chestnuts roasted by Nemesis @ 04/26/2003 10:24 AM

You know, Pee-Wee Herman once had a Suckerman; remember his HBO special? He pulled a Suckerman out of his bag of, well, stuff…

Chestnuts roasted by Jeffrey @ 04/26/2003 1:21 PM

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