God damnit, every time I take the day off from work, something amazing happens in the city. I’d totally forgotten that mere minutes away from the office at Bryant Park today, Pokemon was celebrating its tenth anniversary with “The Party of the Decade,” some ridiculous outdoor convention where players fought, where free hats were given out and where costumed characters ran amuck, all in the name of PIKACHU. Why did I have to pick TODAY to play hooky? Why?
Fortunately, the Pokemon official site was running a live video webcast of the event, and…well, Live 8 this waddn’t. As video webcasts are still a growing, unperfected phenomena, this one definitely fell on the “needs improvement” side. Notwithstanding the fact that the event was ridiculous just for what it was, the webcast mainly consisted of totally clueless day-hires forced to dwell on-camera in sweltering heat with absolutely no fucking clue what they were supposed to be talking about. Total comedy.
Using my digital camera’s movie recorder to archive a webcast playing on my computer monitor — WHOA TECHNOLOGY — I gave the event about an hour of my day off. I guess I picked the right hour, because I saw everything from mental breakdowns to Hulk Hogan to a rock group in oversized boots singing Pokemon theme songs. Read on…
I never caught this guy’s name, but he was the general host — the guy who stalked the field looking for interesting sights and for random visitors to interview. Obviously working more from a series of bullet points than an actual script, the poor dude was completely and totally lost. This is close to a verbatim quote: “There’s people behind me in the tents, and some of them are with their parents, and their parents are bringing them waters, because it’s hot and they need waters. Pokemon is ten years old, can you believe it? I remember when it first came out, I was there and a lot of these people right here in New York City with their waters was there.”
The guy was a goof, but it wasn’t all his fault. Like, he’d have to host these general segments about very particular things that could be summed up in four sentences, and then he’d throw to someone else, only to find that there was no one else to throw to. He’d then have to stand there and continue talking, despite the fact that he had nothing more to say, and despite the fact that he had all of the improvisation skills of a grandmother-in-a-coma. Usually, the narration would drift back to how many people were carrying “waters.” Click here for a sample, and keep in mind, this was some of his better work.
Random Host Dude fared a little better when confronting Pokemon players with interviews; at least, he did when he could find someone willing to give him an interview. Apparently, no prep work was done before the cameras rolled, and poor Random Host Dude had to creep around the area poking kids on the shoulder and begging them to leave their video game stations to talk to God knows who. If nothing else, the kids seemed to be having a blast.
Most of the webcast consisted of a Pokemon tournament, where selected players from specific age groups battled against one another on the big screens. I admit it — I got kinda into it. Especially since every freakin’ player had the same Pokemon team, consisting of three big birds and Mewtwo. Winners, and losers apparently, were all given big ass trophies that made me wish I was twelve years old, good at video games, and in Bryant Park today. Also on hand were a slew of costumed characters, and a giant Pikachu balloon borrowed from the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade.
A surprise addition to the “Party of the Decade” was HULK HOGAN. POOR HULK HOGAN. My God, I have never, ever, ever felt bad for Hulk Hogan until today. I never thought I’d ever, ever feel bad for Hulk Hogan until today. There is no way, no way in HELL that he had any idea what he was signing on for. Shown above is Hulk’s first appearance, still backstage, before the reality of the situation had a chance to settle in. Here, he cuts a promo on Pikachu and more or less says everything a person being broadcast on a children’s webcast should never say. But he’s Hulk Hogan; he can scream about fucking the corpses in your family tomb and still make it sound kind of gregarious.
Things got a lot worse for Hulk when he finally made it onstage. Wrasslin fans know that Hulk Hogan hates having to share the spotlight, and here, he had to share the spotlight with everyone from a 7′ Treecko to the president of Pokemon America, to some other lousy hosts, to a bunch of kids who beat other kids in video games. And since the cameraman understandably had no idea what to focus on, we got fifteen minutes of the Hulk standing there in silence, looking like the lovechild of Pissed and Confused. When handed a microphone and asked to make with the Hulkness, the best he could come up with was some completely balls-out incoherent rant about what it’d be like for him to wake up not as Hulk Hogan, but as Pikachu. WHAT THE FUCK!?! Click here to see a snippet, and try not to spit milk when one of the idiot hosts insists that he’s “more of a Machamp.”
The “Party of the Decade” was all kinds of awesome and all kinds of stupid, and I’m really pissed off that I didn’t get to be there. I mean, they had free hats!
Posted by Matt. E-mail me!
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I never imagined Hulk Hogan and Pikachu together. Now I’m flashing back to that 80’s wrestling cartoon and trying to imagine the various wrestlers singing the ‘pokemon rap’ and busting out their pokemon in the ring. It’s a thing that never should have benn thought of.