The X-Entertainment Blog!

01/31/2008: Choose Your Own Adventure!

I used to love Choose Your Own Adventure books, and the fact that that's far from a unique statement is less of an indictment of me and more of a testament to how amazing this giant collection of you-shape-the-stories was/is.

It feels nearly pointless to describe what they were, but assuming that there is even a single reader who never soaked in a CYOA book at some point, it worked like this: Read a page or two, and you'd be given options as to what the book's star character should do next. If you wanted to do "Action A," you turned to "Page X." If you wanted to do "Action B," you turned to "Page XX." Rinse and repeat that for many pages, and what you had were these great, strange little stories with multiple endings, ranging from the mediocre to the ultra-happy, and even including a few where poor decisions caused your character to die in horrible ways.

The novelty of turning books into games notwithstanding, CYOA titles could be equally championed for the broad range of eerie and awesome topics they covered. In one book, your character attended a Halloween party in a house that may or may not have been filled with flesh-eating monsters. In another, you ran marathons with the Abominable Snowman. There were plenty of titles with lighter themes, but I always viewed the CYOA franchise as being my first introduction to "unsettling reading."

If you forced me to pick a favorite, I wouldn't have much trouble. Meet Gorga!

Gorga, The Space Monster was one of the "young reader" CYOA books, with more pictures, less pages and increased spacing between letters. I picked it up from the Troll Book Club during grade school and read it no less than 15,000 times. The story involves a young boy who finds a car-sized, three-eyed purple space monster in his backyard, which grows larger and larger throughout the book. Depending on which "actions" you chose to take, Gorga would be portrayed as everything from a befuddled pet to an out-of-control, planet-destroying maniac.

There wasn't a definitive strategy involved with finding your way to one of the "good endings." Not that it mattered much: If you ended up with a bad one, all you had to do was flip back to the original page and pick the other action. (Technically, this was cheating, but who was going to admonish you? Gorga? Gorga was paper; he couldn't do shit.) Despite your decision-making process adding up to a crapshoot, it was still smart to avoid actions that seemed to be in bad taste:

This trick didn't work universally, but more often than not, being a "nice kid" usually paved way for happier endings. In the case shown above, hitting poor Gorga over the head with a log brought forth an abrupt ending in which the monster…well, ate you. The "abrupt bad ending" was the worst thing that could happen to a CYOA reader. It was like walking into a Goomba on Level 1-1.

Happier endings involved the lead character successfully keeping Gorga safe from gun-toting officials, but in a way, I preferred the vaguely horrific bad endings. When I sat on Gorga's back and flew him safely into space, yeah, I did good, but I didn't really think about the story after closing the book. When something bad happened, it stuck with me for a little longer. See below.

I wouldn't say that I actively sought out bad endings (I wanted to "win" more than I wanted Gorga to eat me and my family), but when you're a kid and you're just entering the wild world of books that aren't 85% pictures, this kind of creepy stuff has a lasting effect.

The Choose Your Own Adventure series was enormously successful. Debuting in 1979 and still running today in some form or another, it's amassed hundreds of titles with several printings. Course, I don't want you to mistake this entry as a random tribute to CYOA, as I'm really only here to point to the obvious deity that is Gorga the space monster. I loved him!

Purple, porcine and triple-eyed, Gorga was easy to draw and fun to color. And, in one version of the story, he grew large enough to eat a passenger train. These are the traits of something worth sacrificing a live chicken to. Gorga deserves at least one Google hit that sends people to something other than a used book storefront, and if it's my destiny to make that happen, I can now retire with my head held high.

I remember a CYOA book where one of the given options was to pluck your eyeball out of its socket. I can't remember which one it was though. It was a mystical fantasy type one if I remember correctly.

My favorite though was the one where you violate some temple and you have to choose what animal you want to become as punishment. It was the only time I ever got the good ending on the first try without cheating.

My favorite Choose Your Own Adventure book was also terrifying to me, "Inside UFO 54-40"

I don't remember reading these too often, but I do remember that when I did, I managed to get the horrible ending every single time. Maybe this means I was an evil child who always chose whatever option was in the worst taste, but being a competitive kid this frustrated me to the point of not liking those books too much.

I loved Choose Your Own Adventure books. Two Minute Mysteries were great too. I don't remember Gorga specifically, but I did have an awesome Supergirl CYOA. All I remember is having to decide whether or not to rush through a pop quiz at super speed, thereby raising unwanted suspicions.

That's all kinds of wonderful! Just looking at that book reminds me of the catalogs we used to get in school where you check off what book you want and hit the folks up for money. Then wait for the book fair to reap the reward of Zoo Books and Mr. Men comic books. (sigh)

Gorga and the boy remind me of the obscure DC Comics characters "Stanley and his Monster." Only with less eyes and more fur.

I read a few of the CYOA books, but none of them really stood out to me. The "interactive" books I LOVED were Encyclopedia Brown, Carmen Sandiego, and especially the Clue books. I used to grab them whenever a new one came out.

I remember one CYOA that involved time travel, and if you took the wrong path, you would get stuck in a "time loop" that had you switching back and forth between two pages. That always cracked me up as a kid…

The only CYOA book I remember reading was one about visiting the Statue of Liberty. One of the possible outcomes was that while climbing the stairs to reach the viewing deck in the crown, you screw up, fall down all the stairs, and die of a broken neck. That is literally the only detail I remember from that story, because I was so shocked that the book would actually kill you off. I was probably 7 or 8 at the time.

Those Chose Your Own Adventure books always frightened me as a kid, and I would rarely pick them as my choice for reading? Why should a girl read Chose Your Own Adventure, when thee was fun to be had with Christie, Marry Anne and the gang! Or there was always the adventures of Elizabeth, and that sister of hers who was always getting into trouble.

However whenever I did pick one up, I always read it cover to cover, hated the scary endings, liked the not so scary endings. Why did the Chose Your Own Adventure books have to be so scary.

CYOA was indeed a great series, although I preferred the books from the "Fighting Fantasy" series, which, what with the dice rolling and pencil marking, were actual gamebooks. Still, anything that uses second-person narrative is pretty entertaining, as the device is seldom used in literature.

Howdy Matt. Longtime reader, first time poster. I just want to briefly mention how much I enjoy reading your website. Thank you for all the time and effort you put into this site.

I remember reading three COYA books. One was some kind of UFO/Alien invasion type of story. All I remember was that you seemed to die a disturbing death every other time you had to make a decision. Another was a D&D book that had even more gruesome deaths. Lastly, was a Transformers book that wasn't as disturbing as the other two, although I do remember getting a little upset whenever Optimus Prime would die ( I could care less about the numerous times Bumblebee would die).

I also loved how the companies that published these books thought that kids were so dumb that they had to put in the front of every COYA book in big bold letters a DIRE WARNING about how we weren't supposed to read these books in numerical page order.

For some reason, CYOA's were only in my life for a short time span. I always loved the idea of them, but I also remember feeling jipped that I didn't really get to read all of the pages, and the stories were always way shorter than I thought they would be, and to this day, abrupt endings anger me. Perhaps that's where it all spawned.

I only ever remember reading a few of them and one was set during the Ice Age - apparently, because I was in an icy cave, and a wooly mammoth appeared, in said cave. I ended up falling into an icy pit and had to carve footholds in the ice so that I could climb back out - or perhaps freeze to death. That's the only part I remember.

Ahhh, CYOA books. The one I remember most involved you (me, the reader, whoever) being an understudy to some sort of galactic space hero, but the only endings I ever got involved us being vaporized or something, or being blown into the darkness of space. The one "good" ending I got still had the other guy killed… =P

Speaking of goombas on 1-1, some of my favorite CYOA books as a kid were these officially licensed Mario Brothers adventures. I don't really remember them too well, but I know I had at least a few of them. I can only assume that the adventure involved a kidnapped princess that needed rescuing from a certain, spike-shelled dragon turtle (what the heck is Bowser anyway?). I seem to recall picking them up at a local dollar store when I was 10 or so. Good times.

Gorga looks pretty cuddly. I don't think I would hold it against him if he accidentally devoured me and my whole family.
My favorite CYOA? Vampire Express. Nothing better than exploring those Carpathian Mountains. And I'm the first to admit, I would totally decided to the the irrational stuff. It was so perversely satisfying to get the "bad" endings.

The only CYOA book I remember reading was the Titanic one…and I remember getting annoyed by the fact that I couldn't just read it straight through. They're something I love considerably more in retrospect.

Az JLAJRC said though, Encyclopedia Brown was amazing. I was basically addicted to those books, and fully credit them for my crime show addiction now.

The only CYOA book I remember reading was about a haunted house. The thing that bathered me about it was the only ending I ever found that didn't involve me dying in a rather gruesome manner was to go up to the door and then thinking better of it and going home.

I remember the CYOA books quite well. Loved them. Eventually I switched over to the Goosebumps version (Choose Your Own Scare, I believe they were called), but nothing can compare to CYOA. The most memorable ending I can recall involved me being executed inside of some disintegration chamber for answering poorly on a test. Was CYOA trying to tell me to study harder?

If you think I should investigate, read my 2nd post.
If you think that I should leave well enough alone, read my 3rd post.

Steve quickly googles to see if CYOA was trying to motivate him to learn and study more efficiently. Suddenly, a large, glowing beam surrounds him as he is whisked away to a metal covered room. He is strapped to a table as two tall, grey-skinned beings approach him. In one of their hands Steve spots a long, thin object with a blinking light on the end.

Steve decides not to investigate. Instead he goes out and gets a taco. Tacos are awesome.

I remember those Super Mario CYOAs! They had puzzles and things in them you had to solve to find what page to go to next, and IIRC you also had to keep track of coins and things you won. Those ruled!!!

I also remember owning Vampire Express, although I can't for the life of me remember anything about it besides the cover…

squee4242–I had that exact same Supergirl CYOA book. It seems to me like I also had one that was either about James Bond or a James Bond-like fellow. I know I had a Nancy Drew CYOA book.

Oh, my brother and I checked out sooo many CYOA from the library. I don't think I've ever read a crappy Babysitter's Club or Sweet Valley Twins book. Who cares about going to the mall when you could be running from dinosaurs?!

Ah yes! I loved those as well. I used to read the heck out of them until I thought I had every story line possible. Then I would read them front to back with them making no sense whatsoever.
Another favorite: Encyclopedia Brown.

That's right! I'd completely forgotten about the puzzles and whatnot. I wonder if those books are still floating around, boxed up somewhere.

I had an aunt who worked at Hastings, so I had dozens of these things with the covers torn off. My favorites were "Daredevil Park" and the one with the little alien sphere that wanted to go on Wheel of Fortune, but would occasionally melt your brain with ultrasonics if you took the wrong path. I also remember a surprisingly dark one where your school bus was hijacked by terrorists and you were taken to a cave and brainwashed. Especially the ending where you hid on the bus instead of being taken with the rest of the kids, and the terrorists pushed the bus into a deep pit to hide the evidence. Good times.

I love these things. Waaayy back in Junior High, my friend and I would attempt to come up with our own, but we early on realized the logistics of it were a bit much. He owned a Commodore home computer, and tried to write a Doctor Who one, but still, at the time, keeping track of all the branches was pretty daunting. Later, though, at the class Christmas party, he got me a real DW Choose Your Fate book. It involved a giant fusion reactor, Omega taking overe The Doctor's TARDIS, a '56 T-Bird convertable, and K-9. I also found a CYOA-type book called Wizard & Warrior: Curse of the Wolf Knight, written by R.L. Stine. After the intro to the plot, you choose to be either the Wizard, and choose a few spells from the back of the book to use through the adventure, or the Warrior, and carry an assortment of weapons, also cataloged in back. Depending on what you have, the outcomes vary quite a bit. In both books, which I still have, some of the outcomes depend on chance happenings like coin flips, dice rolls, or whether you're reading on an odd or even day.

I ought to go haunt some thrift stores and find some old CYOA books just for my own amusement. And, I think, there may be a site or two that has a couple of the books online to read/play though. And a site that has a try-to-survive-New York story that's fun.

I resolve to use the phrase PURPLE IS THE COLOR OF THE INSIDE OF GORGA'S MOUTH atleast once today.

In Primary School, when I was about 9 or 10, the teacher actually had us make our own CYOA book. We started out with a huge sheet of card each where we drew branch diagrams for each option and eventually wrote our own little stories for the other kids to play.

I wrote one about zombie ninjas in our village, as I was really getting in to both zombies and ninjas at the time. My CYOA didn't have any real good endings, but it did have a heck of a lot of bad endings and choices to be made. I had the second longest book, but I wrote much smaller than the other kid.

I even still have some CYOA books, I know for definite I have Freedom Fighter and a Star Wars one.

As much as I loved the CYOA books, I graduated into the "Fighting Fantasy" series … same idea but you play with a sheet of paper, pencil, and two dice and get to battle things and collect treasure and items. Such awesome precursors to the computer games I still play now.

This is the girl who cried watching Aeris die in FFVII, so playing CYOA was kind of a challenge.

I had a few, but the one I can remember… it was actually a pretty bad (as in NOT GOOD) one about some hillbilly town in which the cops were corrupt and it turns out the whole town is related so they all try and skin you alive or something.
I can actually say I read all the pages.
At one point I was so sick of choosing crappy endings and subsequently chucking the book aross the room in a fit that I started marking the pages that I read, so I couldn't make the same mistake.

Let me tell you, that book only had 5 good endings- the rest of the time you died in a shootout or drowned in toxic waste or died of hunger in a mine… Not COOL.

I absolutely adored anything related to Choose Your Own Adventure. I had some Dungeons & Dragons books along the same lines too.

On a technology note, CYOA books have been made into iPod-navigated audiobooks! I tried out a free trial when they first hit, and it worked pretty well. More information can be found at chooseco.com.

I don't know if I had the "official" Choose Your Own Adventure books, but I did have the Goosebumps equivalent. And I'm pretty sure, in classic Goosebumps style, they contained nothing but horrible, gruesome endings.

I liked those books but not to the obsessive point. One year for Christmas my brother got a set of four GI Joe CYOA books which were awesome! Man, I loved those. Probably can't find 'em anymore, but I guess I was just a sucker for anything of a licensed material. Better than having to envision new characters, that's for sure.

Count me among those too wimpy to make it through a CYOA book. However, I did start making my own in fifth grade. I made about seven, and they were all extremely silly, even in the methods of death:

"You walk down the dairy aisle of the supermarket. Suddenly, a cow moos so loud at you that you explode."

Later on I made interactive Apple II versions of those books. And many years later, I made an "interactive story" on my site that was just as absurd. I couldn't find it again without doing a search, so I don't think I have it linked anymore. It's been a while since it's been touched, but if anyone wants to play, click my name. Oh yeah, and there are many endings with supersonic moos that kill you.

I like CYOA books as a kid a lot, but I hated the bad endings with a passion, especially in the baseball one I owned. I would always convince myself that the action I had chosen should've been the correct one.

I was also a notorious, keep one finger on the original page incase things don't go as planned-er.

dohopoki: Hah, yes. I'll be first in line to buy the CYOA version of Moby Dick.

To set sail aboard a doomed ship captained by an obsessed one-legged madman, turn to page 5.

To allow you hypos to get the upper hand of you, deliberately step into the street, and begin methodically knocking people's hats off, turn to page 22.

To say "Blow that for a lark" and go find some decent nachos and a pint, turn to page 463. Bring the purple dude, he looks like he'd be a blast drunk.

CYOA books were great. I had more than my fair share of them as a kid, but I can't remember any specific stories. Since so many of you can, I am a bit disappointed in myself.

Someone already mentioned it earlier in the responses, but Encyclopedia Brown was also pretty fantastic. I do remember at least one of those stories.

Aside from stealing my father's horror and sci-fi paperbacks (imagine a 4th grader attempting to read Stephen King's IT), the series of books that I loved the most was The Hardy Boys Casefiles. I read those books religiously for a couple of years, and definitely had at least the first 20 or 30 books in the series. They were numbered sequentially on my book shelf and they were one of my prized possessions. I wonder if they are packed away in a box somewhere in my parent's basement. I really hope they weren't sold off, book-by-book, for a dime apiece in a garage sale. That would make me sad.

Woo-hoo! I found a Wikipedia article dealing with the Casefiles series, and it appears each individual book as its own details page. Well, I know what I'll be wasting two hours on later tonight.

I was definitely a Choose Your Own Adventure cheater. I always left my thumb on the previous page in case I died or some other stupid shit happened. And I dunno how many people have already seen this but i couldn't believe this when i saw it. The Mr. Belvedere fun kit!

My fiance has been getting into those Lone Wolf and Way of the Tiger books, which are sort of like CYOA, but are really more like a pen-and-paper RPG. Apparently, they're pretty hard to play through to the end.

Lone Wolf kicks ass!!! IMO the best CYOA out there(albeit a bit on the RPG side as mentioned above)! Its awesome that they are going back into print. I'm gonna have to go dig out my originals now and play a few!!

The only one I have (still have, omg) and read was the Atlantis one. Yeah. Its still in my room, I should go read it for the hell of it. XD The endings in it were almost evenly spread between:
1) dying a horrible death
2) getting a pretty neat ending
3) getting an ambiguously bad ending that MIGHT be good.

Wait…no, it was split between 1 and 3 evenly, w/ 1 or 2 good endings. There were tentacles involved too. Maybe this book was batter than I remember. I sure wish I could have read the Gorga one tho. I remember Matt's other quick review of it too.

I received a CYOA book from my cousin's mom, while my mom gave my cousin a MOTU action figure. I got angry.

Reading through the comments really bring back memories of how my elemntary school really considered CYOA books to be the work of the devil. I forgot about that. Hell, at least we were reading.

I once went through a Choose Your Own Adventure book on my LiveJournal. It was set in Nazi-occupied Austria. I tried one set in apartheid-era South Africa, but that didn't really take off. I might try again.

Magic Toy, 4th Grade is 9-10? It was around that time I started reading Stephen King as my Primary School was running low on books I hadn't read. Pet Semetary was the first I read. By the time I got to Secondary School, I was blitzing books and getting in trouble for getting ahead of parts of the class for required reading.

I had one! It was one involving Luigi rescuing Mario, with either the main villain or one of them being Wendy O. Koopa. Poor Luigi whenever he died.

Hahaha good old ufo 54-40, i used to LOVE me some cyoa books. I felt like quite the retard a while back when i checked a bunch out of the library's young adult section as a 30 year old….

There used to be a computer program for the apple or commodore 64 that allowed you to make your own cyoa-type books if i remember correctly.

All I remember about those books is that no matter what genre, there was always at least one ending where you were shot by an Indian with an arrow.

I inherited many many CYOAs from my uncle and read them voraciously! The first time I read "The Lost Jewels of Nabooti", I fell thru a secret trapdoor into a dark pit. The idea of dehydrating to death in total darkness freaked me out for days. Another favorite was "Who Killed Harlowe Thrombey", a murder mystery.

Guise - Yeah, I was around nine years old when I was dragging books like King's IT and the movie adaptation novel of ALIENS to school. My reading level was pretty advanced for my age. Let's just say I got A LOT of free personal pan pizzas from Pizza Hut.

I was also drawing pictures of guns, war, and scenes from horror movies like Dawn of the Dead or Friday the 13th. Any creative writing I did revolved around horror stories. Jeez, if I were a kid nowadays I would be locked up and studied around the clock by school psychiatrists. I still think I turned out pretty normal, thankfully.

The only books of this sort I remember were the 'goosebumps' ones….

I had dozens of the things!!!
:D

I was checking out your archives early this year and stumbled upon an article either about Gorga, or the CYOA series. Could you link us? It was really good!

I remember the 'goosebumps' with the amusement park and I did indeed cheat to get the good ending of the book (something with slide I think). I beleive the rest of the ending were either getting killed by a monster or dying on a ride (eg. riding a coffin down a river).

My first CYOA was Zork, I think Zork III and I loved the shit out of it because it was lent to me by my down the block friend Marcus. Single child. ALL atari games, g.i. joes and transformers. Me and my brother were so jealous of him. He lent me Zork III and I loved it because when you screwed up it gave you a horrible death and then said "Go back to page XX and try again."

I found that book antiquing a couple of months ago. I'm still reading all the bad decisions I've made on purpose.

I remember these books. I LOVED them. My favorites were the Super Mario Bros. ones. I would almost always get the bad endings. I wouldn't go out of my way to get a bad ending but I just seemed to get them naturally. I always thought it was really cool when I got a bad ending. I was a wierd and morbid kid. lol.

Jack, "YOU ARE A SHARK" is the name of the one you are referring too. I know because it was the first CYOA book I ever got. The only other one I can specifically remember right off is "THE MONA LISA IS MISSING".

I had TONS of these books and gave them away like an idiot. One of the best I had was not an official CYOA but a knockoff where you were a football coach in a championship game. Sounds jocky or lame but one of the scary ends was going into the stands to confront rowdy fans (The Gorillas team and their stadium was "The Zoo") and you ended up getting pummeled by rowdy fans!! CLASSIC.

Here is a list of the books but I really don't recognize many of the titles. Can't figure it out, I had at least 15 of them…

Speaking of Zork reminds me of all the Infocom text adventures, which, in essence, were a form of interactive fiction, except they also required a certain amount of lateral thinking. I remember I had a lot of fun playing Infocom's version of "Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy, which is available to play as a web-based game at the BBC website (my name links to it).

Oooh, I LOVED CYOA books as a kid! The one I remember most fondly is #67, "Seaside Mystery." You were on summer vacation at the seaside, I think with some creepy old lady, and there were mermaids. I don't remember much more than that, except that it had some seriously creepy endings. I remember this one wacky ending where you fell into the ocean, lost your memory and became a mermaid yourself. That used to freak me out as a little girl! Ahh, good times, good times. I miss these books!

I don't think I particularly loved the CYOA books, but I do remember reading them. The only specific one I remember was an Animorphs CYOA that involved you becoming a new animorph. I remember going to the jungles of South America and morphing into a jaguar. Also spying on Yerks and then getting picked up (in jaguar form) by a giant alien tree that had a huge toothy stomach in which a few other animorphs had fallen, and slowly being crushed to death while our leader looked on in horror. Yay, fun.

As for the mini-discussion, from about age 7 through 10 I was - no surprise - a big fan of Animorphs. At age 11 I started reading those Terry Goodkind books with all the torture and almost-rape and out-of-place eroticism, if I remember correctly. Although I did read a few CYOA books while in middle school - mostly for the lulz, as internets people would say.

OMG TresJolie I love that SVH live journal!!!! I was entranced for about an hour reading it! And laughing my ass off! I wanna save th rest for tommorow when im not so tired! You have a new fan! Personally, I was more Baby Sitters Club than SVH and SVT…I read them both but BSC moreso til 8th grade then i moved to SVH and SVU. My faves were the super specials… Sweet Valley Saga and the Prom one with that weird evil twin girl who killed people.

I've got one of those Mario brothers books in front of me right now. It's still in my bookcase. It's called "Nintendo Adventure Books", Featuring Super Mario Bros…The name of the book is "Double Trouble." Based on the illustrations at my memory it's about Bowser creating clones.

I remember having a blast reading this as a kid. I got mine as a special thing when you bought two cans of Pringles. Sadly, it was the only one I had.

"To skip all the boring chapters about whale anatomy and history that have absolutely nothing to do with the story, turn to page 593"

"To skip over all the plotlines that initially seemed hugely important but later end up being completely forgotten, turn to page 50."

I loved Moby Dick but it is one heck of a rambling novel, full of forgotten, mis-fired ideas. Heck, he changes POVs like 5 times!

I still actually have my CYOA books out on my bookcase, along with my Mario and Batman knock off ones and my Worlds of Power books and Casefiles. My favorite was Daredevil Park, although I always got the bad ending because I thought the coaster was too cool to pass up.

Yes, I too read a lot of CYOA at age 7-8, though my advanced reading abilities quickly outgrew them. My favorite was the mystery story about the two kids who solve (or try to, depending on the ending) the murder of some millionaire, and the supernatural-themed sequel (in which the same kids chase the millionaire's ghost).

Actually, by the time I was 8, I was reading Sweet Valley HIGH, along with such adolescent favorites as "The Pigman" and "A Wrinkle In Time." I dropped "High" after about a year or two. Waaaayyy too much melodrama there for my taste, which is probably why I got into the less dramatic "Sweet Valley Twins" and "Babysitters Club" instead. I was also a big Nancy Drew/Hardy Boys fan, and I loved more linear supernatural/mystery oriented stories. (Two late-childhood favorites were a pair of cheap young adult ghost novels, "The Ghost In the Mirror" and "The Ghost In the Garden," both of which revolved around young girls with few friends who encounter ghosts in their new Victorian homes. The big difference was, in "Garden," the ghost is a major character and the girl's best friend, while the ghost in "Mirror" was seen far more briefly and was a less benevolent presence.)

I have a special Choose Your Romance or something book written for pre-teen girls. The thing is absolutely hilarious. As to the originals…I really only remember liking the horse show story. There weren't that many options for girls when I was in the prime reading age for those sadly.

This is totally off topic, but Matt, I wanted to say I've just gained a new appreciation for how much work you put into this site. Same goes for the rest of you who have sites where you write large articles. Tonight I started my first attempt at writing an article in a format like Matt uses (picture, paragraph, picture, etc) and it is way more work than I ever imagined. I spent like an hour just taking pictures.

Incidentally, though I gave up the regular series by the time I was actually 12, I retained the huge "Sweet Valley Saga" books about the ancestors of the Wakefield twins and Lila Fowler for years. My fondness for history and adventure (which these huge novels had in spades) overcame my dislike of gushy melodrama.

Bill- YES. My elementary school did that with so many books too. There were very few that they would put on the shelf.

I remember reading one in which a government scandal was destroying the park that all the kids loved to play at in order to build a mall. One ending involves the kid (ME!) getting pumped full of machine gun fire. There were several other deaths to be found in that one. I guess the idea was to teach little kids to do the right thing "or die."

Hey, I found that Mario CYOA! The one I have is #4 in the "Nintendo Adventure Books" and titled "Koopa Capers."

Reading into it, it seems that Luigi is the star and was hired by Bowser to rescue Wendy O.

Turns out, she ran away from home and tried to start her own revolution. One of the puzzles I'm seeing now is remembering the song that puts the Hammer Bros to sleep.

I still read some of those. You know what's weird? I was talking about The Chose Your OWn Adventure books on the Box 23 thread and then this pops out.

I remember one of the early ones … I think it was called "Space and Beyond" or something … Anyway, the stories in it were okay, but I specifically remember there was one page in the book that no other page led to. It said something like: "You're not quite sure how you got here … by luck or by accident … or by something divine. Regardless, you've discovered something new and original … blah blah blah" … And your character took off into a whole new universe.

I guess it's kinda lame now, but I discovered that page by accident … and I thought it was super awesome at the time.

I also loved the artwork that came with each book. That's half the reason I bought any of the titles.

You are a Shark was my second favorite. All time top honors, though, is the Space Vampire one. The Space Vampire's home planet was filled with other vampires and the oceans were made of blood. It still bothers me to this day. WHERE DID ALL THE BLOOD COME FROM? Also, I had a bit of a vampire fetish, so I would purposefully try to get turned, but to do that, the vampire had to suck out half your blood and inject you with some of his, which could only happen one way in the book. Otherwise, he'd just drain you and you'd die.

I loved these books! My favorite was one where you worked at a marine center with Dolphins over the summer. I found out from this book that Dolphins can and will ram you with their heads. I was terrified of my "swimming with the Dolphins" trip I took that year. I just knew I would be rammed into a rock from an angry male Dolphin.

Ahh yes…choose your own adventure books! those were a staple of my early school years,starting with a 3rd grade troll book order form circa 1979,which contained therein the very first CYOA book,"the cave of time".back then,to a young person like myself,such a novelty as choosing my own ending to a story was indeed a pleasant surprise.of course,upon discovery of said books,my classmates and i eagerly snapped up evey title we could get our hands on,at least until we got sick of it and moved onto more important concerns,like "colecovision"(which is a whole other story in itself! lol.) Nonetheless,i've still held onto my collection of CYOA books,all 13 that i had collected…a little bit yellowed and worse for wear and tear,but otherwise still capable of bringing me back in time to a simpler day…thanks matt for conjuring up those memories again

I remember having several of these, but the one that stands out mostly had something to do with robots. I don't remember the particulars of it, but that stands out. I also remember writing a story when I was like 8 or so that had to do with a zombie knocking on someone's window and stalking them. When it ended, it turned out the zombie was a robot covered in rotting flesh. I was a gorehound from Day 1.

I was also one of those kids that started reading really scary, adult oriented stuff early on, like Stephen King and such. I got in trouble and got a vampire book confiscated from a teacher in the 5th grade because it was "inappropriate."

Bill, I used to love the book fairs. It was kind of like Christmas when the box o' books finally showed up in the classroom.

Totally off subject, but the Hasbro Transformers site has a really cool video up right now. Someone took the Optimus Prime/Megatron battle from "Transformers: The Movie" and re-animated it using CGI. I think in some ways it looks better than the live action movie. Check it out:

So, I had a pretty dramatic, weird night at work tonight at the pizza place I work at sometimes (my second job). Our head cook was late, and I guess it was one time too many because he got into a big screaming match with one of the managers and got fired right there on the spot. Then, about 10 minutes later, one of the other managers got a call saying her ex-boyfriend was found dead in his house this afternoon. She went into hysterics and had to be taken home. It got worse though, cause the ex-boyfriend was also the brother of our hostess. She was on her way to work and didn't know about it yet. She had to find out when she arrived to work. Watching her find out her brother was dead was something I doubt I'm ever going to forget. One of the other waitresses that was supposed to be there tonight is also good friends with him, so she didn't show up either. We almost shut the whole restaurant down because half of our kitchen staff and waitstaff was missing, but ended up staying open anyway. Needless to say, I was swamped all night. I had to take care of half the restaurant myself and was running around all night. I didn't know the guy that died, but he was close to a lot of people who work there. He was either the brother, ex-boyfriend, or good friend to half the waistaff and management, so it's pretty nutty. Oh, in case you're wondering, it turns out it was a gas leak in his house that did it. I think he was asleep and just didn't feel a thing.

In slightly better news, I mentioned in an earlier post that my radio show would be back on the air tonight, but I'm going to wait another week, and have it debut next Thursday night. I've still got a lot of stuff I want to put together for it, and there's some more promotion I want to do before I get back on the air. It'll be worth it though. I just don't have everything prepared yet. I'll make another announcement via MySpace and stuff between now and then.

The story was really cool and surprisingly well-written. I went through just about every path you can take.

Depending on what you do, you can stay in the past and confront a powerful cyborg Ninja having no idea what he is, or travel to the future and learn all about him.

In the future, you can either team up with a rebel hacker (by choosing to follow his army of robot bugs) or an ancient Ninja master (by not following the bugs).

And, of course, the "Ninjaborg" was quite capable of killing you if you didn't play your cards right.

Oh god, the adult versions would just have no end to the possibilities, and could somehow be a lot more depressing than the kids versions.

To continue to stay in the dead end job that has nothing to do with your bachelor's degree, yet pays well and has great medical/dental (and let's face it, you know you really need to take a visit to the dentist cause you've been putting it off forever and you've got that weird pain that comes and goes and you really need to have that checked out, plus there's that cute girl in Accounting that you've been flirting with in the break room. You don't really know what her "situation" is, but if you keep it up, you're sure you'll make some kind of headway in the next week or so), turn to page 32

If you want to quit the job, go back to school, and persue a Masters in your real passion, while waiting tables and going another $40,000 into debt and graduating and mabye getting some professional work sometime in your mid-thirties, turn to page 51.

I only had a few CYOA books, but I had A LOT of Goosebumps "You Choose the Scare" books. Because it was Goosebumps, your character usually ended up chopped up/eaten/stuck in some horrible place. Seriously, I think every book had like…one ending that didn't end with you being dead.

The first CYOA book I remember getting as a kid was "Secret of the Sun God", and I remember that I made a point to read it in its entirety. That is, I made damn sure that I found every possible ending and story path. If I saw an ending that I hadn't read to yet, it became a search of back-flipping through the entire book to find the source pages. So if I noticed a cool-looking "The End" on page 79 for example, I would flip through every page looking for one that said "Turn to page 79" at the bottom, and then kept backtracking that way. For some reason, I never found this process frustrating as a kid….

But at any rate, my personal favorite CYOA book was "Prisoner of the Ant People". Pure sci-fi gold!

There were loads of CYOA knock-offs and influenced publications. Not sure about the US, but here in the UK, we got a set of paper 'Back To The Future' booklets in Shreddies cereal to tie in with the 1985 movie. Some decisions paralleled the movie story, while you could choose other options and generally mess things up. I still have a couple of these booklets.

There was also a 'Masters of the Universe' one by Ladybird that was really cool. It also involved tossing a dice to see how bad you got hurt in battle, but I never bothered with that. The story itself was something to do with Man-At-Arms having his memory drained by Skeletor, and He-Man having to travel to Snake Mountain to reverse it. Damn, old Man-At-A never did have much luck! This book was cool as it featured tonnes of MOTU characters, even lesser used ones.

My favorite was always "The Forbidden Castle", with "The Curse of Chimney Rock" as a close second. I love CYOA.

Awesome. I loved these books, but I can't relaly remember too many. I know there was one about finding Champ, the U.S. Loch-Ness Monster.

Ahhh CYOA… I remember this series in 5th grade. Like I mentioned a day or two ago I was a very shy kid, and by that time I realized recess was lonely and I got bored just wandering around by myself so I went to the library checked out a book, read it that afternoon, and then the next day I returned the book and checked out a new one. I went through a CYOA streak. I remember one specifically this group of kids won in a contest to get a trip to an amusement park before it opened to the public. The beginning everyone got there at night and they were all going to their hotel rooms and the kids decided they couldn't wait until the next day so they wanted to sneak out and go by themselves to the park. Well your first choice of the book was to go with them or go to your hotel room. Well when you went back to the hotel room you decide to take a bath and the radio drops into (or a small tv I don't remember, probably a tv) the bathtub and he electrocutes himself. I think that was a hard book not to choose to kill yourself in. I remember seeing a knock off series with them being Mario bros themed and possibly zelda themed? I heard of people reading straight through and I can't wrap my head around that nonsense.

Transformers movie animated version 1986 from what the angry nintendo nerd said about this movie this movie sounds epic. But I am not interested in Transformers.

I was an avid reader of CYOA Books, still have all of them on a bookshelf in my den. Im proud to say that I have my own copy of Gorga as well. I seem to remember the one involving kids in a haunted english castle being my favorite.

wow, I must have read the crappy ones. All the talk of the ones you all have read started jogging my memory…
I remember one about trying to find the Anasazi. I believe I was sent back in time at one point and BECAME an anasazi. woo. adventure up the yin-yang THERE. *rolls eyes*
And the only GOOD one I had had something to do with being an American Samurai in Japan, which is weird, cause like you're supposed to be what? 10, 12? in these books and yeah- I'm gonna go kick the asses of a squadron of ninjas.
I won't deny they were inventive, but somehow I wound up with all the shitty ones.
Maybe that were my… animosity of CYOA books comes from.

I remember these, but the Fighting Fantasy books were much bigger in the UK. Same deal, 'cept you were usually in a dungeon doing typical AD&D things, and got the fun of rolling dice to beat up orcs and stuff. Didn't have dice handy? You riffled the pages of the book randomly and a pair of dice were printed at the bottom of every page.

Were there any CYOA videogames? Or something that used that format? It would seem this could easilly work in that format.

I didnt really read CYOA books, I have no idea why, but I didn't. I was obsessed with Babysitters Club at around age 7, and then quickly turned back to things like Beverly Cleary and the classics like "The Secret Garden". I also became obsessed with UFO's at the age of 9…probably because of Unsolved Mysteries….my sister liked Goosebumps and would have nightmares because of them. I read one and thought it was effing dumb….but oh well. Other than that, I turned to fun authors like Chuck Palahniuk in high school.

Cambot: I think I had the sequel to the Space Vampires one, but I never read the original. In mine, you were on Earth and you had a gun that was sort of like a Ghostbusters proton back, but tuned for vampires. You could end up zapping the crap out of a couple making out in an alley, and I think getting arrested. One ending I remember well was trying to trick the vampires into flying their spaceship into a sunny location so you could push a button and open the windows, killing them. You didn't know what time it was, so you had to tell them to fly to either the North or South pole where there would be 24 hour sunlight. Hurrah science.

Goob: That's "Daredevil Park," I believe. I'd forgotten about the bathtub death scene, but now that you mention it I remember being extremely envious of that giant bathtub. There was also one where you tried to hide in a coffin and ended up being crushed by an animatronic vampire.

kittymao: There were a bunch like that. "You are a Kung Fu Master." "You are a Ninja." "You are a Martial Arts Master." For some reason, it seemed like I always managed to get in on the second or third in the series with those, and could never find the first ones. So I sort of hated them too because I didn't really know who any of the characters were supposed to be.

JLAJRC: Woo, marathon post! The Japanese have a whole genre of games that are basically still screen shots based around a CYOA format. Most of the ones that get translated into English are dating sims or outright porn, but I remember having a disc of poorly-translated games about a decade ago that were less nipple-oriented. They involve a great deal of reading, but the art is generally pretty good.

Dave Simmons, oh man did we cheat, like they really expected us to admit when we fudged a roll or didn't pick up the right item earlier on.

One of my favourites in the same vein, was a tie-in to the Knightmare TV series, which included named characters.

There needs to be a CYOA for X-E. It would be a treasure hunt through the virtual vault of Pop Culture the X represents. One wrong choice, and you're trapped in the AC crappy game room.

Late to the CYOA party. I too LOVED the Mario Bros. books. It was a way to expand your game playing into READING which was perfect for a bookworm like me. I remember I got one as a gift and I didn't think i would even like it, and instead, it turned into a book I read over and over…sigh.

We still sell these at the bookstore I work at, and I am always pushing them on kids and their parents.

There needs to be a CYOA for X-E. It would be a treasure hunt through the virtual vault of Pop Culture the X represents. One wrong choice, and you're trapped in the AC crappy game room.

Yeah, like we're not addicted to X-E enough as it is. Do you realize how irrestable a challange that would be? You know, you really shouldn't enable an addict.

I have this vision of me a month from now sitting in my room all crazy-eyed from lack of sleep and being jacked up on coffee and Sierra Mist Cranberry Splash, frantically trying to backpedal my steps to figure out how I ended up in the AC game room again…."I know, I miscalculated my age based on salad dressing again! Yeah, that's it! Now, if I just take the number of awkward moments in the 1991 Macy's Thanksgiving Parade, add that to the number of heads that Legotron has collected so far and divide that by the number of movies in the real Mare Winningham's filmography,….lessee…carry the 1….TURN TO PAGE 23!??? 23?? Dear god, no!

You'll find me curled up in the corner muttering to myself…."ninja turtle pies….I'm pre-salad dressing..PRE-salad dressing, I tell you…crack babies killin' babies…"

Did I just put my name is as "DJ DJ"? Why am I suddenly the oldest daughter on Full House?

DJ D you still have some SMCS? I have a serious craving for that stuff right about now. I haven't had any since early december…….oh my heart aches for the SMCS….

Leigha, I just finished off the last of it the other day, but I think the stores around here are still selling it. I see it all the time. Yeah, I got pretty hooked on that stuff for a while. I never found any Pomegranate 7-Up though. It doesn't exist around here.

DJ D
The only time I spotted Pomegranate 7-Up was on the day before Thanksgiving: I was shopping for some last minute grocery items with my brother, and saw a bunch of 2-liter bottles of it, and was going to buy one, but he talked me out of it, and I haven't seen it anywhere else since.

One of my favourites in the same vein, was a tie-in to the Knightmare TV series, which included named characters.

Oh yeah, I forgot that one. I had (still have?) this somewhere. Whilst it wasn't the best of the bunch, as is often the case with licensed material, it was still really good. Although a UK thing it's really XE-worthy (is that a phrase? It is now!)

Oh, and Matt, if you're reading, you should try and get hold of some 'Knightmare' episodes and do an article of them. "Sidestep to the left. No LEFT!"

(I'm off to dig out my Knightmares and MOTU adventure books and party like it's 1989).

When the Dragon's Lair cartoon was on, before the commercial break, they presented a choice for Dirk, and you had to guess which way he would go. After the break, you were told which one was fatal. Come to think of it, I need to buy a copy of the DL DVD pack. It had DL, DL2:Time Warp, and Space Ace, all ready to play on a standard DVD player. I know there are some other DVDs with the choose a path gimmick, but all I can find in stores are the slightly pervy anime ones.

That Goosebumps one seemed SO scary to my little 8 year old self. Virtually every ending ended up with me dying, save for the cho-cho one. I distinctly remember the feeling of dread reading that book, knowing more than likely I was about to die.

I used to love those books when I was a kid. A couple of years ago I bought ESCAPE used just for nostalgia. I think I was about 30 when I did that. I know, I'm pathetic, but things were better back then.

Jay, there was a group of kids in my secondary school who were on Knightmare when we transfered up from primary, for ages they were heroes until they got to the episode where they failed.

Watching repeats of the show recently was tragic though, it looked so cool back then, and now you realise how nasally and swotty some of those kids were.

Then they replaced it with "Virrrrrrtually IMpossssible" or some such, with that 'hi-tech' series of games. Channel 4's Gamesmaster looked better graphics, and let's face it Gamesmaster could kick the heck out of Captain N.

UK shows well worth trying to get hold of: anything Roland Rat did, Round The Bend (Doc Croc, Thunderpants), Knightmare, The Ink Thief (Richard O'Brien! I have the VHS set!), the original Crystal Maze, Krypton Factor (because…well, no-one really watched it back then), The Interceptor (laser tag with a blond guy in a helicopter).

My Dad used to go to the book store a lot. I always went happily because I knew I would walk away with one of these books. My first experience was with Twist A Plot from Troll or Weekly Reader.

Ones that still stick in my mind after all these years are sabotage! the forbidden castle, super computer, and journey to atlantis.

My favorite line of all time though was Interplanetary Spy. It was the same kind of book only many of the make a choice pages where puzzles that you had to figure out to succesfuly move the story along.

Ultimately these types of books would reach maturity in series like Sorcery. Much more involved stories which included RPG like character development.

Guise - I remember 'Virtually Impossible'; terrible 'Knightmare' knockoff (even though it was from the same company), when Children's ITV were starting to aim at younger kids, which lasted a whole one series!

Matt, I think it's time to start extending X-E's gaze. Lots of classic UK shows that would be well at home in an article or two.

Chris Don't worry about it we all buy something we remember from our childhood now and again. I bet Matt would be a millionaire by now if he hasn't been squandering away his earnings on stuff from his childhood and actually saved it away like a responsible adult should. But we love him for it. We sincerely do.

I can't believe no one mentioned "Hyperspace" yet. That was the best CYOA ever!! I, also, have a couple CYOA (and a Sweet Valley High) on my shelf, just for old time's sake.

I had "MYSTERY OF THE MAYA" which I think is one of the early ones. I remember it had a lot of bad endings and left me feeling uncomfortable with the Mayan culture/history. Maybe this book is the reason why today I'm the only one of my friends who has no desire to vacation in the Mayan Rivera? When my friend told me today that she's going to take a vacation there in a few months I was probably thinking "Great, you'll disappear into a pool of blood at a Mayan monument and I'll have to go try to find you and end up dying by falling into some pit & breaking my neck!" Wow - 70s & 80s culture really warped our generation!
;-)

I remember a G.I. Joe one I had you being killed by Storm Shadow. I was like, "That sucks!", especially for the Joes he offed.

Another CYOA one I remember reading (although it may have been a knockoff) had you going back to Pilgrim times in a time machine your father invented, being pursued through time by a rival of his. I remember one ending had you stuck in the past with no way of getting home.

I can pretty much some up my entire 6th grade "girls not longer have cooties" moment, when I got the Which-Way-Book, "The Pillars of Pentagarn".

Who unfortunately was such a greedy bitch, half the page-turns ended with her dying by her own stupid hand. She was crushed in an earthquake, and turned into an evil skeleton zombie after donning some cursed ring.

I had to scour the entire book to find an ending where she didn't die…therefore leaving me and my imagination free to concoct a story where we lived happily ever after and made little pointy-eared babies.

Speaking of funky flavored sodas…has anyone found Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper yet? I have seen ads only so far.
I did try the Pomegranate 7up. It was good, but I am not going to be sad if/when it gets discontinued.

kb: I tried that stuff this week. It's not the best stuff, but I'm not usually a diet drinker, so it's hard to judge. Tastes a little mediciney at first, though.

The CYOA book that I remember is one in which "you" were transported back into the days of King Arthur before he was King, and "you" had to pretend to be a bard, and "you" rhymed "Lancelot" with "Pranced a lot."

I hated that rhyme. Even as a kid, if I were "you" I would have thought up better lyrics to my bard-song.

KB: That Chocolate Dr. Pepper is the NASTIEST soda I ever tasted. Even some of those Jones novelty sodas that they put out for Halloween and Christmas taste better. I really do urge you to AVOID it at ALL COST!

Dispite what JLAJRC says, I have heard it's good. I haven't found it here yet though I couldn't tell you.

Also we NEVER got sierra mist cranberry splash which irritates me because I got it the year before that and it was good. We still have pomegranate 7up around here. I got some peppermint peeps they only sold them at RiteAid. I never got gingerbread pop tarts here I got some little debbie gingerbread men cookies which they still are selling here. My aunt every year makes Christmas cookies and she has some popular gingerbread cookies the eyes and the mouth are 3 red hots and the buttons down the front are raisins and she has white frosting on the cuffs and he has a little santa hat on so she puts trim on that too. It's not Christmas without having at least one, they go quickly.

I didn't get one last Christmas unfortunately I had to settle for some store bought but hopefully this year I'll get one or two. She's 65 so maybe someday when she is too old to make her cookies or even after she dies I can take over and continue the legacy of her wonderful Christmas cookies. I haven't told her my vision of that dream yet though! lol! She is the only relative I have been talking to lately, I've been having family issues. I'm right their wrong. Nuff' said.

kb - While I have considered it, I've never had the nerve to pick up the Diet Chocolate Cherry Dr. Pepper yet. I do agree with you on the Pomegranate 7-Up.

I really enjoyed the first two-liter I bought/consumed, and still somewhat appreciated the second, but I feel it is one of those flavors that is better enjoyed in moderation. If they kept the product on the shelf year-round I would virtually ignore it in favor of the regular, under appreciated, 7-Up. Now, if they release it for six weeks, once a year, and label the bottle "limited edition" with fancy holiday graphics, well, I'll just concede to my weakness… I'd go nuts to find it each and every year. I hope the 7-Up "marketing people" were reading.

good times good times. I remember a CYOA where if you chose wrong you ended up as a whale.

kb, I was at Wal Mart last night and passed a huge display with this weird Dr. Pepper concoction you speak of. I'm a big Dr. Pepper fan (I'm talking just the basic stuff, not the suped up diet, funky flavor stuff that's coming out these days), and almost had a split second where I thought about picking some up, but thought better of it. I love Dr. Pepper so much I can't imagine messing around with it by putting chocolate and cherries in there. That just sounds like a recipie for gross.

Guise and all the other UK folks, So, maybe you can help me out with this. When I was going to school in England I had 5 flatmates who said that I reminded them of a cartoon character that they grew up with. It was some English show that we never got over here so I didn't know what they were talking about. Apparently, it had a shopkeeper character in it, who would just appear about of nowhere without announcing his presence. When he did, a voiceover would say "As if by magic, the Shopkeeper appeared." The reason they said that, was that apparently I have a habit (and people told me this in high school too) of quietly entering a room, sitting down, and scaring the piss out of people cause I'm so quiet and don't say anything. My nickname in high school was "Stealth". It's not intentional at all. I'm just really quiet most of the time. Anyway, they started saying "As if by magic" everytime I entered a room. That soon became the thing to say everytime I just showed up. The standard greeting changed from just "Hi Dave" to "Oh, Hi Dave, as if by magic, alright". Even if they were in a hurry and on their way out as I was coming in, it would sound something like, "Hey Dave, asifbymagic, bye!" Basically, it just became part of my name.

Anyways, I guess my question is, what cartoon was that from and do you remember it? We never got it over here. We did have a poster hanging up in the flat at the time of the Shopkeeper, and at the bottom it read, "As if By Magic." Later, after I came back home, one of my flatmates sent me a postcard with the same picture on it, and on the back, he just put one sentence…"I don't think this needs an explaination."

The other thing that kind of got attached to my name, was apparently in the UK there was at one time someone famous called Ravey Davey Gravy. I have no idea what he was famous for, but they took to calling Ravey Davey sometimes, or just Gravy, or variations on that. Any idea on what that was all about or who this guy was?

I'm in that position where I can't decide whether I should risk over sleeping or risk getting through tomorrow without any sleep.

Oh god, Jay, I remember that comic. It was huge and had the letters from readers page that had complaints of how it could have letters when it was the only issue. Some of the things like "Wee Man and the Masters of the Loo-niverse", "Y-fronto and the Thunderpants" who fought Bum-Ra, "Pzycho the Magnificent", stories about Atomic Bananas and Killer Teeth From Beyond The Stars, Fat Man.

Guise - yeah, that was it. You kind of knew it wasn't going to last long, it was the sort of thing that would attract complaints from parents. It was kind of 'Garbage Pail Kids'-like in a way.

I know I've got the comic somewhere still, altough I think the front and back cover have gone walkies over the years. I'm gonna try and dig it out, it was really funny, in a children's Viz sort of way.

…Oh, and DJ D, the cartoon was indeed 'Mister Benn'. I grew up with that as a young child. It was based upon a series of books.

I've heard interesting comparisons more than a few times over the years that it was like a children's predecessor to 'Quantum Leap'. Like Sam Beckett, he would 'become' a different person each episode, and help the people around him sort their problems out. The Shopkeeper was like Al, appearing out of nowhere. To make it child friendly, Mr. Benn returned home at the end of each episode, unlike Sam.

Of course, there's nothing in it, it's all coincidence, but it makes for a nice comparison.

There is really no reason to come into my bathroom at any time. There are no delicious leafy green plants in there, nor will there ever be. The only thing you can possibly accomplish is put yourself in a position to be under my bare foot at 3 AM. And seriously, that's not going to turn out well for either of us. Go away.

Jay, or the idea that Mr Benn was a man who used to work in 'the city' or the civil service (hence his clothes) and expressed way too much interest on the children on his street. That the Shopkeeper was either the devil or a drug dealer offering alternate realities.

There seems to be a unanimous "yuck" about the new Dr. Pepper flavor, which means I will buy it, but only once…if I ever find it.

Hey DJ D, that re-animated Transformers thing was pretty awesome looking. See, why couldn't they have done the live-action movie like that? I think it would've worked just fine…grumble mumble…

I would like to see TF:TM redone in it's entirety like that. Same soundtrack, different visuals. That's been my secret wish for a few years now.

Anybody here have an ION (used to be PAX) channel in their area? I may be getting hooked on Firebrand. It's like MTV for cool TV ads from around the civilized world. Unlike eMpTy Vee, it is really worth watching, even just once. Even the website is nifty.

Happy SNT!!!! im sitting here watching eddie izzard concerts off of youtube…woo!

Man Walmart was busy today! I took a video with my cell phone (loving that feature this last couple of weeks) and we got a few things we needed and wanted. I got some of those cheesecake hershey kisses (yum) and a case of diet dr pepper chocolate cherry soda. If you sip it it's good. If you chug it then it has a bitter taste from the dr pepper. It tastes like cherry cordials. That is the best description I can think of. A keeper? No, it won't replace my usual beverages but it's a nice treat. I like the hershey kisses though a lot I'll try my best not to inhale the whole bag in one night. Cheesecake everything is really good they keep on showing that sonic commerical with those cheesecake bites there isn't a Sonic around here so that just makes me want to seek revenge on the company.

kingklash we have Ion television here, all I pay attention to on that channel is Who's the Boss reruns. They played the wonder years but I don't think they play it anymore since changing the schedule in the fall. Boo

but I watched most of them when they still played them before they took the series off so that'll last me for a while.

mandy_Reeves: You wouldn't happen to be watching Izzard's Dress To Kill, would you?

It's Groundhog Day! So I'm going to be firing up that movie. Because I also rented two other movies today without realizing it (it's definitely early spring down here. Sheesh.), tonight I will be enjoying a triple feature: Groundhog Day, El Topo, and finally Alien.

[HER:] They say we're young and we don't know
We won't find out until we grow
[HIM:] Well I don't know if all that's true
'Cause you got me, and baby I got you

And funny you oughta mention the I got You Babe song. Thats me and my husband danced to at our wedding

Imbolc! And I got to go to a pagan expo and stock up on goodies and laugh at hippies.

So did anyone else notice the three dancing Santa Clause faces? Right click it and save the picture and you'll see that it's called "xmas2007-discussion" ….

And funny you oughta mention the I got You Babe song. Thats me and my husband danced to at our wedding

mandy_Reeves:

That is because I am omnipotent. Err, wait, that isn't the right word. I meant… dork, yeah, that's right. I was a dork for quoting a song from Bill Murray's Groundhog Day. What can I say? It is one of my all-time favorite movies.

So, the question is… are we going to get a new SNT? Or will we be here? What can I say, I haven't been around for one in a while and tonight I am looking forward to it.

Pretty soon its going to become SMT….Sunday morning thread…on the east coast at least.

You see, my state , Al-uh-bam-uh, is one of the Super Tuesday States, and I have a problem. You see, I don't really like any of the candidates. None of them. Either party.

I think it's important to have a voice in government, but considering what I just said, I was wondering…

Would it be making a mockery of my civic duties to write-in vote for Waiterbot, Mista Snowman, or James Lipton? Because I think any one of them would do a far better job as president.

I can see it now!
"Waiterbot/Lipton '08! Why? Because we can!"
At least it'd more sincere than most of the stuff you hear during an election year.

Goob
Im glad Im not the only one tormented by Sonic commercials, I live in up state washington and there are no sonics around. By the way anyone feel that sonic commercials are some of the funnier commercials on telivison?

Shuanfu: Hopefully you either got out or are in one of the more civilized parts. I'm up here in Florence, Lauderdale County, how about you?

Man, I was hoping for a great SNT tonight. Instead here we are talking about how none of the candidates, on either side, are truly appealing. I couldn't agree more. Sure, there is a candidate or two, on each side, that appeals to me far more than the others… but none have secured my vote.

I'm not one to discuss politics either, but it seems that Obama is the only candidate to buy airtime during times that appeal to the "Insomniac Geek" demographic in NY.

That, and I'd totally support Waiterbot for Pres. and now, some campaign slogans:

I'm sick of you self-righteous Waiterbot supporters waiving your nonsense around. The fact is that the only candidates that will bring this country back to its constitutional roots and restore its moral fibers is a Tigerboy and Knacks ticket.

dohopoki: Oh please! Tigerboy and Knacks don't have a strong stance on the issues! If those liberal wieners are elected, the terrorists are gonna invade this country and blow up all our Ding Dong factories while they're busy worrying about "global warming"!

Pfft, anybody with any brains knows that we're not making the planet warmer… Waiterbot is! And why? Because if he doesn't make the polar ice caps melt, the terrorists win!