G&C Podcast - Episode 179: Let's Revisit The World Of Edutainment!

[00:00:00] Hey guys, on this episode of Gaming And Collecting, me and Alex are gonna go take a look at some edutainment games from back in the day.

[00:00:08] We played a lot, and some of these are oddly eerie nowadays. Like there's some uncanny valley stuff going on, but it was an interesting look back. We definitely brought back some interesting memories, that's for sure. But anyways guys, on with the episode. Hey, hey Bill. What?

[00:00:44] How can you tell the difference between a dog and a tree? Something about bark. Yes, they're bark! Badoom! I can't wait till Father's Day so you can get rid of that fucking thing.

[00:01:01] No! This wasn't a Father's Day gift, it was a gift for my friend. I just haven't given it to him yet. Oh. So it's just dumb then. Bill? What invention allows us to see through walls? What? Windows. Badoom. That one's pretty dumb. That one's pretty stupid.

[00:01:30] That's a get out moment where I just, if someone told me that joke in reality I'd feel like, get out. Bill, what did the sock say to the smelly foot? Shoo! Shoo! Okay, enough. Bye you then. Great. You're dying again, I see.

[00:01:56] I almost vomited. I almost threw up. Your entire mic just shit the bed so whatever you did I did not hear it. Can you shut the hell up? I didn't hear it so I have no idea what you did. You didn't hear it? Okay, good.

[00:02:14] I kind of gagged a little bit. I've been good. I've been really busy. Bill, Nationals is in 18 days. That's terrifying. Bill! Care! Kingfors! Alex, Irish stepdancing is a cult to me. That's all I see it as.

[00:02:40] So today was like the first day we've had in a while where traffic wasn't completely awful. It wasn't too bad. I mean it was still awful but it wasn't as bad as it's been. It's been downright awful. It's been gridlocked this entire week, I swear.

[00:03:02] Yeah, I feel like every day my phone's been like traffic warning and I've been like, ugh. But yeah, it wasn't too bad. It's because people are fucking stupid and they can't stay in a fucking lane for more than two seconds, I swear.

[00:03:17] I hate also that a person can't stay one speed. Like today I got stuck behind this guy who would speed up to like 90 and then suddenly just slow down to like 60 and I'd be like, ooh, like, pick. Probably. It was just so annoying but oh well.

[00:03:39] I made it home and I went grocery shopping. Yep. Oh, I'm so tired this week. Yeah, it's in the air. It was cold earlier this week. I was like what the hell? Yeah, no, it was pretty chilly.

[00:03:55] Then today it didn't warm up that much today, but it did warm up a little bit. Yeah, I mean we don't have...June is like the worst month because there's like no like breaks in it. It's like just a straight up full month.

[00:04:09] Yeah, but next month should be...do you have a shutdown? No, they rescheduled it, like pushed it to like August, which means they're totally going to push it again once we get to August. So they're going to cancel it?

[00:04:24] No, they're just going to keep pushing it back and being like no, we'll totally do it. As the machines are... That's so shitty though for like the people who like scheduled a vacation and stuff. Yeah, they don't care. True.

[00:04:38] I'm planning on possibly, I think I might take the Wednesday off of 4th of July week so I have an extra day. Well, mom and I are flying out on Tuesday. If you could drive us to the airport that would be great. What time? Early.

[00:04:58] We'll see because I have to...I don't know. We'll see. Well, we'll have to figure it out. You'll have to ask to go in late. I mean the flight leaves at 6, so we have to be there for like four.

[00:05:14] Which should give you enough time to get to work. That's going to fuck me sleep wise, like badly. Same with us. Yeah, but you don't have to work with dangerous machinery. Please, I will grab you a coffee. You've done it before. Please. Do it for your mother.

[00:05:40] Do it for your mother. Why is the logo like in the center over here? It's been always been there. No, it's usually in the corner. Like the corner of the screen. I don't know the aspect ratio is weird. Your face is weird.

[00:05:58] Yeah, other than that, nothing too crazy has been going on. No. Yeah. No. It's been...oh, I went to New Jersey on Saturday. I heard it was miserable. No, the competition was fine.

[00:06:17] I mean, I didn't dance my best and I got fifth and I was okay with it. Because I did not dance great. I was having stomach problems all day long. So I was pretty proud of myself for dancing that good. For the Judgesta guy, at least.

[00:06:34] But yeah, then we went to the Jersey Shore. And yeah, we realized that it wasn't for us and we'll never return. Did you run into Snicky Ghost Smush-Mush? No, I did not run into Snicky Ghost Smush-Mush. But there was so much weed and so many kids.

[00:06:50] And it just felt very inappropriate. I don't know. Just that environment...there was a lot of kids in that environment. It was full of a lot of drunk high people. And it just didn't seem right. I didn't like that. That's the world we live in now. Yeah.

[00:07:06] It wasn't for me. I would not go back. I'm sorry. I'm sorry if anyone is from New Jersey and listening, but I did not like the shore. Yeah. But yeah, so I guess for our topic for this episode, we're doing a sort of a revisit in a sense.

[00:07:27] No, we're not allowed. So we've covered in the past a bunch of... We've vaguely covered educational games in the past in a number of different episodes, particularly our early PC gaming memories. We've done humongous entertainment. We've talked about browser based games.

[00:07:49] Educational stuff has kind of interlaced around that. So we figured this time...it's finally probably about time we actually just do a full on episode on educational games, because growing up, we played a ton of them.

[00:08:03] Also, I thought we had already done this episode and then Bill told me, nope, we just done what he just said. A bunch of different topics, but not all together. Yeah. The closest thing we've done to an educational game episode is we've previously covered... Popo saves the zoo.

[00:08:20] That was a while ago. Recently, we did the leapfrog game. So we're not going to cover any of those in this episode just because you care that much. Like you care that much. All you want to do is make fun of the goddamn frogs again.

[00:08:37] I don't care! How fucking dare you? How fucking dare you? That's not my only reasoning. Rawr! I got my cat tongues. Yeah, this isn't a video episode so no one can see that. But you can! So comment on it. No. Can you see that? Wait. No.

[00:09:03] Can you hear that? No. How not I can hear it? I think you're deaf. No, I think your mic is weird. I would set up. Popo saves the zoo. Did you hear that? Yes. Did you hear that? No. Alright, move on.

[00:09:25] No! I want to! I want to guard this chaos the whole episode! It's my job! I thought that's why you hired me to pretend to be your sister. To be Kami. Anyways, so I guess jumping back...

[00:09:45] One of those days when Bill regrets everything, right? Do you want to cancel the show? This joke isn't funny anymore. You make it literally every episode. Well, I'm just waiting for the day you give me my pink slip. For being too annoying.

[00:10:04] So going back, we've mentioned the Hot Wheels and Barbie pieces that we got way back in the day. Yes. Apologize to your mother. She is preemptively apologized right now. I'm not even gonna bring it up this time. To say I'm sorry for the last episode.

[00:10:22] No. The fact that you immediately brought it up, brought it to attention. I wasn't even gonna bring it up, but here we are. I know Mom was gonna bring it up, so I just did. So apologize. They were nice computers. They were very nice gifts.

[00:10:37] They were a nice gift. I'll say that. Thank you. So those...we mentioned before, those computers came with a ton of preloaded shovelware and other educational stuff. And well, hit or miss, because the Hot Wheels one came with a lot of Hot Wheels games as well.

[00:11:02] And yours came with a lot of Barbie games. Yeah. Mine also came with a lot of Barbie games. They might not have came with the games. No, they were part of the bundle. Okay. But Mom probably also gave us a bunch of games too.

[00:11:16] Well, there was the binder that had all of the games in it. I've looked up this bundle before. I've seen it. Okay. Yeah, so there was a ton of these games and we had a lot to choose from and a lot of educational stuff.

[00:11:31] And boy, oh boy, was it a...as a kid you don't really notice, but as an adult you think back and you go, wow.

[00:11:40] Educational games were either...they were video games that were kind of trying to be educational or they were just straight up like educational software that was like pretending to be a video game and failing miserably at it most of the time. Yep.

[00:11:55] So we played a whole bunch of this stuff and I always remember like either like...you'd play it just because it was something to play and a lot of times it wasn't super fun, unfortunately. So what was the first educational game that you remember?

[00:12:15] I feel like it was either a Putt-Putt game or a Freddy Fish game. I can't remember exactly. I don't remember the first one. I'll just be honest, I don't remember. Okay. What was your first one?

[00:12:33] I think it was actually...so I'm thinking back on the thing. It was this like...I think it was actually a Jumpstart game, now that I think about it. The kindergarten one?

[00:12:45] It was either kindergarten or first grade. It was the one where you played as this frog and your... Okay, not kindergarten. In kindergarten you played as a bunny.

[00:12:56] I don't think I had the kindergarten one. I had the one where you played as the frog and it was like a vocabulary. Second grade. Probably, yeah. His Firefly. I'm looking at it right now. It's second grade. Okay, that's fine. You second grader.

[00:13:13] I mean, at the time, yeah, you were a first grader at the time. I thought you were about to say you were a furry and then I was... No, you're terrified of the phrase. They're scary! Yeah, but he's the frogman. Wow, they've changed the art over the years.

[00:13:31] I wonder if the game is still exactly the same? No, no, they actually changed the games over the years. Like second grade isn't the same second grade anymore. Actually that makes sense because like school is not the same as it was when we did...

[00:13:49] The way kids learn math nowadays versus how we learn math is so different. It's crazy.

[00:13:55] Yeah, I remember this one too because there was like this weird story involved where it was like you were a frog and you had a Firefly buddy and your buddy got kidnapped by cavemen. Because they wanted to use his ass as a nightlight. Okay, I don't remember that.

[00:14:13] Because he was a Firefly and they hadn't discovered fire yet. But you had to go on this jungle adventure and it was kind of like a platformer but you had to use spelling and vocabulary to get through the stages.

[00:14:26] You'd get a ladder that you'd have to climb up and you couldn't progress past it until you did a spelling thing. Alright, that is not the second grade one.

[00:14:37] Alex, I had said there has been multiple of these over the years. That was the one at the time we played it. Well, no, the story doesn't say that. I think it was a different game.

[00:14:50] Well, yeah, they changed up the games over the years. They haven't been the same game every time. Well, no, I know but I don't think that was the one because it doesn't even say it in any of the versions.

[00:15:04] Well, I don't know then. But either way that was the jumpstart game I played. Nice. You played a jumpstart game too. I found the one you're talking about. That one is jumpstart reading for second graders. It's a different one. There's no stopping a kid with a jumpstart.

[00:15:31] You played the third grade one with the robot. Yeah, the robot one was the best one. So that game, I remember you used to play that nonstop but you never finished it because it was so fucking long.

[00:15:47] Also because I was playing the third grade game and I was like four. So it wasn't meant for me. Well, no, you were still playing it by the time it was meant for you. Yeah.

[00:16:01] The problem with that one is it was so long that you just didn't have the patience for it. It was mystery mountain. Yes. Oh yeah. Because it was a bunch of...

[00:16:16] To unlock one robot because you had to save all the robots and to get one robot you had to do like a good hour's worth of stuff just to get to this one roundabout thing.

[00:16:28] And every time you do a run, it would reset again and you'd have to do it again for the different robot. Yeah, there's a lot of freaking robots. Oh my God, there was like 20.

[00:16:41] I always just remember it because the whole plot was this professor's daughter takes over his lab while he's away and she starts just going back in time to change history just so she can get her homework right. Yep. Honestly, I get it. Homework's hard sometimes.

[00:17:02] This is so funny. Oh, I always remember this too because I don't know something about it just like the 3D mop rendered backgrounds with the 2D animation. I don't know. It just always felt kind of creepy. It always gave you a creepy unsettling vibe. That music and atmosphere.

[00:17:25] Yeah, the color scheme and the atmosphere are great. Oh yeah, the kitchen. I remember the kitchen game in this kitchen robot. Yeah, this third grade. That was the one I played with all the time, all day long.

[00:17:41] And looking at it back, I'm like, oh, it's kind of giving me the heebie-jeebies. It's very unsettling. I don't like it. I always remember too because there was a different game that you all because that was like a three pack, I believe, when you got that game.

[00:17:54] And there was another one that also had that robot that you played as he was like a detective and you'd have to interview people. Oh yeah. He's kind of creepy too. He has red eyes and stuff. He looks like he's going to murder you.

[00:18:11] I don't know. I'm looking back now and I'm like, I don't know why, but it's giving me the heebie-jeebies. It's creepy. It's got a very uncanny valley because it's actually funny. There was Jumpstart.

[00:18:23] It's funny because speaking of creepy, Jumpstart fourth grade, infamously, was one of the banned ones because it was too scary. One of the banned ones? Yeah, the original, well not so much banned it. They pulled it from the shelves.

[00:18:41] It was the like the Spooky Island or whatever one. Spooky Island. I see Knowledge Land. I see Joe Hammett, kid detective. I see. It was fourth grade. I know that. One second here. Redacted Alex Burp here. I see Sapphire Falls.

[00:19:07] No, that was the replacement. It was Haunted Island. It's not even on here on this list I'm looking at then. Probably because it was removed. Look up Jumpstart fourth grade, Haunted Island. That was the original. Oh, there it is.

[00:19:25] Yeah. So this one was taken off the shelves because it was considered too scary. Oh, the original cover art I gotta say is a lot scarier than the other one. Even though on the second one it does say three minutes.

[00:19:43] So I think they took it off a little too late off the shelves but. Yeah, I just remembered being, I don't think we ever had that one probably because by the time we got it, it was pulled from the shelf.

[00:19:57] Yeah, they replaced it with Sapphire Falls and that was kind of around the point where we had gone from Jumpstart. Yeah, I honestly I think the only ones we really played were the robot one for me and then the frog one for you. Yeah.

[00:20:16] Yeah, because like other than that then like we'd move on and like there'd be like classics like, I mean I still, the Oregon Trail is still a classic even to this day.

[00:20:26] I never played it. I know you never did. It was just such a goofy game where it's like you have to make your wagon party, and then like you have to get the organ but like there's all these challenges that come up along the way and then like you this always like somebody dies a dysentery.

[00:20:41] Yeah. The third edition was the funnest one though because that one had like pre rendered CG backgrounds and then like full motion video characters that you could talk to, and they were so goofy.

[00:20:54] Yeah, I played a lot of that one. I didn't know what to do with it at first when I first played it but later years it was more fun. Moving on from there though. Oh, did you, did we have the I spy game.

[00:21:15] You did, I believe there's five books. I think we're playing it like in school if anything but it was basically like the I spy books, but it was a computer game so it was basically a point and click game where you'd find the things you were looking for.

[00:21:29] I remember the haunted. I remember the haunted house one because it was like weirdly like scary. Yep, that's the literally the image I'm looking at right now. So what was with kids games and being weirdly unsettling. I don't know.

[00:21:47] Yeah, because it seems to be a trend now that we're. I mean but remember like, I feel like people would make anything scary, like the, what's it called, like the webkins game.

[00:21:59] So I had to go make it scary. That was fake though like these things were just like legitimately unsettling. Yeah, I remember that. Do you remember reader rabbit. It was an it was a reading series of games. Let me see.

[00:22:19] That sounds familiar but I don't think I remember it. Yeah, it looks familiar but I don't think I played this one. No you did because you're the one that had them you probably just haven't. You probably just blocked it out of your mind. It was on the DS.

[00:22:39] It was. Yeah, apparently, they put it on the DS at one point. Yeah, I don't remember reader rabbit but he looks like he's seen some shit in this image. Yeah. Now you played these games a lot. It was on the Wii too. How funny.

[00:22:57] I don't think I played the Wii version or. Well no no no no. I'm not saying you did because they were PC games. They ported to Wii and DS. I like how the games are on DS. I'm not DS on a Wii now. Yeah, they were kind of.

[00:23:17] I don't remember this game reader rabbit. I don't remember reader rabbit. It must not have been that memorable to me. No, it was it was all the same thing you just kind of go from map to map and you do puzzles and shit.

[00:23:29] You know what? I do remember that little mouse though. I don't remember the rabbit, but I remember the mouse. I remember being like a little bitch or something. She's annoying. Why is he in heaven? Did reader rabbit die? Probably. Oh, it's cloud street.

[00:23:48] Well, it kind of looks like the gates of heaven. Jesus. Lovely. Jesus! Literally! Oh, I remember we were talking about this earlier. I remember the typing game that I had in school because you said you had Mavis teaches typing. Some bitch named Mavis. I had type to learn.

[00:24:13] Type to learn. That sounds really familiar. Yep, that's the one I remember. Let's see here. Oh, I remember this. This sucked. What? I hated this. I hated typing games in general because all they did was make my typing worse. I remember it would always get to a point.

[00:24:41] They'd always have like some sort of speed level and it just got to the point where I would get frustrated. I would just slam up on the keyboard. And just all the keys would be pressed. See, I would like...

[00:24:55] I mean my typing is terrible. I'm a fucking two-finger pecker because I just don't give a shit. But I remember whenever I could type decently fast but then whenever they were like you have to do it the proper way and I'm like... I can't.

[00:25:11] Because my fingers are fucking weird like that. My typing speed was... I had the record in high school. Because when we went through the computer shop, we all had to do the typing thing once just to get a benchmark.

[00:25:24] And I had the record lowest typing speed out of anybody in my class. I was like yay me. This is why I didn't go into typing. Yeah, typing games are always... The only typing game that I like is typing of the dead.

[00:25:44] Because it's a zombie game where you use a keyboard. So living books. We should talk about living books. They're books that come alive and eat your face. Only in your dreams. Living books were kind of... Hey man! I want it to be real!

[00:26:05] So living books were a series of computer games. That were books. They were essentially... You can't say they were games. They were not games. They were clicking and watching stuff happen. They weren't really a game. They're not so much a game in the sense where they're also a...

[00:26:31] They were an experience I guess you could say. I'll go with experience. But I would not call them a game. So they were kind of like putt-putt, like humongous games but less interactive. Where essentially the idea was... I forget who created them.

[00:26:52] It was a guy that wrote some of the stories in living books. But essentially it took the children's books, particularly books like Arthur. Arthur and Lin. Also the little gremlin guy. I sent you a photo of him along the way. He's in our server as a movie.

[00:27:12] Yes, yes. One wicked little critter or whatever. Yeah, the little critter! I love the little critter. There was also Bernstein Bears. They were part of it. Ew, why are his toes? Why does his legs look like that? I don't fucking...

[00:27:28] I know, we gotta just... Why does his legs look broken in this? You're sending me... Just please, why do his legs look like arms or just look broken? They don't look right. Please confirm that that doesn't look right. Everything about this cover doesn't look right.

[00:27:54] Moving on from that. Grandma's having a good time with them. Basically the way it worked though is they would basically take... You had two options. You could either read the book like a normal person or you could play around in the book.

[00:28:14] Well, essentially it's like PupPup where you can click on random things in the background. Click on everything. The game. My favorite is Arthur and the evil teacher or whatever, the episode that introduced Mr. Ratburn.

[00:28:35] There was a scene where Arthur's making some sort of clay project and he's just making this gross goopy sound. And you could just keep clicking on it and it would keep making the noise. I always remember that.

[00:28:50] Just weird goofy shit like that. You could click on everything, weird shit would happen. They were very interactive but they weren't nearly as fun as PupPup. I remember the Bernstein Bear ones were pretty fun. The Arthur ones are iconic. The little critter?

[00:29:09] That's less said about that than the putter. I didn't realize there was so many Dr. Seuss ones. I don't think we had any of those. No, but we had them at daycare after school and stuff.

[00:29:22] Yeah, because I remember the Arthur ones. We definitely had the Arthur ones for sure. And the Bernstein Bear ones. The Bernstein Bears. The Bernstein Bears get into a fight. We also had one of the ones that the creator of the software made. The Haunted House one?

[00:29:46] The very Haunted House. I think that one came. It was one of the easiest ones to find. I always remember because the writing in that one was so much weaker than the rest of them because he wasn't the best writer.

[00:30:00] You know, he actually put those on tablets a while back and you could play them on... I don't know if he still can but he did bring back Living Books for a while.

[00:30:10] Living Books was a big one. You used to play the Arthur book just on repeat a lot. I love the Arthur. I love Arthur. I still love Arthur to this day. Me and PBG. We love Arthur. I think we played all the Arthur games recently.

[00:30:28] Arthur aged very well, I will say. Yes. Jiggle jiggle hi jiggle. That song is still in my head to this day and that's like 50 billion years ago. So it's a good song. Yeah, but I can't wait to play the one with just Grandma and me.

[00:30:45] It smells like a fun cover. So you like knee surgery Alex? Ed Heads! We already talked about Ed Heads. Why was this a thing? Like why was this an art generation thing? It wasn't just knee surgery, it also became like... Hip surgery, brain surgery, also all the surgeries.

[00:31:08] So for those who don't know there is a website called Ed Heads. I think it's still on. I think you can actually still... Actually, I think you can't... Oh, I'm going on it as we speak. STEM content. Support Ed Heads. Volunteer. Games and content. Games.

[00:31:24] Oh yeah, so the games were the surgery simulators. But then there was also... My favorite was the simple machines. Because that's how everyone's jump start into... That's once everyone's like started into Ed Heads because most of their teachers in science class was like,

[00:31:42] Alright, we're going to learn about simple machines. And you learned it through Ed Heads. And meanwhile one kid in the back was doing knee surgery. Yes, and then it devolved into knee surgery. I wonder if you can still play the knee surgery game?

[00:31:57] Teachers, students... How do I play it? I want to do knee surgery! Yeah, I remember like for health class we had to do the goddamn knee surgery multiple times. I didn't have to do that for like class. I like just remember... I guess I can watch the video.

[00:32:17] It was more of just like whenever there was free computer time, the teacher would be like, Alright, you're free to go. And everyone would be like, Knee surgery! We just hacked the fucking firewall in Blood RuneScape. We were not as creative, Phil. But yeah, it was knee surgery.

[00:32:36] And then it was hip surgery. And then like, I think yeah, brain surgery. I don't think I ever played the brain surgery one because I think it scared me a little too much. I remember that one because you had to shave the woman's head.

[00:32:50] The knee surgery one I just remember vividly. Just yeah, especially like the part where you like shaved the bone like just like... And then you have to like pull the leg out and like bathe it in like the brown cleaning water stuff.

[00:33:09] See, I was the psycho who like when you had to seal the wound up would always use the... Oh yeah, there's the head shaving scene. I just saw a picture of it.

[00:33:16] I think you could get to shaving the head and be like this feels wrong and too real. For the knee surgery... I need to stop looking at this because I'm going to make myself throw up. Oh my god. This is bad.

[00:33:28] For the knee surgery, I'd always get to the end where you have to seal the wound back up and I would always use the fucking stapler. Just because I was a fucking psycho. Asshole.

[00:33:39] Well, it was the only time you get to use it because you had to use either the suture and the suture was boring. Use the stapler. Did you ever play those games where it's like you're a surgeon and it's like anime? Oh, Trauma Center. Yeah.

[00:33:55] I fucking love Trauma Center. Okay. Yeah, you did. All right. Like an alien parasite coming in surgery. Ed Heads. Surgery and simple machines. Me personally prefer the simple machines. But who doesn't love... Oh my god. There's a backgroundless Ed Heads robot guy. He was great. Love him.

[00:34:18] Speaking of robots, we should talk about Brain Pop. Brain Pop! Oh, I lost that. Where'd you go Brain Pop? I had a tab open. That's gone. I remember Brain Pop. I remember... The two orange robot man. Well, no, it was an orange robot and a guy.

[00:34:35] Well, yeah, no, but I mean Ed Heads. I was talking about how Ed Heads has an orange robot man and Brain Pop also has one. Okay. The one from Brain Pop was way more interesting because he only talked in beeps. Oh, Yowie fan art. Nice. Oh my god.

[00:34:56] What have they done to Brain Pop? Is it bad? Do I have... Do I search? Is it bad? It wasn't that bad. It's just I clicked on one and jokingly then I scrolled through Google images and it gives you like the recommended ones.

[00:35:19] All of them are the best. Lovely. Let's see. How far do I scroll down to find it? Oh, they're holding each other in this nice pose. Wait, is the one where he's holding him in his arms? Yes. Because that's something I clicked on. Oh, love... Yay. All right.

[00:35:40] What the fuck is wrong with people? I wonder... Okay, now I'm going to deep dive in and click on the one of them kissing to see what gets recommended. Jesus, why is he shirtless?

[00:35:56] You're here to talk about educational games and Alex found the yaoi of an educational cartoon. Here we go. There's a video called Reviewing Tim and Chimobi Fan Art. Lovely. Here, I'll send you the link for later. I don't need the link. I really don't. Too fucking busy.

[00:36:31] Yeah, I remember many, many like a science class just watching those videos because I had nothing else to do. Are you good? Why is it so much yaoi? Oh my God, there's one of them at Star Wars. Yeah, cool. Nice because it's not them kissing.

[00:37:02] I just remember the one about computer viruses and like Moby's trying to fix his computer the whole time and by the end he's like, Do you even know what you're doing? And the computer is just in pieces on the floor.

[00:37:13] I don't remember anything except for them just being in a room together. Other than that, I wonder... Oh, the website's still up. They have a YouTube channel too. Oh, solutions. Brain Pop 3-8. Oh, you have to like buy it now. You always had to. Oh, you did?

[00:37:36] Yeah, we had a school account. That's how we got on it. I'm going to check out their YouTube channel. Oh, sweet. Oh, but the video I sent you isn't there. That's so fun. Lovely. Yeah, that Brain Pop was a thing though. I remember Brain Pop.

[00:38:02] It's funny that there was two Orange Robot Man still. There was also the Orange Robot in the Jump Start game. The chef one. Yeah, but he wasn't as iconic. No. Oh, geez, that was a trip. What about those Zumbinis? That was another game that was weirdly unsettling.

[00:38:27] I can't remember what this game was about. It was literally a learning comprehension game where you would have to learn patterns and stuff to get... Basically, you had to get all the Zumbini to safety because they were from an island and then these...

[00:38:43] I'm pretty sure an allegory for capitalists show up and basically take over their land. And then they have to escape. Ah, the Bloats. Yeah, the Bloats. The Bloats paid a visit. Basically, they're forced to run away. Oh, no, no, no.

[00:39:06] The plot is that the Bloats came in and they paid them a visit and they offered to make a deal with them. But those Zumbinis were stupid and they made a dumbass deal and they were basically manipulated and they lost everything.

[00:39:21] So they broke over the Zumbini's race and the whole Zumbino island and they ran away. Like, the little bitches they were. Yeah. What's funny is that you need to have a certain amount of them to get through the game. Because you lose them if you fail the puzzles.

[00:39:38] So if you get to a point, there's a little break. There was consequences? Oh, yeah. This game was hard as a kid. I could never beat it. I played it later as a teenager and I figured it out because you grew up.

[00:39:55] But there was some actual brain comprehension in this one. Yeah. I just remember the Zumbinis died a lot. All right, P Zumbini. And the worst part is when you get to a place and you don't have enough, your solution isn't like you don't try again.

[00:40:11] You instead go back to the main island and just make some more. You're like, all right, you guys try now. All right, your turn. Did you make your own little characters? Yeah, you could customize every single Zumbini.

[00:40:25] But you do it for like three and then you're like, fuck this. And you just do random for the rest of them. Or you make them all the same just to make it funny. Yeah, it was a very interesting game.

[00:40:38] I played a lot of that as a kid. There was another game that was similar to it called it was by the same company called Math Workshop. But that one wasn't nearly as fun. Because it was just math and I hated math. Yeah, please. Yeah.

[00:40:57] Do you remember exploring? You remember exploring the airport, Alex? Yes, that was the junior field trip series. Oh, like it was so great. It made your voice die. Yeah, clearly. Oh, yeah. I'm a flammable today. Anyways. Yeah, I still I remember the let's explore the airport.

[00:41:19] Let's explore the I only remember the airport one. I'm not going to lie. Yeah, I think we only had the airport one growing up and I think it was because it was part of like a multi pack or something.

[00:41:30] Yeah, it came with like a putt putt and one one of those weird sock the sock sorter game. I think that game was fucking awesome. I love that sock sorting game. I have all of those on Steam because I bought the fucking bundle. I need to do that.

[00:41:50] I need to play me some humongous entertainment. It's pajama Sam's sock works. Sock works. That's so fun because you have to be like creative to get all the socks everywhere in the right spot. It was so freaking fun.

[00:42:06] Well, I'm just going to Alex is going to buy socks sock works and just play that now. Yeah, I mean, it was fun because you had like the conveyors that had to get like to the laundry shoots and stuff.

[00:42:16] And you had to be strategic on where they went because some of them had to go in certain bins like certain colors. There was bumpers like the game was freaking fun. That's fair. Anyway, so that's a big ass sock.

[00:42:35] There were so many educational games that were literally just point and click the game. I mean, most educate. I mean, most of these games were designed for children. So they couldn't be that hard. I was do you remember the Magic School Bus games? Yes.

[00:42:55] And they were like they were like living books and humongous but not as fun either way. Yeah, which is kind of disappointing because like Magic School Bus was such like a fun show like you enjoyed as a kid.

[00:43:09] And like, I mean, we went back and rewatched a bunch of it. We watched the poop episode. Yeah, the digestive system. No, they don't. They chicken out and get burped out. Oh yeah. Oh yeah, I forgot. But you do see poop. You do see poop.

[00:43:25] Yeah, on past poop. I think it was just two. It's just the Magic School Bus. Explores the space one and then explores the ocean. Oh, oh, maybe there was more. So they're saying there's a dinosaur one. OK, I think the badger. I think.

[00:43:50] Oh no, there is more because the human body, the ocean, the solar system inside the Earth. Like a world of it. There was a lot of games apparently. We didn't have them all. Yeah, I mean, we didn't have a lot of educational games. Puppet saves the zoo.

[00:44:12] Puppet saves the zoo. Sorry. Puppet saves the zoo. Puppet saves the zoo. She's slowly losing her mind. I never had it to begin with. So I do feel like if you listen to all these podcasts consecutively, which would be a lot on your shoulders,

[00:44:37] eventually you hear the loss of sanity over the years. The real question is though, who's the one that's losing their sanity? Well, both of us. Think about that one for a minute. We just lose it in different ways.

[00:44:53] You know what was another form of educational game though that I always found to be the funniest ones? What? The games that were actually like real video games, but they were trying to throw their hand into educational games and they always felt so forced. Yeah.

[00:45:13] Like one of my favorites is Mario is Missing. Which is the first game where you play as Luigi.

[00:45:20] And it is like this game where you go through all these different history places and you have to solve these really over the top English questions and history things just to find Mario. It is so boring. I have it on Super Nintendo.

[00:45:37] I play it every now and then. It is boring as fuck. Remember Brain Age? Brain Age. It was a DS game. Oh, that was a legitimately good game. Yeah, I just thought of that. I was like, oh yeah. Well, so Brain Age was actually smartly designed.

[00:46:00] Brain Age was a they were based around this Japanese professor's teachings and essentially they were quick little micro like educational games that were designed to stimulate the brain and not like they weren't supposed to be over the top.

[00:46:14] They were just kind of supposed to keep your brain stimulated with like very easy to solve puzzles and stuff. That would gradually get more challenging the more you played. They were they were cool games and you can get them for like dirt cheap nowadays.

[00:46:28] I remember too, this was one of the only DS games where it had you rotate it and hold it the opposite way. Book style. Yeah. Book style was good. Yeah, Brain Age was fun. There was also Big Brain Academy.

[00:46:46] There was Big Brain Academy, which was not nearly as fun, but it was also a thing. I can't remember. Big Brain Academy. We had it on Wii. You played it once and you were like this sucks. Well, I feel like where Brain Age was kind of fun.

[00:47:00] Big Brain Academy was not fun. Oh yeah, I remember this little guy. Little yellow guy. Which is funny is they were both made by Nintendo. Just one was much better than the other.

[00:47:13] I also remember Rayman's Brain Games, which was like they use the Rayman one engine but tried to make it like a educational game and it was like just stupid. Okay, what a weird idea. Trying to think of any other educational games like from, oh I know, 2000s.

[00:47:39] I got a preference when we were growing up. Oh, thousands. Did you ever play the Carmen San Diego game? Oh yeah, I played a couple of those. Yeah. Those games held up a lot better than I'd expect but my god I was terrible at them as a kid.

[00:47:58] Well, you were a child. I was stupid as a kid. You were a child. A child. You remember how many cereal box demos we got to of like educational stuff? Yeah. Oh yeah, they would always put them in the, yeah, the weirdest shit.

[00:48:16] Yeah, but after they stopped putting real games in cereal box they put like those shitty like educational demos and they were always like we play that for like an hour and then be like, yay.

[00:48:27] I remember you had this Finding Nemo game that used to play all the time. Yeah. That's right. Other than that though, not much.

[00:48:39] The only other thing I can really think of is like the those weird like websites that you would go to that were just all flash games but they were like educational games. There was like mathiscool.com or something. I remember math is cool.

[00:48:54] I remember Funbrain and I remember A plus math. Oh, I gotta look at Funbrain. I don't think Funbrain exists anymore. Well, I want to look at images of it.

[00:49:07] See what I remember Funbrain just because it had the actual learning side and then there was like the arcade that was just like regular games and that's what all everyone played. Yep. Oh, was Funbrain Pop Tropica? I don't know if I ever played Pop Tropica. I remember that.

[00:49:25] I remember, I remember Mighty Guy. Mighty Guy. Yeah. Yeah, educational game, man. Funbrain. Oh, I guess it still kind of exists. Yeah. I remember the penguin shooter game like where you'd shoot penguins out of the sky with a cannon. I want to see if there's any other game.

[00:49:55] Best educational games for adults and kids. Wow. Wow. Amazing. Incredible. Fantabulous. Did we count the Tonka games as educational? No, that was a stupid little game for kids. Not educational. But I got to build a skyscraper, damn it. Yeah, not educational.

[00:50:23] That's just a game, a computer game if we went back. And Tonka Joe looks at a fucking like foldout pinup at one point. Yeah, clearly not educational then. I think that answers your fucking question, Bill. I remember Nickelodeon would have like games too.

[00:50:41] Like Nickelodeon would have flash games and I feel like they were slightly educational. They were trying to be educational anyways. Yeah, they tried. Oh, you know what we can talk about though? What? There's another type of educational game that doesn't involve the computer. Educational board games.

[00:51:05] I mean Scrabble. Scrabble's technically like that's an educational game. You're having to come up with words and grammar. Yeah, you and Mom did a great job at that. Yeah, I mean if you play it the correct way. Yes.

[00:51:20] If you play it the wrong way like Mom and I, no. If you ever want some fun, look back at our board games episode where the thumbnail is a picture of an actual game of Scrabble that Alex and our mother played.

[00:51:31] And oh my god, there's so many words that don't fucking exist on there. It is great. Shut up. You mean it. It was a good try. I'm trying to think more educational board games. Let's see. Let's look up. Oh, there's. I'm not picking up any of that.

[00:52:05] Also, that's a copywritten song. Yeah, it was me singing it not correct at all. So it's fine. I got nothing else though. I've got nothing else either. Thanks so much for watching you guys. It's been the gaming and collecting podcast. That's it. Go away. Yeah.

[00:52:32] That's how you ended it. That's what you just like get lost. Get out of my pocket. But yeah, so once again, guys, thanks for joining us on the gaming collecting podcast. No, wait. Wait, wait, Bill. Bill, just just listen. What's the smelliest planet? Muting you.

[00:52:58] No, just just answer. What's the smelliest planet? Is it fucking Uranus? No, it's poop. That's stupid. It was an obvious answer there. That's just dumb. They can't do it. It's pronounced Uranus. There's nothing wrong with it. Right.

[00:53:23] But yeah, anyways, once again, guys, thanks for joining us on gaming collecting. What falls down? I'm going to mute you. I'm seriously going to mute you. All right. Just one more. What falls down but never needs a bandage? What? The rain. But the rain falls down.

[00:53:45] Is it my name? Anyways, so once again, guys, thanks for joining us on the gaming collecting podcast. podcast can be found on all your major podcasting platforms, particularly Apple Podcasts and Spotify. How the fuck did you do that? Let me do my thing. No!

[00:54:05] I don't want to do it. You can find all of our links at Linktree slash The Barber Who Games. And if you would like, you can come join us over at the GNC Podcast Network Discord server.

[00:54:16] And we're also a member of the Superpod Network, which you can find all of our podcasts along with a whole bunch of other shows over at superpodnetwork.com. And with that, everybody, we see you all next time. We're also on YouTube. I forgot about YouTube. No, we aren't.

[00:54:39] Yeah, we are. All of that was a lie. We are on just in your backyard doing a podcast through your window. That's where we are. I don't want to know what you do in your dreams, Alex. But with that, everybody, we'll see you all later.

[00:54:54] No, no, you won't. I'm you won't see us later. You'll see us every everywhere. I'm in the walls. Alex Burb did this episode. Oh,