Seanbaby: “One person says something awesome, then the other does, only it’s not really an interview or a dialog.”
Brockway: “Congratulations, fucker. You beautiful fucker. You just invented Teamworking Day; the best day.”
Seanbaby: “Then we’re ready. Let’s steal the goddamn Pledge of Allegiance.”
Brockway: “What an outrageous mixup! I thought we were making a comedy website.”
Seanbaby: “Congratulations, reader. You beautiful reader. You just saw how Teamworking Day works. Let’s look back on 2022’s best ones! Oh, but before that, thank you for helping make 1900🌭 a success! After these five blurbs, we are done with our Best Of 2022s. Tomorrow we get back to all-new hilarity with an incredible Mega Teamworking Day. It’s exactly what it sounds like!”
In 1990, a uniquely driven madman paid thousands of dollars for cranky, horny, and confused celebrities to say strange things about wine. “I’ll make it very sexy,” said Steven Seagal, who was wrong. “I know where I am and what’s going on,” said Whoopi Goldberg, also wrong. “I’m going to fuck every woman here,” said Herbie Hancock. He was absolutely right. What a video! What a team! What a 2022!
Elden Ring dumped gamers into an unexplained, unforgiving, unmaidened world. Some conquered it by laser and katana. Others creeped through every bog to solve mysteries. And still others wandered confused like Whoopi Goldberg on the set of a 1990 wine video. It was something different for every player and Seanbaby and Brockway are no exception. What a game! What a team! What a 2022!
There’s a cult in Japan that adapted their nutbag ideology into anime. The zany among you might be thinking, “Ha, I bet that happens all the time.” No, but for real, you’re right! Two different Japanese death cults did this and Sean watched the wrong one! It was a layer of confusion we didn’t need in an article about a swan made out of Helen Keller fighting a Hitler robot. Now the zany among you might be thinking, “Helen Keller? Hitler? That’s a pretty weak joke.” It’s not a joke! That’s what this cult’s cartoon is about! What the fuck! What a 2022!
YOU WANNA FUCKING READ ABOUT WRESTLERS BEGGING YOU TO PLAY THEM IN A VIDEO GAME ONLY NOT REALLY THINKING THINGS THROUGH AND THEN 15 SECONDS OF THEM SAYING CRAZY SHIT WAS IMMORTALIZED FOREVER ON THE PLAYSTATION!? DO IT, PUNK! OR DON’T, WE DON’T CARE! WAIT, PLEASE!? NOW, OR WE’LL BREAK YOU IN HALF!! LIKE THE STARS OF WCW NITRO, WE DIDN’T DECIDE ON ANY KIND OF A VIBE BEFORE WE STARTED YELLING!!! WHAT A RUSH! WHAT A TEAAAAAAAAM!!!
When the movie Congo was released, they released one terrible Congo trading card set and zero Congo trading card games. By the end of this article, we fixed both of those problems. What a Congo trading card article! What a team! What a Cong022!
Here’s a fun fact about the 1995 film Congo: It rules. We already did a podcast discussing how and why, so that’s not why we’re here today. Today, we are looking at the Congo trading cards which represent the last of the bizarre decisions made by everyone involved in the 1995 film Congo.
Brockway: Here’s another fun fact, that’s a fucking lie. Ernie Hudson would go on to star in Nosferajew, which was exactly what you think but somehow in 2009. I’m 60% sure I didn’t Photoshop this myself just to derail Seanbaby’s intro.
Seanbaby: Holy fucking shit. Wait, that’s a series!? Not a 1996 MAD TV sket– no, stop, we have to get back to the madness of Congo. And in the spirit of that madness, we are shuffling the complete set of 90 Congo the Movie Trading Cards and playing a game we haven’t invented the rules for yet: Congo Poker.
We start by dealing five cards to the most handsome player, and already something has gone wrong because the first hand goes to Brockway:
Brockway: It doesn’t just count the handsomeness of your face, you fool.
I know we haven’t established rules for this yet and it’s the first hand, but I have won the game. One dashing Bruce Campbell, one destroyed ghost-ape, a backpack! Two, count them two Ernies, Hudson. This is how you explain the concept of “domination” using only images a ghost-ape knows and fears.
Seanbaby: My favorite fun fact of all the Congo fun facts is how Monroe Kelly was originally written for Sean Connery before he was replaced with Ernie Hudson. But instead of rewriting his scenes, they just added a little correction whenever someone mentioned his race. Which happened more often than you’d think. They should have made a trading card out of the script notes that led to this graceful introduction:
Oh, shit. I’m already off topic. Let me deal out my hand of Congo The Movie Trading Cards:
Seanbaby: I got two very sick gorillas and one Recondo which means I must have shuffled some GiJOE cards into the deck– perfectly within the rules. And here in the jungle, a Recondo counters at least one Ernie Hudson, even a ninja or cyborg variant.
Brockway: Fine, but there is no conventionally acknowledged strategy for defeating two Ernie Hudsons. Their teamwork would be unparalleled. He was the most accommodating actor they’d ever worked with, said the entire staff of Nosferajew, all now dead.
Seanbaby: I’d actually really like it if Nosferajew was several Ernie Hudsons playing an entire family of Jewish vampi– no, damn it. Stop distracting me with 2009’s(!?) Nosferajew. Let’s get back to this Congo Poker matchup.
I’d hate to watch this fight, but my two sad, dying apes are more than a match for your startled gorilla already being killed by a machine gun. And I feel like my Guy Who Played Richard card matches up well against your Guy Making Soup card, so now we only have to decide who wins between my Kathleen Kennedy and your team of Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson. Every single one of them has spent thirty years making amazing movies followed by terrible movies, but Kathleen Kennedy is who you call when you want to spend $300 million on some Star Wars, and Bruce Campbell and Ernie Hudson are who you call when you’re crowdfunding a Buck Rogers in the 25th Century reboot. So, clear winner: Robert.
The score is Brockway: 1, Seanbaby: 0. Let’s deal hand #2:
Brockway: That’s my hand. Two robot gorillas and three Herkermers. It’s exactly the heist team I’d assemble if I was trying to steal two real gorillas from a bisexual zoo in a European country that never existed.
Seanbaby: Wow. There’s only been three of them in history, but that’s the most impressive Congo Poker hand I’ve ever seen. That’s a Congo Poker full house, the Texas hold’em equivalent of the dealer sliding you a pair of their panties under five aces. I need a miracle. But one of the reasons I thought “Congo trading cards and nothing else” would somehow become an article is because I believe in miracles. Miracle, miracle, GO!
Brockway: Ha ha, you got a Dylan Walsh at his most damp and passive. If my hand is quint aces with rapidly disintegrating panties, you getting any hand with this Dylan Walsh card in it is like getting a two, a nine, the rules insert from Uno, a Jimmy John’s Freaky Fast Rewards Card with no stamps on it, and this exact Dylan Walsh card again.
Seanbaby: There’s no way to spin this. I got both of the endangered mountain gorilla cards and an apeless Dylan Walsh. What would you even call this poker hand? A pair of tragedies and a damp, passive Dylan Walsh high? This is the Congo Poker equivalent of hitting a foul ball into the head of your infant son. Ape fate has betrayed me.
I also got a Wildstorm Lingerie Zealot card, and it looks like she’s attached her underpants with wood screws? And fucking Extendar? A He-Man character I don’t remember with the power of extendable shins? I bet Extendar’s creator probably thought, “It can’t get any sadder than this.” But look at Extendar now, you fool. He is barely a footnote in this epic tale of sadness. If the 1992 Chinese Olympic basketball team was five pandas and Scottie Pippen choked each of them to death, the broadcasters would say, “We’re witnessing the most tragic defeat in any era of sports history, at least until the second round of Seanbaby vs. Brockway: Congo Poker 2022.”
The score is Brockway: 2, Seanbaby: -1. Let’s deal hand #3:
Brockway: The only good Dylan Walsh card is the one where he’s getting cucked by a silverback, and I got it! This game needs to catch on, I’m so fucking good at it. I should be a pro. I should be sitting in a half-empty reservation casino getting more COVID by the second, letting my opponents see their own heartbreak in my mirrored aviators as I slide a hippo attack and Ernie Hudson’s most awkward moment on set across the table.
Seanbaby: I got Peter and his gorilla giving each other flowers, which isn’t going to help me win, but I take as the game’s way of saying sorry. Then it immediately betrayed me by giving me Boat Ride, Finding a Dead Ape, and Phone Call. Jesus. Who decided which Congo moments should go on these? This is a movie where two different jungle expeditions get torn apart by a lost species of guard apes. It’s a movie where a hundred gorillas lose a gymnastics competition to a volcano. It’s a movie that adapted one third of a novel with no lasers into absolutely lasers. It’s a masterpiece, and they dedicated 4% of its trading card set to the time Joe Don Baker called Laura Linney just to check in. You know what Joe Don Baker can do? What Dylan Walsh and his sweet gorilla can do? Get cut in half by a laser or get the fuck off my collectible cards!
The score is now goddamn Brockway: 3, Seanbaby: -1. There is no coming back from this and hand #4 is purely academic:
Brockway: I deserve all of this comeuppance.
A robot ape sipping a martini on a private plane can, at best, cancel two Dylan Walshs but not if all three of them are apologizing.
Listen, I was high on victory, my favorite and most abused drug. But Seanbaby’s been right all along – these are the worst trading cards I’ve ever seen. In the movie Congo an ape throws a human eyeball at Bruce Campbell in the first three minutes. Why are we commemorating the time Dylan Walsh didn’t know where to put his hands on the airport golf cart ride?
Seanbaby: Okay, this is bullshit. The on-set dentist for the robot hippo got a card? Which will go great with the fucking two different Dylan Walsh conversations with side characters about logistic budgets! And I don’t know how this got in there, but the one on the bottom left is “Faithful to the End” from a 1986 set of Civil War cards from De-Lish-Us Potato Chips. So a snack company commissioned a clumsy painting of a dead racist’s dog wondering how long you’re supposed to wait before you eat your owner, and it’s still not my least favorite. Make it official: Congo The Movie Trading Cards are worse than a golden retriever dog eating Civil War corpses.
Brockway: I don’t know how you take something this fun and sift all the awesome out. It’s like panning for gold and only keeping the fossilized dogshit. If these cards hadn’t proved it, I would’ve told you there aren’t five bad frames in all of Congo. But I guess you forgive the twelve-minute long satellite phone call management scene when it’s bookended by ape death.
We have to hold strong, you know which cards are coming and we both know they’re coming to me. I cannot wait, I cannot wait to dominate you with a sideways flipping volcano ape as you pathetically drop a Dylan Wash Shares a Sexually Charged Moment with a Robot Gorilla (17 of 165).
Seanbaby: As has always been part of the rules, I cheated and looked through the rest of the deck. They basically ignore the entire final third of the movie. No volcano massacre. No laser fight. So fuck this, I hate this game, all rules are off– we are making our own Congo cards.
Brockway: Fuck yes, I only wish this came before I got too excited and bought the entire set of Corgo trading cards off “ruBay” for for 3,900 kopecks. Which I just looked up and I guess it’s like .64 cents but that’s still a ripoff.
Seanbaby: For 1100 kopecks, Dylan Walsh will have a sexually charged moment with any puppet or animatronic over Skype. Anyway, the score is You: 4, Me: -1, and you may deal yourself any five Congo cards you want.
Brockway: In the world of professional Congo Hold ‘Em this is called an Ape Hubris and it has never been beaten.
Seanbaby: I love this game! I can’t wait to see mine!
Seanbaby: Holy crap! I got Herkermer Homolka’s death scene! The whole thing, perfectly captured on trading card! He tried to slink away from a horde of killer gorillas and barely had time to scream before he was bashed inside out. Most movies wouldn’t cartoonishly pulverize their best character into raspberry jam, but Congo did! It can’t beat laser apes, but with this hand, I finally look like a professional Congo Poker player.
Brockway: Can I have that Photoshop template? I want to change all the captions to be in one of Herkermer’s six accents.
Seanbaby: Sure. The score is now Brockway: 5 and Seanbaby: 0 because I gave myself a point for coming up with the idea of putting the good parts of Congo on the Congo trading cards. Let’s see your final hand:
Brockway: This scene is how philosophers proved there is a god and he loves us. It’s called Lava Ape’s Gambit, and the gist of it is that all of human creation did lead up to this one moment, so it’s smarter to cut the big guy some fuckin’ slack on the plague stuff.
Seanbaby: Glorious. And decisive. We should call the game now. I’m down by five points and you just fielded a lost society of great apes being eaten by a volcano. There is virtually no way I can win this thing. But what the hell; I’ll deal out my final hand:
Seanbaby: What’s this? Snout Spout? Five Snout Spouts!? Do you know what the odds are of me drawing five copies of the He-Man guy who shoots water out of his elephant robot head? One in seven! Which means against all odds, I did it! I won! I won!
Brockway: My god, the only hand that can beat an Ape Hubris. I like how he doesn’t have the trunk strength to manage his own blasts so he has to hand-wrangle it like it’s a jumping cock. I also like that he comes with a little camping ax because let’s face it, blasting enemies with his facehog was never about winning battles.
I say I like it but I hate it, and I of course vow revenge.
In 1998, the Playstation wrestling game WCW Nitro made the frankly insane decision to have each wrestler record a promo of themselves begging the player to pick them. A year later, the 1999 Playstation wrestling game WCW/nWo Thunder did it again, meaning there are 48 videos of confused wrestlers with 48 different ideas of what’s going on screaming 48 very insane things at children navigating a character select screen.
We have selected the sixteen best and seeded them into The 2022 WCW Playstation Promo Pickme Tournament. These are all real, and painstakingly transcribed. You’re going to love them; every single one is magical.
Seanbaby: So here’s how this works. We’ve matched up 1998’s Macho Man Randy Savage against 1999’s Anvil in a high-energy, throat-straining faceoff. These are, word-for-word, the pleas they made to players. Brockway and I will each pick a wrestler, and if we pick the same one the lucky screaming madman advances to the next stage of the tournament.
Seanbaby: Macho Man knew he was better than this the second his agent said, “Your WCW contract says you need to record a cute little clip for their video game.” So he went into this with no effort. This is Randy Savage at a zero. This is how Macho Man asks a waitress if he can get the Monte Cristo but with no powdered sugar. “I win at wrestling and hurt people,” he suggests? Not Jim “The Anvil” Neidhart. Anvil was like, “YES YESYES ANVIL VIDEO!! THERE ARE THINGS PEOPLE NEED TO KNOW ABOUT ANVIL. AND ANVILS! THEY’RE A PART OF EVERYONE, OH FUCK, WERE WE ROLLING!? LET’S DO ANOTHER ONE HA HA HA ACTION! ANVILS! NOW… HIT THE MUSIC!“
Brockway: As always, Macho Man has my heart. But Anvil has my attention. He was utterly unprepared for even the most lighthearted improv, an integral part of his job, and he is possibly unsure of what anvils are? Again, a foundational part of the life he chose. There are only three things required of Anvil – be able to ad lib boasts and threats, understand what an anvil is, and aggravate his fellow wrestler’s back problems in an entertaining way. He’s so proudly incapable of the first two that I don’t trust him with the third. But hot damn if his laughter isn’t infectious.
RESULT: Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!HEY! Anvil (1999) advances!
Seanbaby: We put 1998’s Stevie Ray against 1999’s Rick Steiner. They’re both tag team specialists, so this is a rare treat to see them threaten to kill someone alone.
Brockway: Stevie Ray, all the way. He’s the only wrestler aware that this is a video game, or what a video game is, or possibly what a button is. There are 50 wrestlers to choose from and Stevie Ray is the only one getting a C+. He’s barely passing and it is destroying the curve. He gets so close to a perfectly reasonable intro… and then he promises you that pressing X will teleport you to his house.
Seanbaby: You bring up a good point about these videos. Most of them don’t know how anything works. Some wrestlers seem to understand that when we pick them we will be them, while others are under the impression we’re challenging them to a fight. Stevie Ray was the only one who thought this was software for buying plane tickets to Harlem, though. I’m assuming these were produced by a game designer whose only direction was, “B-before we start, can you please sign… this action figure?” I mean, what would the danger have been in telling a barking lunatic, “Cut! Okay, Dog-Faced Gremlin, let’s maybe get a second take where at least the non-dog parts of your speech fucking make sense?”
Steiner is my pick, by the way. Nobody can stop from the bulldog.
RESULT: Both wrestlers eliminated.
Seanbaby: I don’t remember these guys, but you have to respect men who, in an industry where you can give yourself any names, still went by Alex Wright and Brian Adams. It’s like two guys getting super powers and declaring, “With these abilities we shall be called: Richard Marks and his dentist: Doug Taylor, DDS!” Anyway, let’s hear their pitches:
Seanbaby: Brian Adams talks like a high school football coach auditioning for 12 Angry Men, and I mean that in a good way. He is so hilariously bad at pretending he’s pissed at you, and if he went up against any other Playstation One wrestling promo, he’d be a winner. But Alex Wright’s video changed my life. He growls out a list of random kicks and words like he learned English this morning from a karate ambush. Plus, I think some of it’s still in German? “Top turnbuttle drop kick,” he says with all the charm of an Austrian coroner identifying “top turnbuttle drop kick” as his wife’s cause of death. He’s the best, and I pick him.
Brockway: How could it be anyone but Alex Wright? This is how a dream helps you solve a murder in the German dub of a David Lynch movie. After hearing his promo, I don’t even believe he’s a wrestler. I think he might have been separated from his tour group and is trying to buy Traveler’s Checks from a frightened Applebee’s waitress.
RESULT: Alex Wright (1998) advances!
Seanbaby: It’s Sting from 1998 vs. Sting from 1999! It was an era when Sting’s star was so bright he could do anything. Imagine if you went to see The Crow and came back to work on Monday in The Crow makeup and said, “Hey, everyone, I’m The Crow now. For the next thirty years.” Sting did that! Nobody cared!
Seanbaby: I pick young, furious Sting in full Crow face screaming his finishing moves at me like witnessing the video game version of them might be more than I can handle. I think this reveals more of the creative creative process. It’s like he asked the gameplay animator what they were looking for and he said, “S-Sting, I don’t know, Sting… maybe mention y-your signature holds?” To which Sting replied, “LIKE THIS!? LIKE THIS, YOU GODDAMN WORM!!??” To which the animator replied, “N-no, not reall– oh, you’re leaving. Okay, bye, Sting! Great take, Sting!”
Brockway: Oh I pick old, apathetic Sting. Look how full of vitality he was in 1998! Then 1999 Sting seems like you can’t leave him alone with appliances lest he hang himself with the cord. This broken Embarrassed Crow Sting carries such a story with him. His very existence proposes a question: What happened to you in that one year, Sting, that aged you an entire life?
RESULT: Both Stings eliminated.
Seanbaby: We’re also putting 1998 Kevin Nash up against his 1999 self. What would one more year of experience and wisdom do for Kevin Nash’s persuasion skills?
Brockway: Every single wrestler misunderstood the assignment so badly that some might have died from it. But 1998 Kevin Nash got it right and wrong at the same time. He specifically mentions that you should pick him, and then also offers to attack you like lesser men would offer a free cheese sample at Costco. Of course I pick him.
Seanbaby: I feel like Kevin is using reverse psychology in each game, which means he wants me to pick him in the one where he tells me not to pick him. But I refuse to get tricked by a Kevin, so I’m going to choose him in the game where he’s begging me to pick him so he can… power bomb me? Hold on, I’m starting to think both of these are a trap. I pick both. No, neither. I choose 1991 Super Shredder Kevin Nash even if it means all three Kevins are destroyed.
RESULT: All Kevins eliminated.
Seanbaby: It’s Rowdy Roddy Piper vs. Diamond Dallas Page! Let’s hear how these two legends made a case for themselves to 1999 Playstation owners.
Seanbaby: Rowdy Roddy Piper can hear the other in-game promos and he’s reacting to them! He might be the first and only video game character who has started a fight from the character select screen before he’s even been selected. I, of course, pick him. Truly amazing. It’s like logging onto Netflix and seeing this:
Brockway: I respect the level of commitment that DDP demands. You need to be on steroids just to pilot his little virtual puppet. If you don’t backbreak your little brother after every match, you’re more of a Sting 1999 player. But Rowdy Roddy Piper becoming self aware and trying to fight the rest of the character select screen? Oh baby, that is the start of the Terminator reboot the world needed but never got. It may be why everything turned out so badly for… everything.
RESULT: Rowdy Roddy Piper (1999) advances.
Seanbaby: Both of these competitors are from 1999’s WCW/nWo Thunder, but I should warn everyone up front: I’ve been a huge Alex Wright fan for almost an entire article, so Raven had better say something incredible if he wants my pick.
Brockway: What an impossible dilemma. If Sophie had this choice she would have death dropped from the upper balcony in defiance of a world so full of injustice. I can’t do this. Each are bringing opposite energy in equally powerful directions. Raven is intentionally flunking his Poe book report, while Alex Wright is about to get kicked out of student UN for adderall abuse.
I… I think I have to pick Raven. I don’t know, I want to smoke weed with him behind the tetherball courts and struggle for his approval by ranking Megadeth albums.
Seanbaby: I’m so glad Alex Wright won’t understand me when I say this, but I think I pick Raven too. I’m fascinated by all his choices. He hates everything and looks like a person of interest in a string of van masturbations. Don’t get me wrong, Alex Wright’s promo was incredible. He 180 degree jumped into an announcement of his German ancestry, the most unnecessary announcement there could ever be. No one has ever said to Alex Wright, “Oh, I can’t quite place your accent. Are you from Mad Scientist or Cartoon Nazi?” And he just screams so much nothing. “I’m German!! And I svear to you zat vill help you vin!” There’s nothing like it. But I had to pick between him and some guy who got all dressed up in his dirtbag wrestling costume and drove to an Agoura Hills game studio to tell a camera crew he’s so totally over this? It’s too beautiful. Raven wins.
RESULT: Raven (1999) advances, though a strange voice whispers “ze German” from a direction you can’t explain.
Seanbaby: It’s Scott Steiner (1999) vs. Scott Hall (1999), who you might know from every link on Wikipedia’s disambiguation of “substance abuse.” Let’s see what these chemical-filled men had to say to 1999 gamers!
Brockway: I refuse. This will ruin the game, and I’m doing it anyway: I pick neither. Scott Hall’s low confidence “boom” was delivered like he just found an excellent reference for the bibliography on his paper about testosterone deficiency in Corvette drivers. I refuse, Scott Hall. Scott Steiner mistaking arms for freedom, a personality, a destiny? I refuse, Scott Steiner. This is some prime Scott bullshit and I will not be party to it.
Seanbaby: Bad news, Scotts: you’re always wrong. Scott Steiner put so many create-a-wrestler points into arms he can no longer talk, move, or think. Scott Hall already has his pants off and he’s guessing about the extremely vague things he’s going to do to you if you pick him. How does he still not get it? At this point they’ve worked with Scott Hall on two video games. They should have had the confidence to explain, “No, Mr. Hall. You’re not going to rub their face in a mat. They are you. Let’s take it again.” But I imagine he would have said, “Do what again, you little punk? I’m your rodeo accident? I’m here to make meat pancakes out of that tail of yours? Until it’s time to take it out for a pain night on the town? Mm.”
So I’m also picking neither. But wait! Wait! You know what we could do? We could use this opportunity to right an unfortunate wrong! We could go back and give our picks to Alex Wright (1999)!
Brockway: Hell yes, I always knew it would be us that destroyed history. But if you’d told me it would be in an article about FMV wrestler intros from a PS1 game I would have called you a brother, and embraced you in Christ, for it is clear you speak only truth.
RESULT: Both Scotts are eliminated and Alex Wright (1999) from earlier advances. He and the other Alex will join Anvil, Rowdy Roddy Piper, and Raven in the next round of the tournament! Oh, but first…
Seanbaby: Not all the wrestlers put their everything into their PS1 video game promos, so we chose these two reluctant, shy boys for a special Shy Boy Showdown. Saturn and Billy Kidman didn’t want to be there and didn’t know what to say, but we only love them more because of it.
Brockway: Aw, my guys! My little dudes too scared to make friends on the first day of school! They’re both adorable, but I think Saturn takes it for being so shy that he put no emphasis on his own pun. It’s arguably the only thing he actually did in his intro, and I would argue he didn’t actually do it.
Seanbaby: That was a pun? I didn’t even notice. Maybe because he delivered it like he was saying goodbye at the tail end of a snakebite death. His name is Saturn and he made his Saturn reference like it came after the words, “Aaarrghh, I told you I didn’t want to do this, mom! Jupiter’s parents don’t make him make wrestling videos!!” Hey, Perry Saturn, see if you can, in the sentence you just read, spot my planet reference! They can be a real gas! Shit, what am I doing? I’ll pick Saturn as my way of apologizing.
RESULT: Saturn (1999) wins a spot as a Guest Shy Commentator in the final matchup.
Seanbaby: Our first semi final matchup is Alex Wright (1998), a man trying to sound tough in his 4th language, going up against the somehow worse English-speaker, Alex Wright (1999).
Seanbaby: How do you judge two men reciting schnitzel recipes from their underpants and leather jackets? Comparing the kick list of Alex Wright (1998) with the German wictory promises of Alex Wright (1999) is a slow fall into infinite madness like two Furbies left alone together. This matchup has imploded the entire tournament bracket taking Anvil with it. “YOU GOTTA IMPLODE AROUND THE ANVIL, BABY! YOU EVERSEE A ANVIL YES DROP IN THE BLACK HOLE? SPPWAAAAM! HA HA HA HA HA,” he would probably say.
Brockway: You always know this is gonna happen when you meddle with the timeline, but you’re never prepared to lose a brave warrior like Anvil, who has been undone from our universe so completely that every alternate dimension version of him forgot all they knew about wrestling, basic improv, and the definition of anvils. Holy shit, this backwards explains Anvil.
RESULT: Der Katastrophe!!
Seanbaby: So with the elimination of all the other semi-finalists, that only leaves Raven and Rowdy Roddy Piper. Which means we are about to find out whose FMV video from a 1999 Playstation WCW game was the best one!
Seanbaby: How do you compare a grouchy couch surfer complaining about his hangover with a vibrant performer passionately begging to become your instrument of violence? For me, it comes down to what you’re looking for out of life. The Rowdy Roddy Piper in WCW/nWo Thunder knows too much. He knows he’s trapped in a sadistic game with no escape. Raven, on the other hand, doesn’t give a shit about what’s going on. He’s so clueless he thinks his catch phrase works and his head lice will go away on their own. So if you’re asking me, an American in 2022, to pick between Piper’s impossible metacognition or Raven’s nihilism, there’s no contest. Let me watch the world burn down through Raven’s angsty, indifferent eyes.
Brockway: This contest never wanted to be, it fought at every turn to not exist. And it won. I choose Rowdy Rodder Piper, cyberspace’s Rowdy Roddy Piper, the Matrix’s Rowdy Roddy Piper, Rowdy Roddy Piper the Lawnmower Man. I choose Rowdy Roddy Piper to escape the game, become the internet, and usher in an entirely new world of connectivity where the mind is everything, bodies are just meat, and we are all subject to the whims of a kilted god who can’t talk for shit but never let that stop him. For some it will be a heaven, for most it will be hell. For Raven it will be whatever.
Saturn: If I could ring in here, I have some ideas to float?
…
Oh.
I guess you guys forgot about… forgot about dumb old Saturn.
Brockway: It’s Anime Week and this may sound crazy, but did you know not all anime is healthy? It’s true! The pure of heart may only use anime to say sweet things about penguins and age of consent, but some people take the medium that’s seen more shredded child panties than Jordan Peterson’s dentist… and they see the potential for evil!
Let’s talk about the cult that uses anime to recruit the kind of sad nerds that would join a cult.
Seanbaby: An anime made by a cult is actually good news for me. Part of why I don’t like Japanese cartoons is the confusion. I never know if they’re weird for artistic decisions or pervert confessions. However, if a cartoon explicitly means to indoctrinate viewers into a cult, that gives me a way to judge it. I can measure its success strictly by how much I want to join! Soon I will either hate a thing (great) or will have given my light over to a prophet who makes little cartoons (greatest).
Brockway: Happy Science, or The Institute for Research in Human Happiness if you’re nasty, is into some pretty standard cult stuff. They think there’s only one god, El Cantare, but he’s been reincarnated as the god of every other major religion, which is why those poor chumps are so confused. And hey, wouldn’t you know it? His latest incarnation just so happens to be the leader of Happy Science, Ryuho Okawa.
Seanbaby: You can’t teach this kind of graphic design. It can only be cursed upon you by a typography demon. If I killed a room full of people, I would hold this up and shout, “Are you wondering how I knew? The second I saw this card I knew I wasn’t on Earth anymore and none of you were real.” I’m not saying I’m a hard no on this cult, but I’m worried they’re going to see “Bachelor Degree from Unaccredited Art School” on my resume and they’ll make me Exalted Vicar of Pamphlet Layout forever.
Brockway: You put a Drop Shadow on that book and you’re second in command, for sure. Anyway, standard cult gibberish applies here: Happy Science believes everyone must follow the four principles of happiness, all of which can presumably be found at the end of Ryuho Okawa’s cock. There’s some goofy shit about reincarnation, biblical angels and demons, aliens, the segregated levels of the afterlife – if you’ve ever had an extended bus stop conversation with a man wearing suspicious sneakers, you know where this is going. The only thing that really separates Happy Science from other, more boring cults is their recruitment method: Producing weirdly high quality anime movies.
Seanbaby: “High quality” is a weird way to describe this. I’ve been watching it for forty minutes and a Jesus guy has been levitating to voiceover the whole time.This feels like something a small Missouri church would throw together to recruit the town’s new Burmese family.
Brockway: What? Are you talking about Thomas Edison? Did you just describe Thomas Edison as a Jesus guy? Nobody has ever said that except for probably Thomas Edison, all the time. To be clear: We’re watching The Laws of Eternity, a 2006 anime by Happy Science that actually marries cult recruitment nonsense to anime nonsense in a shockingly compelling movie.
Seanbaby: Wait, holy shit, your anime has a Thomas Edison? Oh no, I see what I did. I didn’t read your whole email. I just Googled “cult anime,” and watched something called Chouetsu Sekai by a cult named Aum Shinrikyo.
Brockway: Ooh, you need to duck out of that immediately. Anime Week is dark, but it’s not that dark.
Seanbaby: What do you mean? There’s apparently more than one cult who made recruitment cartoons! We have to talk about that, you do yours and I picked the one by the guys… who did… oh no, the Tokyo subway sarin ga– you know what? Let’s do yours.
Brockway: The Laws of Eternity opens in the near future. Ryuta is our main character who has a destiny instead of a personality. With him are Patrick, the waifish blonde skeptic. Roberto, chubby and black and therefore comic relief. And Yuko: Girl. We find them at the New York Thomas Edison museum eagerly discussing Thomas Edison – like all the coolest teens!
Thomas Edison didn’t just invent IP theft and a solution to the elephant problem, he also invented the spirit phone – a thing that doesn’t exist and could never work.
“But what if it did, and could??” Asks this anime…
With the mouth of an old Native American woman possessed by the spirit of Thomas Edison.
Brockway: Thomas Edison slipping inside a Native American woman is traditionally covered up by a blackjack and a friendly contact at the police station, but this time it’s a smokey teepee. In New York City. Don’t question it! This is a cult movie: It’s for you to practice not questioning things.
Thomas Edison needs your help, Japanese teens!
He needs them to build the spirit phone, which they do through light banter and a montage. It’s how MacGyver would build a compass out of desert plants, but two minutes of sparks and drawing on a chalkboard are all it takes to breach the barrier between life and death. They dial the underworld, and somebody named God Eagle answers.
SPIRIT TIP: If you dial the underworld and somebody named God Eagle answers, do not trust it! You are plucky teens in a JRPG and you just met the first form of the villain.
Seanbaby: “Children! It is me! Your 2nd president, Thomas Edison! Okay, listen. I need you to find an elephant and then hook it up to these car batteries so I can settle a bet with fucking Tesla’s ghost. And when you’re done, obviously don’t trust God Eagle, you dumb shits!”
Brockway: But they do trust God Eagle, and his voice guides them into the spirit world. He takes them to the Fourth Dimension, which just looks like a Midwest downtown. Skeptic waif Patrick freaks out a bit at being trapped in the afterlife, and in a fit of rage he crosses a line by saying comic relief Roberto has “an easygoing face.” It seems like a nice way to compliment a dog, but judging by how Roberto responds, this is a racially charged statement in Japanese. Instantly, a door to hell opens beneath them and they are both deservedly sucked into it for the respective crimes of:
Saying somebody has a casual face.
Minding your casual face being pointed out.
Luckily God Eagle is here to save the day!
And he flies the boys straight out of hell like a Meatloaf video. He’s actually a kind of an ancient Inca hawkman, which one could have guessed by the name. But these teens are fucking floored by God Eagle’s true form. We make fun of Golden Age secret identities a lot, but if you’re surprised that somebody named God Eagle is a winged Inca, you’re the type of dude who squints at the screeching copyright attorney in the next office and says “so you think Hawk Manning is actually Hawkman, eh? I don’t see it!”
Seanbaby: I made God Eagle’s business card to clear up any confusion about what his deal is and how focused I am on this cartoon.
Brockway: It turns out this city is actually a kind of purgatory, a place for the dead to accept they’re no longer alive, which explains why it looks like Cincinatti. God Eagle becomes the teens’ spiritual tour guide, and he walks us through Happy Science’s wacky beliefs.
They journey through a field of golden flowers to a movie theater which shows a soul their entire life in front of a judging audience. I’m pretty sure this cult stole its beliefs from an Albert Brooks movie, which is actually Step One for tricking me into a cult.
Seanbaby: God Eagle has watched everyone fuck, every single time they’ve fucked. Look at him. They should have known from the second they talked to him on Thomas Edison’s ghost phone. If someone named God Eagle picks up the phone, they’ve been watching you fuck.
Brockway: God Eagle casually mentions that over half of all people go to hell, but considering that Roberto and Patrick dropped down there within their first three minutes, and it was for the crime of observing a facial expression, I’m betting he fudges those numbers.
Seanbaby: If you consider how their souls are being weighed, a very long movie being filmed from their eyeballs, anyone who spends too much time looking at lame ass Roberto would be judged pretty harshly. God Eagle would be like, “Here is where you watched Roberto finish a pizza. And here’s you searching for ‘pizza messy xxx’ later on bing.com. So you can see how my hands are tied here.”
Brockway: I actually assume all teenagers are going to burn in hell, I’m just saying it’s nice to see a cult actually show it. They’re really nailing my demographic.
Hey, speaking of: Next the group travels up to the 5th Dimension, the Realm of the Good, which looks a lot like France but there are biiiig cucumbers.
Seanbaby: “Hello, God Eagle, and cursed souls! We pull the luscious shafts of nourishment peeking from the underbrush! Like the handjobbing of our great leader, Ryuho Okawa!”
Brockway: This is definitely mental priming. This is what cult leaders call “brain lube” and Interpol has a special anti-propaganda division to combat it with pictures of withered eggplants.
Let’s leave the Throbbing Plane for the 6th Dimension, which is unlocked by your dreams and ideals. It’s specifically for inventions and full of nerds who love working, so your goal here is definitely to be the kind of happy firm-gripped dipshit who lands in the Cucumber Dimension.
Seanbaby: So they just left a bunch of nerds in an Invention Dimension with unlimited resources and Thomas Edison’s ethics? There’s no way they don’t bomb that farm dimension out of existence with cucumber-seeking poxrockets by the next Comet Phase.
Brockway: That would crash the handjob economy, you fool!
Let’s burn right past the Nerd Floor. At the 7th Dimension, we start getting exclusive: Ryuta and Yuko must cure ten seriously ill people before entering, while Patrick and Roberto aren’t allowed at all. It’s just like Corey Feldman says to every lost young woman at the Burbank Greyhound station: The VIP floor is for angels only, and to become one, you’re going to have to do some very sick things.
Seanbaby: It’s funny you say this, because a being of pure light just handed me this:
Brockway: Patrick and Roberto aren’t missing much. See, the 7th Dimensional angels are really all… successful businessmen.
Hey, maybe I missed the part where the dude who started Toyota walked with Jesus and cured a dozen lepers, but he is specifically called out by name as being up here. This level of heaven is only for CEOS who have contributed to Japan’s prosperity, like Thomas Edison.
Don’t question things! Questioning things is how you get the Green Therapy.
Seanbaby: I was wrong about this making more sense coming from a cult. I have no point of reference for how to think about any of this. I feel like a French Lick prom queen getting off a bus in Burbank and being grabbed by the driver who tells me, “I’m Corey Feldman. I’ll pay you 30 bucks to play bass guitar in your underpants at a bowling alley tonight, take it or leave it.”
Brockway: Oh, you’re in trouble. Those were the grounded parts. You need to roll with this or you’re going to have an aneurysm. For example:
Yuko meets a were-swan.
This is heaven, you can be whatever you want! So live your best life…
Seanbaby: Did that fucking swan just say, “I’m Hellen Keller?” This cartoon rules.
Brockway: Hell yes it does! Let’s check back in with Patrick and Roberto…
Haha back to hell, boys! If you ever have a negative thought, no matter how innocuous or petty, you go straight to hell. And I mean STRAIGHT to hell. Pratfall trapdoor screaming right into hell. Heaven is not safe. You are never safe in heaven. This entire afterlife is just the Twilight Zone cornfield with sparkly anime paint.
Seanbaby: Are we sure this is from a transgression? Helen Keller might have laid an egg on the trapdoor button.
Brockway: Yet another reason to love Helen Keller and her delicious eggs.
All right, back to Ryuta, exploring Business Heaven with Thomas Edison. Here’s some fun facts they don’t teach you about Thomas Edison in grade school…
Thomas Edison is every inventor in history, and personally came up with everything from the gramophone to written language. Uranium refinement? That’s Edison. The rotary engine, lava lamps, faxing? Edison, Edison, and weirdly enough, Alexander Bain (Alexander Bain was Thomas Edison). Hey. That little Rubik’s Cube snake thing? This is gonna fuck you up: Thomas Edison.
Seanbaby: “My child, I was even the Shamwow guy who attacked that lady. In fact, that’s usually who I appear as on the ghost phone, but I was in a Thomas Edison mood the day we talked. Anyway, could you let everyone know that is not what I had in mind when I invented what you call toilet paper?”
Brockway: Thomas Edison has a problem: Without him doing all of science by hand, the field is growing stagnant. Can you believe, for example, that we’re not burning ghosts for fuel? Purely a for-instance here, but it is crazy that we’re not mining the spirit world for clean energy! Maybe you could use a hypothetical to understand this problem: Imagine we were not drilling for ghost crude when aliens showed up. They would think we’re ridiculous.
In fact, if the modern world doesn’t wise up and start trapping ghosts in bottles and shaking them to power our blenders with their spirit-screams, Thomas Edison is going to destroy all of science.
Seanbaby: “Spirituality and science are two faces on the same coin,” is something a Republican state senator would say to explain why he’s making it illegal for blacks to own cats. Decades of religious insanity have been boiled down to what we’re looking at here.
Brockway: See, these cult recruitment spiels always start off kinda reasonable – there are four pillars to happiness, there are themed tiers in heaven, one of them is business and the other is cucumbers. Don’t have negative thoughts. Whatever. But it’s always the same: At the midpoint turn in the second act they threaten to bomb technology unless it invents a ghost turbine. And then, once that first little bit of true raw crazy has slipped out, it’s like a cascade failure in a dam.
Seanbaby: Speaking of extinction-level-event infrastructure failures, it’s about time we trace this cult’s lineage back to some kind of ancient but advanced civilization.
Seanbaby: There it is. Pour that stupid wet bullshit into my mind, Happy Science.
Brockway: Your brain is as primed as it is ever going to be, so it’s time to just vomit nonsense on you and see if you wanna call the cops or are maybe game to live in a yurt. Thomas Edison explains that Thoth, Osiris, Buddha – all of them are actually Happy Science’s god, El Cantare. All gods are the same, like all inventors are Edison. Only this god lives in the ninth cosmic dimension, and we can’t go there. But we can still see eight if we hop in the spirit elevator Thomas Edison invented to move between realms, so let’s hurry up and hit Door Close because Toyota is coming this way.
Seanbaby: “Guys, hold the door! It’s me! Toyota! I adapted the automobile into the sensible, affordable product you know tod– awww, they must not have heard me.”
Brockway: *faint snickering moving upward*
Up to the Eighth Dimension! Which is also for nerds! Turns out when you let a nerd invent heaven a lot of it is bully-free. Here, Ryuta meets Einstein. Now, Einstein is a little coy about it, but eventually he does admit what we all suspected: He has the power to shapeshift and duplicate endlessly into a ghost army of Einsteins.
It’s the most terrifying thing I’ve ever seen, and I’ve already dropped into the Seventeenth Dimension of hell (Always Phone Calls) just for thinking that. Hey, speaking of: Patrick and Roberto have been abducted by demons! The rest of the movie is a classic high-stakes anime fight to save them! Fuck yes!
Seanbaby: They don’t show it, but I’m certain that whenever Einstein breaks up into infinite Einsteins, they have to battle to the death until only one remains again.
Brockway: Oh, assumed. And the remaining Einstein absorbs all of the other’s power. Einstein is nobody’s bitch. You are his.
Okay, where were we? Right, unsettled by a heaven that is made up of interlocking Lego Einsteins, Ryuta and Yuko drop into the levels of hell. First to the World of Strife, a kickass metal lava apocalypse for murderers and anybody who raised their voice.
Seanbaby: Like all awesome neighborhoods, it’s only a matter of time before this place gets gentrified. Because if my theory is correct and my math is sound, this place will be mostly Einsteins by the next Pulsar Sequence.
Brockway: If you’ve ever envied people or tried to get a promotion, you go to the inescapable data center where you have to work forever for no pay. I’m not sure how this is different from the entire future of anybody under 30 today.
Seanbaby: So to get the best chance at one of the good afterlives, you should invent something that kills someone, but not anyone at work. That’s good news, because from bigfoot traps alone, I’ve probably done this many times.
Brockway: You can have Nerd Heaven. Because The Hell of the Bloody Pond is for anyone who likes to fuck.
Maybe a lot of folks will be unhappy living in the crimson fuckpond, but if you can name three Gwar albums this is just your ideal waterpark.
Seanbaby: This isn’t really anything. It sort of feels like Great Leader Ryuho didn’t know what to do with the Fuck Hell.
Brockway: Demons live below all of that in a hell that looks like Greenland. And that’s where Patrick and Roberto went, for the crime of two seconds of low-key sulking. Where they are being tormented by that infamous demon…
Friedrich Nietzsche.
He’s insufferable! Can you imagine having to hang out on some rocks with fucking Nietzsche forever, talking about existence and the abyss until you’re just like “fuck! Nietzsche! Have you tried drinking water and taking a walk because it’s usually that!”
Seanbaby: I bet when Nietzsche arrived in this miserable place everyone was like, “Save it, Fried. We all know the kind of shit you’re going to say.”
Brockway: Also Hitler is here. And they say you can’t take it with you, but Hitler did take his giant demonic war elephant with him.
Seanbaby: “I’m Hellen Keller, but the times she accidentally grabbed a titty,” reveals the beast.
Brockway: Hitler and Nietzsche pilot Helen Keller the kaiju together with the joint power of their minds. You probably already knew that. Back at Cracked we wrote a lot about the telepathic battle mammoth that Hitler and Nietzsche timeshare. 5 Beasts You Didn’t Know Decided WWII. 6 Mammoths You Won’t Believe Were Hitler’s. 5 Baffling Mental War Pachyderms History Doesn’t Want You to Know About. We’ve learned all about it, but here we are doomed to repeat it anyway – once again at the mercy of a ruthless German’s elephant.
And Nietzsche’s so pumped about this he starts shouting his catchphrase, “God is dead!” over and over like he’s trying to get the club to join in, but they’re not feeling it.
Seanbaby: “God is dead! God is dead! God i– oh, we’re not doing that? Fine. We’ll Nazi elephant rampage in total silence, I guess. Such is the relentless despai– oh, we’re not doing that either? Guys, what the fuck. Why am I even here then?” – Friedrich Nietzsche
Brockway: Don’t despair, have you forgotten our heroes have the clean-burning energy of the spirit realm and, oh yeah, THE RIGHTEOUS POWER OF THOMAS EDISON’S ANGELIC FIGHTING MECH ON THEIR SIDE?
Yeah, haha. You forgot, didn’t you? That Thomas Edison keeps mason jars full of battlemechs like a dieter might keep a selection of homemade soups in the freezer. Yep, Thomas Edison just cracks open a jar labeled ANGEL X-1, and then his mech blasts into hell to do battle with Friedrich Nietzsche and Adolph Hitler’s tandem psychic war elephant.
Seanbaby: So from the perspective of the cult, did this already happen? Or is this something they’re worried about? I love that I don’t know. But here’s something I do know, Hitler: you don’t bring an elephant to a Thomas Edison fight.
Brockway: Oh, never count a good Hitler out! By absorbing the evil thoughts of his damned soldiers, Hitler powers up to unleash his patented Flaming Elephant Hitler Blast!
Seanbaby: Once again, this cult leader inadvertently wrote a really good sales pitch for the bad guys. “Join me and I’ll take your darkest thoughts and turn them into kaiju fireballs! That’s the Hitler Promise.”
Brockway: Drop that beat, Nietzsche!
Seanbaby: You suck so hard, Nietzsche.
Brockway: This is an anime, so you know the power of friendship is going to save the day. You probably knew that. But this is a weirdo cult anime, so I bet you didn’t call that Yuko would use the spirit energy of Helen Keller to summon a mystical robot shield.
Look, I don’t know how to explain it, but I understand this. If Hellen Keller were a type of magic in an anime, she’d be an energy shield you summon by yelling “disappear!” She was completely blocked from the world by the lack of two major senses, and she was largely abandoned by medical science at the time. Helen Keller Disappear Magic Robot Shield. I get it, maybe I’m just being brain-groomed by this anime cult, but I do get it.
Seanbaby: “It’s Hitler! Everyone get behind Helen Keller!” – Ryuho Okawa, Professional Cult Leader
Brockway: The power of Yuko and Ryuta’s bond summons a blazing sword for Thomas Edison’s Angel Mech so it can obliterate the psychic war elephant, which creates a mental feedback loop that banishes Hitler and Nietzsche. I’m not saying you understood why that sentence exists, but you did understand that sentence – you followed the progression of those words in that order. Which means you need to be very worried, because you’re being brain-groomed, too.
Seanbaby: I was on board the second I saw that swan fly in. I said, “I swear, if that bird turns out to be Helen Keller, I will stand behind her, any time, any Hitler fight.”
Brockway: The kids escape hell in the hands of Thomas Edison’s battle mech, which has to be a metaphor for the importance of education to inner city children, but in doing so they punch a hole in the floor of heaven, which lets the demons out. Ah, see? Gentrification.
Seanbaby: This is the worst thing I can imagine. A gaping hole in a private club for the wealthy elite where dirty people who fuck can crawl through. It’s exactly what Hitler wanted all along!
Brockway: They’re fucked. Our heroes are fucked.
Nothing could save them now.
Doom.
Despair.
Except you forgot again, didn’t you?
You forgot about Infinite Einstein.
Seanbaby: Oh, right! The unlimited floating Einsteins– the 158th most insane thing in this movie. I did forget about them.
Brockway: God Eagle directs the power of heaven’s shapeshifting multi-Einsteins, and with it he blasts a mountain (there are mountains in heaven because mountains never have negative thoughts) and drops it straight on the demon army.
Seanbaby: Ha ha that’s it? The unlimited power of the wealthy elite killed them all with a display of unlimited force? Problem solved?
Brockway: Problem solved.
You’ve done well, Thomas Edison. You lent your giant spirit robot to Japanese teens so they could thwart a German philosopher. The prophecy has been fulfilled. You can rest.
Seanbaby: It’s really lucky those sinful kids died at the perfect moment to see all this.
Brockway: I guess vaporizing Hitler with Thomas Edison’s sword isn’t just the finale of National Treasure 3 – it was also the secret to unlocking heaven. The Ninth Dimension is available to Ryuta and Yuko now, though they risk obliteration by traveling there.
If you know anything about story structure, you probably predicted the ending. If you strip away the setting and characters, it’s the same basic plot as Casablanca. Our heroes fly away in an energy pyramid to be consumed by the holy void, saying goodbye to centaurs and mermaids while a ghost sings about their invisible souls, then they meet Jesus Christ and Isaac Newton in the golden universe, where El Cantare the omni-god blasts them with Atlantis rays so they can remember the lost knowledge of man.
Like if Ryuta gave the “hill of beans” speech right as Isaac Newton powered up the Atlantis Ray, they would be identical endings. You get it. The centaurs are America.
Seanbaby: Hell yeah they are. We’re the centaurs, those mermaids are Korea, and it’s time for tensions along the 38th parallel to heat up.
Brockway: Now, clearly me and Seanbaby are sold. We are all in on joining this cult and Ryuho Okawa, the supreme incarnation of El Cantare, has earned all the blowjobs he wants with that Nietzsche war elephant fight. But it’s not all sunshine and Thomas Edison laser blasts: Ryuho Okawa might channel awesome dudes like Jesus and Nostradamus most of the time, but he’s also been known to channel Donald Trump, who is the spiritual opposite of a Nietzsche war elephant fight.
Seanbaby: God damn it, that guy ruins fucking everything.
Brockway: Happy Science fiddles with nationalist bullshit, too: They’re all for denial of Japanese war crimes, remilitarizing Japan, and going nuclear. At the start of the pandemic they also sold “Spirit Vaccines” to cure COVID-19. They did not work, and Happy Science had to hide behind a legal loophole, like Thomas Edison’s battlebot might hide behind a Helen Keller energy shield, to avoid prosecution (Hitler’s flaming elephant blast).
Seanbaby: But we still get the blood lake and the mermaids, right?
Brockway: I’m not saying don’t join the cult! By all means let’s join this cult. You’ve seen the anime. It rules. I’m just saying let’s play it slow here and, at least at the start, stick to handjobs for Osiris.
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