It's been a while since I last sent a message, but I too had irl stuff to take care of. But I did find a couple of interesting things about Mega64 since last time.
I was listening to the older podcasts and HOLY SHIT! They sound so young and energetic, compare their 2020 voices to their 2008 voices, they sound like chipmunks in 2008, but in a good way, almost adorable sounding. After listening to the boring 2017-2020 podcasts, hearing their 2008 voices feels like listening to your old friends' voices when they were 10 years old.
Also huge difference in terms of discussions, not just Rocco talking about either Power Rangers, Star Wars, or Disney in general (parks and animation) for half an hour straight. He was able to let the others speak and give the podcast a great dynamic. Also, the subjects were more varied and not always rooted in nerd culture or drama/politics.
I thought since I was casually checking out some of the old podcasts, I can highlight some of the things I found.
Podcast 45:
https://ia801703.us.archive.org/10/items/004504.15.08_201305/0045 04.15.08.mp4
36:45 - Dick Masterson discussion
Podcast 54:
https://ia801708.us.archive.org/28/items/005406.24.08_201305/0054 06.24.08.mp4
4:00 - Brief moment with Lowtax
Podcast 195:
https://ia801705.us.archive.org/34/items/019509.27.11/0195 09.27.11.mp4
13:25 - HotDiggedyDemon (he makes us look funnier than we are)
Also, for some reason, I was listening to Rocco's latest episode of his solo stream called Futureprobe in the background, maybe I hate myself. But out of the blue, someone asks Rocco what are the most expensive items he bought and it makes his large size Darth Vader look like a logical purchase. Check out his answers:
https://youtu.be/o8jzfd5a__U?t=3255
The Metal Gear arm, though overpriced and oversized, looks like it could be a cool arm to display and hold something in it:
https://www.bigbadtoystore.com/Product/VariationDetails/25734
But the Power Rangers Megazord is a bit much, it's even taller than the arm and pretty much just a 13 inch tall robot that Rocco bought because it's from the Power Rangers brand, and it will stand in the corner, doing nothing but collecting dust:
Now, I don't hate people for having a couple of little figurines from their favorite cartoons or anime that inspire them on their desk at work or kids playing out different scenarios with action figures, but when you collect hundreds upon hundreds of figurines, with each singular figurine costing between $50-$100, just to showcase them on a shelf in the background, then I think it might be time for a bit of an intervention. Not to mention, great use of Patreon money.
Something that might be of interest is that the Mega64 crew, or at the very least Frank had connections with Kelly Marie Tran at one point, who played Rose Tico in The Last Jedi, as confirmed in this clip:
https://youtu.be/ULaFnYZIafI?t=1864
And she stars in these fine Frank Howley productions:
The Funny Factory saga also needs to be mentioned, because that is one of their biggest collective lolcow moments as a group. After a viral hit with their React parody of the Fine Bros (plot twist: they worked with the fine bros afterwards), they decided to shit out previews of their awful "shows" for Patreon. People realized that Mega64 was becoming lazy, complained about it, and a lot of people unsubscribed. And then, in classic Mega64 fashion, Derrick said that people that had constructive criticism should seek psychological help:
https://youtu.be/HGy-BIrSy4w
I found this 4chan thread that has better quality pictures (actually readable) of Charlotte and Ashley talking about Rocco, note that Charlotte also dated Sam Hyde, there are some connections between Mega64 and Sam Hyde, though Garrett is the only actual Hyde fan. Here it is:
https://archive.4plebs.org/tv/thread/100768533/#100774123
Also, I tried finding older tweets from Rocco, but the first viewable tweet I found was this random tweet from 2017:
http://archive.is/QXitb
Something tells me Rocco is trying to hide something from the past. His recent Twitter is still good if you want to laugh at his consoomerism. Apparently, he wants to put his latest "feature length" Figure Update in actual movie theaters, from these tweets:
archived 7 Mar 2020 14:37:24 UTC
archive.is
archived 7 Mar 2020 14:35:18 UTC
archive.is
Anyways, fun stuff. Enough fun stuff for a thread I hope. Not exactly an excellent author myself, but I thought I could help out using some of the things I know. Anyways, take care.
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Excellent finds! Shit, that's a lot.
Great work finding the very first Dick Masterson discussion, that was the very first time I ever heard of Dick. There was one tweet from 2016 when Dick talked to Shawn Chatfield about having him as a guest on the podcast, but nothing ever came of that. They seemed to have completely disconnected from Dick Masterson, though there was one moment where Dick read a comment Garrett left, and I timestamped it: The Dick Show Episode 66, 1:16:36 - so at least we know Garrett listens.
That bit with Lowtax reminds me that I need to comb through and record the commentary from their 10th anniversary Blu-ray where they talked about Lowtax helping them out.
And yeah, I used to watch some of Rocco's videos on his figures from time to time, and if anything made the constant pushing of sponsors and merch feel like he was just taking advantage of the audience, it was those. Though, personally, and I know this sounds weird, but first-person videos where Rocco shows off stuff trip me out because his hands look exactly like mine. Like, to such a surreal extent that it kind of confuses my brain in a weird way. It's hard to describe.
It's pretty amazing that Frank Howley knew someone who ended up in Star Wars. That guy always seemed positive and upbeat, I listened to a couple of podcasts he recorded on his own, one of which where he interviewed Garrett, and... it was fine, no complaints. He's just not interesting and doesn't have the charisma to keep people interested in whatever he's doing, and he never really seemed to know what he wanted to do, like, he wants to be a filmmaker, but has no film to make.
The Funny Factory saga, yeah, that was a trip. Come to think of it, that might have been the point where I started getting disillusioned with Mega64, with how arrogant they got with those videos. That saga might work as the hook for the thread, so I've gotta see if their previews are still up.
I never knew Mega64 had any connection with MDE. That's big, and Mega64's fanbase would loathe the connection if it were more publicly known.
There are some Twitter scraping programs out there, some people posted some in this thread:
https://kiwifarms.net/threads/archival-tools.6561/page-5 though I've never used one before. Rocco really does feel like he's hiding stuff, I agree, and from that post on 4chan where Ashley talked about Rocco cheating on her, I can totally see. Rocco's shown some strange bouts of coldness in the past randomly on the podcast, he seems to have the ability to just blow off anyone who's inconveniencing him without any qualms whatsoever. I don't think Rocco's like, a full blown sociopath, but that's... kind of in the ballpark. I've had a feeling that Rocco has somehow held Mega64 together over the years despite Derrick and Shawn clearly wanting to move on, and I don't know how he's managed to keep Garrett on board despite Garrett occasionally putting it out there that he's all kinds of redpilled.
I never knew the Mega64 rabbit hole was as deep as it is. When I was a fan, I didn't pay any mind to the boyz' relationships or anything, and I always knew you had to dig deep for the drama. Never visited the Mega64ums more than a few times, either. I had Rocco friended on Facebook at one point, but I've long since jumped ship from there, and I know he unfriended me at some point, so, there goes that.
Thanks for all the info dude, this is fantastic. By the way, do you have any of their DVDs? Specifically any from the "Time" series? I only ever bought Version 1 and 2 (first prints from Something Awful) and their 10th anniversary DVD. They might have some commentary tracks that might be helpful.
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It's been a while yet again, sorry, but I guess Coronavirus happened (not to me, but to the rest of the world), so that's something new. No, I don't have any of the DVDs. I was a fan too young to buy online (12 years old, only into the sketches) and kinda lost interest after that. I only got back into it because of nostalgia and needing something to listen to while working. And since then, I've had a lot of time to listen to the podcast and I've absorbed a lot of little details about the lore.
That being said, I think there's enough stuff in all of my past posts to start a legit thread, but I might be wrong. I do however think the Coronavirus gave us some interesting reactions from the crew.
For example, Derrick had this really weird rant, could be him being edgy, but there's a strange sincerity to it, I don't know. Could be a bad reading, but check it out for yourself:
https://youtu.be/7WkUjTB5tE8?t=2701
But of course, since Rocco was indoors with all the time in the world, he had time to indulge in his passions. However, since Rocco borrowed Shawn's copy of American Movie, 3 years ago, it's become a running gag that Rocco would be "too busy" to watch it. It's really pathetic in this case, because he'll watch Frozen 2 and the entire run of the original Japanese Power Rangers, but god forbid a funny movie about filmmaking take up 2 hours of his Ranger Time. He straight up sounds like Linkara in this clip:
https://youtu.be/7WkUjTB5tE8?t=3756
Other than that, Shawn is (understandably) worried about his family and such. Garrett is bunkering up off the grid as usual, and this is also the perfect time to beef up the Patreon, since Mega64 is being hit hard, so they will flood Patreon with Let's Plays and behind-the-scenes of 15 year old videos (might be something of interest, but probably not):
https://youtu.be/7WkUjTB5tE8?t=3520
Also, all of the Funny Factory previews are up (as far as I know). It's been agreed that the best of the worst was FriendDimension (it's now the one Patreon-exclusive show), since it's just a straight up let's play with the Mega64 guys as opposed to an Anime Reaction show with no anime (cuz you know copyright) and a wannabe MST3K with web videos and bad awkward commentary. Here's the previews:
FriendDimension 1:
https://youtu.be/Li-bkEuaMXY
FriendDimension 2:
https://youtu.be/hqnXpwr2Idg
FriendDimension 3:
https://youtu.be/VHD_daTYHdE
Web Rip 1:
https://youtu.be/tM_9FFAGy68
Web Rip 2:
https://youtu.be/5UXQ3WBiGYc
Shawnime 1:
https://youtu.be/xAXS9q6JVGI
Shawnime 2:
https://youtu.be/P5w-udTlpKk
Shawnime 3:
https://youtu.be/5lQEJfeyErg
I think that all there is for now, on top of my head. I'm hoping other people come in with some spicy extra info once you start the thread, and the Coronavirus saga might be something to watch a bit more closely, but for now, I think that this is enough to start a way better Mega64 discussion thread.