There used to be a fully playable versions of those Mystery Discs on UA-cam before the annotations got turned off. I would like to see the Universal Studios footage.
Someone did upload the Kidisc (which has such footage) on UA-cam. Just search for "The First National Kidisc" on UA-cam and it should be the first result.
Screw "gaming" channels and their snobbism with obscure consoles like the LaserActive. This is why I've been subscribed to you since that humble but very well made video on the Max Headroom incident so many years ago. Whenever I'm starting to get so sicked of those retro gaming zombies, you're always there with stuff like this. With all the idiocy about the Mega SG and the Genesis mini, this was like breathing fresh air after nearly drowning.
Helpful UA-cam interface tip for this video: while paused, hit . (period) to frame advance forward and , (comma) to frame advance backwards. Now those of us at home can play along too!
The team behind "Kidisc" also did "Party Games For Adults Only" on the MCA label. It's a 2-disc set all in CAV. I'll have to find some parts that are safe to upload here. The Voyager reissues of the OPA discs added digital sound, but were otherwise the same. I have both those and the original editions of Fun and Games and History Disquiz (that one is also boring.)
Somewhere on this planet there is (or was) someone with a horrible story about a summer internship where they had to use a tape-based editing system to go back and forth, back and forth, to find all the frame numbers to jump to and put them all into a title generator, and blend them onto the screen at the right place for the master tape. They may even have had to recalculate the frame numbers from the SMPTE time codes on the tape. And they probably had to go through the tape at least once to make sure all the numbers were correct. Then the tape could be made into a Laser Disc. Thanks, unknown intern!
The people who ran my Cub Scouts meetings in the early 80s actually had a laserdisc player, and we did the paper crane thing from First National Kidisc at one meeting with the player going frame-by-frame- I still couldn't do it. They were nice enough to let me watch the entire disc afterwards, I was really happy later when I found my own copy still sealed.
The OPA catalogue and its ilk are what inspired me to hang onto my laserdisc player even when the rest of my catalog was replaced by DVD. They're a little silly and very antiquated, but amusing all the same, and hard to replicate on any other format. I do consider Fun and Games a sequel to Kidisc. It's the same exact concept except expanded and improved, with some Bill Murray sprinkled in.
Good stuff...had actually heard of the Kidisc awhile back, but never had the chance to see it in action until now, and who knew that Paul Gleason had a role in Murder, Anyone? Not to mention the post-credits bit was the best one I've seen yet!
@@OddityArchive I hope the remastered version from the early 1990s called it Zimbabwe. But the end of the USSR shortly thereafter made it obsolete again.
I remember the Kidisc and the Mystery disc well. I "played" and watched them a ton and were my first laserdiscs when I was probably 7 or 8. I'm sure I'd find them lame today, but as a kid I loved them. You have to look at them through the lens of what existed at the time and the age of the intended audience, not as an adult in the 21st century.
About the Kidisc, the reason why it doesn't have the usual frame stops is because back in the era of DiscoVision, according to the Blam DiscoVision site (a great resource BTW for info on DiscoVision and early LaserDisc in general), consumer LaserDisc players generally DIDN'T recognize the auto-stop code used by the format to automatically pause playback. At that time, it was more of a function for industrial and educational players and software. That's actually the primary reason why the infamous side 5 of the DiscoVision release of Frenzy automatically stops at every frame. Each frame was encoded with the auto-stop code, but because the majority of the consumer players from that time didn't recognize it, it wasn't a problem back then and DiscoVision just ignored it. Only when auto-stop codes began to be recognized starting in around 1983 was when it became such a gigantic problem with that release.
Well, the machines that didn't pay attention to the Philips codes were actually just a few models, such as the Magnavox VH-8000 "Magnavision" and the Pioneer LD-660. Otherwise, most consumer LD players would recognize the Philips codes, even back when these titles were originally made. If you had machines like the Pioneer VP-1000, the Pioneer LD-1100, or the Sylvania VP-7200, they would recognize the Philips codes and act on them. And since the VP-1000 came out in 1980 (and promptly outsold the Magnavision when it did), that specific issue with the DiscoVision release of "Frenzy" became known well before 1983. As for DiscoVision, they not only had issues which cropped up in many aspects of their production, but also issues that they never bothered to fix. Their quality assurance and customer satisfaction were almost consistently abysmal.
The first Pioneer players only did the auto-stop if you had the frame display turned on. My OCD is thankful that the later Pioneer players let you override the stop codes by holding down the Play button- I usually start every disc that way just in case.
@@TheMediaHoarder That's true of the VP-1000, where the frame stop is registered when the onscreen display for the frame count is on. Also true of modern Pioneer players, where you can disable recognition of the frame stop by holding the PLAY button.
I love all the oddball and forgotten material you come up with! Though you have no nostalgic connection to this actor it would be great to see your take on Icky Twerp. He had a children’s show on KTVT channel 11 here in Dallas in the 60s....or I can just make my own damned video and do my own research.
I actually do have that Fun & Games disc. I only got it because I could still cram one more disc before the shipping cost went up and the guy had it for like two dollars. Much like Kidisc, it also doesn't use stopcodes to pause the disc for the still frame segments.
A Oddity Archive Episode on my birthday month ! Thanks for the early gift. but i remember one of the laserdisc games (arcade) i played ported on DVD. sadly the game is lost. since then. I have a laserdisc game emulator to play laseractive games like Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp on my PC.and i remember that game. and yes. and that game is Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
_"On a technical, yet very practical note, 'Kidisc' does not adhere to CAV LaserDisc specs."_ Actually, it does adhere to the specs; what it did not do was take advantage of certain features that were available in the format for whatever reason.
4:58 If you've managed to slow this montage down, you get the very current choices of the Soviet Union, Germany (East), Germany (West), Rhodesia and Zaire.
They MysteryDisc series on the CED VideoDisc system required the use of a random access player, such as the RCA SJT-400 or SKT-400. You couldn't play them in the way they're intended otherwise.
With the reliability of the format, it must been hellish to play these even with the right player. BTW, Benny-boy should upload more 'stooges footage making their Max Headroom impersonation.
I remember that in one of the AVGN openings (don't remember which episode) there is a brief cut of the Nerd playing with the Action Max. The episode is most likely scrapped maybe because James couldn't make a good story out of it. However the console and some footage of a "game" is shown in an early _James and Mike Mondays_ episode.
Wow, I just picked up the Murder, Anyone disc a couple of weeks back. Having played it a couple of times now, the poor quality of some of the evidence stills really hinders playing it as intended. I have only one TV that does not shake on the still images from the disc (an 1080i HD-CRT set). Maybe if I dusted off on old SD set it would be better.
Too bad the Mystery Disc / "Murder Anyone?" people didn't have Rick Dyer on their team. He probably would've taken one look and figured out how to simplify the entire project by 90% in one day! 😣
hey, at least that episode of Magnum, P.I. is a decent one. (I used to watch a lot of it when I was younger, I'd still swoon over Tom Selleck if I didn't know he's actually a bit of a jerk now)
Those mystery discs got put on CED too? That sounds like possibly the worst experience on an already not that fun to watch format. How the hell are you supposed to have any chance at all in stopping it on a specific frame, let alone skipping frame by frame on a CED player?
I wanted to try it for myself but couldn't find any copies for sale. I'm guessing it probably only worked "properly" on the very last CED players (late 1983/early 1984). Mine's from '82.
Only one later CED player model had interactive capabilities including chapter search and a crude "freeze frame" which was really 4 frames in one rotation. The discs still play straight through on other players- there were a few interactive discs made just for CED, but the MysteryDiscs are boring in any format.
There used to be a fully playable versions of those Mystery Discs on UA-cam before the annotations got turned off.
I would like to see the Universal Studios footage.
Someone did upload the Kidisc (which has such footage) on UA-cam. Just search for "The First National Kidisc" on UA-cam and it should be the first result.
Screw "gaming" channels and their snobbism with obscure consoles like the LaserActive. This is why I've been subscribed to you since that humble but very well made video on the Max Headroom incident so many years ago. Whenever I'm starting to get so sicked of those retro gaming zombies, you're always there with stuff like this. With all the idiocy about the Mega SG and the Genesis mini, this was like breathing fresh air after nearly drowning.
Helpful UA-cam interface tip for this video: while paused, hit . (period) to frame advance forward and , (comma) to frame advance backwards. Now those of us at home can play along too!
Nice!
Cheers for that tip! It also shows they every fifth frame in the telecine transfer is repeated on the laserdisc.
That Kidisc of yours is giving me an idea of what the show Turn On was like.
this goto frame/launch sequence system remember me my Flash-java programing.
I miss you Flash.
The team behind "Kidisc" also did "Party Games For Adults Only" on the MCA label. It's a 2-disc set all in CAV. I'll have to find some parts that are safe to upload here. The Voyager reissues of the OPA discs added digital sound, but were otherwise the same. I have both those and the original editions of Fun and Games and History Disquiz (that one is also boring.)
Conglaturation!!
You have completed a great LaserDisc.
And prooved the justice of our culture.
Now go rest our heroes!
Somewhere on this planet there is (or was) someone with a horrible story about a summer internship where they had to use a tape-based editing system to go back and forth, back and forth, to find all the frame numbers to jump to and put them all into a title generator, and blend them onto the screen at the right place for the master tape. They may even have had to recalculate the frame numbers from the SMPTE time codes on the tape. And they probably had to go through the tape at least once to make sure all the numbers were correct. Then the tape could be made into a Laser Disc. Thanks, unknown intern!
I'm sure that was a slog to get through!
The people who ran my Cub Scouts meetings in the early 80s actually had a laserdisc player, and we did the paper crane thing from First National Kidisc at one meeting with the player going frame-by-frame- I still couldn't do it. They were nice enough to let me watch the entire disc afterwards, I was really happy later when I found my own copy still sealed.
4:36 the music used in the IBA Engineering Announcement films. One of Frances Monkmans finest tracks
The OPA catalogue and its ilk are what inspired me to hang onto my laserdisc player even when the rest of my catalog was replaced by DVD. They're a little silly and very antiquated, but amusing all the same, and hard to replicate on any other format.
I do consider Fun and Games a sequel to Kidisc. It's the same exact concept except expanded and improved, with some Bill Murray sprinkled in.
I watched your video on it
Nice catch at the end! Very smooth.
KIDISC sounds like an attempt at a "video activity book" as I see it.
Surprised none of that fast footage had triggered some poor kid's epilepsy!
The Rock Dancing bit uses the early 80s theme tune to the BBC's Points Of View programme!! 😳
Good stuff...had actually heard of the Kidisc awhile back, but never had the chance to see it in action until now, and who knew that Paul Gleason had a role in Murder, Anyone? Not to mention the post-credits bit was the best one I've seen yet!
The inclusion of Rhodesia as the name for Zimbabwe quickly dated this game. The name change took place in 1980, when Robert Mugabe came to power
Made even funnier when you realize the Kidisc didn't come out until '81. It was already out-of-date before it got released.
Considering the game came out in 1981, you'd think they would have corrected that.
@@OddityArchive I hope the remastered version from the early 1990s called it Zimbabwe. But the end of the USSR shortly thereafter made it obsolete again.
Wow, Bruce Seth Green was involved with so many of the shows I used to watch in the 1990s and 2000s: Highlander, Buffy, Angel, Hercules, and Xena.
20:37
Is that the old Hanna-Barbera Swirling Star logo theme I hear during the credits music?
Also, I tried the paper clip trick with a 5-pound note from England and it still worked.
If there is an OA drinking game, "SCTV reference" is a definite drink. Not complaining, I love SCTV, just noting a trend.
The same music was all over back then, I recall Nickelodeon using these sorts of tracks in their early years.
But we never got an answer to the most burning question of all: Who made the egg salad sandwiches?
13:06 Paul Gleason (RIP) sighted!
...And Ben mentions it a few seconds later. Of course
I remember the Kidisc and the Mystery disc well. I "played" and watched them a ton and were my first laserdiscs when I was probably 7 or 8. I'm sure I'd find them lame today, but as a kid I loved them. You have to look at them through the lens of what existed at the time and the age of the intended audience, not as an adult in the 21st century.
That is true. I would've been in the same boat as a kid had I had these to watch!
"To learn how to do it, go back and play the trick in slow motion"
About the Kidisc, the reason why it doesn't have the usual frame stops is because back in the era of DiscoVision, according to the Blam DiscoVision site (a great resource BTW for info on DiscoVision and early LaserDisc in general), consumer LaserDisc players generally DIDN'T recognize the auto-stop code used by the format to automatically pause playback. At that time, it was more of a function for industrial and educational players and software.
That's actually the primary reason why the infamous side 5 of the DiscoVision release of Frenzy automatically stops at every frame. Each frame was encoded with the auto-stop code, but because the majority of the consumer players from that time didn't recognize it, it wasn't a problem back then and DiscoVision just ignored it. Only when auto-stop codes began to be recognized starting in around 1983 was when it became such a gigantic problem with that release.
Well, the machines that didn't pay attention to the Philips codes were actually just a few models, such as the Magnavox VH-8000 "Magnavision" and the Pioneer LD-660.
Otherwise, most consumer LD players would recognize the Philips codes, even back when these titles were originally made. If you had machines like the Pioneer VP-1000, the Pioneer LD-1100, or the Sylvania VP-7200, they would recognize the Philips codes and act on them. And since the VP-1000 came out in 1980 (and promptly outsold the Magnavision when it did), that specific issue with the DiscoVision release of "Frenzy" became known well before 1983.
As for DiscoVision, they not only had issues which cropped up in many aspects of their production, but also issues that they never bothered to fix. Their quality assurance and customer satisfaction were almost consistently abysmal.
The first Pioneer players only did the auto-stop if you had the frame display turned on. My OCD is thankful that the later Pioneer players let you override the stop codes by holding down the Play button- I usually start every disc that way just in case.
@@TheMediaHoarder That's true of the VP-1000, where the frame stop is registered when the onscreen display for the frame count is on.
Also true of modern Pioneer players, where you can disable recognition of the frame stop by holding the PLAY button.
Pretty sure “How to Watch Pro Football” has auto picture stops- need to watch that one again, bought it even though I hate sports!
12:03 for a split second I swore that Dracula was the Manos: the hands of fate dude
Anyone else here keep replaying the part at 6:25, trying to stop when the white squares were touching the same line?!? 😊
That Kidisc is one big acid head trip. 😮
4:27 If I wanted to visit the San Diego Zoo, I'd have Rainbow Brite guiding me, thank you very much.
13:49 Is this what Dwayne T. Robinson was doing before he was promoted to deputy chief of police? Man, no wonder John Mcclane had it so rough.
Yep. LD games that forced you to do some arithmetic to figure out which exact frame number to go to in order to find out if you're right or wrong.
At least it used your brain, I don't have a problem with that.
5:26 Trytel International Video (TIV) jingle.
I love all the oddball and forgotten material you come up with! Though you have no nostalgic connection to this actor it would be great to see your take on Icky Twerp. He had a children’s show on KTVT channel 11 here in Dallas in the 60s....or I can just make my own damned video and do my own research.
I actually do have that Fun & Games disc. I only got it because I could still cram one more disc before the shipping cost went up and the guy had it for like two dollars. Much like Kidisc, it also doesn't use stopcodes to pause the disc for the still frame segments.
18:45 This is the weirdest UA-cam Poop I've ever seen.
A Oddity Archive Episode on my birthday month ! Thanks for the early gift. but i remember one of the laserdisc games (arcade) i played ported on DVD. sadly the game is lost.
since then. I have a laserdisc game emulator to play laseractive games like Dragon's Lair II: Timewarp on my PC.and i remember that game. and yes. and that game is Dragon's Lair II: Time Warp
A[n] Oddity Archive Episode.
_"On a technical, yet very practical note, 'Kidisc' does not adhere to CAV LaserDisc specs."_
Actually, it does adhere to the specs; what it did not do was take advantage of certain features that were available in the format for whatever reason.
4:58 If you've managed to slow this montage down, you get the very current choices of the Soviet Union, Germany (East), Germany (West), Rhodesia and Zaire.
3:50 Gotta cover your bases in this business!
And here I thought you'd gotten Thayer's Quest
(I'm kidding)
I was just about to suggest that, really interesting story behind that (and it's legacy)
They MysteryDisc series on the CED VideoDisc system required the use of a random access player, such as the RCA SJT-400 or SKT-400. You couldn't play them in the way they're intended otherwise.
With the reliability of the format, it must been hellish to play these even with the right player.
BTW, Benny-boy should upload more 'stooges footage making their Max Headroom impersonation.
The first one called the “First National Kidisc” and other games will be a subject on a future AVGN episode which will be all about laserdisc games.
I remember that in one of the AVGN openings (don't remember which episode) there is a brief cut of the Nerd playing with the Action Max. The episode is most likely scrapped maybe because James couldn't make a good story out of it. However the console and some footage of a "game" is shown in an early _James and Mike Mondays_ episode.
Wow, I just picked up the Murder, Anyone disc a couple of weeks back. Having played it a couple of times now, the poor quality of some of the evidence stills really hinders playing it as intended. I have only one TV that does not shake on the still images from the disc (an 1080i HD-CRT set). Maybe if I dusted off on old SD set it would be better.
The mysterydisc reminds me of pheonix wright games, but worse in every way possible
Honestly, that target game seems like it would be kind of fun if there was a reset feature.
Is that June Foray's voice on the Maze Mania disc?
I think it might be. Unfortunately there weren't any performance credits on the disc or packaging, so I can't confirm.
I'd bet Bugs Bunny's left fuzzy that it is June Foray
Manfred looks like a Great Value Eric Idle
17:19 hasn't the guy on the right been in a few things, too?
*sigh* I miss June Foray, assuming that's who that was on Maze Mania
Was Dick van Dyke Manfred's dialogue coach?
08:00 omg...
It's like if Monty Python made a PBS show.
So this is slightly more interactive than the ActionMax, but not as much as the Interactive Vision.
"Did I mention that both mystery discs were available on CED?" Yeah... the less said about CED the better...
Laser all the way, baby!
may want a flashing images warning for the 5 minute mark.
Laserdisc Games (but not as you know them, no not as you know them)
Wow, those dinosaur silhouettes sucked. A bunch of them weren't even dinosaurs. One was even a mammal.
Too bad the Mystery Disc / "Murder Anyone?" people didn't have Rick Dyer on their team. He probably would've taken one look and figured out how to simplify the entire project by 90% in one day! 😣
hey, at least that episode of Magnum, P.I. is a decent one. (I used to watch a lot of it when I was younger, I'd still swoon over Tom Selleck if I didn't know he's actually a bit of a jerk now)
The new game for people with quick eyesight and photographic memory!
just tried the Money Paperclip trick myself Yes it does work :)
13:01
zaxxon rocked
Those mystery discs got put on CED too? That sounds like possibly the worst experience on an already not that fun to watch format. How the hell are you supposed to have any chance at all in stopping it on a specific frame, let alone skipping frame by frame on a CED player?
I wanted to try it for myself but couldn't find any copies for sale. I'm guessing it probably only worked "properly" on the very last CED players (late 1983/early 1984). Mine's from '82.
Only one later CED player model had interactive capabilities including chapter search and a crude "freeze frame" which was really 4 frames in one rotation. The discs still play straight through on other players- there were a few interactive discs made just for CED, but the MysteryDiscs are boring in any format.
Is that you fast forwarding or is it really that fast?
It is that fast. No editing involved.
Speaking of proper gaming channels...where’s Guru Larry in the comments?!
Wow, first one in.