mideast

2 hours ago, Koopa64 said:

Are there any appearances of the N64 documented on this article, not mentioned in your list?

http://micro-64.com/features/n64intv.shtml

Wow pretty much all of them are needed on my list, except for the Sopranos one I already had! The 40 Year Old Virgin One I've seen, but I think they're playing a Mortal Kombat game from after 2000. Nice additions!!

5 hours ago, AirVillain said:

All gravy, baby!

You're killing it! This list is amazing. I'm sure everyone here understands about work/life. 

I just updated my post with the song "Video Games", for others and easy access for you. It's literally all video game references creating double entendres. I know you're busy, but give it a listen just for fun! 

Are you going to itemize ALL the references in the SMB Movie??? Hahaha.... uhhhh.... the entire thing? 

Thank you!! Lol no I'm just adding it as a reference to the original intellectual property, Super Mario Bros for NES in 1985. Movies entirely based on games I add that way, like the Super Mario Bros, Double Dragon, Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat films from the 90s. Unless there's more references to other SMB games in the movie? Like I said, I haven't watched it yet. I know in the Double Dragon movie there's a scene where they're fighting around arcade games and I caught the titles of a few of the cabinets and put them as references.

@RH @Reed Rothchild @Link @Friendsfa35 @AirVillain

Guys, rest assured I will be adding your submissions to the list at some point!! And I appreciate the enthusiasm! Just have been preoccupied with work, home life, etc. This is still a passion of mine that I haven't gotten around to updating in a while. Believe me, this time last year I was working on this non-stop. And there's of course a huge addition to list, a little film called "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" which ended up becoming the most financially successful video game adaptation EVER in less than a month! Lol (no spoilers, haven't watched it yet).

But seriously, this list and other lists I've done on VGS mean a lot to me. Feel free to list more additions you come across and I will get them added eventually.

35 minutes ago, CasualCart said:

Amazing list, @mideast!

My favorite video game references in media are audio samples in music.
Two of my favorites are the Street Fighter II Turbo "Round 1: Fight!!" at the end of Demons With Ryu by Emmure and the Super Mario Bros. sample in Corey Feldman Holocaust by iwrestledabearonce.

-CasualCart

Thanks Casual!!

Whoa, you got me there, I'm not familiar with those artists. I'll check them out. Hmm I have a few audio samples in hip hop, do you like just the vocal samples, or music/sound fx too?

The Super Mario Bros. beat for Cocoa Brovaz Super Brooklyn is, in my opinion, the best flip of the sample. Sounds like they loaded every cool SMB sound effect/background music into an MPC and pushed the buttons in the most sonically pleasing way lol. Kanye West FACTS has more SFII vocal samples. Madvillain (MF Doom & Madlib) Do Not Fire! has SFII vocal samples too. Cage Grand ol' Party Crash has those eerie vocal samples from the Sinistar arcade game.

1 hour ago, Gex said:

Which episode??

EDIT: Season 7 episode 1. Looks like they're playing the TG-16 port of Fantasy Zone.

Yup the episode is called It's Only Pretendo. They were being conscious of the major role video games were having in children's lives and started the season off with the babies playfully fighting over which games to play on their TV. They also play Keith Courage in the episode

7 hours ago, elprincipe said:

Maybe I missed them on the list, but Family Guy had Tecmo Bowl and Double Dribble footage:

 

Nice!! I totally didn't come across this one. I'll add it for the next edit. There's a couple other cartoon episodes I have to get to, Futurama Raiders of the Lost Arcade and South Park Imaginationland has some video game characters. I just wanted to get this list public because I'd been holding onto it for long enough lol

2 hours ago, Link said:

I wouldn't guess so, I just grabbed my phone to get pictures of the TV in the unexpected moment. But you can be the judge, if you like them they're yours. 

Looks better to me! I'll put them on my local list, I'm not sure how soon I'll update the post but it'll be there when I do

1 hour ago, Link said:

Oh I totally get it. You've done a fantastic job. I took some pictures real quick, of course you already have it documented.

Thank you!! Any additions of retro games are totally welcomed. Yeah that one I think I just have a video clip, I try and get as best quality screenshots as I can. I check justwatch.com to see what streaming service offers a show, and I guess NewsRadio is on FuboTV? Which I don't have lol. 

If your photos are better quality than the video listed I can add them to the list?

2 hours ago, Link said:

The episode of NewsRadio with Stargate was on last night. 

Lol my goal is to have a database to refer to whenever you watch something. There's a few sitcoms where they just get an arcade cabinet for whatever reason? They get a Pac-Man in Taxi and a Ms. Pac-Man in a later episode of Friends. Plus you got the Seinfeld Frogger episode

13 hours ago, mideast said:

Does anybody recognize this side art from The Terminator (1984)? People in other lists have said its Asteroids, but I haven't found any cabinets that look like that online. Maybe it's a smaller space game I haven't come across.

Also, Teen Wolf purportedly has a Centipede in it but I have to watch the whole movie through to find it  couldn't find it scrubbing

I watched Teen Wolf and could not find a Centipede 

1 hour ago, Dr. Morbis said:

Yeah, it works fine, and shares a lot of parts with the original Computer Space, like the television, coin mechs and return, repurposed "coin bucket," etc.  But mine is not the upright version that appears in the movie; mine is the mini version as seen here:

https://flyers.arcade-museum.com/?page=thumbs&db=videodb&id=1533

I always had wanted some sort of Pong machine in my game room, so when I saw this come up for sale at a convention, I couldn't pass it up.

Well, since the first commercial video game is in 1971, and the movie you listed for Computer Space Ball came out in 1974, that doesn't leave much wiggle room for there to be too many other possible entries...

Yeah you're right the only other movie people mentioned between those dates was Sleeper by Woody Allen in 1973. A couple places claim Computer Space is in the movie, but I made a point of watching the whole thing through and could not find it myself.

7 hours ago, Jaden said:

Does this list only include instances of games actually being shown or heard, or are spoken references included too? I know that MST3K has had quite a few video game references over the years, although they're far more prevalent in seasons 11 to 13. I saw that Monster Shark was on this list, which was later riffed by Mike and the Bots as Devil Fish. And that episode also featured a pretty funny Parappa the Rapper riff. In the episode of Track of the Moon Beast, you can also see a Parappa poster in Mike's bedroom. If spoken references are being counted, then I can definitely list some more examples of video game riffs in MST3K. Although if you want just visual stuff, there is also an episode where Dr. Forrester and Frank are playing Super Mario Bros. I think it was Godzilla Vs. Megalon.

Yeah Monster Shark I saw on this Atari Age post actually, and the OP said he saw it on MST3K lol. That's a good question, I generally tried to only include visual references because they're more fun, but MST3K does have a place in my heart and they don't usually watch movies that came up after the video game era lol. I saw a bunch of iMDB Connections with video game references on the show, I think they mention Yoshi a couple times? Are the videos of the scenes easy to find online? Because I couldn't take a screenshot.

I did include one dialogue reference from Billy Madison where Adam Sandler argues with a kid whether Mortal Kombat for Genesis or Donkey Kong is the best video game ever

4 hours ago, AverageOliver98 said:

There are a couple arcade games in this episode of 'The Greatest American Hero' (though the only name I made out was 'Armor Attack'). Also, according to IMDB, the game that is shown being played is 'Advanced Dungeons and Dragons' for the Intellivision. 

Oh wow this one's fun. He's playing at a Tempest cabinet, and you're right it's AD&D for Intellivision gameplay shown. But the close up of the joystick/buttons is some other arcade cabinet that I'm unfamiliar with! I'm gonna write this one up. I see Robotron: 2084, Jungle King, Dig Dug, Donkey Kong, Star Castle, and like you said Armor Attack in the background. 

I've never heard of this show before! But Bob Saget is always welcome on this list. 

Does anybody recognize this side art from The Terminator (1984)? People in other lists have said its Asteroids, but I haven't found any cabinets that look like that online. Maybe it's a smaller space game I haven't come across.

Also, Teen Wolf purportedly has a Centipede in it but I have to watch the whole movie through to find it  couldn't find it scrubbing

17 hours ago, PII said:

I've spent some time with the pause button myself, trying to decipher names and icons on blurry arcade machines and so on, but never wrote any of it down.  Very Impressive!

Oh man, I still have a bunch of arcade games in movies I couldn't identify yet. There were A LOT of arcade games released in the early 80s

10 hours ago, Dr. Morbis said:

That's really cool.  I actually own a Computer Space Ball and I had no idea that it was the third ever video game featured in a movie.  It's one of the first few commercially available video games ever made, so that's pretty cool already, but this makes it just a little bit cooler...

Does it work?! That's really cool, I don't own any arcade cabinets yet but when I finally go down that road I want to verify the marquees/side art/bezels in movies. Does your Computer Space Ball have the marquee below the monitor? They seemed to have removed it for the movie. Also, disclaimer, I can't guarantee it's the third one ever  There may be more movies from the 70s nobody mentioned or I haven't found yet

26 minutes ago, LutherDestroysTheGond said:

Great stuff!  Seriously impressive. 

I need to start doing this with CRTs that I see in movies/shows.  Whenever my wife and I watch anything made after like 2010 I stop and point out all the CRTs and try to figure out the model/brand.  She loves it.  At least I think she does.....

That is totally rad. There's actually a site I found of someone who identifies vintage computers in movies called Starring the Computer. I feel like it's a preservation thing in us, and just fun to recognize retro stuff we hold close to our hearts. I especially like the listings where the game just came out the year before the movie. Like, they were really displaying the cutting edge technology for the time

50 Years of Video Games in Movies, TV and Music

Welcome to my list of video game references found in movies, scripted television, and music! This is not to be considered a complete list, as it has been curated to only include material found personally interesting to me. Most notably, you will only find games released prior to the year 2000. And there are no fictitious games (think The Simpsons’ Bonestorm or The Last Starfighter) even if they look very similar to a real game. But, none-the-less it has grown to over 1600 references!

Contemporary media has been included, as long as the video game referenced is retro. There’s no pinball, but there are some early mechanical arcade games and light gun games. It all started with the cameo of Computer Space in 1973’s Soylent Green and progressed into jokes of Mario Bros. threesomes and Pac-Man eating more than just fruit in bed with Ms. Pac-Man (I’m looking at you, Family Guy).

As for music, the most famous video game song is probably Buckner & Garcia’s Pac-Man Fever (1982). But you might be surprised to find out how many hip hop songs include samples from game soundtracks. Or just mention games and consoles.

“Super Nintendo, Sega Genesis. When I was dead broke, man, I couldn’t picture this”  - Notorious B.I.G. (1994)

It’s truly remarkable how much gaming has fused with American culture since the late seventies, and progressed from a novelty to a part of everyday life. Did you know TurboGrafx-16 gameplay was featured on an episode of the Muppet Babies? Or did you know there’s an Odyssey² console in an Eminem music video? Now you do!

This list was born while casually watching movies and taking notes when spotting a video game scene in the wild. It eventually progressed to actively searching for lists, videos and forum posts of people sharing references online. And I’ve tried hard, believe me, to include timestamps of scenes so those with access to the source material can easily locate them. Otherwise, movies, shows and songs based entirely on intellectual property from video games are listed as a whole piece of work.

Although magazines are generally not included, I have slipped in Mad Magazine because I find their parodies to be culturally significant. Also, no game shows where they just play games nor news programs on video game mania are included. This list is primarily interested in works of art from other mediums that have incorporated video games into them. I mean, based on the cultural impact of gaming, how could they not?!

The list is in chronological order by the release date of the media that is referencing. When necessary, there are arrows pointing to the game in screenshots. There are many blurry arcade cabinets in movies that can only be identified by the color and shape of the marquee artwork!

The following resources have been invaluable in compiling this list: Mark Jenison at Dark Star Arcade, fage2005 on iMDB, vghchannel and Slacktory on YouTube, MAME World, Handheld Games Museum, Atari Compendium, and the Connections feature on iMDB.

Submissions based on the general theme of the list are welcome!! As well as corrections.

Blue is for movies, Green for television, Yellow for music and Purple for magazines.

Enjoy!

1970s

1980s

1990s