A special guest and more topics planned for tomorrow’s show!

Why hello there, folks. Ash here! Just in time for the show tomorrow night, I am riding in on my white horse to let you all know that there’s going to be a bit more going on tomorrow night than you previously thought!

First off, I will be interviewing our first-ever special guest, top voice actor Rob Paulsen. Yes, our debut show was so popular that we already have stars breaking our email inboxes asking to do interviews with us, thinking of the limitless benefits being seen on our show will do for their careers.

Or, he might just be my dad. I’ll leave that up to you. Back to the guest, if you’ve ever watched a single cartoon in your entire life (and if you haven’t, I demand that you cease your crusade against happiness this instant), chances are he provided at least one voice for a character in it. The picture below will you give you a good idea of some of the characters whose voices he has been responsible in making so iconic, so take a gander and try not to soil your britches:

That’s right: he’s been responsible for breathing aural life into some of cartoon’s and video gaming’s most iconic characters, including Raphael from the original Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles cartoon, Yakko Warner and Pinky from Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain, Gray Fox/the Ninja from Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes, and more. And that one in the lower-right? That’s Mr. Opportunity, so if you haven’t joined the TiVo revolution and find yourself watching commercials (or just listen to the radio), it’s his voice that’s always trying to sell you a new or used Honda. Other voices he has been responsible for (not included in the above picture) include Antoine from the Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog cartoon (otherwise known as The Good One), Lian Ronso and Tobli from the hit game Final Fantasy X-2, and more — and you’ll even hear his voice in upcoming blockbuster Kingdom Hearts: Birth By Sleep!

In any case, after I pick his brain, you lot will have the opportunity to set upon him with your well-thought-out, intelligent (right?) questions! Make ‘em good, as he won’t be here for long!

Aside from this interview, I’ll also be including a couple more points of discussion in tomorrow’s show, by far the most exciting of which is Capcom’s announcement this past Wednesday of the Blue Bomber’s triumphant return in Mega Man 10! Say it with me, now: “Mega Man Ten.” How many characters do you know are as successful and iconic that they can make it to part ten of their numbered series? Not to mention that the Mega Man franchise is comprised of several different series, each with many entries!

But Mega Man 10 is set to be pure gaming love, and I’ll show you why right here:

That right there is a screenshot from Mega Man 10. What do you see? I’ll tell you what I don’t see: polygons, rich textures, bloom lighting, or any other fancy-shmancy visual effects mucking up what is pure, hardcore platforming gameplay. Not that there isn’t a place for technologically cutting-edge games — I play them all the time — but the Mega Man series is not one of them. That, up there, with a progressive story that is told in 8-bit cutscenes and rocking 8-bit music is all the classic Mega Man series will ever need. And apparently a whole lot of other people agree with me too, because Mega Man 9 was a retro, “neo-8-bit”-styled title as well and people ate it up, earning Mega Man 9 lots of positive critic reviews and booming sales — the latter evidenced by the fact Mega Man 10 is coming, and so soon at that. I won’t lie and say I wouldn’t like to see another fully-animated adventure like Mega Man 8 someday, but the gameplay suffered so much in that title that I wouldn’t want them to try it again until they know they can get it right. (ZING to Jon, who’s a communist Mega Man 8 apologist.)

But we’ll talk more about that on the show: in the meantime, I’ll leave you with a glimpse of the game’s the giggle-inducing “retro box art” that is styled after the notoriously-awful North American box art for Mega Man 1, from way back in 1987… when marketing folks actually thought us fat, dumb Americans would prefer a Mega Man that looked like a 50-year-old man who touches children in inappropriate places:

… which is inspired by this visual assault:

… both of whom are supposed to represent the American ideal of this wonderful little guy:

I can see it now: “Dude! Look at this game with the 50-year-old virgin in the blue and yellow suit whose gun is drawn in his hand the wrong way! I AM SO BUYING THIS.” (Bear in mind that Mega Man never, ever gets a handheld gun, either.)

Finally, I’ll be talking about an appalling story that crossed my Twitter page this week: the tale of one Amy Dickinson who unleashed disastrously bad advice upon a recent rape victim in her “advice” column, “Ask Amy.” It goes something like this: this college girl wrote in saying that a drunk guy forced her to have sex with him while she was also drunk, after she already told him she did not want to have sex. “Am I a rape victim?” she asks. Now, instead of the obvious, correct answer — which is “yes,” by the way — Ms. Dickinson told her that, yes, she was a victim — of her own lack of good judgment.

I’ll let that sink in for a moment. Okay, ready?

Rule number one for advising rape victims? You tell them it’s not their fucking fault. Rape is a violent crime, and never the fault of the one who was raped. Just imagine the psychological damage Ms. Dickinson inflicted on this girl by letting her believe that being raped was her own fault. But she then goes to continue her assault on common sense by telling her that “getting drunk at a frat house is a hazardous choice for anyone to make because of the risk (some might say a likelihood) that you will engage in unwise or unwanted sexual contact.”

What you did, you incompetent twat, was (a) set women’s rights back about half a century by telling a grown woman that she is setting herself up for a deserved sexual assault by leaving her house and going to a party (maybe she should have stayed in the kitchen instead?), and (b) shit all over progressive thinking about gender roles, in effect publishing the statement that, yes, the majority of frat boys are definitely the hungry rapists we all thought they were already. Obviously, because society would have us believe that college boys are out for one thing, and one thing only: sexual conquest. So don’t turn your back while in college, girls — all your frat boy classmates are out to rape you!

Jesus.

I’ll discuss this issue with Jon (who will likely be the source of some fantastic dissent) and Phil on tomorrow night’s show, and also talk about why, even though Ms. Dickinson should have her job, computer, and journalism degree revoked immediately, the issue is not quite as black-and-white as I made it sound here.

We told you you’d be getting three flavors of pain, and we were serious. Let the free flow of information commence!