If you follow me on Instagram (and really, why wouldn’t you?), you’ve probably seen me post shots of action figures hanging around a model Asteroids arcade cabinet. Years ago I posted about those G.I. Joe-scale arcades and I ordered one myself from EMDKay.net.

Well, I was having so much fun with my Asteroids cabinet that I wanted to get more of these awesome model arcade cabs, and I knew I had to have the TMNT model. I also figured that you all would be stoked to get a chance to win one yourselves, so when I placed my order I asked about hosting a giveaway, and they were for it.

If you haven’t seen these, they’re incredibly detailed models of actual arcade games from the 80s and 90s. They are to G.I. Joe scale, but they work really well with lots of different action figures, including Ninja Turtles. EMDKay has a crazy-huge selection and eventually I want them all, but for now I’m just glad to finally be able to take meta photos of the Turtles playing their own game.
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If you listened to this week’s episode of Bubble Pipe Theater, you’ll hear me mention a mystery arcade game that my Dad use to have in the Noble Roman’s pizza shop he ran when I was a kid. For years I’ve been trying to remember what this game was called, and hadn’t been able to find anything online about it. All I could remember is that it starred the three little pigs, and that you fought the Big Bad Wolf by throwing junk at him.

After the podcast, I dug around a bit more, and I finally tracked it down (thanks to a thread on Giant Bomb), and it’s called Pig Out: Dine Like a Swine!.

Now, I still consider this a nostalgic victory, but file this under things-I-remember-being-awesome-that-turn-out-to-actually-be-pretty-lame. The gameplay looks horrible, and with those damn pigs constantly yelling “Mine!” it’s hard telling how I ever forgot this game in the first place.

This time around on Bubble Pipe Theater, Rob, Tim, and Tommy discuss the NikeMag Back For the Future benefit auctions (read: pricey sneakers), the Star Wars Blu-rays (again), fictional technology we’d like to see in real life, the Walt Disney Family Museum, arcade nostalgia, Wii hacking, our current obsessions, and more.

Thanks in part to all the people who put Transformers 2 over $200 million in five days, Hollywood now officially thinks that the public will only accept films based on pre-sold franchises. We’ve all heard how there will be movies based on Monopoly, Candyland, Stretch Armstrong, and Battleship, but now they’re digging into the classic video game archives, starting with Asteroids.

I see what they’re trying to do. Kids from the 70s are now all grown up and have kids of their own, so why not try and tap that market? Soon enough we’ll be seeing trailers for Centipede, Pole Position, and Pitfall.

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