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30 for 50: Celebrating Five Years of Listings

This was the first list where my #1 didn't make it. Lost doesn't get a lot of love these days, but Ben Linus is still a fantastic villain.
 

Falselogic

Lapsed Threadcromancer
(they/them)
Was the winner like Cesar Romero Joker? Or was it maybe Batman Animated mark Hamill Joker? Cause those are literally the only good Jokers.

Every other Joker is bad.
 

WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
It was all Jokers so it can be Romero or Hamill for you if you like haha
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Was the winner like Cesar Romero Joker? Or was it maybe Batman Animated mark Hamill Joker? Cause those are literally the only good Jokers.

Every other Joker is bad.

Disagree. Michael McKean did a Joker in an episode of the animated series in the style of the 1950s. Try again.
 

Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
I love what Marvel Comics did to justify Vader going down easy to the end - he does tend to get his butt kicked (in part because he's reckless with rage), but he Just. Won't. Give. Up. More than one battle ends up with him with his limbs off pulling off a win at the last minute. So his arm being cut off in Jedi was just a flesh wound, but this was the one fight he didn't want to win.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Hmm, looks like I had Sauron at #1. Though my #2, Jareth the Goblin King, is more fun. Followed up by Azula, Kefka, and Char, and then my first one that didn't make the top 50, Delita Hyral. Actually my whole list for this one, especially lower down, is pretty interesting and I remember almost none of it, heh.
 

Dracula

Plastic Vampire
(He/His)
I was gonna say. Vader doesn't really "go down easy." He's only outmatched by his trained space wizard son who's been trying to talk him down from fighting. Then Vader gets zapped full of evil space necromancer lightning. And I had a lot of money riding on that fight, too!

Anyway I wish I hadn't missed some of these. Robots, cartoons, villains, man those sounded like a lot of fun. Can we just do some of these again???
 
#12: Blast [Processing] To The Past - Talking Time’s Top 50 16-Bit Games
Ran from November 10th, 2016 to December 2nd, 2016
Host: Positronic Brain
Top 16-Bit Game (& Knuckles): Chrono Trigger

Selected Entry:

33. Sonic 3 & Knuckles
Released for Genesis on October 18, 1994 (US)

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Score: 70 points
Rated the highest by: Beta Metroid & Madhair60 but not Knuckles
Genre: Side-scrolling platformer & Knuckles.
90s factor: Required add on & Knuckles.
Playable characters: Sonic, Tails & Knuckles.

You know, I was afraid of how many people would vote for Sonic 3 & Knuckles or Sonic & Knuckles and dilute the vote... but turns out that dilution was negligible, so that solved itself nicely.

For the young people out there - there was a time where add-ons or accessories were considered to be "cool" (or at least weren't derided). And every now and then somebody would come with something to justify that notion. And Sonic & Knuckles was one of these.

Sonick & Knuckles was a stand-alone game that featured something amazing at the time: Lock-On Technology. Unlike other Sega's buzzwords *cough!*blast processing*cough* there was something about this one: you could "lock" Sonic 3 above Sonic & Knuckles, and that would enable you to play both games under the title Sonic 3 & Knuckles, letting you use Knuckles in Sonic 3 or Tails in Sonic & Knuckles. The resulting game is considered to be the definitive version of both games.

What I found amazing about Lock-On was that it worked with Sonic 2, and it powered a lot of fantasies in my young mind. Imagine the possibilities! Maybe adding new playable characters to Super Mario World? Or letting you play extra dungeons in Zelda? Rumors that new games were planning to use something similar floated around, but never materialized, and the death of the cartridge meant also the death of Lock On.

Just as well, I guess. While the possibilities of adding content to old games were fun to ponder, maybe it would have ended in a bad place, what with the greed videogame companies could show every now and then. Maybe they would have ended me charging $30 for a cartridge that only added a new saddle for Yoshi or something.

Bonus points for being the one indispensable game in the Sega Tower of Shame Power.

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Positronic score:



Graphics
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Fun Factor
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& Knuckles
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WildcatJF

Let's Pock (Art @szk_tencho)
(he / his / him)
Super Metroid was my #1 but Chrono Trigger's was my #2, haha. And that has not changed, although all the Minis have broadened my 16-bit scope and appreciation a lot, so I'd probably have a pretty different list now than in 2016.
 

Dracula

Plastic Vampire
(He/His)
Man I just played through S3&K this week! And watched a lil video on the history of its development. Really interesting stuff.
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
I remember that for this one, I made a list that specifically excluded any "major" titles— no Mario, Sonic, Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy or whatnot— and stuck to relatively more obscure titles. That was fun to put together. I think Terranigma was my #1.
 
I remember that for this one, I made a list that specifically excluded any "major" titles— no Mario, Sonic, Zelda, Metroid, Final Fantasy or whatnot— and stuck to relatively more obscure titles. That was fun to put together. I think Terranigma was my #1.

That's a good #1!

I was super predictable. My top 2 was the same as the list's. I did help Secret of Evermore squeak onto the Top 50, which was great. Such an underrated game.
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
That's a good #1!
Yeah, I should say that, even without any self-imposed restriction, Terranigma would easily be in my top five, and even have a shot at #1— I love it dearly. That's why the list was so fun: even limiting what I could choose, I never felt like I was "settling" for lesser games, and I felt really positive about the list I submitted. That generation was just overflowing with great games!
 
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Positronic Brain

Out Of Warranty
(He/him)
This was my first Top 50 List! I had nominated Top 50 Robot Masters twice now, so I changed topics for the hell of it, and I honestly thought it wouldn't win because it was yet another videogame list. And then I found out how much work these lists are!

It was fun, though. I have a distinct memory of me in hotel rooms putting the list together and making those faces for every entry - I was traveling a lot that month, and I didn't have wi-fi in some places, so the whole list was made in a few days. But it gave me a lot of time to come up with some fake Top 5 entries that were really fun. I'm really fond of Night Trap's and Killer Instinct's.
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Yeah, the top of my list was super predictable for this one - Chrono, FFVI, LttP, SMW, SMetroid, etc... but hey, at the bottom I had Magic Knights RayEarth. :p (and Ecco and Metal Slug and Mario Paint and... Magical Drop?)
 
#13: Let’s Make A Big Song And Dance About Talking Time’s Top 50 Musical Numbers, Plus One
Ran from January 17th, 2017 to February 14th, 2017
Host: Büge
Top Showstopper: Let it Go (from Frozen)

Selected (by me) Entry:

2. Rainbow Connection
The Muppet Movie
Score: 164
Mentions: 6

When does it happen?
At the very beginning of the film, after they establish the framing device. Kermit is in his swamp, playing the song on his banjo.

Covered by whom?
The song's kind of a trademark Kermit musical number. He's sung it in multiple productions with other muppets and celebrities. However, Wikipedia has a list of artists that have covered the song independent of him:

The following artists have also covered the song:
  • Judy Collins, on the 1980 album Running for My Life
  • Kenny Loggins, on the 1994 album Return to Pooh Corner
  • Me First And The Gimme Gimmes, on the 1999 album Are a Drag
  • Willie Nelson, on the 2001 album Rainbow Connection
  • Sarah McLachlan, for the 2002 compilation album For the Kids
  • The Dixie Chicks, for the 2004 compilation album Mary Had a Little Amp
  • Weezer and Hayley Williams, for the 2011 compilation album Muppets: The Green Album
  • Jim Brickman, on the 2012 instrumental album Piano Lullabies
  • Gwen Stefani, for the 2015 compilation album We Love Disney
  • Todd Smith, as "El-Creepo!", on the 2016 album Bellissimo!
 
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Musical Numbers was a really cool departure from the usual fare in these, and Büge's entries were awesome as is, but things really hit high gear aroud halfway through when Bulgakov started dropping knowledge.

My #1 again didn't place (America from West Side Story). My #2 did, though (Uncle Fucker from the South Park movie). I forgot Rainbow Connection on my list somehow. If I had remembered it, it probably would have been #1 on this list because I would have had it pretty high on mine.

Two other things: Büge's list here was the first one to adopt the now standard 35-11 point model, and while Octo started the Joke #1s, 16-Bit Games and Musical Numbers are the two contests that codified the tradition.
 

conchobhar

What's Shenmue?
while Octo started the Joke #1s, 16-Bit Games and Musical Numbers are the two contests that codified the tradition.
Yeah, I was looking through some of the old lists several months back, and was surprised to see that people were initially hostile to the joke #1. You'd see reactions like "Oh my god, we're doing this again?" or "Are you done? Can we finish the list now?". And now it's a beloved tradition!
 

Kirin

Summon for hire
(he/him)
Oh man, I'd forgotten about this one. My #1 didn't make the list on this one... I'll admit Magic Dance isn't a big showstopper but I had to rep my favorite movie with songs in. And while I did have Rainbow Connection on my list, but my top entry from the same movie was Can You Picture That, 'cause it's just a jam. Other fun things on my list that didn't make it were Chim Chim Cheree, the Dentist song from Little Shop of Horrors, Everybody from Blues Brothers, and ... Where There's a Whip There's a Way.
 

Daikaiju

Rated Ages 6+
(He, Him)
Musicals was kinda weird for me, in a good way. While they're not exactly my favorite genre, I've never had as many hits with my votes as I have in that one.
 

Johnny Unusual

(He/Him)
Rainbow Connection and, more often, I'm Going to Go Back There Some Day are my go to lullabies for my niece and nephew. I remember hearing Paul Williams talking about how he wrote the latter without a scene and convinced Jim Henson to write stuff just to get that song into the movie.

 
#14: Understanding Comics: Talking Time’s Top 50 in Visual Storytelling
Ran from February 22nd, 2017 to March 30th, 2017
Host: Kirin
Top Picture with Word Balloons: Calvin and Hobbes

Selected Entry:

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BY5QaF0.png

#2 The Sandman
Mentions: 13, Points: 295
Writer: Neil Gaiman, Artists: Sam Kieth, Mike Dringenberg, Michael Zulli, Charles Vess, Jill Thompson, P Craig Russell, Mike Allred, J H Williams III, Yoshitaka Amano, and many others; covers by Dave McKean
Genre: wikip. sez "Dark Fantasy"; also horror, mythology, etc
Publication: 75-issue series 1989-1996, plus several mini-series and stand-alone books
Rank trivia: With the same # of mentions and # of first ranks, this barely edged out Bone thanks to three 2nd-place ranks.
Everything changes: but nothing is truly lost.

The Sandman is, overall, the story of Dream of the Endless, a group of immortal personifications also including Destiny, Death, Desire, Despair, Destruction and Delirium (nee Delight). It is also many, many other stories.

The work started out as more of a horror book firmly placed within the larger DC universe, with appearances from the likes of John Constantine, Etrigan, and even the Justice League. The original Sandman, a pulp detective character from Golden Age DC, also cameos; Dream is a very different being, but occasionally carries over some of his iconography like the use of sand and a gasmask. From there, the story becomes very much is own thing with only tenous ties to DC continuity.

I'm at a bit of a loss to provide any summary as the series is about so many things, but the overall arc is one of owning one's own mistakes - themes of responsibility and rebirth figure heavily in many different contexts.

The Sandman was a huge cult success as well as a breakout property for DC, attracting tons of new readers to the medium and launching Gaiman's career as (somewhat to his own befuddlement) a goth icon, as well as a master storyteller of modern mythologies. The mean series had several follow-ups over the years, including two mini-series focused on Death, The Dream Hunters (a collaboration between Gaiman and Yoshitaka Amano), Endless Nights (a collection with each chapter focussing on another member of the Endless with several high-profile artists), and most recently Sandman: Overture, a gorgeous prequel miniseries. There's also been several spinoffs written by other authors: anthologies called The Dreaming and Taller Tales, manga-style Death books by Jill Thompson, and an entire 75-issue series on Lucifer by Mike Carey.

Getting your hands on The Sandman can prove a bit daunting at this point - the original trade paperbacks aren't individually expensive, but there's ten of them. Sometimes you can find a good deal. (You can also get them digitally but it's looks like they're still around $13/volume.) If for some reason money is no object, the newer 5-volume Absolute editions are gorgeous. There's also a massive 2-volume Omnibus edition.

Sandman and its spinoffs put together have evidently racked up over 26 Eisners.

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