🐲 Pokémon: The Little Monsters that Played Their Cards Right

The Best One Yet

Nick & Jack Studios

News, Business

4.7 • 9.5K Ratings

🗓️ 2 August 2025

⏱️ 10 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/

What do you get when you mix a passion for collecting bugs with an obsession for video games? For Satoshi Tajiri, the answer is the world's largest media franchise (over $92 billion revenue — more than Star Wars and Harry Potter combined). Tajiri dreamed up a new kind of video game: one built not just on battling monsters, but trading them. What followed was a full-blown cultural takeover with TV shows, trading cards (global market value $6 billion), more video games, and so much merch. Find out how Pikachu got his spark, why there was fierce debate over America’s cuteness threshold, how Pokémon Go took over your smartphone — and why Pokémon (our MOST requested episode to date) is the best idea yet.

Subscribe to The Best Idea Yet for the untold origin stories of the products you’re obsessed with — and the bold risk takers who made them go viral.

Episodes drop every Tuesday, listen here: https://wondery.com/links/the-best-idea-yet/

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Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Yeties, Nick and Jack here with you from the T-Boy Studio.
0:03.0	We recently did an episode on our weekly show, The Best Idea Yet, about Pokemon.
0:08.0	Pokemon, the untold origin story of Pokemon, the biggest franchise of all time.
0:13.0	Get this.
0:14.0	Pokemon has generated more revenue than Harry Potter and Star Wars.
0:19.0	Come by!
0:20.0	Never gets old.
0:21.6	So far this year, Pokemon is actually the most requested topic by you for us to dig into.
0:27.4	So we did it.
0:28.2	And you know what?
0:29.0	That episode became our most listened to yet.
0:31.8	Jack, it's also our most engaged with yet.
0:33.9	Like, we've gotten more comments on this episode than any of the other 40 we've produced.
0:39.1	I can't believe it, but Pokemon has beaten Costco as our best episode ever. So we wanted to share
0:44.4	it with the T-boy audience here. So besties, we're about to play a short clip from that episode,
0:49.0	and then you should go check out the entire thing. You can do that on the best idea yet,
0:53.8	our weekly deep dive episode.
0:55.5	So after this, go subscribe and follow The Best Idea Yet.
0:58.5	Your whole family is going to love it.
1:00.5	In the meantime, Jack, let's hit the tape.
1:09.0	This is 1989.
1:12.6	The games may be monochrome. Compared to your TV, the screen is tiny.
	...

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