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99% Invisible

The Worst Video Game Ever

99% Invisible

SiriusXM Podcasts and Roman Mars

Arts, Design

4.828.1K Ratings

🗓️ 28 January 2020

⏱️ 27 minutes

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Deep within the National Museum of American History’s vaults is a battered Atari case containing what’s known as “the worst video game of all time.”

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0

This is 99% invisible. I'm Roman Mars.

0:06.0

There are a few rules everyone should abide by to have a good life.

0:10.0

Always carry a book to read. Never get involved in a land war in Asia.

0:14.8

And always, always make friends with people

0:18.3

who work in museums.

0:20.3

Because there's the museum that everyone else gets to see, the exhibits, the dioramas, I love them all, don't get me wrong.

0:26.5

But behind the scenes, there's a whole cabinet of wonder that only a few people get to see.

0:33.0

And if you play your cards right, you can get an invitation to the real deal,

0:37.0

the Museum's Museum, full of archives and things neatly lined up in drawers with handwritten tags. A behind the scenes tour of a museum

0:46.0

is the greatest way to spend an afternoon. Bar not.

0:49.6

This is why I really enjoy the podcast, Cidor, produced by the Smithsonian Institute in DC and hosted by

0:55.7

Lizzie P. Body.

0:56.9

They feature stories from the more than 154 million treasures in the Smithsonian

1:01.8

Archives about art, science, and history.

1:05.5

This is my favorite episode of theirs.

1:07.2

It's a story of a video game.

1:08.7

People call it the worst video game of all time.

1:12.0

Based off one of the most popular movies of all time.

1:14.4

You're going to love it. I'll let Lizzy P. Body and Side Door take it from here. I'm part of a crowd of some four or 500 people waiting to get into a dump.

1:31.8

This is Howard Scott Warsaw and on April 26th, 2014 he was part of an unusual scene.

1:39.3

Something like a wildly out of place tailgate party. People lined up with folding chairs,

1:45.0

sun hats, beverages, in the middle of the New Mexico desert.

...

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