The D-Pad
"And this... is The D-Pad." Cue music.
The D-Pad is a weekly hour-long video game podcast starring Rick Desilets, John Selig, and Nick Bebel, with recurring guests Holly Fletcher, C/J Haley, and Dan Suitor. It debuted in April 2011 as a spinoff of the Open Lounge podcast. Turns out they were the fourth podcast called "The D-Pad", and hadn't noticed.
While the show is primarily geared toward video games, it also spends time on movies, television, music, and pop culture in general. The podcast got off to a good start, but suffered a failure to launch after a major special guest for the second episode[1] was suddenly unable to appear, leaving the show without much of a fanbase, whom the hosts now refer to as "The Threes" (see Fan Community Nicknames below).
In the beginning, there were extra features on the website including R-Rated (uncensored movie reviews), Game Over (articles calling out individuals or groups), and Live from the Brown Carpet (awards show liveblog, also the only one still going in 2012). A staple of the show since the Summer 2011 has been Let's Plays, which are arguably the biggest draw of the series in 2012. Originally just a series of specials for the 20th anniversary of the release of Sonic the Hedgehog, the series' popularity led to over 20 hours (and counting) of videos online.
Recent additions to the format include the segments Nick Bebel's Video Game Short List (Nick reviewing games new and old) and Putting Our Guests to the Test (having guests and hosts alike record a course time in the Super Mario Kart course Mario Circuit 2).
As of May 2020, their original website is long-defunct, but a Wayback Machine archive of it can be found here. They have a Discord server and a Patreon page. They're also on Twitter and YouTube.
You game?
The D-Pad Let's Play has featured the following video games:
- 5 Days a Stranger
- Kirby Super Star (see Missing Episode below)
- Kirby's Return to Dream Land (incomplete, for now)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (in-progress)
- Pokémon: Hard Mode
- Pokémon FireRed Version (in-progress, as Let's Play Pokémon Hard Mode: FireRed VS LeafGreen!, with in-character blog [dead link] )
- Sonic the Hedgehog
- Sonic the Hedgehog CD
- Sonic the Hedgehog 2
- Sonic the Hedgehog 3 & Knuckles
- Knuckles Chaotix
- Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode I (sort of, see Epic Fail below)
- Sonic Generations
- Super Metroid[2]
- Tecmo Super Bowl 2012 (as Let's Predict Super Bowl XLVI! Tecmo got it wrong.)
- Upcoming[when?] Let's Plays (according to the podcast's second season premiere) include:
- 7 Days a Skeptic
- Dark Souls
- Kirby Super Star (to be re-recorded)
- Kirby's Return to Dream Land (to be continued)
- The Legend of Zelda: Skyward Sword (to be continued)
- Mari0
- Pokémon: Hard Mode
- Pokémon LeafGreen Version (beginning soon as Let's Play Pokémon Hard Mode: FireRed VS LeafGreen!)
- Quest 64
- Rayman Origins
- Sonic Week II
- Super Smash Land
- Wonder Boy in Monster World
Tropes used in The D-Pad include:
The D-Pad
- Ad Bumpers: Nearly every episode opens with a brief bumper for older-sister program Open Lounge.
- All There in the Manual: Well... sort of [dead link] . [3]
- As You Know: Turns up anytime the hosts want to convey news to the audience which they already know themselves.
- Beginner's Luck: Rick had never put together a March Madness bracket before 2011, then proceeds to beat the rest of the pack by a mile. Naturally, when it came time for Fantasy Football, he took dead last.
- Berserk Button: The Wii is not two GameCubes taped together.
- Billboard: The top of the website has a rotating banner, usually showing the latest podcast episode, any Let's Plays in progress, and the premiere episode.
- Bonus Episode: Early on, an extra episode was marked as a "Bonus Stage" which featured Rick and Nick enduring a one-hour cake race.
- Bonus Material: R-Rated, Game Over, and Live from the Brown Carpet. Also The D-Pad Let's Play, which seems to be taking on a life of its own.
- Booze-Based Buff: Somehow, Rick's drunk lap of Mario Circuit 2 gave him the fastest times on the show thus far, even though he wasn't exclusively in first sober.
- Butt Monkey: Rick made the mistake of saying in an early episode that he used a Google spreadsheet to keep track of his progress in Pokémon Black Version. John and Nick have reminded him about this in nearly every episode since.
- Rick finally responded by just putting a visual representation [dead link] of it online, deciding it's better just to own it and run with it rather than fight it.
- City Shout Outs: To Worcester, Massachusetts, where the show is normally recorded. Also occasionally to Somerville, MA; Providence, RI; and New Haven, CT.
- Crossover: Occasionally the hosts of Open Lounge appear on The D-Pad, and vice versa.
- Cranks up to Bat Family Crossover when five of the six hosts appeared in The D-Pad's debut episode.
- Documentary Episode: "Safe Haven" [dead link] follows Two-Bit Pictures through the 48 Hour Film Project in New Haven, CT.
- Drinking Game: Every tenth episode features a drinking game you can play with the hosts. The hosts usually have a drink or three while recording, but these specials usually crank it Up to Eleven.
- Episode 10: "Highway to the Danger Zone" [dead link] invites the audience to join the hosts in a Power Hour.
- Episode 20: "Volume Up" [dead link] has the hosts volume-chugging from two-liter fishbowls.
- Episode 30: "Waddle Dre" [dead link] was played a bit looser, as the group had been drinking heavily already (see Missing Episode below).
- Episode 40: "Thor's Hammered" [dead link] features a game of Edward Fortyhands. Followed by a drunk lap in Super Mario Kart.
- Drunken Master: Rick claims to be good at video games sober, but substantially better when drunk. Recent feats include setting the lap/course records for Mario Circuit 2 and performing "Master Exploder" on expert guitar and vocals flawlessly.
- Fan Community Nicknames: The hosts referred to their (questionably existent) fanbase originally as their "threes upon threes of fans", now better known as simply "The Threes".
- Gag Censor: In the (increasingly rare) event that something needs to be censored, it's often replaced by a sound effect from a classic 8-bit game.
- Heterosexual Life Partners: All three hosts, most prominently Rick and Nick.
- Hey, It's That Sound: When an episode goes to its Pause Break, a Mario coin sound effect is heard.
- Iconic Logo: Justified in that the podcast's logo is based on the NES's own D-Pad. It is, however, the only Podsmiths product that uses a logo in place of a font.
- Intermission: Every episode features a few-minute "pause break" with musical interlude.
- Let's Play: Originally just a bonus while the podcast celebrated Sonic Week in June 2011, it soon became a staple of the website experience.
- Live Episode: "We're Doing It Live!" [dead link] , a live half-hour episode recorded with an audience at ImprovBoston's Geek Week Festival.
- Mascot: For a brief time Nick's chinchilla, Zooey, was an unofficial mascot of the podcast.
- Multi-Part Episode: Sonic Week consists of Act 1 [dead link] , Act 2 [dead link] , and six Let's Plays in-between.
- Never Trust a Trailer: The loudly touted R-Rated Retro (or RRR), a review series celebrating games' and systems' 20th anniversaries, never materialized (though Word of God states there is a replacement series being prepared for 21sts instead.)
- "On the Next...": Played straight in early episodes, but after a few too many big episodes fell through before they could be recorded it became a frequent lampshade. It made a comeback at the end of their first year.
- Our Slogan Is Terrible: Somehow, the show always seems to end with one of the hosts suggesting it's time to "shoot the dog".[4]
- Thankfully, their actual ad slogan is the much more appropriate "You game?"
- Please Subscribe to Our Channel: At the start and end of most episodes.
Nick: It's game over, man! Game over! Now go level up at Podsmiths.com."
- Podcast: At its heart, it's still basically this.
- Freudian Trio: The hosts, in various forms:
- Big, Thin, Short Trio: Rick is Big, John is Thin, Nick is Short.
- Chromatic Arrangement: Rick is green, John is red, Nick[5] is blue. A subtle Shout-Out to Something Remote, a movie/webseries featuring Rick, John, and C/J as a chromatically-arranged Comic Trio. Speaking of which...
- Comic Trio: Rick is the navigator, John is the Only Sane Man, and Nick is the driver.
- Freudian Trio: Rick is The Superego, John is The Ego, and Nick is The Id
- Frequently joined by C/J Haley and Holly Fletcher.
- Right on the Tick: Every new episode comes out at exactly 12 noon. Even when it didn't.
- Running Gag: Plenty.
- Most episodes begin with Rick giving the audience a tired "Heyyyyy, everybody." The others noticed.
- Likewise, episodes usually end with someone saying it's time to "shoot the dog".
- Rick and his spreadsheets, just about Once Per Episode.
- Sequel Episode: "Retcon + Cats" [dead link] featured guest Christopher Osborn talking about the book he was working on. A few months later, he returned in "A Gran Grimoire" [dead link] to plug the now-completed Easily-Distracted Tales.
- The Shill: Averted hard. Usually the hosts waste no time ripping into the Podsmiths when the subject comes up.
- Though every episode starts with them proudly affiliating themselves with Podsmiths and Two-Bit Pictures.
- Shout-Out: Quite a few, including about a month of references to Ben Drowned after Rick showed it to the others.
- The show's ad bumper on Open Lounge ends with Rick asking "You game?"
- The show's intro always ends with "and this... is The D-Pad".
- Most episodes end with the hosts "shooting the dog".
- At the start of the show's second season, Rick mentioned that the podcast is in the same spirit as (and in many ways inspired by) Top Gear.
- The new "Putting Our Guest to the Test" segment is an homage to "Star in a Reasonably-Priced Car".
- Significant Reference Date: The podcast began the day after Rick's 24th birthday.
- The following year, the show "rebooted" with a more structured format, and the addition of Good News, Bad News, Bebel's Short List, and Putting Our Guests to the Test as official segments of the show.
- Sound to Screen Adaptation: Word of God states this is the ultimate goal of the show. The D-Pad Let's Play is a checkpoint.
- Stealth Pun: The D-Pad's website is dpadup.com. Every other account? downrightdpad.
- The site's logo (both the full and short versions) uses a stylized NES D-Pad.
- Super Bowl Special: Subverted in the podcast...
- At barely half an hour, the podcast episode "Superb Owl" is the shortest episode in the show's history by nearly a factor of three.
- Suspiciously Specific Denial: Obviously Rick and Nick were chugging 40s during the 40th episode special and not just an equivalent volume and alcohol content. What do you mean, a forty doesn't sound like that?
- Title Drop: Inverted. Most episodes take their titles from a particularly funny quote from the audio itself.
- Two-Act Structure: Early on, the first act was more structured and the second act was played more loosely.
- We Don't Suck Anymore: A pretty frequent suggestion by the hosts, especially Rick. And then the show went on an unexpected three-month hiatus.
The D-Pad Let's Play
- Affectionate Parody: The start of several Let's Plays features an edited or remade intro from the game itself.
- Bat Family Crossover: Three of the four Open Lounge presenters appear along with the three The D-Pad hosts in 5 Day a Stranger.
- Berserk Button: Using the Walk command in 5 Days a Stranger:
Rick: DON'T USE THE FEET! Don't use the FUCKING FEET!
- Immediately lampshaded by John in the only area where you have to use the feet to leave.
- Butt Monkey: Tails.
- Completely Missing the Point: During 5 Days a Stranger, John looks at the DeFoe Manor map to see what's there that he hadn't encountered before...
John: So, front yard, tomb... first floor, second floor... this little path right here?
- Epic Fail: During Sonic the Hedgehog 4, Rick repeatedly insists he tested his video recording software ahead of time. So naturally, when they try to record... they find themselves trying to play at roughly one frame per second. Bring on Knuckles Chaotix!
- And when the video was finally uploaded? It plays exactly the way it was supposed to. See for yourself.
- Friendly Rivalry: Rick and C/J are both self-proclaimed fan-experts on the Mega Man, Sonic, and Zelda series, but will argue over anything. Let's Plays of any of these games crank it over to Rivals Team Up.
- Interface Screw: During 5 Days a Stranger the laptop cursor is stuck in the center of the screen for the duration, and the game cursor tweaks out at random.
- Late to the Party: In Sonic the Hedgehog, Rick and John discuss their annoyance at being told months after the fact that a film they were in, Something Remote, finally got distribution. Cue C/J, the film's lead...
C/J: Oh, Something Remote got distribution?
- Let's Play: One of the newer, jankier Let's Play groups. At the end of March 2012, there are 12 LPs and over 100 individual videos totaling 22 hours of video.
- Missing Episode: The group recorded roughly half of a Let's Play of Kirby Super Star (while drinking heavily). Sadly, because the emulator recorded only the button presses and not the video itself, the exact playthrough could not be replicated and recorded.
- Mood Whiplash: The first four episodes of 5 Days a Stranger feature the hosts joking around about the camp nature of the game. Until Day Three. John starts taking it a bit more seriously after getting properly creeped out by an 8-bit game.
- An even faster example occurs in the middle of a sentence in this video.
John (reading Matthew DeFoe's diary): I found a new friend. He is behind the door in the kitchen and he doesn't have a name.
- Multi-Part Episode: Every Let's Play is split between anywhere from two to twenty-two parts.
- Never Trust a Trailer: 7 Days a Skeptic (advertised at the end of Sonic Generations) has been shelved to make way for Rick and John's competitive playthroughs of Pokémon FireRed and LeafGreen.
- New Meat: When possible, the hosts make sure a given game's Let's Player has never played it before. Played for Laughs in situations like 5 Days a Stranger where John has trouble controlling it at all.
- Please Subscribe to Our Channel: The end of most videos features reminders of the group's presence on various social networking sites.
- Schmuck Bait: "Touch the fire!"
- Scrappy Mechanic: Walljumping in Super Metroid. An entire 15-minute episode has the whole party struggling and ultimately failing to use the move. The LP was cancelled shortly after for being too much of a pain in the ass to play.
- Walking downstairs in 5 Days a Stranger
- Shout-Out: Even more here than in the podcast itself.
- Rick is a big The Adventures of Duane and BrandO fan, singing lyrics along with the Final Zone theme.
- At the start of 5 Days a Stranger, John and Rick talk about the various things Australia has to offer. Like Rocko.[6]
- Later on, Rick refers to Sir Roderick as "Sir RamRod".
- When The Waitress shows up, John notes The D-Pad and Open Lounge are crossing streams.
- Rick refers to Matthew DeFoe's diary as The Secret World of Alex Mack.
- Significant Reference Date: Sonic Week was made to include the 20th anniversary of the first game's release.
- 5 Days a Stranger started on July 28th.
- Sound to Screen Adaptation: In a manner of speaking.
- Super Bowl Special: ...but played straight in the Let's Play.
- Let's Predict Super Bowl XLVI! replaced the usual Skyward Sword uploads for two weeks. It helps that the show is recorded in Patriot Nation. It didn't, however, help the Pats win the Super Bowl.
- Tempting Fate: Rick says pretty early on in 5 Days a Stranger that there is no point where the game doesn't in some way direct you to the solution. Cue twenty minutes trying to figure out that the game wouldn't let John continue because he didn't read the newspaper.
- What the Hell Is That Accent?: John has trouble with his Australian Accent.
I AM JOHN MOTHERFUCKING GODDAMN SELIG
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- (later revealed to be NintendoFanGirl)
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- given up after spending an entire episode struggling with the game's Scrappy Mechanic]]
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- It's an Affectionate Parody of the So Bad Its Horrible instruction manual for Kung Fu.]]
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- Not to be confused with Shooting the Dog.
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- or C/J
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- Also Yahtzee.
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