But that's nothing. I don't care if you cover your cereal with Metroid-shaped bananas and have Donkey Kong pee milk on it. You weren't a true NES fan unless you bought the $19.95 Secret Video Game Tricks, Codes, & Strategies videocassette tape hosted by "Jim and Donn." I know you think twenty dollars is a lot for a half hour video with tips on 5 or 6 games, but that's why you grew up watching WKRP in Cincinnatti and not saving princesses. Twenty dollars was nothing. We spent fifty dollars for Deadly Towers and hundreds of other games that were so bad they made us fear electricity.

And yes. On the cover of the video, holding the sword: Fabio. The Fabio.

*Recent studies do not indicate that jumpsuits increase video game performance. However, these studies show that if you put on a video game team jumpsuit, you might as well take off your genitals.

You'll notice right off that the Video Game Team members aren't very good at video games. And they don't make up for it with good broadcasting skills. If they're not reading to you from the instruction manual in fragmented sentences, they're awkwardly breathing hard into the microphone while they play. After 30 minutes of the video, you learn as much about Nintendo as you do from bathroom graffiti but without all the clever rhyming. I don't know how they got this job, I'm guessing they must be best friends with the janitor that donated his mop closet for the set. The whole damn thing is like letting a friend play your Nintendo badly with their feet. Only they don't talk, you hate them, and they're dressed like an insane housepainter.

Jim gives us a thumbs up as if to say, "It's A-OK that you're in my secret base! Thumbs up for Nintendo! Thumbs up for YOU!"

After that, they turn off his microphone and he plays silently for a few levels. He doesn't do anything helpful. In fact, he spends almost all his time headbutting bullets and shooting friendly hostages with a flame thrower. He doesn't speak again until level nine when he says, "To get to the tenth and final round of guerilla war, you must first fight through level 9."

"Level Nine? What the fuck happened to Level Ten? ...Oooooooh."

Later he added, "be sure to breathe through your nose and not your ear to avoid asphyxiation." I hear he's doing a love advice column now where he gives tips like, "To attain a life of celibacy, concentrate on finding a video game champion jumpsuit. Pull the front zipper UP to attain the closed jumpsuit." Look, I know all of the government funding and fantastic parking places you can get by hiring the handicapped, but please don't dress them up in uniforms and send them off to teach kids how to play Nintendo.

Donn, not giving a fuck so hard, it's burning calories.

Here's a special tip to win, straight from the masters: "In the hospital scene concentrate on picking up the supplies while avoiding the patients." This tip is really unfair to the kids that couldn't afford to buy the tape. Think of the advantage they would have with someone reading the game's instructions to them from their VCR. You don't think that would help that much!? What if I reminded you that the person stuttering at them was wearing a JUMPSUIT.

And if you doubt them, they're fucking out of here. They've got bitches waiting in the car.

Later in the tape, they follow up with this tip: "If your Nintendo-compatible video game system is not working, first check to see if the power in your parent's basement is ON. Use the "DOOR LOCK" to keep the parents from walking in on you while you hump your Nintendo-compatible cartridge."

And that's how Rygar was conceived.

Keep in mind that when this tape came out, we didn't have mute buttons on our remotes. If we did, we'd miss out on the end to this tip: "Press the Start Button to UNpause. The enemy boss is destroyed." As an extra help, they zoom in on their controller to show us exactly HOW to press the Start Button. You will seriously want to punch your country's National Video Game Team in the ear after this tape, and anyone that says differently is either lying or doesn't have hands.

"Here to explain the process of pushing UP, controller expert James Henkle."

While supergamer Jim is showing us how to do this complicated trick, he runs his player up and down the field and around in circles for a few minutes. It's confusing why they showed this already, but then it gets worse. While he's doing it, a video of his face gets inset on the screen. I don't know why they did it. Were they trying to make children cry, or did they just want to make it very clear that he wasn't enjoying himself? A football player running aimlessly in circles, a close up of a half dead mutant kid staring at a game he hates... it's like East German surrealistic filmmaking meets the production values of a local used car commercial.

He doesn't actually say it out loud, but someone watching the tape will say this for him: "Duhhhhh..."

Then he doesn't do it right again. Then again. And again. By four screw ups it starts to reach a hilarious point. By five the laughter stops and it turns tragic. When six happens, it gets unbelievable, but by seven straight failed "killer throws" it gets to that point where he seems retarded enough to need a hug for trying. I don't know why they didn't edit this out, and I don't know why the U.S. video game teamer was having trouble with hitting one button correctly. All I know is that I hope he has another National title for something he's actually good at. He is a groundbreaking artist, this is the first How-To tape I've seen where the person giving the instruction openly can't even come close to doing what he's helping us with.

Even in victory, his teammates are ashamed.

The final screen invites us to send in our own hint. I can't imagine what they didn't cover, but if you think you have something for their next video let them know.

If this Video Was a Saturday Night Live Skit: It would be one of the painful ones thrown on at the end about a character with something hilariously wrong with them that starts with a jingle about them. Something like "Mr. Can't Make Change! This week's episode: Mr. Can't Make Change gets a job as a store clerk!" WAH-WAH-WAAAAAAAH

Yeah, they pretty much all work.

As far as the lame video tapes - Our boss calls us up and sends us to the studio with a box full of games. No real clue what we're there for. There was no script and as you mentioned absolutely no editing (I guess they thought it would be fun to show us play from start to finish). I mean we did have to play up to certain levels and show the trick, but instead of just showing the trick they included all the footage for some unknown reason, which was lame. And if you thought those suits were god awful, you should have seen the other ones they had for us, holy cow were they bad.

Thanks again,

Donn Nauert

PS. My name is Donnell, hence the extra "n", hehe

Sometimes at the end of a movie or a show, they'll have funny outtakes like flubbed lines, one of the actors hitting the other one in the crotch with a pie, or Jackie Chan cracking his face open on the front of a moving train they lit on fire. At the end of the Video Game Team's videos, they smash together whatever the fuck they have on tape. In this case, it's three nerdy kids acting like they're seeing something amazing off camera. In fact, one's so amazed he has to pantomime wiping sweat off his forehead.

Incidentally, he had the exact same reaction when he saw his first real life boob. At age 37.

I think they're probably amazed that the Guinness Book actually gives a fuck about video game high scores, but like Donn showed in his letter, every single time I come up with a theory about the US Video Game Team, I'm completely wrong. Also in this video: team member JIM! whines incoherently about how he screwed up his Double Dragon tip and a useful hint on how you can fuck up your Nintendo by yanking a game out while it's still on.

I wish I was joking.