Sunday's one has Gannon and I fannying around with an electric shock lie detector. It goes about as well as any of our videos ever do.
Now read on for some important discussion about our follow-up to Digitiser The Show, and what we may - or may not - be doing next...
If you'd like to appear here, or you've something you'd like me to give some attention to in our occasional Plug Zone, or you've got a picture of a bin you wish to share, please send your filthy emails to this place here: digitiser2000@gmail.com
decided to get talktotransformer to write you a letter and for some reason I'm struggling to read this attempt without laughing...
Dear Mr Biffo
Biffo, what can I say? I'm impressed by you as a young man! You seem to have a lot of wisdom in this world. It's good to see young adventurers like yourself pursuing this line. Good luck with your venture, young man!
Scene #4: The Biffo Manor
Enter the Biffo Manor.
Scene #5: The Biffo Manor's Lobby
The Biffo Manor's lobby.
Scene #6: Biffo's Office
Enter Biffo's office.
Scene #7: On the First Floor
Inside the Biffo Manor.
Scene #8: Biffo's Study
Ceiling above Biffo's study.
Biffo's Study
On the third floor.
Scene #9: Room for Secret Studies
On the second floor.
Scene #10: Two Fights Over the Book
On the first floor.
Scene #11: B
Chris Young
When it says press start and actually you can press any button that irritates me for some reason. Just because pressing start to, well, start is traditional.
Press Menu on the Xbox and Options on the PS4 can do one though. It is and forever will be Start and Select for me. I even forgot Select used to be called Back on the 360. Back? That's the B button. B for back. Most games have B for back.
Oh and the Xbox button as I call it, or home button as you might say, is neither of those. It's - wait for it - the Nexus button! What!?
Deary me. At least Nintendo still has it right don't they? Start and Select on the Switch? I don't remember, but regardless that's what they're called. Also monsters that call a controller a remote. Controller, pad, or even game pad, I'll accept. But remote? Remotes are for the TV. My nephew says "remote". drives me bonkers.
Big Angry Dad82 (gamertag)
Hello!
You asked for Friday letters. I have nothing to say. As such: bum. Poo. Willy. Fanny. Also, I hope you have a wonderful, happy week that you really enjoy. You deserve it.
Chai
SCORE 0 of 500 Abandoned Airfield ? help
You are standing outside an abandoned warehouse on an airfield. It is raining slightly. A dark suited figure fumbles with his keys, and inserts a large bolt key into the four-inch-side padlock. Turning the key, the padlock and rusted chain fall away. The man pulls the massive roller door aside, decades of rust falling away from its hermetic seal. He beckons you forward, handing you the key.
You step into the gloom, eyes slowly adjusting to the dimness. Before you, a cavernous space, untouched for over two decades is filled with...?
Nick Walton
Good night, Elizabeth. Good night, Daddy.
Good night, Son. Good night, Mary Ellen.
Good night, Daddy. Good night, Mama.
Good night, Mary Ellen.
Good night, Mama.
Good night, Jim Bob.
Good night, Erin.
H e l l o Monsouir Beiffo!
Hope you're well! This week has been pretty boring aside from the v e r y interesting last few Digi-Minis. Thank you for those. Very interesting. Indeedles. Anyway! Yes. thanks.
MEANWHILE!!! The Barshens news kinda made me think about a lot of really unpleasant things. For example, I had a bit of an existential crisis about what'd happen if the same thing happened to Digi. I dunno how badly that'd affect me and others I know who are really Digi-bants-reliant. Hmmmmm... anyway, that's not something I should worry about for now. At least Stuart and Barry will still be collaborating!! :)
Right! The day this will be posted is a very spooky day! It's Friday the 13th, and that calls for some spooky questions! Even though it's... September... ok right questionionos!
1) If you had the choice to be the apprentice of any horror villain, who would you choose?
2) What's the best horror film you've seen? Also, what's the worst?
3) Favourite franchise of spooky films (Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Nightmare on Elm Street, Saw, etc.) ?
4) If you had the opportunity to become any monster, what would you be? (i.e. werewolf, vampire, Digi's comment section, etc.)
That's all from me this week, But I'll leave you with a meme that occurred... Last week I wrote about my friend Hayley being a madlad and doing Fortnite dances (give me strength...) at the classroom doors of the Woodmill High's third year classes (their school got set on fire - oof - and now they're stuck with us).
Well yesterday, my chemistry class were tasked with helping tidy up after a first year class, and she decided that since a Woodmill class was located across the corridor from us, she'd go wave a bunsen burner at their window. She received a punishment exercise and set it on fire two minutes later when we were left alone again. Madladdery at its finest...
Anyhoos, have a great weekend, Lord Biffin!
Asho (@catastroasho / @ashochu_exe)
1) I dunno any of your modern horror villains. Is Jaws a horror film villain? If so, I pick Jaws the Shark.
2) Again, not sure. I really liked Cabin in the Woods, but mainly because of the twist, which up-ended all the horror movie cliches. I sort of liked The Blair Witch Project. The Shining is good. Don't know if it counts as horror, but Silence of the Lambs was solid, and I liked that bit in the second one where Hannibal Lecter was feeding that guy his own brain, because it was funny. I didn't get the fuss around Get Out and Us, and couldn't stand the remake of It. If they count... Jaws and Alien.
3) I honestly don't have one. This is going well!
4) The Blob. Some would say it's already happened!!!!!!?!!!!! LOLOLOLOL.
Your friend Hayley needs to be locked up.
Dear Mr. Biffo
As for what Rockstar may do next, it looks like GTA 6 will be next. And as for where they'll set it, who knows? Tokyo has been rumoured, but personally, I'd like to see Rockstar get back to their roots, and do one set in the UK. One set in Scotland would be good.
They famously did a London 1969 one 20 years ago. That was great fun, where you could play as "Maurice Caine" or "Sid Vacant", (the latter being anachronistic, as punk didn't come along for another 6-7 years). Maybe an HD remake of that would work? If they are going to do something, they'll be waiting until the PS5 is good and ready to launch.
I had the first GTA and GTA London on the PC years ago, and I always preferred the latter game, with its 60's soundtrack ranging from Ska to bits from Spaghetti Western soundtracks, and the stereotypical Cockney clichés, like the gangsters based on real gangsters like the Kray Twins and that you could nick the Queen's Limo. As I said, the characters are a right rogue's gallery.
Back to RDR2, I've started adding my own soundtrack to certain scenes, like Ennio Morricone's Hateful Eight score for the snow bits, and in a baffling discovery I found by accident, I play the Rising Damp theme in the Saint Denis scenes. For some reason, that music suits the pretend New Orleans scenery. Try it and see.
Keep up the good work and I look forwards to seeing more videos!
Stuart Kenny
Carlisle, Cumbria
Dear Mr Biffold Man River,
I hope you don't mind me asking but I was wondering what your family make of your current career, given that you've become a YouTuber with two crowd-funded series' and recently staged a sold-out theatre show?
I'm also curious as to how they describe what you do to others? Do they just say you're a successful scriptwriter, or do they try and explain the whole Digi phenomenon?
Love and kissy kissy,
Treacle Truffle
I wouldn't for a second class YouTube as a career though. I don't make a living out of it, as much as it's nice to have a regular amount coming in via Patreon (most of that is invested back into the videos). It's more a hobby-with-benefits, and an outlet for stuff I can't do in my day job.
Before doing all these Digi things again, I was struggling a bit with my job, and starting to feel stifled. Digitiser, and YouTube especially, gives me an outlet. It's somewhere I can get creative without being given copious notes at every stage.
That said, my kids are aware. One of my daughters finds it very cool - she was in the audience at the live show. Another one of them has some friends who've got their own channel, who asked me for a "collab". And another one of my many offspring has a flatmate who is a massive Paul Gannon fan.
So, that's a kick in the face.
Was the Spectrum really a piece of shit?
Yours sincerely,
An Amstrad owner
How about this for a shoddy Readers Suggestion:
Ask your flocks of minions (not the yellow French tic-tac bastards, I mean your audience) to send in reviews. Not just game reviews but reviews of absolutely anything they want, and if one grabs your attention and evokes a guttural laugh, why not show them on the site now and again?
Maybe if someone did a video review you could post a quick snippet up on one of your Digi Minis (and I mean, like 10 seconds because who wants to sit through a whole review vid, eh?) if it's shit/funny enough? How about 10 second reviews? I can see at least some potential comedy value to those.
I mean, I've got a whole load of different flavoured goujons I'd love to review and send in to you.
Surely you've got enough time during the day when you're not screenwriting to sift through literally some contributions?
Liam Prince
We did used to have readers articles on the site, but - being completely candid - it was more trouble than it was worth. They had to be sub-edited - and, on occasion, almost completely rewritten to make sense of - some of them tried a little bit too hard to fit into what they thought was the Digi style, and it was just really time-consuming. Also, I don't want to offend anybody by saying no.
Plus, I've got Patrons who are giving money every month for me to make things - not for me to spend time looking at submissions from other people.
That said... if and when we do another Kickstarter, we'd like to find a way to get the audience more involved this time...
I will still feature guest posts on here from time to time - there's one from Super Bad Advice coming up next week - but they'll be hand-picked so as not to cause offence. Or stress.
Do you have a favourite smell, not grass, but something more odd? Petrol was a favourite when I was a child, and melted plastic. I like the smell of soil now. Not soiling myself to be clear. Soil not soiling. What about you? Are you an earthy smell person?
Bye and that.
Steph Allman
Incense, not wee.
C'mon the Biff,
With Digi's profile in its ascendancy, I thought I should report on the results of an ad hoc survey of Nintendo's game demonstrators at the recent Insomnia gaming festival, whereby 50 percent of those who commented on my Moc-moc-a-moc t-shirt knew what Digitiser was.
In celebration of which, here's a recent holiday snap of a pizza oven seemingly emblazoned with the words "crusty willy".
Starbuck
But! I'm happy to hear your t-shirt was noticed. Since putting my face on YouTube, I've been spotted out and about a few times now - most recently in the baggage hall in Palma airport, and on the London Underground, while wearing a Digitiser t-shirt. Which is embarrassing. I don't mind it really though. More than happy to say hello to anyone who spots me. It's at a level where it hasn't become annoying.
And thank you for your image. That really is excellent!
In your recent video where magma sprung forth from Mount Digi, I would like to say that John Pompeii may not be confused with the former champion boxer John Conteh as he does not hand out sticks at anytime.
Also Henry Cooper does not make barrels either and Dickie Davies does do what you are thinking either. Though Cooper used to brew up home-made Brut in his bath over the festive period ready to sell in the January sales.
Bob Jobbins, News at Ten
I hereby request that Paul Gannon is to be referred to as "Mr Bowels" from now on.
Paul Dunning
You're like my yo-yo that glowed in the dark. What made it special made it dangerous so I bury it and forget.
Jon Clay, Taunton, Somerset
Just a cheeky reminder that those recordings of the Chunky Fringe panels are ready to upload to your second channel. Unless, of course, you're concerned about receiving 5,783 helpful comments saying that it sounds like the participants lost a fight with an air conditioner. In which case, one of the lovely panel hosts is prepared to risk uploading the vids to their own channel instead.
Though while I'm here, those Digitiser minis seem to be working for you. I'm not watching them all, because if I get too involved then I will feel partly responsible when you set your house on fire, but until then, the location seems to fit you like a Brown Sofa.
Or an irresponsible Broom Cupboard.
Oh, and if Mr. T wins the Digitiser World Cup, then please could you influence your followers to make him the next U.S. president? I don't know exactly how these things work, and he probably doesn't either, but with a career encompassing both minority rights and Penitentiary II, he is perfectly placed to heal deep divisions through no-nonsense talk and daily bin collections.
David W
Also: don't worry about us setting my house on fire. I'm not saying we won't. I'm just saying don't worry about it.
Bowser and Princess Peach... How would that even work? Like... actually how? This has been on my mind for an unhealthy amount of time. Please let's discuss.
Shinny
Greatly excited to see Bubblegun making a comeback, so much so that I have crawled out my mental health cocoon to ask you about it.
1. I'd be fascinated to know how you compartmentalise your various 'brands'? Keeping characters and themes separate etc. Bubblegun always struck me as OTT to Digi's Tiswas. But thinking about it now, they had very distinct characters and a totally different atmosphere. Then there's Found Footage, obviously, which has a different tone again. They're all very distinct bodies of work yet with common elements running through them and even continuity.
2. Are we now looking at some manner of Biffo Expanded Universe? If so what would be your preferred collective name for it?
3. How will Bubblegun, styled as a Saturday morning kids' show, relate and compare to Biffovision? If there are to be crossovers and references then I'll be extra happy. Is it going to be like BBC's offering vs ITVs?
4. I'd love to see an image bringing all the characters together for a big group shot, I think I'd have to buy such a thing and put it on the wall. Is there a chance of that happening?
Thank you.
Glyn Heaviside
We'd been batting around an idea for a Series 2 of Digitiser The Show since the start of the year - which I mentioned on here a couple of weeks ago - but the truth is it just wasn't getting me fired-up. I was going through the motions with it really. Much as I love video games, it's restrictive in a lot of ways. You're limited by what you can do, a section of the audience will always hate it if you're not sufficiently reverential, there's an expectation of seeing gameplay footage - which bores me to tears...
And on top of that, I want to continue working with Paul Gannon and my wife, neither of whom are particularly big gamers. They need to be invested in it too.
If I'm going to dedicate 18 months of my life to something, I need to know I'm going to enjoy myself, and not go through the motions. In all honesty, the notion of Series 2 of Digitiser The Show - unless it was radically different - wasn't doing it for me.
But watch this space. We're going to do something, I'm just not ready to say what yet.
1. It's easy really, because every project starts with a different goal. Found Footage was a cursed sketch show, Digitiser The Show was an attempt to make a 90s-style video games magazine show, Biffovision was a sketch show with the structure of kids TV... That's the baseline I return to, while I simultaneously try to sort of make it all fall apart.
That's the commonality of approach in everything I do. It's a similar idea that we work with in the Digitiser Minis - we'll say "Here's a video about volcanoes!"... but we're constantly undermining that by ranting about YouTube comments, or arguing, or going off on tangents. Same with the original Digi: setting up an expectation that I then introduce seemingly incongruous elements to which subvert the stated intention. That's probably, as much as anything, my "style".
2. Hah! I dunno. Biffoverse?
3. Again, getting ahead of yourself, mister. We simply don't have the answers to this yet. I just like the idea of something that brings together everything I've done that I see as uniquely mine - Biffovision, Found Footage, Digitiser The Show, the Digitiser Minis, Trojan Arse, Digitiser Live - and builds upon all I've learned from doing those things. A Saturday morning kids show type of format feels good, because you can do almost anything; cartoons, a live-action serial, music, features, games, guests...
It feels tailor made for my ADD-esque tastes.
The challenge is that YouTube isn't hugely receptive to longer-form shows, and it's also a potentially really expensive idea.
Plus, with it not being exclusively about games we probably won't raise as much money. But then, Digitiser The Show brought in a lot of people who weren't necessarily down with the Biffo style, and so I always felt an uncomfortable tension in trying to please both audiences. If it taught me one thing it's that I need to just please myself first and foremost.
While I accept that this idea might not bring in as much cash as Digitiser The Show, that in its own way is freeing, because I don't feel beholden to those looking for a more straightforward gaming show.
So, currently, not doing Digitiser The Show Series 2, and doing something that *might* be a Saturday morning kids show for immature grown-ups... is the front runner, but I'm not rushing anything. I need to know it's right, and I need to recover from a brutally punishing year work-wise, and I need to be sure we can make the idea sufficiently exciting and appealing that we can raise enough money to pay for it.
Would be interested to hear feedback on it!
4. Well, maybe. I dunno. Never say never.
Dear The Digitiser 2000 Letters Page,
I sometimes wonder if all this is worth it, and a lot of the time I don't think it is.
Yours etc.
MrPSB
426) Is it fair to call Duke Nukem a dead brand, due to its incongruity with modern social tastes and the length of time since the last good example of the series? If so, is there a 'bigger' dead brand?
427) Have you ever learned much (factually) from a game? I learned a surprising amount of good information from the Patrician series for example.
428) What do you think of the selection of games on the upcoming Megadrive Mini and will you be buying the console?
429) What, if anything, do you think of the Death Stranding gameplay footage shown so far? I am not sure that I'll enjoy it, but credit to Mr Kojima, he does seem to be trying something different.
430) Did you ever play Jade Empire? I really liked it and, although it wasn't a massive commercial success, I am really surprised that it's never been revived, especially with the potential appeal to China. It was, of course, highly stylised and not really Chinese in any way other than the aesthetic, but that could easily be authenticised in a revival.
John Whyte
427) Yes! I actually find the Assassin's Creed games quite educational. III and Unity particularly. It's one of the things I like most about them.
428) I've already pre-ordered it, though mainly out of obligation. I think it's a solid line-up. Sonic 3 feels like a glaring omission though.
429) Yeah, I'm with you. It looks nice, but I dunno if it'll be too wilfully weird for my tastes.
430) I did not play it! It's a Bioware game, right? Then I'm in no massive hurry.
Mortal Kombat is rubbish though isn't it? I think we can finally admit that now. It's been a while.
Lee McCormick
I doubt you’ve been asked yet, but who is your pick for the Digi World Cup?
I’d love for the Man's Daddy to win, but I worry that Mr.T may win over the masses.
I’m tempted to create a separate twitter account for Mr.J (the wife) to cast a vote but I know how much he hates social media so I may not.
Mr.S