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Ep. 121

Glove

10 February 2026

Runtime: 00:50:47

While cleaning out the attic, a modern-day kid finds an old Nintendo Power Glove and is sucked into a video game world. Along with a cast of popular Nintendo characters, the boy must fight his way back to the real world.

References

Transcript

[Intro music begins]

[Thomas]
How does he get back into the real world? What is that portal back?

[Emily]
Excellent question. Shep?

[Shep]
No, this wasn’t my pitch!

[Intro music]

[Thomas]
Hey there, Story fans. Welcome to Almost Plausible, the podcast where we take ordinary objects and turn them into movies. I’m Thomas J. Brown, and I am joined by Emily-

[Emily]
Hey, guys.

[Thomas]
And F. Paul Shepard.

[Shep]
Happy to be here.

[Thomas]
This is our 121st episode, and it kicks off our fifth year of doing Almost Plausible. Since we’re starting a new year of the podcast, do we have any goals we want to set for the show?

[Shep]
I didn’t realize this was going to be a thing. Like, you didn’t prep us on this at all.

[Thomas]
No, spring it on you.

[Emily]
Make money!

[Shep]
Make money. Oh, I have some bad news.

[Emily]
Fine. Meet other cool podcasters.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s good.

[Shep]
Meet other cool podcasters. I’ll get on board with that one.

[Thomas]
Yeah, we’re going to get some more cool guests on our show. That’s always fun.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
Well, and I’ve already reached out to a few people that we’ve had on our list for a while, so hopefully we’ll hear back from them soon.

[Shep]
What are your goals, Thomas?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
You put us on the spot.

[Thomas]
Actually, that was one of my goals, was to have more guests on the show this year. And as always, one of my big goals is to increase the size of our audience. Love to have more people listening to the show.

[Shep]
You said, and as always, all I can think of is the tagline from… what was the Australian parody series? “And as always, kill Hitler.” Do you know what I’m talking about?

[Thomas]
I have no idea, no.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
What was it called? The Something Five? Danger 5!

[Thomas]
Oh, yes. Oh, Danger 5 is great.

[Emily]
I would also like to make more serial killers episodes.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
I’m going to throw that out there.

[Thomas]
If only there was someone on the show who consistently pitched serial killer episodes, maybe we could.

[Emily]
I know. So that we’d have ample opportunity.

[Shep]
All right, we’ll do your serial killer pitch for today.

[Emily]
Dang it! I don’t have one.

[Shep]
Well, you need to re-examine your goals then.

[Emily]
That was not a smart goal, was it?

[Thomas]
Well, we’ll work on all of our goals as we forge ahead into the future, but today our topic is Glove. And we are going to get year five started with Emily’s pitches.

[Emily]
All right. Well, let’s say pitch. A young man and woman meet at a ski resort. They run into each other throughout the weekend in one meet-cute after another. They run into each other one last time while checking out. The young woman is about to ask for the man’s number when she gets an urgent call from her sister. Once the call is over and she returns to the check-in desk, he is gone. But he left behind a beautiful glove made of the softest kid leather. She tries to catch him at the door, but he has vanished. She sets out to find the owner of the glove and see if he’s as good a fit for her, as his glove is a fit for him.

[Shep]
So, this is a real Cinderella story.

[Emily]
Yeah. Specifically, Cinderella in reverse. Hand and man.

[Shep]
Instead of foot and woman?

[Emily]
Yep.

[Thomas]
So, not a film for Tarantino to enjoy, then.

[Emily]
No. All right, Shep, what do you have for us?

[Shep]
I kept wondering, like, as I was trying to think of glove pitches, Mittens kept coming into my mind. And I’m like, did we do an episode on mittens?

[Emily]
We did.

[Shep]
And we did. We did. So, okay, here’s some actual pitches. An up-and-coming boxer is given a pair of vintage gloves. Oh, boxing gloves are kind of mittens.

[Emily]
They are, but they are called gloves specifically.

[Shep]
They’re called gloves, but their fingers aren’t separated. Mittens wouldn’t leave my brain. All my pitches are mittens. Anyway, an up-and-coming boxer is given a pair of vintage gloves that seem to grant him the skills and strength of previous champions. But with each fight, he loses more of his own memories, becoming a hollow vessel for the ghosts of boxing past. And then the same thing but a baseball mitt, which is also kind of a mitten because the fingers aren’t separate.

[Thomas]
I mean, it’s called a mitt, short for mitten, presumably.

[Shep]
Yeah. I’ve made a note here, but I did spend a long time trying to come up with a pitch parodying Love Actually called Glove Actually. But the problem is, Love Actually isn’t a movie. It’s five short films in a trench coat.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So there isn’t like, what’s the plot of Love Actually?

[Emily]
They all… love somehow gets them all at Heathrow Airport on Christmas Day.

[Shep]
Okay. Well, that’s all I have. Thomas, what do you have?

[Thomas]
I have one where a second-hand glove pulls the wearer toward its previous owner’s hidden corpse.

[Shep]
Here’s the serial killer pitch, Emily.

[Thomas]
Yeah, there we go.

[Emily]
I know. I read that one and I was very excited about it and glad because I was trying to think of something like that. But then I watched the news and got depressed and decided love was the better story to go.

[Shep]
Yeah, I agree.

[Thomas]
Well, my other idea is a kid finds a Nintendo power glove in his parents’ attic and puts it on, and is immediately transported into a video game world where he must win to survive and escape.

[Emily]
Is this not actually a movie?

[Shep]
There is a movie called Dungeon Master where he gets a glove.

[Thomas]
Oh, that’s right. Adam Savage quotes from that movie all the time.

[Shep]
Yes, “I reject your reality and substitute my own.” That’s from that.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This is another movie where it was actually not a movie, but seven short films stitched together.

[Thomas]
Is it really?

[Shep]
When each segment starts, you see like the credits for who wrote and directed that one. So it’s just a bunch of very loosely connected short films. But yeah, he’s got a glove. It’s not a Nintendo Power Glove, I don’t think.

[Thomas]
I don’t think so.

[Shep]
But it is kind of Nintendo Power Glove-esque, as far as I remember, this movie that I watched 40 years ago.

[Emily]
There was one!

[Shep]
The Nintendo movie where they have the power glove and he goes, “It’s so bad.” That one? Is that the one that you’re thinking of?

[Emily]
Now. I’m thinking of The Wizard. Yeah, The Wizard with Fred Savage.

[Thomas]
Yeah, The Wizard. Yeah.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah, that’s the one. “Bad” meant “cool” at the time.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
It didn’t mean bad.

[Emily]
I remember. I was there. Christian Slater’s in it? Anyway, sorry. That was the one I was thinking of.

[Thomas]
Those are my pitches. Is there one that is jumping out at us?

[Emily]
I do like the secondhand glove and the hidden corpse, clearly. That’s right up my alley.

[Thomas]
I mean, I like that one too. I think that’s a fun idea.

[Shep]
I like the kid finds a Nintendo power glove and goes into a video game world. I know that’s been done before in other movies. I mean, we just had a Tron movie within the past year. So it’s a thing that happens a lot.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But I like that thing. And I also like the reverse Cinderella because it’s a rom-com. We haven’t done a rom-com in a while.

[Thomas]
That’s true.

[Shep]
That I can remember, which doesn’t mean we didn’t just do one last episode. So between those two, which one do you guys like?

[Thomas]
Well, the Minecraft movie did make bucket loads of money, right? So-

[Emily]
Yes, it did. I was thinking that it would be fun because we haven’t done a rom-com probably in like, I don’t know-

[Shep]
Weeks.

[Emily]
Three to five episodes. We haven’t done a kid isekai essentially in a while.

[Thomas]
Yeah, it’s been a while.

[Emily]
Look, I learned a word Shep.

[Thomas]
All right, so is that the direction we want to go then?

[Emily]
Yeah, power glove.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
So would it be like a power glove for the Switch 2? Like, we’re gonna pretend like in three months, Nintendo’s going to announce they’re gonna release a new power glove. Or we go in old school 80s.

[Thomas]
Oh, it’s totally old school 80s.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
That’s the power glove that the kid finds in their parents’ basement is the original one. Because this movie will probably never get made. I feel like we can just lean into, “Yeah, sure, like, we have the license to do this, so we can use whatever Nintendo properties we want in this film.”

[Emily]
Oh, of course. I feel like if we ever do stuff like that, that’s absolutely, it’s never getting made. Who cares?

[Thomas]
Do we need to have an explanation for why this glove transports the kid into this game world? Was it cursed or zapped or…

[Shep]
Because it’s the 80s, and that’s a thing that just happens a lot.

[Emily]
There’s a power surge.

[Shep]
And it’s a power glove. So it all, this all checks out math-wise. So, live action or animated?

[Emily]
Animated’s easier. We can do a lot of weirder shit.

[Thomas]
I feel like it starts and ends in the real world, which is live action, but then when he gets zapped in, everything is animated.

[Shep]
All right, we’re all on board.

[Emily]
Like the Minecraft movie. Are they still real or are they animated too?

[Shep]
I never watched the Minecraft movie.

[Thomas]
I’ve seen it, yeah. I feel like he should…

[Shep]
Why? Why?

[Emily]
He has a child who enjoyed Minecraft.

[Shep]
Oh, that’s right.

[Thomas]
I feel like the main character should become an avatar in the game, yeah.

[Emily]
The game. Okay. Like the Barbie video game movie. That’s okay. There’s a Barbie video game movie, and it’s actually quite good.

[Thomas]
I’ll just have to take your word for it.

[Emily]
There’s a string of Barbie movies that they made straight to streaming that were like, it’s not bad. I’ll send you a list of the top-rated ones.

[Thomas]
We’ll put them on the website. Does he end up in a particular game, or is this just sort of like a generic Nintendo world that has characters from various games in it?

[Shep]
Like Wreck-It Ralph–

[Thomas]
I was just thinking that, yeah.

[Shep]
Where it’s all the different game characters can all interact. I like that more. You brought up before, but when is this set?

[Thomas]
I was thinking, basically, now.

[Shep]
Okay, then I have an idea for a framing device.

[Thomas]
Okay, great.

[Shep]
A kid gets grounded from whatever, his Switch 2-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right? His parents take it away, but he’s determined to play games because he’s that kind of kid. And so he finds in the attic the old original Nintendo Entertainment System and the power glove. And he hooks it up and he starts to play. And that’s when whatever happens causes him to get Jumanji-ed into the game. But see, he doesn’t want to get caught having done this. So, you know, his parents are going to find him or they’re going to go into the attic or they’re going to whatever. And it will be revealed that he has been doing something he wasn’t supposed to do, which is playing with this game. Then you have that kind of movie karma where someone does something bad and is immediately punished for it. So he is sucked into this game world kind of as a punishment, as if the world had karma.

[Thomas]
And is it the kind of thing where, like, the parents are going to check on him in three hours? And-

[Shep]
90 minutes.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, yeah, that’s true, real time. So he’s got to get back out of the game in that time.

[Shep]
Yeah, yes, that gives us our ticking clock.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
I brought up Wreck-It Ralph earlier, but I kind of want to use a thing from that, which is he can see out from the TV.

[Thomas]
Sure.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Makes sense.

[Shep]
That doesn’t give him an out. He can’t get out through that.

[Thomas]
So we decided he’s just kind of in a generic space. He’s not in a specific game, right?

[Shep]
I mean, it could be whatever game he was playing, but then it turns out they are all connected.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Emily]
Yeah, that makes sense.

[Thomas]
So he can exit that game world.

[Shep]
Right, he can exit that area.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He’s not exiting the world, but he’s moving to another area.

[Thomas]
Right, right.

[Shep]
So he can go from… what were games that even used the power glove? Like, what could he have been using it for?

[Thomas]
Yeah, that’s an excellent question. I didn’t actually think to look that up.

[Shep]
This was your pitch!

[Thomas]
I know.

[Emily]
I’m on it. List of Power Glove compatible games. We’ve got Alpha Mission, Anticipation, Bad Street Brawler. That’s like a fighting game?

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
Yeah, so Bad Street Brawler and Super Glove Ball were two games that were released with specific features for use with the power glove. Bad Street Brawler was a beat-em-up game, and Super Glove Ball is a faux 3D puzzle maze game.

[Shep]
Okay, it’s got to be Bad Street Brawler then-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Because this gives us a couple things. He’s sucked into the game world, and there are people there-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That will beat him up.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
And so he runs away, and now he’s lost, he doesn’t know where he is. So it’s not just how do I get out of this world, but how do I even get back to where I started? And this could immediately send him to a different game world or game, yeah, different game as he runs from this bad neighborhood.

[Thomas]
And then is his journey back out through Super Glove Ball? He has to successfully solve the puzzle or whatever?

[Shep]
What is the message of this movie?

[Thomas]
I don’t know.

[Shep]
His parents don’t want him playing fighting games and he should play puzzle games to exercise his mind? I don’t know. Maybe there is no message.

[Thomas]
The message is the power glove is bad.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s so bad. It’s so bad.

[Emily]
It’s a monkey’s paw.

[Shep]
It is a monkey’s power glove.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Thomas is looking up something.

[Thomas]
Looking up power glove. So there were two more games that were never- that were announced but not released. Glove Pilot and Manipulator Glove Adventure. Another unreleased game, Tech Town, is a virtual puzzle-solving game in which the player moved a robotic hand around a deserted space station type of setting, using the glove to open doors and pick up and used tools. I wonder if maybe he ends up in one of those games-

[Emily]
One of the unfinished ones?

[Thomas]
And it’s sort of like dark and foreboding and dangerous feeling, or abandoned feeling. So maybe he’s hiding out in one of those games. And then there’s like his game world compatriot or confederate that he teams up with, who kind of shows him the ropes of the video game world is also hiding out there because they’re an outcast.

[Shep]
Oh, is it R.O.B. the Robot or whatever it was called?

[Thomas]
Whatever it was called.

[Shep]
Okay, I assume he’s still wearing the glove because this episode is glove-oriented.

[Thomas]
Totally, yeah-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
He’s got to have it on in the game world.

[Shep]
He’s got to have it on in the game world.

[Emily]
It’s fused on somehow, so he can’t actually remove it.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
Maybe he tries to remove it thinking that will get him out of the game.

[Thomas]
That makes sense.

[Shep]
Maybe he can remove it, but it doesn’t get him out of the game. But he needs to use it to interact with the game world. That’s what it’s for.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So he can exist in the game world, but he can’t touch anything with his regular hand. He has to use the power glove.

[Thomas]
That makes sense. Or perhaps while he’s wearing the glove, then it like maybe it puts an energy field around him that allows him to do that. But when he takes the glove off, the glove is then the only thing he can interact with.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
This also can come in handy later with a villain who takes the glove from him.

[Thomas]
Does that allow the villain to potentially escape into the real world? That’s always what the villain’s goal is, though.

[Emily]
Yeah, of course.

[Thomas]
It’s so done.

[Shep]
Then let’s not do that.

[Thomas]
Maybe the villain thinks they can do that, because that’s what the thing always is.

[Shep]
Yeah, the villain already has an area that he has power in.

[Thomas]
Uh-huh.

[Shep]
Why would he want to move to a different world where he would have no established power base and also none of his minions would be there? That’s a losing proposition. He wants to consolidate the power in that world, and now there is this power glove that can manipulate reality.

[Thomas]
Is it something that the bad guy can actually manipulate reality with, or is it just what he thinks will happen? But I worry that if we go down a path of like, “Oh, and then the bad guy puts it on and nothing happens.” It’s like, well, then it wasn’t a real threat.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
So the stakes just like drop out from under you in that moment.

[Shep]
No, it’s got to be a real threat.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
It’s got to be, he’s got to be able to manipulate- It’s Thanos-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And the Infinity gauntlet.

[Thomas]
So when our main character, we should give him a name. What’s the name of the kid from The Wizard?

[Emily]
Let’s name him Jeremy, because that’s the name that came into my mind, and I don’t want to bother looking up The Wizard again.

[Thomas]
Okay. When Jeremy wears the power glove, does he have those world-changing powers? Or is it just that it gives him the ability to interact with the world?

[Shep]
Maybe he would have those powers if he knew how to use the glove properly.

[Thomas]
That makes sense. And the bad guy has read the manual, and so he… Is there a wise old video game character that does know how to use the glove that’s going to be his like mentor and teach him?

[Shep]
Well, what Nintendo properties do you want to bring in?

[Thomas]
I mean, in theory, we could bring in any of them. I don’t remember enough to be able to start naming specific ones. Somebody who knows more than me would do a much better job.

[Shep]
“That’s a problem for the writers,” is what I heard you say.

[Thomas]
Yes, exactly.

[Emily]
Well, The Legend of Zelda has Seven Sages or something. I don’t know.

[Thomas]
Yeah, I was thinking Legend of Zelda is definitely one of the properties that we need to incorporate.

[Emily]
Yeah, have some weird, wise guy from there.

[Shep]
Well, from Legend of Zelda, you could have Ganon-

[Emily]
There you go.

[Shep]
Or Ganondorf, which is a classic villain who seeks power. Like that’s… He has the Triforce of Power. Like that’s his- power is his whole deal! So I think we should have the villain as- who’s our character? Billy? Bobby?

[Thomas]
Jeremy?

[Shep]
Jeremy.

[Emily]
Jeremy.

[Shep]
I knew it ended in an E.

[Thomas]
It ends in a Y.

[Shep]
Sound. An E sound.

[Emily]
Jeremy.

[Shep]
I think that Bowser should be his mentor because he doesn’t want…

[Emily]
Oh!

[Shep]
Bowser doesn’t want to be in a world ruled by Ganon.

[Emily]
Subject to him.

[Shep]
And I like that “villain forced to be a good guy” trope.

[Thomas]
Does Bowser have a plan to try to double-cross Jeremy toward the end and steal the glove for himself? Not that he’s teaming up with Ganon.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
He just doesn’t want to be ruled by someone else. He wants to be the ruler.

[Emily]
I get where you’re going with that, and it makes sense. But. I would like him to actually be a little more of a “No, I’m happy, I’m happy with tormenting the Mario Bros. I’m happy with stealing Princess Peach. I don’t want any more responsibility. I don’t want any more trouble. I just don’t want this jackass to be in charge.” Like, this could be the conversation he has with Jeremy. Jeremy could be like “How do I know you’re not going to steal it?” And he’s like, “No, listen, kid.”

[Thomas]
What if all the characters from Mario are a theater troupe? So they’re just putting on a play for you. It turns out that like Bowser and Peach are actually a couple and like they’re all just friends. Bowser’s actually a really nice guy.

[Shep]
We see them playing tennis together, so-

[Thomas]
Yeah. And at first Jeremy is like, “What? Why are you hanging out with Bowser?” And they’re like, “Because he’s our pal? Like, we’ve known each other for years.”

[Shep]
It’s- uh, it’s… Oh, gosh, I can’t remember names. And we’re recording.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Harry Potter and Draco actors grew up doing the movies together.

[Thomas]
Yep, those guys.

[Emily]
Mm-hmm.

[Shep]
Those guys!

[Emily]
Mm-hmm.

[Shep]
Whatever their names are, edit this and put their names in.

[Thomas]
We just have you going, Daniel Radcliffe.

[Emily]
That’s the only one I can remember, Daniel Radcliffe, and then I-

[Thomas]
And I don’t know the other guy’s name.

[Emily]
I know I know it somewhere in the back of my head.

[Shep]
Oh, I’ll have to Google it and it will be, it’ll be like, oh, that’s right. Tom Felton!

[Emily]
There you go.

[Thomas]
Do you want to say their name’s clean so we can just edit that in?

[Shep]
No, no. My shame should be recorded for posterity.

[Emily]
Perfect.

[Thomas]
So anyway, you were saying.

[Shep]
Who was saying? What was saying?

[Thomas]
You, you were saying something about Daniel Radcliffe and Tom Felton.

[Shep]
Oh, they play enemies in movies together, but they’re friends in real life.

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
So I imagine that the Mario characters are friends in real life.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
In real game world.

[Thomas]
Right, right, right.

[Shep]
Which could be a frustrating thing for Jeremy, as like, Bowser’s really strong and powerful, and he has his own kingdom. Let’s go get your army and retrieve the power glove. And Bowser’s like, “That’s not, that’s a character I played.”

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“That’s who I am, and that army is Ted over there copied 700 times.”

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It’s all just like cardboard cutouts that are on like a track.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah.

[Thomas]
But he does know how things work. Bowser’s been around a long time.

[Emily]
Yeah, and he is strong.

[Thomas]
He is, yeah, physically strong. And he is maybe an intelligent individual. So does he know how the power glove works or he knows who knows? And so they all go on a quest together?

[Shep]
It’s got to be, you know, he knows who knows-

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because then you have your hero’s journey-

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
As he’s trying to find the wise master to teach him.

[Thomas]
Oh, and they’ve got to have run-ins with minions of Ganon who is trying to get them and get the glove, right?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
And those could be minions from any game.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Emily]
The dog from Duck Hunt should be one of his minions.

[Thomas]
Even if the writers decide that’s not a thing, there has to be a Duck Hunt scene.

[Emily]
Right. I still think the dog from Duck Hunt should be one of his minions. And then Jeremy can be like, “I fucking knew it, man.”

[Thomas]
“I hate that fucking dog.”

[Shep]
Because he’s like, what’s the dog that does the laugh?

[Thomas]
Yeah, um, Muttley.

[Shep]
Muttley.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So I’m just picturing him behind Ganon laughing at misfortunes.

[Emily]
Yeah. You know, he’s got Bowser and the troupe, and they’re going to go find the one who knows how the power glove works. I know it’s a hero’s journey. Are we just meeting random characters along the way? Or is like the first stop, Bowser’s like “Yeah, this guy knows.” And he joins theirs. Or is it just randomly select people as they go? Because at one point, I used to love Mega Man.

[Shep]
Oh, yes.

[Emily]
And I want to see Mega Man in this.

[Thomas]
Totally, totally.

[Emily]
I don’t know if I want him to be the one who knows how the glove works, because it feels like he would.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, there’s got to be like a council of people who have like shooter arms. So, like, Samus and Mega Man, and like-

[Shep]
Samus was who I was thinking was the final goal.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
Because she would definitely know how to do it. Mega Man is not Nintendo.

[Thomas]
Capcom.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
It’s Capcom.

[Emily]
It’s Capcom.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
But I played him on NES.

[Shep]
I mean, yeah. And he was in the Smash Brothers game, so it’s not like he hasn’t worked with Nintendo characters before, but he’s not a Nintendo character.

[Emily]
Boo.

[Shep]
Boo, indeed.

[Thomas]
So maybe they’re saying, “Yes, we’ve got to go and find the one who has the, you know, the shooter arm.” They’re like describing it. And he’s like, “Yeah, Mega Man.” And they’re like, “Who? No.” Like, “Yes, wears armor?” “Yeah.” Like, “Arm shoots things?” “Yeah.” “Mega man.” “No! Samus!” “Oh, yeah.” So maybe she can, like, hook the power glove up to her computer and it can, like, in her spaceship and it can, like, read something about it, tells them information, and maybe brings up, like, diagnostics on how to use it. So then is there like a training montage where he’s somehow doing something, he’s adjusting the world, he’s making changes, he’s learning the powers that the glove has.

[Shep]
I don’t know how I feel about montages. Actually, I do know, but-

[Thomas]
Well, remember, we’re like harkening back to the 80s a bit with this.

[Shep]
Yeah, yeah. How much time do you want him to spend with Samus? Because you know how hero’s journeys usually are. “You had the power the whole time.” You know, “Click your Ruby slippers together three times and say there’s no place like home. You always had that option.” And Samus doesn’t need a lot of time with the glove to know how it works.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
I mean, Samus’ whole deal is picking up new pieces of equipment and using the powers immediately.

[Thomas]
That’s true. That’s true, yeah.

[Shep]
You don’t pick up a morph ball and then go through a training montage.

[Thomas]
I’m just thinking in Star Wars, after they get on the Millennium Falcon, there is that time where Luke is trying to hone his abilities.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
Like he has the power, but is bad at it-

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
And can’t use it to its full potential. And so maybe we’re sort of seeing that. Like they are heading toward battle or they are getting to some place. There’s somewhere they think they need to go and they suspect that- And in fact, maybe one of them, Samus or somebody, knows how to get him out of the world, of the video game world, back into the real world. And so they’re going to that place. But they know that Ganon knows that as well. And it will very likely be there. So there will probably be a big showdown. And so they are preparing for that. Does that make sense?

[Shep]
Yes.

[Thomas]
All right, well, let’s take a break here. And when we come back, we’ll figure out how that showdown comes to be in our episode about a Nintendo Power Glove.

[Break]

[Thomas]
All right, we’re back. Our hero, Jeremy, is with Samus from Metroid, he’s with the sort of main, I think, Super Mario characters. Maybe the original character that he found in the abandoned space station, something like that. And now they have a line on how to get out of, to get Jeremy out of this video game world. What other kinds of things? You know, we can’t get them there immediately. We’ve got to have some adventures along the way. Maybe meet some other characters. What other thoughts do we have?

[Emily]
About the other characters, and we can explore the Mario troupe a little bit better.

[Thomas]
Uh-huh.

[Emily]
And when he goes to introduce himself to Mario, Mario turns around and is like, “Actually, it’s Dr. Mario.” In his real video game life, outside of the plays, he’s the Doctor.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Right, he’s not really a fighter. He can’t help Jeremy. That’s all stuntmen.

[Thomas]
That’s brilliant. I love that. When Jeremy first finds out that all of the Mario guys are super chill, he’s like, “Oh, and so Wario’s nice?” And they’re like, “No, that guy’s a jerk.”

[Emily]
“That guy’s an asshole.”

[Thomas]
They go and find like Donkey Kong, get him on their team. Or is Donkey Kong one of the bad guys?

[Shep]
I mean, he has been a villain.

[Emily]
They did make him a good guy in the Mario movie, so yes, he has to be a villain in this one.

[Shep]
For balance.

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
I don’t know if he has to be in it. He’s not, I mean-

[Thomas]
Jeremy can run into Mike Tyson. They have to get there quickly, and so the Star Fox crew gives them a lift.

[Shep]
I was thinking about this, because you had Samus, because she’s got that big spaceship, right? Room for multiple people. That’s your Millennium Falcon.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That’s where you have your Jeremy practicing with the power glove and not being able to use it quite right. Like Luke couldn’t quite use the force right. But Star Fox, they have those little starfighters-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Not large enough to carry a troupe of people-

[Thomas]
Yeah, yeah.

[Shep]
Not enough for the whole hero’s party, but they’re in space so they could run in together. Or they encounter Star Fox, or maybe Star Fox tells them where he saw Samus.

[Thomas]
They get an escort from Star Fox and the crew.

[Shep]
I mean, if there’s going to be a big fight on the way back, this is when Ridley would attack and damage Samus’ ship, as is tradition. Who else do we have? We don’t have Kirby.

[Thomas]
Yeah. We’ve talked about Legend of Zelda. We don’t have any of those characters apart from… I mean, you feel like Link would be a natural fit.

[Shep]
I mean, just like one character from each franchise gives you enough.

[Emily]
Would it be a case of where we’re building on systems? So if new characters were introduced on later systems, they would still exist here. Would we have their graphics? Or is it all some kind of graphics?

[Shep]
I think you’re overthinking it for an 80s set-

[Emily]
Well, because someone’s going to say “That wasn’t a game in the 80s. You couldn’t play that on NES.”

[Shep]
Good. Good! I hope they say it.

[Thomas]
I mean, Star Fox didn’t come out till the 90s, right? So-

[Emily]
Yeah, okay. So.

[Thomas]
Because the thing is, the game, this is set in 2025, so we have access to everything because he is in the Nintendo world.

[Emily]
That’s what they’re saying. Does the Nintendo world-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Is it built on you know every new system with new characters gets built into it?

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So, who would be the character that they haven’t made a game of for a long time? And that could be the character left on the space station. That would have been Samus until recently.

[Thomas]
Kid Icarus.

[Shep]
Kid Icarus. Wow.

[Emily]
Oh my god, I remember that name.

[Shep]
Wow. What was his name? Pit.

[Thomas]
I don’t know. I always just knew it was Kid Icarus. I think I played that game once ever.

[Shep]
See, Pit’s good at flying and shooting and good at fighting. So-

[Thomas]
There you go.

[Shep]
He would be the hero. Are you sure you want him on the team? He’s going to steal the spotlight from Jeremy.

[Emily]
Wouldn’t Link do the same thing?

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, that’s why we don’t want Link.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
At some point, they have to get on like jet skis and do a wave race.

[Shep]
Yeah, I still think it’s got to be the robot, whatever the robot was called.

[Emily]
Do we have to go buy information from Tom on the island?

[Shep]
From Animal Crossing?

[Emily]
Yeah from Animal Crossing. Just, like, make him as sleazy as humanly possible. Just, because you know he’s always charging you money, and everything is like “Oh, I have that… if you can pay me 65,000 cherries.” Or bells. So if they have to go, like, he’s the only one who’s got this information, and he’s all smarmy about it. Because he’s not a villain or a hero. He’s an opportunist.

[Shep]
He’s kind of a villain.

[Emily]
Well, yeah, he’s villainous.

[Shep]
He’s not a hero.

[Emily]
He’s villainous, but he’s not working for the villain. He’s working for himself.

[Shep]
So, could he betray the party? Because he works for money.

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, Ganon could just hire him.

[Emily]
Yeah. I think that would be very fitting for Tom.

[Thomas]
And I feel like a lot of people would feel like, “Yeah, that fucker!” Watching the movie.

[Emily]
Yeah, yeah. I think a lot of people would be like, “That son of a bitch-“

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
“Take him down.”

[Shep]
Okay, so Jeremy runs from the fighting game, ends up in the abandoned space station with R.O.B., who’s basically our R2 character. R.O.B. leads him to who? Who’s next? I’m trying to figure out what the order… Is Bowser next? Bowser’s got to come pretty early.

[Emily]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah. So he has R.O.B. show him the way to Mario. And that turns out to not pan out because they are not what he thought they were. But Bowser is there and Bowser’s willing to help him. How does he run into Ganon? Because when do we set that up?

[Thomas]
There’s got to be some shady character. Like when he’s first in that Bad Street Brawler world that he comes into, someone sees that he has the glove. Or maybe he, in trying to defend himself, he punches someone, but it’s like a super energy punch.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
He doesn’t know how he did it-

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
But there’s some shady character who’s hanging out in that world who sees it and is like, “Oh, interesting.” And then runs off and reports it.

[Shep]
That works so well, because in real life, the power glove was so finicky-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
That you couldn’t get it to punch consistently. So it works on multiple levels.

[Emily]
“I don’t know how I did it.”

[Thomas]
So he does that. They’re all like, “Whoa.” And then he thinks, “Oh, great. I have this amazing power.” And he tries to punch someone else. And it totally doesn’t work. And so that’s what gets him to run away.

[Shep]
Yep.

[Thomas]
And so most of the guys are chasing him, but there is a guy who runs off to Ganon to report. Or to run it up the chain at any rate.

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
So that’s how we get our big bad aware of our hero.

[Shep]
Yes, and the hero doesn’t even know that that is out there yet.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
When do we establish that? It’s got to be early.

[Thomas]
It does have to be early, you’re right. I guess the question is, does he go from Bad Street Brawler to, I don’t even remember the name of the game, but that abandoned game-

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Thomas]
The space station game where he finds the robot. Or does he run into the robot in some other game and the robot says, “I know where we can hide,” and takes him to the abandoned game. And that’s how they get away from Ganon after the first meeting.

[Emily]
Is the robot from the abandoned game?

[Thomas]
No, he’s a real-world peripheral.

[Shep]
Like the glove.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, okay.

[Thomas]
And then that way the robot can tell Jeremy, “Oh, that was Ganon. He’s a big jerk. He’s been trying to take over the whole Nintendo world.”

[Shep]
What is the goal in going to the space station?

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
They’re hiding-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But then why would they leave?

[Thomas]
Jeremy can’t stay there. He’s like, “I got to get out of here. I don’t belong here.”

[Shep]
Right, but then why would he go to the station?

[Thomas]
As a temporary escape.

[Shep]
(pained noises) This is going to be one of those things that’s going to be a plot hole.

[Thomas]
Is it?

[Shep]
Yeah, if you’re on the clock, your time is limited. Why would you accept any delay?

[Thomas]
Okay, so when you’re in a war and the guy next to you gets shot, you don’t just start administering first aid. You have to neutralize the other threat. Now, that guy’s on the clock. He’s bleeding out. He needs your help, but you’re under fire. You can’t do anything to assist him. And it’s the same thing here. Like, I can’t just go directly to the way to escape. Because in this case, if I’m Jeremy, I don’t know where to go. All I know is I have to escape this current situation until it is safe to go down the path. If you go straight from “I’m being attacked by Ganon” to Mario, well he’ll just follow you to Mario. So you need that like in-between hiding, losing the pursuers, and then you can sneak off to Mario. So I don’t think that’s a plot at all. I think it’s a valid strategy.

[Shep]
I think it just made more sense earlier because you said he ends up on the space station and that’s where he meets R.O.B., I’m like, that makes so much more sense. It’s a space station. R.O.B.’s a robot. Like, it doesn’t matter that the station’s abandoned and not working or whatever. R.O.B. doesn’t need oxygen or food or water to live. Like, this all checks out.

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
And then you’re like, “Oh, let’s reverse that.” No, well, hold on. Let’s not reverse that.

[Emily]
Well then, see, that’s your problem with it. Don’t feel like “This is a dumb idea.” You took a long time to get to that “Well, let’s just leave it where he finds R.O.B. on the space station. That makes more sense.” And he’s running away from Ganon into the space station because he’s finding the first open door he can go into.

[Shep]
Oh!

[Emily]
And then he meets R.O.B..

[Shep]
That’s a good point. How does he get to the station? We haven’t established what the powers of the glove are. And just like he did that power punch once, he opens a portal once.

[Thomas]
Right, he’s just pressing buttons. “One of these has to do something.”

[Shep]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yes. And so he goes through and he ends up on an abandoned space station. This is the worst possible place to be. He doesn’t know how to work the glove. He doesn’t know how to get back out. Just like he doesn’t know how to get out of the game world. He doesn’t even know how to get off the space station. And that’s where he runs into R.O.B., and R.O.B. can help him. Maybe this is, they contact Star Fox because now it’s not a bunch of people. In fact, maybe R.O.B. doesn’t even go with them. Maybe he just goes with Star Fox in that tiny little cramped cockpit.

[Thomas]
I don’t think he would go with Star Fox. I think he’d get crammed in with one of the other ones, the one that’s always telling him to do a barrel roll or something.

[Shep]
The frog guy.

[Thomas]
Yes, yes. He’s crammed in with the frog, of course.

[Shep]
What’s the frog guy’s name? Ribbity Ribbit?

[Thomas]
Something like that.

[Shep]
Yippee?

[Emily]
Slippy Toad?

[Shep]
Slippy.

[Thomas]
Oh my gosh, that’s terrible.

[Shep]
Anyway, Star Fox takes him to Mario. This is where he gets his first traveling companion, which is Bowser. Bowser like knows, “Ah, you got to get to Samus. I don’t know where Samus is, but I know a guy that could get us to Samus, and that’s Tom Nook.”

[Thomas]
Right, because Tom Nook can get anything somehow, so he has to have a connect.

[Shep]
Right.

[Emily]
Yeah, and he can get you passage to anywhere should you need it.

[Shep]
Tom Nook guides them to where Samus is and doesn’t go with them?

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Or goes with them to betray them later.

[Emily]
Tom would never go.

[Shep]
You’re right. That was foolish.

[Emily]
No.

[Shep]
Tom immediately, once they’re gone, contacts Ganon-

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
And is like, “Hey, I have some information if you have coin.”

[Emily]
Yes.

[Shep]
So is it just Jeremy and Bowser and Samus?

[Emily]
How powerful is this Samus? Because I’m not familiar with that game.

[Shep]
She’s the strongest bounty hunter in the galaxy.

[Emily]
Doesn’t sound like they need a whole lot more. Unless you need cannon fodder, essentially.

[Shep and Thomas]
Ganon fodder?

[Shep]
Yeah. Yep.

[Emily]
I missed it. Well, she has to be able to assemble an army. So eventually they assemble an army of all the good guys. So maybe we have to gather the army. She has to go and talk to the Pikmins to get tons of little people.

[Shep]
Because, of course, she knows Olimar. They both live in space. And space is, as we all know, very small. So that checks out. Samus and Olimar, good friends.

[Thomas]
They go way back.

[Shep]
They go way back. Though I never did figure out how to get Kirby into it.

[Emily]
Oh, how do we get Kirby into it? Does Kirby accidentally swallow the ship?

[Thomas]
Oh, he’s got to, does he swallow the glove at some point?

[Emily]
Yeah?

[Shep]
That’s good because he takes on the powers of whatever he swallows.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So that could be, until he spits it out, that could be like during the final fight with Ganon.

[Emily]
Yeah. Well, I was thinking they could establish that early because not everyone’s a game nerd that’s going to know this.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Emily]
And then during the fight, someone yanks it and tosses it to him. And they’re like, “What are you doing?” You know, whatever.

[Thomas]
Or someone tries to toss it to someone else, and Kirby sucks it out of the air.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Yeah, something like that.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Kirby knows what he’s doing.

[Shep]
So you established that power earlier, not with the glove-

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
But with something else that gives Kirby a different temporary power. Yeah. It’s all coming together. This already makes way more sense than the Mario movie from the 80s.

[Thomas]
You know what?

[Emily]
It does.

[Thomas]
Totally. Boy, that movie is wild.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
I mean, it makes more sense than the Mario movie they just made recently, which… And then how do we get the Nintendogs in there?

[Emily]
There were dogs?

[Thomas]
They just come across them on their travels.

[Emily]
What are the Nintendogs? I am out of my element here.

[Shep]
They’re dogs. They’re just dogs. It’s a pet dog.

[Thomas]
It’s a pet simulation game.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Why are pet simulations a thing that-

[Shep]
Because the DS had come out and you could pet the dog on the screen. It was fun. Okay? It was fun. So Kirby joins them somehow.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We don’t know how.

[Thomas]
During the big battle, we got to have like the Splatoon guys be part of it.

[Shep]
Now, can he travel through the ink?

[Thomas]
Ooh, that’s a good question.

[Shep]
I mean, what are his… Maybe he just takes on, like Kirby-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
He can take on the powers of whatever game he’s interacting with.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So the powers of the power glove are limited only by your imagination.

[Thomas]
Yeah, so maybe that actually like comes into play toward the end. He realizes that he can do that, that someone can create a path for him that way, and he can travel through the ink. How does he get back into the real world? What is that portal back?

[Emily]
Excellent question. Shep?

[Shep]
No, this wasn’t my pitch!

[Thomas]
Just a button on the power glove.

[Shep]
Yeah, I, you know, he’s got to use the power glove. That’s the whole point of this episode: the power glove. So-

[Thomas]
Well, how does he get in? Does he get zapped somehow? Does he have to repeat some set of circumstances?

[Emily]
How savvy is he on these old school consoles?

[Thomas]
I would think not super savvy on the old school consoles, but he is a gamer, so he could pick it up quickly.

[Emily]
Well, I mean, like, how much lore does he know? Does he know?

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Emily]
Does he know? You guys know.

[Shep]
We’re old.

[Emily]
But you know.

[Thomas]
Is there something that dad said at the beginning of the movie that he remembers? He’s like, “Oh, wait.” The dad says something like, “Back on my day, we had blah, blah, blah, blah,” and the kids like kind of half ignoring him in that early scene.

[Emily]
Up, up, down, down, left, right, left, right. B. A.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
Yeah, the Contra code. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

[Emily]
Why would that not be his?

[Shep]
That’s what everyone would assume it would be. That’s in Wreck-it Ralph. That’s the code King Candy uses.

[Emily]
Okay, okay, that’s what I’m asking is that, like, how savvy is he? Because I only barely know what that is. So he would try that at some point.

[Shep]
Yes.

[Emily]
Would that be something he tries at first? Is that how he opens the portal to get into the space station?

[Shep]
I think it would be something he tries on the space station because then he has more time to experiment with the glove-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
Because he’s trapped there, he thinks, by himself.

[Thomas]
Right, so he’s just like wandering around and testing out the glove.

[Shep]
Yeah. He keeps trying to figure out why it only works sometimes and doesn’t work all the time-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Which is a thing we did in real life with the real power glove.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And we never figured it out.

[Thomas]
No.

[Shep]
So Samus has got to be the one to explain to him-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Shep]
“It’s because you believe that it’ll work. If you doubt that it’ll work, then it won’t work.”

[Emily]
Well, then “You’ve had the power with you all of the time, Dorothy.”

[Shep]
Yeah, yes, exactly. It’s like, you know, “Put it into this code and it opens the portal.” And he’s like, “I tried that.” It’s like, “Yeah, but you didn’t believe when you tried it.”

[Emily]
Yeah.

[Shep]
“So it didn’t work.”

[Emily]
Okay, so does he just have to hit the Home button then?

[Shep]
So I don’t think the power glove had a Home button.

[Emily]
Oh.

[Shep]
Because it’s too old. It had like select and start.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Oh, yeah. Well, start button then.

[Thomas]
There is a slow-mo button, so that would be interesting to incorporate that at some point.

[Emily]
Oh, that’d be fun. There are some guys out there listening to this episode going, “Why are you letting her talk? She clearly knows nothing.”

[Shep]
No, that’s what we want to hear. Because if it’s just two nerds nerding out, then it’ll just be a nerd echo. We need to know what we don’t know, which is what other people don’t know. So the slow-mo button, we haven’t done anything with Captain Falcon yet.

[Thomas]
Hmm.

[Shep]
And F-Zero, famously fast, he could have to use the slow button to interact with Captain Falcon. Or-

[Thomas]
Does he need to take the fight to Ganon, or is it like I said, where they’re both going to the same one place? Has Ganon built his kingdom around the way out? Because maybe that’s like a power source. Maybe there’s a volcano-

[Emily]
Okay.

[Thomas]
And that’s like the power source in the in the world, but that’s also like what provides power to the game. The volcano is actually more like raw power, electricity coming in, or I don’t know, something like that. Maybe it’s a problem for the writers, like these specific details. We just know there’s a place he has to get to, and that is the sort of barrier between the worlds.

[Shep]
Yeah, so he didn’t exit the normal way. He used that portal that he can’t reproduce.

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
So he has to travel back the normal way. So he has to pass through Ganon’s domain to get to Bad Busting Brawl. Whatever the name was the-

[Thomas]
Bad Street Brawlers or something.

[Shep]
Bad Street Brawlers. Which is another thing Samus would know because she has that map ability. Like, Samus really works out the more I think about it. But Ganon knows. So he’s got to interact with Ganon more before he flees to the station. There’s got to be more there at the beginning.

[Emily]
Right.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Like, we talked before about him losing the glove temporarily. And that could be when that happens. So that’s early on, and he manages to snatch it back. Maybe he has an early companion before R.O.B. even. Maybe that’s where Kirby is.

[Thomas]
I was just thinking that could be Kirby, who doesn’t speak, so he treats them more like a pet.

[Shep]
Right. So I said before, you could establish that Kirby can take on the powers of the power glove, and we established that earlier with something else, but that could be when that happens is in that early fight.

[Thomas]
Oh, Kirby maybe creates that portal. And so it wasn’t even Jeremy that opened the portal. It was Kirby who did it.

[Shep]
Ah!

[Thomas]
So Jeremy has no idea how Kirby did that.

[Shep]
But it was when he had the power glove.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
So he had the power, and he used it because Kirby can use whatever powers he picks up.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then Kirby stays behind-

[Thomas]
Yes. Spits the glove out for Jeremy.

[Shep]
And spits the glove out for Jeremy. Jeremy and the glove go through the portal. The portal closes.

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
This all works out. I’m glad we brought it up because now it’s making even more sense.

[Emily]
Good job.

[Shep]
This is why Ganon really wants the glove because he had it briefly-

[Thomas]
Yes.

[Shep]
And he knows how it works. So he sets the trap that Jeremy’s going to have to pass through.

[Thomas]
Uh-huh.

[Shep]
Tom Nook sells them out. And so they know they’re coming back on Samus’ ship. Ridley can ambush the ship, cause it to crash. Pretty standard stuff. Ridley and Samus are fighting. So it’s just Bowser and Jeremy. And maybe Captain Falcon, if we’ve put him on the team earlier.

[Thomas]
Okay.

[Shep]
And they’ve got to fight Ganon. And you think Bowser being a villain and Ganon being a villain, pretty evenly matched. And Captain Falcon is trying to sneak Jeremy past really quickly, but that doesn’t work out. And then he has to use the glove because now he’s been trained by Samus and he believes that it’ll work. And it does. And he can defeat Ganon. And then Jeremy and Bowser can have their heartfelt farewells-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Before Jeremy opens the portal and leaves back to the real world.

[Thomas]
And then when he gets back into the real world, his parents come into the room, and then so he was basically being punished. He was in trouble-

[Emily]
Mm-hmm.

[Thomas]
And was sent to the attic or his room or whatever.

[Emily]
Send to clean out the attic.

[Thomas]
Oh, yeah, that’s good.

[Shep]
Oh, yeah, that establishes so much.

[Thomas]
So I hate to leave on this trope, but it’s a trope for a reason. Does the wife tell the husband, “Hey, go check on him?” And the husband comes up and is like, “Oh, you’ve got the Nintendo set up,” and just immediately forgets that he’s supposed to be checking on the like attic cleaning progress. And they just start playing video games together. And then the dad is like, “Oh, the power glove. That thing was always so bad.”

[Shep]
Ha, boo, boo, throwing popcorn at the screen. Boo! “I could never get it to work,” the dad says.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And then you have Jeremy do it like a sly little smile. So the dad and the son didn’t get along earlier. The dad wants to interact with him, but they have nothing in common. And then the kid gets in trouble and he gets his Switch taken away. When I was in trouble as a kid, they had sent us to get a switch, and now it’s the opposite.

[Thomas]
That joke is going to go over so many people’s heads. I like this. I mean, I feel like we’ve got a fun story. Is there anything crucial that we’re missing?

[Shep]
The broad strokes are there, and the glove stayed relevant throughout.

[Emily]
The whole time.

[Thomas]
The whole time. That’s pretty good.

[Shep]
I love it when that happens.

[Thomas]
We’d love to hear your thoughts on today’s episode about a Glove. Did it fit like a glove? Or is it time to take the gloves off? Let us know by leaving a comment on our website, reaching out on social media, or sending us an email. There are links to all of those at AlmostPlausible.com, where we also publish full transcripts for each episode, provide links to the references we make, have additional information about the three of us, and let you know the ways you can support the show. Join Emily, Shep, and I again on the next episode of Almost Plausible.

[Outro music]

[Emily]
I don’t think I ever met anyone that actually had a power glove.

[Thomas]
A friend of mine had a power glove. I got to play with it a little bit. It was terrible.

[Shep]
Yeah.

[Thomas]
It was bad.

[Shep]
Yes. The movie tried to tell us.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
We didn’t listen, but it was indeed so bad.

[Thomas]
All the pictures I’m seeing are right-handed, but in my brain, it’s a left-handed thing.

[Shep]
That’s also how I remember it, as a left-handed thing. Was it right-handed?

[Emily]
Are all of the pictures inverted?

[Thomas]
I don’t think so.

[Shep]
It could just be we are from a dimension where it was left-hand only-

[Thomas]
Right.

[Shep]
But everything slid around during the fracture of 2016-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Emily]
Hmm.

[Shep]
So who knows what dimension we’re in now?

[Emily]
The one without a seahorse emoji.

[Shep]
Yeah, that was a big loss.

[Emily]
Yep.

[Shep]
Yeah, they are all right-hand.

[Thomas]
Yeah. Ah, okay, well.

[Shep]
Wow. Wow. I had to look it up because I didn’t believe it. And now I still don’t believe it because it doesn’t make any sense. This doesn’t match my memories at all, which as we’ve previously covered, are perfect and never have any flaws.

[Emily]
It would make more sense for it to be a lefty.

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
Yeah, maybe that’s why in our brains, it’s left-handed. Because you’d use your right hand on it. So in The Dungeonmaster, the movie where he’s got a glove on, it is the left hand. So maybe that’s why, in my mind, it’s the other hand.

[Thomas]
I searched for a left-handed power glove, and every photo is right-handed. Now, there’s a guy who’s wearing a right-handed power glove on his left hand. But uh, yeah, no, okay, well-

[Shep]
All right, where were we?

[Thomas]
I don’t even know.

[Shep]
What were we talking about? I got so distracted by my reality fracturing-

[Thomas]
Yeah.

[Shep]
And power gloves changing to only right hand.

[Outro music]

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