[Omniverse Audio Brand]

 

[90s phone ring and pick up]

 

CAT

Hey, this is Cat!

 

JESS

And Jess

 

CAT

You know, “Mother,” She Wrote is free to listen to, but it’s not free to make.

 

JESS

So please consider supporting our work on Patreon.

 

CATYou’ll get early, ad-free episodes of this show and all the storytelling podcasts we create. 

 

JESSHead to Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia to chip in and join our community of world-saving wunderkind.

 

CAT

Oh and - heads up: this episode contains discussion of bullying and explosives in a school environment.

 

JESS

Please use your best judgment when listening… and take care of yourself. 

 

CAT & JESS

Love youuuu.

 

[phone disconnect sound]

 

[street and outdoor ambience]

 

NINTEN

Dear Mom, I made a new friend! His name is Lloyd. He’s… Um… I don’t mean this meanly, but he’s a nerd. Big glasses, loves science, gets picked on - like, classic nerd stuff. His classmates were pretty surprised when they saw us hanging out. But they don’t get him. Lloyd’s like me.

 

Well, I mean - he doesn’t have PSI powers, but… he’s different! It’s like he can see how everything in the world sort of mechanically fits together. I mean, he’s a genius! He knows gadgets and weapons and explosives! I’m out here fighting space aliens, but I don’t know how to program a computer or build a lightsaber!

 

And yeah - Lloyd doesn’t know how to build a lightsaber - yet - but he’s… pretty sure he can figure it out. We just have to “study our enemy’s superior technology”. He kinda talks like that.

 

It’s weird hanging out in another town. Merrysville is so… BIG. And dirty. And expensive. And basically everybody works for the same company: Duncan Incorporated. It’s on every billboard. Duncan hospitals, Duncan trucks. Duncan missile factories. I think it’s weird, but most people in town are pretty proud of it. 

 

Nothing as crazy as what happened in Podunk has happened here - but it’s starting. There’s little UFOs flying like scouts through the wilderness and I’ve seen weird stick-like robots surveilling the town. The animals in the wild are attacking people. Some people are attacking people... There’s been a lot of traffic accidents lately. Road rage. The thing is, it’s hard to say if it’s the people behind the wheel that are going crazy or if it’s the cars and trucks themselves. It’s just like the poltergeist back home. The news is playing everything off like it’s a coincidence, but the town is on edge. 

 

I’ll tell you one thing: I’m missing Podunk’s fresh air. With all the factories and cars, there’s so much pollution here that the entire valley has a haze in the sky. 

 

[a big truck approaches]

 

NINTEN

Yesterday, a truck went by and blew a cloud of exhaust so thick and black I had to reach for my inhaler. 

 

[the big truck breaks with a puff of exhaust]

 

NINTEN

Then this car, with nobody in it-

 

[a car speeds from the distance]

 

NINTEN

-Turned on its lights-

 

[a car alarm starts going off]

 

NINTEN

-And drove straight at me!

 

[a car accelerates past]

NINTEN

If Lloyd hadn’t been there, I‘d have been a goner! He pushed me out of the way, threw a cherry bomb into the exhaust pipe and we made our break.

 

[the car peels off]

 

NINTEN

Lloyd’s not very strong but he makes up for it with know-how, and with me around he’s maybe a bit braver than he gave himself credit for.

 

[plucky music starts, ambience of children in school]

 

NINTEN

I met him at Twinkle Elementary. I just kinda… walked in like I was supposed to be there. It’s weird not going to school anymore. I guess I was just curious. While I was walking the halls I bumped into these two bullies. They bragged about picking on Lloyd and chasing him up on the roof before it got locked for the day. 

 

So I asked around about this kid. His classmates all called him a weakling and said he got beat up all the time. They also said that he’d invented all kinds of weird stuff and built his own supercomputer… They also said he stole explosives from the science lab. I got this feeling, like a hunch: Great Grandpa was an inventor, there’s lots of weird stuff in his diary that I don’t understand… Maybe this kid could help! So I kept asking questions, gave the janitor some relationship advice, and bingo-bongo: I got the key to the roof.

 

[school ambience fades to subtle wind]

 

NINTEN

There was no one there. I thought maybe those bullies had pulled a fast one on me. But then I saw the lid of a trash can move-

 

[metal scraping]

 

NINTEN

-Like someone was watching me from inside. 

 

[a trash can softly closes]

 

NINTEN

Hey. Uh…Lloyd?

 

LLOYD

[muffled, metallic from inside the trash can]

Who are you? Another jerk who wants to pick on me?

 

NINTEN

Heck no. That’s messed up. I mean, you’re already in a trash can, dude. I’m Ninten, from Podunk.

 

LLOYD

[muffled, metallic from inside the trash can]

Did you say Podunk!?

 

[Lloyd pops his head out of the trash can, excited]

 

LLOYD

Did you witness the alleged paranormal disturbances?

 

NINTEN

Heh. Big time. Did you really steal explosives from the science lab?

 

[Lloyd drops his head into the trash can again.]

 

LLOYD

[muffled, metallic from inside the trash can]

…Yes.

 

NINTEN

Whatcha gonna do with them?

 

LLOYD

[muffled, metallic from inside the trash can]

You wouldn’t believe me.

 

NINTEN

Heh. I beat up aliens with my baseball bat.

 

[Lloyd excitedly jumps out of the trash can]

 

LLOYD

You’ve seen them too!? I’ve been observing them for days. That’s why I absconded with the explosive materials. 

 

[funky music starts]

 

LLOYD

I’m working on a weapon to fight them.

 

NINTEN

Woah- okay! That’s awesome! That could really come in handy.

 

LLOYD

So you’ll help me? I just need one more thing - There’s an abandoned factory to the south that used to make rockets…

 

NINTEN

Oh… Like these?

It just so happened I’d stumbled onto this busted up factory thinking maybe it was an alien hideout. It was just a rat-infested dump, but there was still some cool stuff there, like these tiny missiles. I didn’t know what to do with them, but fortunately-

 

LLOYD

NO WAY! This is perfect! 

 

[the rooftop door creaks open]

 

LLOYD

Ahem. Come with me.

 

[the door closes]

 

NINTEN

I followed Loid to the science room where he combined some goo he’d made with the rocket and well… 

 

[A big firecracker-like explosion happens. Music pauses.]

 

NINTEN

It worked… Kinda. 

 

[Music starts up again]

 

NINTEN

More soon, Mom. Love, Ninten.

 

CAT

Welcome to “MOTHER,” She Wrote - a travelog diary through the strangest, most thought-provoking, most heart-rending video games ever made: MOTHER as it’s called in Japan, and EarthBound - as it’s called everywhere else. This is the story of the first game in that series: EarthBound Beginnings.

 

[music flourishes to a close]

 

CAT

I’m Cat Blackard, your plucky purveyor of “Puzzling Evidence”. And with me, as always, in our quest to chronicle Ninten’s “Wild, Wild Life” is:

 

JESS

Hey! I’m a completely respectable host - even if I sometimes go dumpster diving for supplies. It’s Jessica Mudd.

 

[the Mother’s Day Times theme starts]

 

CAT

We’re exploring a new town and meeting a new friend this episode, so there’s a lot to discuss, but before we hitch a ride to Merrysville let’s check out the latest community news in The Mother’s Day Times!

 

[the theme flourishes and ends]

 

JESS

Welcome to the Mother’s Day Times! Where we keep you up to date on the latest happenings from all across Eagleland and where we read your correspondences. 

 

CAT

Maybe you’d like to add something to a discussion from a past episode, maybe we overlooked something, maybe you’ve got a lotta love about Mother and you’ve gotta let it out - Send us a letter at dearmothershewrote@gmail.com and tell us all about it. 

 

JESS

Or ask us questions. For instance: Cat, what were the toppings on the last pizza that you ate?

 

CAT

Why, artichoke, sausage, and extra cheese, my dear Jessica. This is the power you wield, folks. Again, that’s dearmothershewrote@gmail.com to ask your burning questions and lend your voice to this program.

 

JESS

There’s been a lot of new faces hanging around the Omniverse Discord server since the show started up. Some folks have even been sharing their collections of MOTHER memorabilia. It’s been great hanging out with everyone and if you haven’t already, we hope that you’ll join us too!

 

CAT

Head to mothershewrote.earth and click on over to the Discord! 

 

In MOTHER news - we often mention kenisu’s translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia - well that translation is still ongoing! One of the latest pieces that’s been translated is an essay from the game’s creator Shigesato Itoi where he provides more insight into his process for creating MOTHER.

 

He says, “I'm someone who, when I throw a bomb at an enemy, feels something simply by the act of taking that opponent out. Who then wonders what the landscape would look like after the bomb is thrown. Who feels hurt. Who thinks, ‘I shouldn't have thrown the thing.’ In a common game, that bomb turns out to be nothing more than a stand-in for an exchange of numbers… but there is a projection of reality there, so depending on the person, there can be some sense of friction... In which case, I thought, ‘you know what, I think this is my ‘line of work’!’ Games had called out to me, requesting my presence.”

 

JESS

You can read more in kenisu’s translation of the MOTHER Encyclopedia, by following the link on this episode’s page.

 

Rating and reviewing this show on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser is a big help - the more ratings and reviews we get, the more people have a chance of discovering this show. Show us some PK love and get SMASHing results like Scorpion Stan 420, who left us a 5 star review on Apple Podcasts and said, “Can't wait for more episodes. I could listen to them talk about these games forever!” 

 

CAT

Keep those ratings and reviews coming and maybe we will talk about these games forever. 

 

JESS

We really appreciate everyone’s excitement and support for this show! We took a lot of risks with it and if you like it now, well, just you wait til’ you see where it goes. 

 

CAT

Ominous… Finally, I want to give a shout out to Game Grooves’ "Filled With Pride" Undertale charity album. The Undertale and EarthBound fan communities have a lot of crossover so maybe this is of interest. It’s 14 tracks, over a wide variety of genres, covering music from Undertale. You can stream and purchase it across a number of platforms, and all proceeds go to Equality Florida, a wonderful organization that advocates for civil rights and protections for LGBTQIA+ residents of Florida.

 

I’m a transgender Floridian and recent state laws have attacked my ability to receive the medical care I need to survive and made it an arrestable offense for me to use a public restroom. They’ve effectively made it illegal to be trans in Florida and as a result I’m leaving my home and moving to another state. It’s pretty bleak, so I was excited to see this outpouring of love in the form of this new fan music record. We’ll have links to where you can check out Game Grooves’ "Filled With Pride" album and links to Equality Florida on this episode’s page. 

 

JESS

Don’t forget to drop us a line at dearmothershewrote@gmail.com and like Ninten’s own dear mother, we might read and reflect on your correspondences on our next episode! That’s all for now. This has been the Mother’s Day Times.

CAT

Back to you Cat and Jess.

 

[Mother’s Day Times outro fanfare]

 

JESS:

Hey, aren't you supposed to be in school, young lady?

 

CAT:

Uh, <laugh>... Only if you can catch me!

 

JESS:

Yeah, well, I respect that. I understand. I had pretty much the same reaction when a couple of folks in Merrysville asked me if I was supposed to actually be in school. I was just like, "yeah, sure. Okay. Yeah. I'm probably supposed to be in school, but I'm not. So deal with it."

 

CAT:

Yeah. It's an interesting factor of this particular moment in time where Merrysville, it's not been dealing with the same stuff as Podunk and it's a little bit normal. Things haven't gone 100% weird there yet.

 

JESS:

After going into the hotel, saving, healing up and everything, the first thing I did was went around and just started talking to people. First of all, there was somebody who was taking a survey of some kind. They ask you, you know, "hey, do you wanna take this survey?" And if you say "no," they're like, "hey, this is a respectable survey!" And it's like, okay, well then... if It's a respectable survey then - sure. So if you say "yes" to that, the questions they ask you are, "do you think that the train tickets are too expensive" and "have you used the bullhorn in the past?" And for my myself, I said, "no, I don't think the trains tickets were too expensive," although I have no idea how much they charge for them here. And I said that "no, I had not used the bullhorn, cuz I hadn't." And in exchange for completing the questionnaire, they give you a phone card. I'm not really sure what the phone card is supposed to do. I checked the item and it said it's supposed to, like... Help you with your phone calls or something like that?

 

CAT:

Yeah. If you use a payphone, normally it would cost a dollar. Well this is good for 50 payphone uses.

 

JESS:

There's payphones in this game?

 

CAT:

That's what you use at every department store.

 

JESS:

And it cost me a dollar to use it?

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

I never even noticed that.

 

CAT:

Yeah, you just hadn't noticed.

 

JESS:

<laugh>. Yeah, I just, uh, I didn't even notice that. Only a dollar? It only saves you $50? That is an item taking up inventory space that only saves you $50? That's going in the bin. Next time I log on.

 

CAT:

The theme of this episode is, uh... Inventory management and it's challenges, but don't worry, we're gonna have a fun time with it.

 

JESS:

Yeah-huh.

 

CAT:

Now an interesting feature of the phone card is that it has the portrait of wealthy industrialist Goldrich Duncan on it.

 

JESS:

Oh really?

 

CAT:

Yeah.

 

JESS:

Mr. Duncan. Hmm. Yeah.

 

CAT:

Duncan of Duncan Industries.

 

JESS:

Who has made quite a name for themselves around Merrysville.

 

CAT:

Yeah. The Encyclopedia says "it's impossible to talk about the town history without the name Goldrich Duncan. Mr. Duncan, who according to one theory, struck oil to the south, fixed his sights on a good railside spot, and in the mid-1950s relocated to Thanksgiving." "Thanksgiving" is, of course, the name of Merrysville in the Japanese version of EarthBound Beginnings. From that day on, beginning with the construction of two successive factories in the north and south of town, his abundant monetary muscles were a huge help in the development of Main Street. For instance, upgrading the medical and educational facilities. At the same time, these things caused a complete change to the face of Thanksgiving, where before it had been no more than a small country town. With this bustling burg bearing the alternate name of 'Duncan's Town'. It'll be no stretch to say that for many long years Mr. Duncan has had more influence than the mayor himself. However, most recently, the voice of opposition has risen from the townsfolk against the plans to construct a strip theater. It looks like even Mr. Duncan's power is beginning to waiver a bit as he gets older."

 

JESS:

Yeah. So one of the citizens walking around the town says that Duncan Enterprises plans to build a strip joint here and that the townspeople aren't too happy about it.

 

CAT:

I mean, that is just one person's opinion, but yeah, it does seem that there's been sort of a public outcry of the moral indecency of a strip club, which again, is one of those things that is downright shocking that it's in this game.

 

JESS:

And then there's actually a site for it as well. You go and you see there's a sign that says "coming soon". It was like "The Debutantery".

 

CAT:

<laughs> I love it so much.

 

JESS:

What a name!

 

CAT:

"Coming this fall: Dunkan's Debutantery. Financing by, Architectural by ,Construction by the Duncan Company Incorporated."

 

JESS:

Yes. <laugh>

 

CAT:

The social commentary is intense in this section of the game on a lot of different fronts. Like first of all, I don't know what the strip club is called in Japanese, but like "Debutantery" is one of the grossest, weirdest, pretend-to-be-fancy things you could possibly call a strip club.

 

JESS:

Also you mentioned the Dunkan fortune and the effect that it had on Merrysville and you know, specifically the education, and the medical facilities, and everything. And there was a sign outside of the hospital in Merrysville, which contained my Mother She Quote for this section of the game.

 

CAT:

<Laugh>

 

JESS:

And that sign said "cheap, fast and handsome. The best doctor is old Sawbones Benny. Take advantage of specially-priced treatments. Whether dead or alive, protect your life."

 

CAT:

<Laugh> Well that sign is pretty much the same in Japanese except for one important thing.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

Which is that "Sawbones Benny" is a name that they changed the doctor's to in order to remove a pop culture reference. And it's a pop culture reference that at this point in time, nobody you or I's age who isn't, like, an aficionado of old television would have any idea what the hell this is.

 

JESS:

Okay, so what was it?

 

CAT:

The "best doctor" is surgeon Ben Casey. Ben Casey is the titular character of an American television medical drama: Ben Casey - which ran for five seasons between 1961 and 1966. The MOTHER Encyclopedia says, "with his bulbous bespectacled nose, we'll leave it up to you to decide whether or not Ben Casey is handsome. As for the 'cheap and fast' part, well, he's not exactly lying. He always bills the patient half of the money they have on them for treatment. That means if you don't have a dime on you, he'll cure your illness for free. And treatment only takes an instant of your time."

 

JESS:

Yeah, I rolled into the hospital with a cold or the cold status. I don't know how I got it, but I noticed that my screen was like flashing red at me every few steps. Then I noticed that I had a cold or something. So I went to the hospital, I talked to old saw Sawbones Benny, and he was like, "how much money you got on you?" And I emptied out my pockets and I had two shiny dollars to my name. And he was like, "well, that's okay. Just gimme one of them." And I was like, "seriously? Amazing. Okay." <Laugh>

 

CAT:

However, if you don't agree to his price, he says "go ahead and die, then I'll call the mortician."

 

JESS:

Oh. Oh my.

 

CAT:

<Laugh>

 

JESS:

Well, you know, what do you expect from a doctor called "Sawbones"?

 

CAT:

<laugh> And also, when you do get his treatment, he says, "you're now cured. Go get hurt again and come back soon. Hee hee hee."

 

JESS:

<Laugh> See, I saw that dialogue and I didn't think anything of it because everything in this game is so strange. I was just like, "well, yeah, of course. That's what he would say."

 

CAT:

Right. It's a weird bunch of commentary on the medical industry, I guess. Like, this is not how all the doctors in this game operate. This doctor works differently than all the other doctors that you're gonna meet. It's a weird move and an interesting move. Then outside the hospital there's a person who says, "I'd like to be a doctor and help sick people and make lots of money doing it," but then this doctor's kind of like kind if you're broke. So that's interesting.

 

JESS:

Yeah. This is the one time that not having any money worked in my favor.

 

CAT:

The town of Merrysville has a distinctly different vibe from Podunk. There's just a lot more happening socially, as you've already seen. Like there's, you know - the hospital's got a whole thing going on. There's a survey out in the street, there's a strip club being built. It is a town where manufacturing and commerce are the chief industries.

 

JESS:

Yeah. Merrysville runs on Duncan.

 

CAT:

Oh God. You're right. You're right! Is Merrysville an analog to Boston?

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

CAT:

Perhaps?

 

JESS:

Possibly.

 

CAT:

They weren't selling any donuts, though. I don't know.

 

JESS:

That's true.

 

CAT:

We should confront two important things. One is that the train tracks have been blocked by a boulder.

 

JESS:

Somebody in Merrysville tells you that it needs an explosive to clear it away. And also that they think the mayor just leaves it there until the election's over.

 

CAT:

Yeah. <laugh>, I love that. The very realistic distrust of police, politicians, rich people... That's all very much a part of the fabric of these games. We also learn about the nature of Dunken's factories, which is that they make missiles.

 

JESS:

Right. Yeah. Duncan's Factory makes the big explosives and Sweet's Little Factory makes bottle rockets.

 

CAT:

As for people around town, there's some really charming stuff. For example, "my husband is an important man at Twinkle School. He never eats lunch."

 

JESS:

I guess that makes him important cuz he just doesn't eat lunch.

 

CAT:

He's so busy. How does- he couldn't possibly have the time.

 

JESS:

I guess so. Yes.

 

CAT:

Well, my Mother She Quote does come from the mean streets of Merrysville: "Don't take me for an ordinary man, although I am an ordinary man."

 

JESS:

<laugh>. That was almost my Mother She Quote.

 

CAT:

And what's great about this is that when these lines appear on screen, you'll first see, don't take me for an ordinary man. And then you press the button to continue and you get the rest of it. Well, there's a sequel to this piece of dialogue, which is when you explore the school, there's a little girl that says, "don't take me for an ordinary man." And then when you progress the text, she says, "those are dad's favorite words."

 

JESS:

<laugh>. Mm-hmm. Yeah. I saw that and I was like, "okay, well I won't take you for an ordinary man." And then he is like, "although I am one." And I was like, "okay, fine." I won't presume that you're an ordinary man then.

 

CAT:

<Laugh>.

 

JESS:

It's such a great little piece of dialogue. It's like, you know, "don't take me for granted." You know, "I could be extraordinary. You don't know."

 

CAT:

Especially with a child repeating that, tt creates this entire social drama of someone who feels like deeply insecure. This ordinary man whose catchphrase is this almost pathetic attempt to be, important to be somebody. But he's stuck in the rat race of working for Dunken Industries and you know...

 

JESS:

Yeah I can see that.

 

CAT:

There's a lot there. It's a whole story. It's a whole world.

 

JESS:

It is.

 

CAT:

So we talked about how the hospital's got something going on. There's a school that's got a whole thing in it. Even the hotel has something weird going on. Did you happen to go to the third floor of the hotel?

 

JESS:

I didn't even go on the second floor of the hotel!

 

CAT:

It's easy to miss. Most people never notice this, but there are several hotels throughout the game that have a similar experience in them. But there's a third floor with a restaurant where you can't buy any food, but there's three characters to talk to up there. The person behind the counter says "a restaurant-rant-rant. Happy Restaurant-Rant-Rant. Are you happy?" And then a woman seemingly commenting on whatever the heck that was, says "all restaurant owners must love musicals."

 

JESS:

<laugh>. Okay.

 

CAT:

And I was super confused by this. There was a fan translation that was created by Clyde Mandelin, aka Tomato who did the MOTHER 3 fan translation, but changes this line - "restaurant-rant-rant" - it makes it more clear that the person's like singing a, like a happy song. Cuz I asked about this, I asked around about this. The original dialogue is actually someone saying, "a restaurant ron-ron" in Japanese. And on the Mother Direct Discord. The user Lone helped me out here and looked at that original text, dug into it, and said they thought that that might have just been a funny way of saying restaurant, but it may be a reference to a Chinese restaurant called Ron Ron in the Gumma Prefecture where Itoi is from. It says it opened in 1983. So it adds up timeline-wise and based on Ito's entire vibe, he may have just plugged a reference to a restaurant he liked into the game.

 

JESS:

Wow. Oh, I love that. That's so good.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Thank you Lone. If you wanna go to a restaurant that maybe inspired a scene in EarthBound, you can go to the still existent Chinese restaurant, Ron Ron, in Gunma Prefecture.

 

JESS:

Oh, well we gotta go then, right? We gotta go. Can we go there?

 

CAT:

Let's, let's, let's try to go!

 

JESS:

Let's go!

 

CAT:

It looks good! <laugh>

 

JESS:

I'm gonna be a real noodlenoggin after visiting that place.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. Well, they got the noodles for it.

 

[musical segue]

 

CAT:

So when you look at the Encyclopedia, the Thanksgiving chapter is really interesting. It's got all these photographs of different slices of America. It's got all these different buildings, people, children. There's a photo of Miss Oklahoma International. There's a photo of like a weird-looking laboratory. There's a photo of a Ford truck with deer antlers attached to it. But most intriguingly, there's a photo of three women in bumblebee costumes walking down the road. According to the caption, "the Thanksgiving Festival where they celebrate by eating Turkey." But there's a lot of things about Merrysville and its portrayal of American culture that ties into a theory that I've had for a really long time about the way that America is presented in the first two EarthBound games. I think there's a good chance that it was significantly influenced by a movie called True Stories written and directed by David Byrne, the front man of the band Talking Heads. 

 

This movie came out in 1986 and the plot is basically: a small town in Texas is having a celebration of specialness and you're gonna learn things about the town and the weird people in the town. It, much like EarthBound, is actually really difficult to describe what it actually is. David Byrne is in the film as an unnamed character, sort of showing you around the town, telling you about the cultural history, an anthropology of this part of Texas, and meeting strange people like a woman who is obsessed with cute things, and a woman who is a compulsive liar, and a man who performs keyboard in a band, and at a church, and also works in a factory, and picks up radio signals in his head. He hears what people are broadcasting and he's the receiver. It has a lot about science and industry in it. 

 

The town, Virgil, Texas in the movie, is put on the map because of a corporation that moves into town, VeriCorp. And the president of VeriCorp is, just like Goldrich Duncan, a bigger deal than the mayor. The photo of the women in bee costumes marching down the road seems an awful lot like the parade held for the celebration of specialness in True Stories. In fact, there's a lot of images of small town America in the MOTHER Encyclopedia that might as well be screen grabs from the movie. There are plenty of cultural correlations here that I can make assumptions about, but unfortunately I haven't found anything about the music of Talking Heads having been a direct reference to the games or this movie having been a direct reference to the games. But it's not for lack of snooping around and looking. In fact, back in 2018 this film was re-released by the Criterion Collection in a remastered edition and I had an opportunity to talk to David Byrne of Talking Heads about this. So I wanted to play a little clip from that and I think you'll get a sense of the parallels between these two pieces of media. Here's a snippet of my chat with David Byrne.

 

PAST CAT:

One of the things I love about it is how it views the world so earnestly, you know, it seems like it's a pretty viable portrait of what you were interested in at that moment in time, and your feelings on them, and you managed to figure out a way to stick them all in one place.

 

DAVID BYRNE:

Yes, it does. It does get to be a little bit of a grab bag. Oh yeah, I can say something about architecture here. I can say something about all these different regional musical styles. I can work that in there.

 

PAST CAT:

And that's one of the reasons that it presents such a clear picture cuz it has the opportunity to explore so much. I mean, I show it to people for a lot of reasons, but one of the most significant I think, is that it's, I feel one of the most honest and realized portraits of America in the eighties or a portrait of the eighties itself in some ways.

 

DAVID BYRNE:

Well, thank you. When it came out, I recall kind two very different kinds of reactions in the United States. It was viewed as being very ironic, that I was sort of making fun of people.

 

PAST CAT:

Oh gosh.

 

DAVID BYRNE:

Which was not my intention. In Europe it was looked at as a kind of loving tribute to a lot of the wonderful creative eccentricities of America, which is what was intended.

 

PAST CAT:

Something I've always been curious about is actually how it was perceived in foreign countries. Did it get distributed to Japan at all?

 

DAVID BYRNE:

I don't know if it was ever shown theatrically in Japan or not. I know they had probably had DVDs and other versions of it. Um, I'm not <laugh> I don't remember whether it had a theatrical release there or not.

 

PAST CAT:

They tend to culturally eat up portraits of America pretty intensely.

 

DAVID BYRNE:

Yeah! Yeah. You would think that, uh, that would be something that would appeal.

 

CAT:

That last little bit where I asked him about Japan - that didn't end up in the final interview when it was released. That was me specifically trying to sniff out whether or not True Stories had an influence on Earthbound. I feel there's a pretty strong argument for it having been one of the best and easiest to reach for touchstones of what America was like in the 1980s. It's such a time capsule, but then also presents a heightened portrait of middle America that would otherwise have been hard to come by. Like David Byrne said, Americans weren't ready to see it, but a lot of people from Europe, at the very least, that he's aware of, were able to see that even though it's a comedy, it's not a mean portrait of America. It's one that seems a lot like EarthBound - the way people talk, the things people say. In fact, a lot of the ways that people talk in the movie, whether they're talking to the camera or to the main narrator character, are almost like NPCs in a video game; just weirdly nonchalantly sharing something poignant about their life with you. One little like extra thing is Ramon the person who picks up radios in his head. The song that he sings later in the movie "Radiohead" is where the band Radiohead got their name. That same kind of idea of telepathy being radio-like is something that's echoed in the MOTHER novelization. The main character of those books is Ana, who we'll meet later on the show. And she refers to the people that she's catching memories and thoughts from as "broadcasters" and herself as a "radio".

 

JESS:

Well and as we know, David Byrne is no ordinary man

 

CAT:

<laugh>. That's for sure. He really isn't. If you wanna hear the entirety of that interview, we'll link to it on this episode's page.

 

[relaxed musical interlude]

 

JESS:

So you walk into the school and one of the first people that you encounter asks you if you're from around here, and if you say," yeah, I'm from around here." They're like, "okay, don't run in the school." And I was like, "yeah, right. Okay, here I go!" Just took right off.

 

CAT:

No running in the hallways, Jess! What are you doing? You're gonna slip, you're gonna fall and you don't even go to the school - who's liable? No one knows.

 

JESS:

I'm not saving the world by following the rules, okay?

 

CAT:

Well that's true. That puts the "true" in "truancy".

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

CAT:

Now this is Twinkle Elementary School. It's called "Tinkle" Elementary in Japan.

 

JESS:

Really?

 

CAT:

Now, before you make any urine jokes, there's a good reason for it. You might notice that the music inside of this elementary school starts with a little, like. A little song that is very prevalent in let's say, uh, old clocks. Da-duh-da-duh. Duh-da-da-duh.

 

JESS:

Wow. I did not pick up on that.

 

CAT:

The Encyclopedia says, "if you visit this school, there's a sound you won't want to miss. The beautiful chime that rings through the halls during lesson breaks. This bell was sent over from the neighboring town of Mother's Day as a memento when the school was founded with a Turkey engraved on it in tribute to the town's name. It's a rare gift whose clear tones are pleasing even to a traveler's ears. And by the way, this elementary school, which was named Thanksgiving Elementary, at first conceived, shortly thereafter, took the pet name 'Tinkle'." As in the ringing of bells. Do you know where that song comes from, Jess? Because I do.

 

JESS:

No, I don't <laugh>. Do you? Tell me.

 

CAT:

I found out. I looked it up because I was like, "I know that, I know what that is, but I don't know why it is." Well, in 1793, a new clock was installed at St. Mary the Great Church in Cambridge, England. The melody is possibly based on "I Know That My Redeemer Liveth" from Handel's Messiah. And in 1859 the tune was replicated by the team that installed the Palace of Westminster's new bell's inside of what would become known as Big Ben. And from that very prominent setting, the tune became known as the Westminster Chimes and ended up inside clocks everywhere.

 

JESS:

Wow.

 

CAT:

And it is the song that I remember for this episode of "MOTHER," She Wrote - because it's not just that song, but after you get those chimes, well then it goes into a really cool jam with some really good bass grooves in it. And you know what? They liked it so much, they borrowed it for EarthBound. It's the music that plays while you're naming your characters in the beginning of the game.

 

JESS:

Really? That's interesting. So they have that song that plays in that one section and you never hear it again, but they reused it that way?

 

CAT:

Yeah, they reuse it without the bells. The bells are just for the school.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

And it also appears again in the Game Boy Camera peripheral software.

 

JESS:

What?

 

CAT:

For anyone who's not aware, there was a little thing for the Game Boy - A camera. You'd clip in this like game pack with a little ball camera, like a webcam, into the back of the Game Boy. You could take pictures, and with a printer peripheral you could print out pictures. The music was composed by Hirokazu Tanaka and that's the link between all of these things.

 

JESS:

Just don't get caught up on the roof playing with that.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. That's true. The school's weird. It appears to be the tallest building in the town, but it is not. I mean like you walk around town, you go to the department store. Well, it's many levels high. You walk up a bunch of stairs. The school is only three levels high in the game and it doesn't look like a tall building. But when you go up to that roof, you see a vista sprawling out before you where you can see the entire town below you and distant Mt. Itoi with the cloud over the top of it...

 

JESS:

Did you see how tall the classrooms are though? I can believe that the building's that tall. Go inside the classroom and look at it. The windows are like down low to the ground and then the ceiling is just like a hundred feet in the air or something

 

CAT:

Weird. Some further context on the school: Some parents and guardians are concerned what with the strip club coming in and all, they say "it's a slippery slope with potential to corrupt the young students' public morals. But considering the fact that our aforementioned Mr. Duncan, the one pushing the construction forward, happens to be an honorary trustee of the town educational committee, you could say it's turned into a big complicated mess resolving this issue."

 

JESS:

Hmm.

 

CAT:

There's a concern of delinquency and that is even shown in some censored dialogue. There's a character in the version of the game that we've played, which says "the gym teacher made me do extra pushups again, I'd rather do sit-ups," but the original is "the gym teacher hit me. Maybe I should drop out and become a thug."

 

JESS:

Oh wow. Yeah. This school's rougher than it first appears.

 

CAT:

<Laugh>.

 

JESS:

There's also another kid that asks you if you've played Super Mario Bros. 7. And then he says, "I'm still trying to beat Super Mario Bros. 3. Had three even come out by this point?

 

CAT:

I believe three was out the same year.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

And as for like, why they're asking about seven? I don't know.

 

JESS:

Yeah. It's pretty wild - like why they would even say that? You know, why wouldn't they say, "have you played Super Mario Bros. 3?" A game that is currently out, that is new at that time? And then say, "I'm still trying to beat Super Mario Bros. 2." But no, it's like, "have you played seven? And I'm still trying to beat three." And then also somebody else asks you if you've seen a strange man in the lab and then they say, "well, I saw him." So when I went into the science lab, I started walking around looking for somebody who was like invisible. That had like drank an invisibility potion. I was expecting to run into like a block where you couldn't walk, and then use the talk function and expecting somebody to say, "hello there."

 

CAT:

This game's got you shook, Jess. It's got you all messed up <laugh>.

 

JESS:

You don't say...

 

CAT:

And I get it. That seems like a totally probable thing, based on everything else that's happened to you throughout this playthrough.

 

JESS:

So now I'm wondering though, who's the strange man, because there's nobody in the lab.

 

CAT:

At first, but there is.

 

JESS:

There is?

 

CAT:

And we'll talk about that after we get Lloyd.

 

JESS:

Okay. All right. We'll come back to that. So, and then somebody else says, "you remind me of a noodlenoggin." Which I thought was fascinating because noodlenoggin, of course, is the nickname that you were given in Magicant by the philosopher, and it's used in like a derogatory manner. So I'm wondering, is noodlenoggin like a child's insult? Like something, you know, a slur that they throw at each other? It's gotta mean something, doesn't it? What does it all mean?

 

CAT:

Maybe that... The dreaming minds of children are somehow interconnected with Magicant perhaps.

 

JESS:

Perhaps.

 

CAT:

I don't know. Or it's just a weird translation thing. I couldn't tell you.

 

JESS:

Could be.

 

CAT:

But I love that. The person who says that is Suzie. She is the current Miss Merrysville. And she asks, "aren't I gorgeous?" If you say "yes," she's like, "you look cute too." But if you say "no," she says you're ugly and you remind her of a noodlenoggin.

 

JESS:

<laugh>

 

CAT:

Miss Merrysville is something that comes up actually multiple times in the school. It's not important, but it's an interesting other little piece of the fabric of this town. In Japanese, It's actually Miss Middle of Nowhere. And when they have the picture of the Miss Oklahoma International in the Encyclopedia that's meant to be a stand-in for the, uh, Miss Middle of Nowhere,

 

JESS:

They should have called this town Podunk.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. Well it's weird to call this town Miss Middle of Nowhere because it's clearly somewhere. It's got a booming industry. It's really crowded. There's more characters in this town than anywhere else we've been and anywhere else we're going.

 

JESS:

It's got a thriving middle class.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Jess, you mentioned at one point that you got a cold and you didn't know why.

 

JESS:

Yeah. How'd that happen?

 

CAT:

As you should well know, based on being a mom yourself: kids are disgusting.

 

JESS:

That's true.

 

CAT:

There's a kid you talk to that says, "keep quiet in the library. A-choo!"

 

JESS:

Oh.

 

CAT:

Well, the screen flashing red intermittently? It starts immediately after tha,t because that kid gave you a cold. That kid sneezed on you and gave you a cold.

 

JESS:

I see. You know, that makes too much sense. Although really if it was truly accurate, then Ninten would've gone back home and given it to all of his family.

 

CAT:

<laugh>.

 

JESS:

Giving it to his whole family.

 

CAT:

Yeah, true enough. And it would just spread throughout the whole school.

 

JESS:

Fortunately the doctor was happy to treat me for a dollar, cause the school nurse certainly didn't do anything to help.

 

CAT:

Well, the school nurse is an opportunity to get your HP refilled for free though, not your psychokinetic power. Another figure of importance at the school is the janitor, as soon as you figure out the door to the roof is locked and uh, you learn that some bullies probably chased Lloyd up there. There's a door that was like previously locked downstairs and uh, turns out that's the janitor's room...? I don't know, there's a bed there. I guess he lives there? But he talks about his wife, I don't know.

 

JESS:

He starts talking about how his wife is the real problem, how she doesn't get up until noon and then when she does get up she just goes shopping. So he hid the credit cards from her and now it's not a problem anymore. She doesn't even make him a lunch! So presumably the lady we met out in the town that said that her husband, who's a very important person at the school and never eats lunch - presumably her husband is the janitor.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Another weird connection.

 

JESS:

If he's living at the school because there's a bed that's there, why doesn't he just go to the cafeteria to get lunch?

 

CAT:

Well, he must be an important man.

 

JESS:

Very important. He has the keys to the roof.

 

CAT:

True.

 

JESS:

After we talk to him and we convince him that his wife is not so bad, he says that, you know, "yeah, you're you're a good kid. Have some tea! And you want me to unlock the roof for you? Let's go." And he takes you - he starts to walk with you.

 

CAT:

Yeah. And while you're walking with him, he mentions offhandedly that his wife was the first Miss Merrysville in history.

 

JESS:

He also says that she used to look, you know, quite good or something like that.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. Yeah. He's sexist to say the least.

 

JESS:

Yes.

 

CAT:

I mean like talking about hiding his wife's credit cards, calling her a terrible wife.

 

JESS:

He's not the greatest person.

 

CAT:

Yeah. I don't know what's going on at home, but they really need to have a real talk. I mean maybe everybody's flawed, maybe everybody's got problems, but, uh...

 

JESS:

Thriving. Middle. Class.

 

CAT:

<laugh>. Yeah. Yeah. He will talk your ear off about this and that's the challenge of this section of the game is, is like navigating an awkward conversation with the school janitor. So he does what you want. <laugh>.

 

JESS:

That's life though, isn't it? Just awkward conversations trying to get people to do what, what you want?

 

CAT:

Yeah, yeah. Basically.

 

JESS:

But he does take you up and unlocks the roof for you and you're able to go up and you see a little garbage can up there that is twitching.

 

CAT:

So, you can talk to the garbage can and eventually you realize oh, it's, it's Lloyd. When you meet him and if you haven't already wandered off to Sweet's Factory to get bottle rockets, he asks you, "you wanna be my friend? Don't tell anyone, but I stole some explosives." And you say "yes" or "no", you say "yes." And he says, "I'm coming out now." And then he shows up and he says, "hi, I'm Lloyd. I wanted to fly bottle rockets that Sweet's Little Factory was producing." If you have a bottle rocket at that juncture, then he joins your party. If not, they just leave it at that. And that tells you that you probably should figure out where that is and do that thing. If you give Lloyd the bottle rocket, then you head downstairs with Lloyd, cuz he is like, "oh, we can probably make more of these." You go to the science lab...

 

JESS:

And it explodes

 

CAT:

<laugh> Yeah.

 

JESS:

He goes to show you the project that he's been working on and there's just a big explosion and then everything in the whole room is wrecked.

 

CAT:

Yeah. And one really funny thing about the animation of all of that is that right before the explosion happens, Lloyd runs and ducks behind, you using Ninten as a shield.

 

JESS:

<laugh>.

 

CAT:

It's true what the kids say about him, he is a coward.

 

JESS:

Yeah. But Ninten also is able to take down a bear with a baseball bat. So I'd be jumping behind Ninten too.

 

CAT:

<laugh> Now, if you exit that trashed room and go back in, there's a man in the science room, Jess.

 

JESS:

Okay, I didn't do that.

 

CAT:

But don't worry, this is just one of those little things that is entirely okay to miss and very, very strange.

 

JESS:

Okay, so what does the man say?

 

CAT:

"I'm the mysterious teacher. Secretly, I live here. I need money for research. Care to buy an invention?"

 

JESS:

What kind of invention?

 

CAT:

For $1048 you could buy something called Last Weapon. For $1,800 you can buy a Super Bomb. For $3,200 you can buy the Sticky Machine. Or for $3,485 you can buy a "real rocket".

 

JESS:

That all sounds like great stuff.

 

CAT:

Well, according to the Encyclopedia, "there's a pale and slightly weird science teacher here by the name of Wimstein who sells his inventions on the sly to visitors. The rocket, for one, is extremely tempting - except one drawback is all his wares have exorbitant prices that would make any traveler bawlk. Of course, it might be amusing for those with money to throw around to give an item they're curious about a try. There might be something in there that would prove surprisingly useful. However, we the writers of this book, state our hesitation to guarantee any degree of effectiveness.

 

JESS:

Mm. Okay.

 

CAT:

I'm not gonna say whether or not you wanna put your money towards this stuff, but it's there.

 

JESS:

If you trust a mad scientist with your life, then you can use one of their crazy inventions to try to save your bacon.

 

CAT:

There is a difference in one of these items between the Japanese and American versions. Instead of the super bomb, there is a time machine.

 

JESS:

<Gasp> What? Time machine!?

 

CAT:

When it's bought, the teacher explains how it's used and then accidentally presses the switch to activate it. And Ninten's party is transported to a destroyed version of the science lab, just after Lloyd blows it up. No one's there. If you leave the room, and you come back in, the teacher is there and still has this time machine for sale and you can just keep blowing your money on it again and again and again - For the same result.

 

JESS:

Oh wow. That is so cool. But you can't do that in the version that we're playing, right?

 

CAT:

Correct. Yeah.

 

JESS:

What happens if you buy a big bomb?

 

CAT:

I don't know, Jess.

 

JESS:

<sigh> We're gonna have to find out.

 

CAT:

Yeah. You're gonna have to make a lot of money and not spend it on useful stuff and risk maybe that this is good.

 

JESS:

Mm. I enjoy a good adventure <laugh> and that's why I go to dark tunnels. <laugh>

 

CAT:

Yeah. Do you wanna talk about walking into dark tunnels, Jess?

 

JESS:

Yeah. Yeah. So that, that was the reason that I gave, when I did that - exactly that when I was playing through the game. I followed the train tracks down and I saw that it went into a tunnel. And so I thought, "oh, that's kind of cool. I wonder if there's something in there?" And I honestly, I walked into it thinking that there's no way I was going to be able to walk into this tunnel.

 

[Intense music starts, playing under the dialogue]

 

JESS:

But lo and behold - you can walk into that tunnel and the scene changes. And as soon as I did it, I knew it was a bad idea. I'm like, children should not be walking into train tunnels. This is terrible. I'm only doing this because it's a video game and because I have a sense of adventure. I started walking in the train tunnel. It was very dark. There was tracks that were going along for I don't know how long, and I was attacked-

 

[intense music abruptly stops]

 

JESS:

-By a rattlesnake. That rattlesnake didn't look super intimidating, but - oh boy, is it, and it is actually my smashable enemy of the game.

 

CAT:

<laugh>.

 

JESS:

Because it so walloped me, it's unassuming. It looks just like the other snakes that you've been beaten up this whole time, except it has a little rattle on its tail and it just... ugh it lays waste to you in a way that is not to be trifled with. I have to assume it's there to prevent you from going through the tunnel.

 

CAT:

It will be a normal enemy at some point, but you are not ready for it now.

 

JESS:

Yep. I found that out really quickly and I was like, "yep. I knew it wasn't a good idea to go in here." I'm glad I was able to confirm that. Did you go into the tunnel?

 

CAT:

I did go into the tunnel and I had a very different experience, though the same result <laugh>, because one should not go into the tunnel. I just couldn't remember what happens when I do that. Well, I got into a battle with three omega saucers and an ultra barbot.

 

JESS:

Holy smokes.

 

CAT:

So the barbots are these little like stick robots that are found in the wilderness around Merrysville. These saucers and this bartbot where bright red, the ultra barbots are called death barbots in Japan. And they weren't killing me outright. They were taking five or six HP per hit. But when they did beams or big attacks with a group that big - a mob like that? I was dead meat in no time. This is a great time to talk about the enemies in this area. There's a lot of 'em.

 

JESS:

That's true. A couple of the enemies that stood out to me: we have the mad car and the psycho truck that frequently travel in packs. The mad car, it exhausts fumes that causes Ninten to have an asthma attack. And fortunately my asthma spray was not in storage. I had it with me and I was able to use it to recover myself.

 

CAT:

Oh, you're lucky. You're lucky - because I got hit by a maniac truck. You seen one of these?

 

JESS:

Uh, I saw the psycho truck. There's also a maniac truck?

 

CAT:

Yeah, so there's mad car and mad truck, both of which are blue. It's like a big 18 wheeler truck and then like a car. There's the psycho car and the psycho truck, which are red. They were called devil car and devil truck in Japan. And then there's the maniac truck, which only ever appears by itself and it's a black truck. It's called the Death Truck in Japan and it is the worst.

 

JESS:

Oh wow.

 

CAT:

And I got in a fight with one of those - hit me with an asthma attack before I had any spray on me. And Ninten just like couldn't breathe, was coughing and dying. I could not make any moves to get out of there. I just asphyxiated and died. It was a massacre.

 

JESS:

That's unfortunate. <laugh>.

 

CAT:

Yeah. In terms of pop culture references, there's a couple interesting things going on here. For one, there's a red car with the mind of its own, which calls to mind Christine by Stephen King.

 

JESS:

Yeah.

 

CAT:

Whether or not that is explicitly a Stephen King reference, I'm not sure. There are multiple mentions of the trucks trying to kill you as perhaps an homage to Steven Spielberg's first major motion picture The Duel - about a guy doing battle with a truck. It's even mentioned in the MOTHER Encyclopedia in Akira Kagame's article, "American Film Found in MOTHER - Spielberg is the Key Word." However, in an interview from Famicom His-shou Hon in 1989, when asked about that, Itoi said, "oh, I didn't notice that. That's entirely by chance." However, it was part of a larger discussion where he mentions a lot of the different influences that Spielberg has had on him. One, which we should have mentioned in our first episode, a very obvious one, I just forgot to say: Poltergeist. The opening scene of this game is inspired directly by Poltergeist. Itoi says in this interview, "when I was zoning out and watching Poltergeist on video, I thought I could start the game out like that. I knew I had to use that as the introduction to my story." He then goes on to mention, Itoi segues the conversation - after he'd started work on MOTHER, he read the Stephen King and Peters Straub novel Talisman. This is a book that I haven't read, but it is in the mail - because it is often cited also in the MOTHER Encyclopedia as a reference point for this game. Itoi directly said about that in this interview, in the novel, "there's an otherworldly place like Magicant and when you go there, you have this doppelganger on the other side that sort of comes and goes between worlds. I thought that was interesting and I wanted to fit it into the game, but when I got in touch about the rights, I found out Spielberg had already snatched up the rights for a movie version of Talisman."

 

JESS:

Wow. Okay.

 

CAT:

Spielberg and Stephen King have a lot of touch points either directly or indirectly in the game, including - there's a mention of Stand By Me that was deleted, but we'll talk about that at a later point.

 

JESS:

There's also some wildlife. There is a bear, there's a wolf, a cougar, a skunk, and an eagle. And they're all pretty standard enemies. I would say. Nothing really stand out about them. Uh, the cougar's pretty wild looking. It looks like it's on fire. The pixel art.

 

CAT:

Yeah. The cougar's originally called a bobcat in Japan, and you can see that that's very true based on the length of the tail of the sprite. But also was kind of serving some Cheshire Cat vibes.

 

JESS:

Yes. It had a big grin.

 

CAT:

Did you happen to encounter the bag lady?

 

JESS:

I did, yes. Bag lady was almost my smashable enemy, but there just wasn't anything like super remarkable about her. I mean, it was interesting. I encountered her once, but you know, nothing really special.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Nothing special about her, but another sign that some weak-minded humans have been influenced by the same force that's making all the wildlife attack you.

 

JESS:

I also encountered the fugitive and rope.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Always together. Never apart.

 

JESS:

Yeah. Which I thought was interesting. They always travel together and the fugitive has their arms kind of like tucked under themselves. It almost looks like they could have been wearing a straight jacket.

 

CAT:

Yeah. Either they're keeping their hands warm or they're in a straight jacket position.

 

JESS:

<laugh>. And also the rope kind of looks a little bit like a noose. <laugh>.

 

CAT:

No, the rope is a noose. The rope is straight up a noose.

 

JESS:

It is a noose. Okay.

 

CAT:

And it's anthropomorphic. It's like the lamp that you fight, like it has a face, it has two eyes and two little feet.

 

JESS:

And it ties you up too.

 

CAT:

Yeah. There's a thing where when you're fighting inanimate objects that have come to life due to poltergeist sort of stuff, it is often anthropomorphized in the battle screen. I don't think that that's meant to be like a literal component of like how you're meant to perceive the world. But also, I can't say the game's surreal and psychedelic, so... maybe? My smashable enemy is the barbot, which I think is a very simple design. There's not much to it, but I think it is kind of actually... If you can imagine what it would be like seeing this extremely narrow, weird thing with these little like eye inputs on a bar at the top. It's got a kind of like insectoid stick bug kind of aesthetic about it. I think it could be really haunting to see it, you know, in real life or in stop motion or something.

 

JESS:

Yeah, I thought it looked like a stick insect made out of metal.

 

CAT:

The Encyclopedia says "despite its slender, easily-broken-looking build, this robot actually has extremely high density machinery made with special pliable metal."

 

JESS:

Yeah. Advanced technology. Although they never really seem to pose much of a threat.

 

CAT:

Well, I think they're meant to be highly disposable. You know, everything that we're encountering so far, aside from the Starman, when it comes to like the alien menace encroaching on things, is almost like a sentry or a scout. Things that are creeping around in the outskirts.

 

[eerie synth music starts]

 

CAT:

Observing, making notes, highly disposable. Effectively, we're seeing robots do all the fighting, whereas any kind of other alien forces we haven't encountered directly yet. This is just disposable sentry things.

 

[music ends]

 

CAT:

The big hassle in this part of the game is getting the bottle rockets at Sweet's Little Factory.

 

JESS:

So, you go into Sweet's Little Factory and the music in here is actually my memorable melody of this section of the game. It has an interesting sound effect that they create using the sound system of the NES that is, I think, supposed to mimic the sound of machinery working. It's like a very sort of piston being driven in an out type sound. Do you know what I'm talking about?

 

CAT:

Yeah. And like a kind of like steam kind of noises.

 

JESS:

Yeah. Yeah. And it's got a solid beat to it and it's a little bit creepy.

 

CAT:

Yeah. 100%. It's another song that does some interesting stuff if you let it go. You may, if you're walking through, encounter so many enemy battles, you're not likely to hear the parts where it steps out of the industrial stuff and does something else with it.

 

JESS:

Yeah, I did hear that actually. It's interesting the places where it goes.

 

CAT:

Yeah, there's a little melodic switch up. It's a very good choice, Jess.

 

JESS:

Thanks. There was only like two new bits of music this session.

 

CAT:

Sweet's Little Factory has one floor below ground, three floors above ground. It was established in 1955. According to the encyclopedia: "ever since the bigger factory to the north went major high tech five years ago, this smaller one has fallen into disuse. But before then, it was known as America's foremost manufacturer of missiles. They say Mr. Duncan built this factory when he got the plot of land on the cheap and, in a disposal sale from the federal government, agreeing behind closed doors to produce weapons in exchange. This marriage of defense contractor and state maybe par for the course for this world, but can you possibly sense such a corrupt past from this factory as it is now? Where the only thing that happens is mice scurrying in and out of gaps in the rusted pipes."

 

JESS:

I actually made a joke during my playthrough about how Duncan had like gotten a defense contract. Wasn't really being serious about it, but that seems to be exactly what has happened here.

 

CAT:

Yep. 100%. We are commenting on the medical industry. We're commenting on the military industrial complex. There's a lot happening in EarthBound.

 

JESS:

So it's interesting in sweets little factory, you look around and all the walls are made up of these metal plates, but occasionally there is a big hole where it has been patched up with bricks and there's like cracks in the middle plates that are around the bricks as well. So it really looks like the place has fallen into disrepair and there are a lot of rats running around. Almost all the enemies that you encounter in here are rats.

 

CAT:

Occasional barbots. And it's huge. It's huge and it's super annoying because there's a lot of stuff in this place. There's more stuff than you can possibly have in your inventory with all the other things that you need to have on you. It's a challenge to go in there and get what you need and come out. Not only are they loading up your inventory with all these items, some of which are garbage, you're there specifically to get items. So if you don't know what you're looking for, and don't know where it's coming from, you're gonna accidentally fill up your inventory with stuff you don't need and then all of a sudden find something you do need and you can't get it.

 

JESS:

And when you get up to the top floor, there is a garbage can that if you go look inside... Has what appears to be an infinite supply of bottle rockets. You can just keep using it and pulling out more and more.

 

CAT:

That is correct. Fun fact about those bottle rockets, well that's a localization to make it less violent because what you in fact get from there are pencil rockets.

 

JESS:

Pencil rockets...

 

CAT:

Now the pencil rocket was developed by the avionics and supersonic aerodynamics research group in the early days of the Japanese space program. The rocket was first launched on the 12th of April, 1955 - why the same year this factory was debuted! Interesting. The dimensions are 23 centimeters in length and 1.8 centimeters in diameter weighing 200 grams. These are small, tiny missiles. The kinds of missiles you might like, you know, have on one of those, say, you know, anti-kaiju robots or something-

 

[funky steel drum music starts playing under host dialogue]

 

CAT:

-That shoots a bunch of tiny missiles at once. It's a tiny missile for shooting some tiny things... I guess that's my supposition.

 

JESS:

Okay.

 

CAT:

There's not a lot of data on them, but yeah, pencil rockets. That's what you're getting there. You're getting actual military munitions for Lloyd to use.

 

[music fades out]

 

CAT:

Now let's talk about Lloyd. The MOTHER Encyclopedia gives us some info on him. He's age 11, for example, which is a year younger than Ninten or Ana. He spends three hours sleeping and he does it in front of a microscope. We got a little sections called "A Day in the Life of Lloyd." "Lloyd's Rise and Shine begins with the words, 'good morning,' the voice he input into his Apple computer. He'd fallen asleep, gazing into his microscope again. Once Lloyd finishes breakfast with his father, who understands him well and even shares the exact same food preferences, he grabs his bag and heads for Tinkle Elementary School. It's afterward that his mom gets up." Then we learned about how Lloyd doesn't care for P.E. Class and uh, other stuff like that. Lloyd is a Einstein fanboy. He read the theory of relativity at age three and dedicates all of his inventions to Einstein. He even believes himself to be a reincarnation of Albert Einstein.

 

JESS:

Who's got the swell head now?

 

CAT:

<laugh> The Encyclopedia also says, "when he came into this world, he was 10 days and 10 hours past his due date because he'd been wishing he could cancel his coming out of his mom's tummy. Even on the occasion of leaving the hospital, he didn't much care for the outside world and wouldn't let anyone besides his mother carry him. No ifs, ands, or buts. In short, he's a weakling and a stubborn one at that."

 

JESS:

<laugh> But he knows how to use weapons-grade munitions and that makes him useful for this story. <laugh>

 

CAT:

Lloyd is a weird character. We can see here that even this book is like putting him down. It made me really question how to personify him when writing the letters back to mom. But at least from this we learned that he struggles outside of his comfort zone, whether it's his mom's uterus or literally anywhere. And he likes enclosed places like his mom's uterus or trash cans.

 

JESS:

<laugh>. Yeah. Okay. Well then, you know, good for him stepping out into the world and going out of his comfort zone. It sounds like he and Ninten are good for each other.

 

CAT:

Yeah. In terms of like where his family is and what they're doing, we don't really know. I turned to the novel to see if there was anything more in there and I don't turn to the novel much because there's a lot about the novel that is... I personally feel really off the rails. It's an authorized book, but it's not the same kind of like direct compliment to the world that the album and the encyclopedia are.

 

[upbeat music starts playing under hosts]

 

CAT:

The novel says that Lloyd's parents are divorced, which of course is not the case as described by the Encyclopedia. And also that his mom is deathly sick and he's looking for a flower that can cure her or she's going to die before next spring. The flower's called the kannon flower. It's k-a-n-n-o-n, which is in this context of reference to the Bodhisattva Guanyin, which is pronounced in spelled "kannon" in Japanese.

 

JESS:

So do they make any reference to that in the game at all?

 

CAT:

Not at all. I think it can generally be perceived that this is just the novel and it's up to us to decide how it is that the weakling Lloyd ends up going with Ninten on this journey without seriously concerning parents.

 

JESS:

They're just glad that he made a friend.

 

CAT:

<laughs> Probably!

 

JESS:

And also they blew up the science lab, so they need to beat cheeks and get out of there.

 

CAT:

Mm-hmm. <affirmative>. Well on that bombshell...

 

JESS:

<laughs>

 

CAT:

I'm Cat.

 

JESS:

I'm Jess.

 

CAT:

And that's all she wrote.

 

[upbeat music plays]

 

CAT

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is made possible thanks to the generous support of our Patreon Producers: Amber Devereux, Becky Scott Fairley, Bob Hogan, C B, Joe “Tank” Ricciardelli, Josh King, McDibble Deluxe, MjolnirMK86, Patrick Webster, Sean Hutchinson, Sean T. Redd…

 

And our Super-Deluxe Executive Patreon Producers:

BigBadShadowMan, Marcus Larsson, and Jaimeson LaLone

 

JESS

You can join the team at Patreon.com/OmniverseMedia! And if you think “MOTHER,” She Wrote is simply smashing, please rate and review us on Apple Podcasts or Podchaser  - and be sure to subscribe via your favorite podcast player.

 

CAT

This series is recorded and produced in Orlando, Florida and Louisville, Kentucky on lands stolen from their Indigenous people: the Timucua and Seminole, and Shawnee, Cherokee, Osage, Seneca-Iroquois, Miami, Hopewell and Adena.

 

JESS

Acknowledgement of the first peoples of these lands, and the lasting repercussions of colonization is just the beginning of the restorative work that is necessary. Through awareness, we can prompt allyship, action, and ultimately decolonization. 

 

CAT

For links to aid Indigenous efforts and to learn more about the first nations of the land where you live: visit omniverse.media/landback

 

JESS

“MOTHER,” She Wrote is written, produced, and performed by me: Jessica Mudd.

 

CAT

And me: Cat Blackard. Our original score is composed and performed by Jess.

 

JESS

Special thanks to Kenisu for his invaluable work translating the MOTHER Encyclopedia. Find a link to his translation, other media we’ve referenced, and full episode transcripts at mothershewrote.earth

 

CAT

“Mother,” She Wrote is not affiliated with Nintendo, Shigesato Itoi, or any rights holders of the MOTHER and EarthBound intellectual properties. Please play the games' official Nintendo releases.

 

[Omniverse Audio Brand]