Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Entertainment/2009 March 5

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March 5

Pokemon Glitch

I always forget. After you're outside the safari zone, do you go to Cinnabar Island? <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 00:49, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

If you're talking about the Missingno. glitch, then I think you have to talk to the old man who shows you how to catch a Weedle in the same city that Giovanni's gym is in, then fly to Cinnibar and Surf along the right hand side of the island. Also, it WILL wipe your game save eventually if you do this, even if you don't actually save it after trying to find missingno and clone rare candy etc. If you're using a ROM, a simple way to avoid this is to copy the rom/saved game file to a new location... get it?--Close (to the Edit) (talk) 12:43, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I have the game on my computer, so I've already crashed it several times (heh heh). Thanks for the confirmation, dude. You rock. <(^_^)> Pokegeek42 (talk) 21:36, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

name that PBS show

I'm trying to remember the name of an old PBS mystery show aired during the nineties. What I remember was its distinct opening: a black-and-white period piece reminiscent of an Agatha Christine story. It was animated in black in white, and featured the following scenes:

• A ballroom dance

• Men playing croquet during a storm. One hits the ball and it rolls next to the wall where a rather large piece of the roof falls down, crushing the ball

• A woman laying on top of said wall. She's wailing and lets her shawl blow in the wind which wraps itself around a vase and blows off again,the dead roses coming back to life

Any takers? Spade9 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 05:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC).

That would be Mystery!. StuRat (talk) 06:41, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Music to die for....

What instruments are used in the theme for Six Feet Under (TV series) ? StuRat (talk) 06:48, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As our article states, composer Thomas Newman "won an Emmy award for Outstanding Main Title Theme Music and Grammy awards for Best Instrumental Composition and Best Instrumental Arrangement for title theme." I searched using Google and found that Newman also wrote the film scores for American Beauty and The Shawshank Redemption. According the this article the Six Feet Under theme includes piano, wind instruments and strings. --Thomprod (talk) 13:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Can we find more specific info ? That is, WHICH wind instruments and strings ? StuRat (talk) 17:16, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Is this the music you're referring to? Sounds like a full orchestra to me, with the strings starting out playing pizzicato. I think the woodwind instrument playing the lead is an oboe. There's percussion instruments as well. And I thought I could hear some percussive chords too (maybe a mandolin), but I may be mistaken. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 21:49, 8 March 2009 (UTC)

I thought I heard an oboe, too. But there was another unusual instrument I couldn't quite identify, perhaps it was a mandolin, as you suggested. And didn't I hear some type of flute or recorder ? StuRat (talk) 02:11, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

There are some short pan-flute-like notes in the rest at about 0:55, but to me they sound more like something done on a synth. The stringed percussive instrument (Mandolin??) is at about 1:18. There may be a piccolo doubling the melody, I'm not sure. --NorwegianBlue ^talk 20:06, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Thanks. If anyone else has a definitive list of the instruments used, I'd also very much like to see that. StuRat (talk) 21:43, 10 March 2009 (UTC)

Was the group Art of Noise a proto-hip-hop group?

There's no rapping, but the beat in the background strongly resembles that of early hip hop. It's a lot more funky than I had expected. And this was recorded in the early '80s!--Close (to the Edit) (talk) 11:53, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Lots of early hip hop sampled other music from other genres heavily. Disco was an early source (Rappers Delight heavily sampled Good Times by Chic) but, strangly enough, avant-garde synthesizer music was also a popular source. Kraftwerk was a favorite of Afrika Bambaataa, for example. I am not certain if Art of Noise was directly sampled by early Hip Hop, but given that it fits in the "Kraftwerk" style of avant garde music, its not suprising of the connection to early rap music. --Jayron32.talk.contribs 12:13, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

You might want to look into The Art Of Noise's links with Malcolm McLaren - three of AoN worked on McLaren's Duck Rock LP and its attendant singles ("Buffalo Gals" in particular was a pretty big milestone in breaking hip-hop into the mainstream in the UK) and a lot of the ZTT-era AoN material made use of samples and out-takes from those. "Into Battle" was a big success on the New York club scene, especially the original "Beatbox" before it was "sweetened" with all the piano that's on the more famous later version, so yeah, there's a definite influence in both directions there. --88.110.69.194 (talk) 15:11, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Song title

Hi! Do you know a song with lyrics: "Good things are bad things" or something similar. It's sung by men and I thought it was Tears for Fears. Thanks. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.52.162.94 (talk) 13:57, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Tears for Fears did cover Ashes to Ashes (David Bowie song), which includes the lines, "I've never done good things. I've never done bad things." Might be the song you're thinking of. --Onorem♠Dil 14:01, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

No it's not. I'm not sure it was TFF but they really had similar English accent. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.52.162.94 (talk) 15:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Soft Cell's "The Art of Falling Apart" - All the good things are bad things... --Onorem♠Dil 15:46, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Hand-held games consoles

Which is the better console, the Nintendo DS Lite or the Sony PSP? --Richardrj ^{talk email} 16:07, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

It depends on your personal preference. Personally, I love my DS and won't buy the PSP. It has a larger selection of games, especially types of games I like, and I like the stylus aspect of it. PSP has a limited amount of games, it's too expensive, and I have no use for the video features. The most important question to ask is which system has the most games you typically like to play because the two consoles are geared to two totally different types of players. --13² 17:00, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

I'll also mention that I own all three current generation systems. Cost, by itself, is not an issue. The cost of the PSP, given what the PSP provides, is too expensive for me to justify buying it. --13² 17:02, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Also keep in mind, that Nintendo will be releasing the Nintendo DSi this year, which adds two cameras, an SD slot into a smaller package. Although it eliminates the Game Boy Advance slot. FWIW, I quite like my DS and have never had any interest in the PSP. Tomdobb (talk) 17:24, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

As for the PSP, it is advancing as well. It currently has a speaker and mic and comes with Skype (making it a poor-man's cell phone wherever you can get free wireless). It will have a camera soon since everything else has cameras. Sony is pushing the PSP-to-PS3 link. It appears to me that the main problem with the PSP right now is the missing right-analog stick. So, you will have difficulty playing many PS3 games that require it. I strongly expect the PSP to evolve to include all the sticks and buttons found on a standard PS3 controller and the link to the PS3 to eventually include the ability to play the PS3 games on your PSP. So, when you are in the middle of your favorite game and you need to run to the bathroom, you can pick up the PSP and keep playing. Youth in Asia (talk) 14:17, 6 March 2009 (UTC)

The two have very different libraries of games. Rather than worrying about which is technically better, you could just go down to Gamestop and see which set of games you like better. APL (talk) 13:30, 11 March 2009 (UTC)

MSP

Which video did Manic Street Preachers use the Rubik's Square in? Thanks! —Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.52.162.94 (talk) 17:40, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Kids' movie theater in Reno

When I was a kid in the early to mid 1970's my parents would drive the family up to Reno for the day. There was a movie theater that catered to kids, where parents could drop us off for a couple of hours while they went gambling. I remember watching the Disney film "Sammy, the Way-Out Seal" more than once up there. Does anyone remember such a theater? Where was it located? Does it still exist? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 76.195.0.75 (talk) 18:26, 5 March 2009 (UTC)

Cinema Treasures is the movie theater database. Here's one Reno entry: http://cinematreasures.org/theater/19405/ To see more Reno theaters, click on "theaters" and type in the zip code. Pepso2 (talk) 14:00, 7 March 2009 (UTC)