From Tecmo Bowl to Jim McMahon: Inside CJ Wallis's Documentary World

CJ Wallis makes documentaries about the stories hiding behind things everyone thinks they already know — a Price Is Right superfan who beat the system, an NFL quarterback more misunderstood than his highlight reel suggests, and a video game that's kept a community together for decades. On this episode of Mosaic Minds Podcast, Nick and Jason sit down with the director of Perfect Bid to talk about how he finds these stories, earns the access to tell them right, and why he keeps coming back to Tecmo Bowl.

CJ walks through how he tracked down Ted Slauson, the Texas math teacher who quietly memorized decades of Price Is Right prizes, and the last-minute call that turned into Bob Barker's final interview. He also talks about Mad Mac, his long-in-the-works documentary on NFL quarterback Jim McMahon, and what it took to earn McMahon's trust over years of production. The conversation covers CJ's own path from competitive hockey goaltender to filmmaker, and the Tecmo Bowl League he runs — including an upcoming documentary on the community built around it and this year's Tecmo Bowl National Championships, August 8 at DJ's Dugout in Omaha.

Follow Mosaic Minds Podcast for more conversations like this.

Mosaic Minds Podcast:
mosaicmindspodcast.com

CJ Wallis (guest):
Website — fortyfps.com
Instagram — instagram.com/fortyfps
Facebook — facebook.com/fortyfps
X — x.com/fortyfps
YouTube — youtube.com/user/margaretbird
Tecmo Bowl League (CJ's organization) — tecmobowlleague.com

Event:
Tecmo Bowl National Championships — August 8, DJ's Dugout, Omaha, NE

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Transcript

0:00

Well, welcome CJ. Thanks for your coming on the podcast. One thing that I've noticed in when I was looking at some of your documentaries is there's a pattern where you tend to talk to people that are interested in things that most people wouldn't think of. You know, like like the price is right, the Tecmo Bowl. What is it that you look for when you're trying to put together a documentary for something? Uh obviously the first thing is the interesting story. The other thing that helps a lot is finding something. To your point that has an established audience like the price is right. I knew Ted's story was big enough to sustain a movie. And there's also, you know, the the uh the business side of things where you just go, everyone grew up with the price is right. Everybody has the story of staying home sick with the grandma's house and watching Price is Right and Bob Barker and all these things. So you have this this you're you're sort of uh tip you're or uh you you're sort of not leeching off of, but you're but you know that you have this l uh love affair o of these people that love this thing and and you can feed them a cool story within that, that's that's uh a very quick way to get people paying attention. Every every guy in the world has played Tecmo Bowl growing up, or a substantial amount of them. So then when you find the a very interesting story within that game, uh it's it's it's very addicting. Well let's talk a little bit about The perfect bid and about what that is for anybody that hasn't seen it. Yeah. Perfect Bid is about a guy named Ted Slaussen who uh is from Texas and he used to be a math teacher and now he works writing SATs for math to decide how smart you are. So he's still he so basically what he did is he started watching the prices right from the first season. and they only had so many prizes and when you watch the show over and over again in those early days, you would see the same fridge or the same car and they never changed the price and there was no V CRs or anything. So Ted just sort of paid attention to these things. And uh over the years he just continued to memorize them and he started going to the show and became this sort of fan favorite that would yell from the crowd to help people out and help them win and uh he ended up the one year after Bob Barker retired and Drew Carey took over. He ended up helping a contestant get a perfect bid to the dollar in the showcase and and caused a whole bunch of problems. Yeah. Yeah. So d do you believe uh 100% Ted's story as he told it? Well, I read the Vanity Fair article that uh is all uh about the guy that got the bid was Terry Neese, who who gave the bid and got all the celebrity and all that. He had a Vanity Fair article a long time ago and it the whole thing was about him and at the end it said, But there was someone in the audience, Ted Slauson continued on and you had to flip through all the perfume ads and things to get to the back. And there was a paragraph about Ted and it just just something about uh something in the spider sense just sort of drew me to the fact that they hid his story in the back. And uh I reached out to him and I reached out to Terry as well. I offered them both the same deal. I if if people have saw my stuff, I would hope that there is no opinion in it. I make the movie. I I I've asked before on documentaries when they shoot what type of movie am I making? And I say, whatever you give me. I can't make a movie that, you know, I I I I don't I don't manipulate the edit in any type of way. It's whatever you tell me, then that's what it is. So uh Terry refused to uh to be involved and then once the documentary came out, he had a lot of attention to himself and he kept telling different versions of the story a and and what this movie could be that he had knew nothing about, but he had sent me an email telling me this long about how he was a celebrity and uh I couldn't use his likeness or he would sue and on and on and on. So I wrote him back and said, Terry, since you're a celebrity, you know the how likeness agreements work. I've got all the footage cleared from the prices right. I appreciate your legal advice and looking out for the film. Uh it'll be coming out as planned. And then when the movie hits Netflix, I mean Yeah. You can when you you can have a movie do very well and then it hits Netflix and that's that's today's biggest thing. and and the movie took off. So Terry got a lot of I feel very bad, but he got a lot of a lot of attacking on Facebook and things and just people sort of harassing him. But he continued to tell different st versions of the story as it went. So I mean, I don't know. A at a certain point don't you just go like Yeah, you know. And just sort of wave the white flag, but he went down swinging at a whole bunch of different things. And what was it like interviewing Bob Barker? He it was a very last second thing. I actually had to send a crew to him. I didn't get to uh get to interview Bob. I was in Canada and Roger Dobkowitz, the producer that's in the film. He uh I I shot half the or I shot the whole movie and edited half of it and sent it to Roger as my video as my game show dad to try to get a pat on the head. And then he really liked it and said that he would interview for it. And then one day out of the blue he called me and said, You got twenty four hours, can you you can film Bob? He wants to do it today. I was like, man. So these people went and shot it and they kinda messed up the audio a little bit, which was frustrating. But that turned out to be his last interview that he ever did. So we have an hour of of fantastic stuff that that he talked about and we could only fit so much into it. So With how audio cleanup is now, it's a lot better than it was even ten years ago when we did that. So I'll see if I can fix up the audio and and do something with that uh that interview. It's he says a lot of interesting stuff. Just to reminisce a little bit, I remember the Plinko, and then I remember the the mountain man kind of yodeling and falling over the edge of the mountain. Those are my two games. And then I really like the putting, you know, because being a golfer, you know, the putting looked easy, but it's you gotta line it up in the middle. There's a little bit of break, but kind of random. So everybody can relate to it. You know, everybody's watched it. When you were involved in that, was it living vicariously through your own experiences of watching it and kind of explain how that looked for you? Yeah, I mean, that's the cool thing about the documentaries is you get to live two or three years in the lives of all these incredible people. You get to be a quarterback like Jim McMahon and and with Tecmo Bowl, we got to meet all these all the the original programmers and and interview with them and stuff. So growing up with the prices right a and and getting to meet Roger and just see his garage that's filled with all these things and and and like that's that's what I got into this for is I I like the little knickknacks like he just has files o of of game reports and what happened when and and and weird flags and cartoon drawings and just all this stuff from from over the years and it and it was a a cool little family of people that really cared about uh making a quality product. And unfortunately when Bob left and Roger was fired the year after, uh that quality I don't feel continued and it's a shame. So it was movies like this. are important to me because they just so many people gave a damn and I don't find that that's the case anymore. So it's it's cool to to spend my time in their lives and and highlight them. Wanna p you a compliment. I really like the fact that you report the movie and let the movie build itself. You're not trying to put any spin on it. So I tip my cap to you for that 'cause that's that's an interesting position in today's, you know, media and movie filmmaking. I think that's awesome that you that you took that stance on that. So I just wanna tip my cap to you for that. Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah. It's Ted's stor Ted had ten years of fit at the time of people constantly saying that he was lying and and why would you try to steal this this glory from from Terry and you know, it's it's you you had to tell the story. uh some of the criticism of the film was that it could have been a ten minute YouTube short. But every single time that we showed a story of of Ted, the the story was getting bigger and he was getting more involved and it was sort of crescendoing. And you s you sort of had to go on that journey to see how much work he put into it. You couldn't just you can't really just, you know, hypercut that. You sort of have to live with him to make that end pay off the way it did. And and and yeah, and and Terry had a shot to tell us whatever he wanted and I would have loved to have him in the movie. But he wo he wasn't interested, so let's talk a little bit about Mad Mac and and Jim McMahon. Yeah. You know, he he already has such a huge, you know, public Persona anyway. So how did you get past like the myth and actually find you know who who Jim McMahon actually was? Like everybody sort of says in the documentary, the second you spend an hour or two with him, you'll want to lay down in traffic for him. He is the kindest, he's the kindest best human being you'll meet, whether a celebrity, a football guy, a regular Joe on the street, whatever you know, there's there's nobody like him, and and that's that that bled through every image or any any sort of thing that he did. What I found was that the media would take something and sort of make it into a big you know, a big show about it. So there were certain aspects of of things that that were exaggerated, but I mean he he's he's the best guy you will meet and I can't wait to show his story. It it's taken a little while to to to get out and and I know there are people frustrated with that, uh but it it would have been far easier to to give it up and and and just sort of walk away with the fight that it's been to get this thing out. But uh there if it was anybody but Jim that might have been an option. But the Jim is the best guy in the world and and I I can't wait for this thing to get out. I gotta reminisce a little bit. Eighty five team. He was probably the slickest guy on it with the Super Bowl shuffle at the black glasses on. And he embodied Chicago. Being in from northern Indiana, he was just he was just bad to the bone is the way I'm gonna explain him. Head button lineman, you know, going up and talking trash, wearing the Pete Rosell headband. I mean, McMahon was a McMahon was a phenomenon. He ran the city with Walter Payton and Michael Jordan at that time, and I think he just the the city that he played in fit the icon. Speak on that a little bit, you know, just off off topic, but kinda on topic if that makes sense. Yeah, I mean he said he says in the documentary and we had Jeremy Roenick in it too, he that he said that Chicago Sport they didn't make Chicago sports, Chicago Sports made them. It's the fans gave a damn about what they were doing and and players either it the Stanley Kubrick quote, you either care or you don't. And Jim for all the stuff and all the crap Jim takes online, there's a lot of people that that say that he was just sort of like a guy that handed off to Walter Payton and he was a bum and didn't have an arm. Well, this this movie will go through and show the same way that we showed Ted the ve a very deliberate progression of of Jim and what he had to go through and and it's uh it's he he gave absolutely everything a and even more than than what was expected of him. And and that was just I mean, that's Chicago coming out in him. That's the whole dynasty, that's people giving a standing ovation to the snow in the playoff series. It's just it's it's a very cool place and and Obvio they're moving uh Soldier Field away and I don't know how I feel about that. I visited it and it's it's a beautiful place and uh I don't know, same thing as the price is right. It's just all these all these things are sort of shifting away and becoming different and so and it's I I just like celebrating them. I gotta ask you a question in the thread of mosaic minds. So we gotta we gotta blend what you're doing with what we're doing and kind of make it a mosaic in the middle. So what's the right price for a hot dog at a Bears game watching Jim Mack in today's world? So we're gonna fast forward thirty years from his playing days. Yeah. You go to a stadium, you watch a game, what's the right price for a dog and a and a drink to wash it down? W what's the right price or what is the price? Probably twenty. Okay. Okay. You're spot you're spot on, right? I'll I'll go nineteen fifty, Nick. What are you going? I was gonna say twenty actually had back on that. I'll go one dollar because I think both of you are over, right? You got it. You got it. oh Speak on that, speak on that a little bit. I gotta ask you that question. I didn't get a chance to. So I want to go back just a little bit and then we'll fast forward back. But uh speak to me about the one dollar bid. If everybody was over, did you like that? Because I always thought that was kinda I don't know, it was a little dirty to just say one dollar when you know it's a couple thousand dollar item. What what was your general opinion on that actually watching the show? That doesn't that's sort of strategy 'cause you think that the other three people are are have blown it. So that's sort of a interesting strategy. But the one that got me was if someone said five twenty five and the next person said five twenty six. Yeah. That that one kinda got me a little bit more because every time they did it they would look over and be like, Sorry, like you knew what you did to that person. The one dollar thing, everybody claps and recognizes that a thing happened. It's sort of like, you know. I wouldn't say the one dollar was ever done in spite, whereas the the one dollar more thing is is is sinister behavior. I was gonna ask you how the the Jim McMahon documentary began, but since we're kind of talking about the the perfect bit also, how did both of those begin? Like how did that idea start? I mean, was it did it just was it an idea that came to you first, or did you run across someone that was talking to you about the prices right and you found out about Ted, you know, same thing with Jim McMahon? Like what how did those those two visions start with you? My best friend, Jeff Sabotny sent me the Vanity Fair thing and just said, This sounds like like he we just knew the prices right forever. One of the first things I ever shot driving down to LA when I was eighteen was called Barker Run. And I had no idea, obviously, that I would eventually do this documentary, but I was just f I was filming a documentary of me going on and I was gonna get on the prices right. So we just sort of had this Bob Barker sort of running joke thing going forever and he sent me the article and I read it. And obviously like I said, I I was interested in Ted and and Terry and Ted was on Facebook and very similar to Jim, uh I found both of their contact i info and sent them a message and said, Uh I can do this and I'm a one person show, so we don't have to have fifty people standing around and and destroying the house. Only I'll destroy your house. And then uh that's and Ted said, Of course, and Jim said, What do you need from me, kid? And I said, You to show up for three days and I'll bring the weed for you. And he said, Let's do it. So they were both but Ted doesn't smoke. He's a government guy. So Well okay, so what that was the next one that came out, was that the Jetflix one? Was it or n or the next one that you started working on? Was that Jetflix? Are these in chronic chronological order? the one after Perfect Bid was called Stu Show. And that's about a a crazy character named Stu Show Stack. who was Lucille Ball's personal assistant and archivist for the last ten or fifteen years of her life. Wow. Very cool. And then he ends up meeting a girl eventually and she has something very unfortunate happen to her and Stu has to fight the medical industry to uh make sure that his his new wife stays alive. But it unfortunately came out during COVID so uh people weren't interested at a time when we were thanking doctors for saving the world. No one really wanted to s see a movie about that the medical industry was bad. So not a lot of people saw that one, but it's I I I really love it. Stu's a very polarizing character. He he's an acquired taste. we both know that, but I love him to death. And if if uh if you can get hooked in in the first minute or two, uh it's a very interesting, fascinating story. I think you'll you'll really enjoy. We got Ed Asner in there, Tony Dow. Wow. All these old Margaret O'Brien, Dick Van Dyke, millions of people from uh if you love television from the seventies and back, we've got everybody you could ever want in there. Michael Cole from the mod squad. Um unfortunately we collect a lot of people. We there's a couple interviews in there that are people's last interviews as well. So Yeah, I grew up on Nick at Knight, so you watching all the old reruns of all the, you know, all the shows. Nothing like what I love Ted Knight too. So getting to watch Mary Tyler Moore. with with Ted and Ed Asner is a wonderful treat. think the word that comes to my mind about all these projects is eclectic. So I think I think it's nice that they're unique stories, they're mainstream stories, but yet they're kind of like niched down to where, you know, you either liked or hated McMahon, right? You either watched Prices Right every day or you you you despised it. You know, so I think it's interesting that your projects kind of blend in the middle of pop culture, sports and stuff around it. So I think that's interesting. Yeah. I mean it's just kind of selfish. I l I I love football, I love Tecmo Bowl, I love the prices right. I if you make movies for for the correct amount of money, uh and and keep as many people sort of out of the out of the mix as as you can, you get to have a very peaceful sort of experience where you get to dive in and and and tell these stories you want to. And if maybe one uh doesn't take off the way that it should, but I'm not a massive studio spending twenty and thirty million dollars. So if you make what a studio considers a flop a as a guy, that's that's a pretty nice way to to be able to just keep going and and telling these things. How did you get into the industry? Is this something that you always wanted to do? And if so, like I mean, were you looking at documentaries from the get go or is that something that you decided to get into later? Uh I started I'm Canadian, so I was forced by the government to play hockey for the first uh many years of my life. And I was a goalie and I quit right before the NHL. I was too short and I knew that that's how that was gonna go. Um but over time my painted helmets went from having hockey like Curtis Joseph or Felix Potvan or these people and it slowly started to become X Files and like pulp fiction. So there was definitely a transition a transition of interest happening there. And then I walked away from it and uh then this was the this was the plan A forever. So I have made two narrative movies that are smaller budgets. But what I've found uh we shot a lot of the documentaries during COVID too. So that I mean you can't you couldn't make a narrative movie during that. Right. So I have six movies that are in hard drives that we shot over these three two and a half years or whatever, because you can shoot a documentary and have a guy six feet away and you're over here and you can mask up and do all the things you need to do and still shoot these things. Uh So uh I made two narratives. The difference with them is with narratives I've found that you have to get all of these people together to make one person's vision. Uh and you have actors uh that come in for a day and this person comes in for a day, and it becomes it can become and has become a situation that's very sort of venomous or or where they just sort people come in and they're only concerned that they only have two lines. They don't know that the whole scene is about them. They just know that there's two lines and and egos come in and it it's it can become a very frustrating thing that shouldn't be. But with documentaries, the wonderful thing is, is there isn't a single person that's gonna cause me a problem when I'm making a movie about Jim McMahon. When I call up Andy Reid and I film with Andy Reid, Andy Reed is not gonna cause me a problem. Everybody's here to say how much they love Jim McMahon and we're friends immediately and we get to talk about this and that and everybody comes to documentaries by and large with just a very bonding, warm, uh positive experience. I got into this to I've been chasing Stanley Kubrick's ghost my whole life. I want to be a narrative. Sounds like I was gonna say he sounds like he was a pretty I've heard you mention him several times, so it sounds like he was a pretty big influence. Definitely. So I mean I want I I got into this to make narrative movies, so ultimately that's where I'm going. But just the experience of making do I'll never not make documentaries. It's it's it's the best. It's it's such a wonderful like I said, you can you live for two or three years in someone else's life and and you get to contribute and and and give something to them that that celebrates that, hopefully, uh in the way that uh that everybody like you said, not everybody loves Jim McMahon, but I guarantee if somebody puts it on by the end of it, they're gonna st Absolut within five minutes your your opinion on him will change and by the one hour mark where we have our little twist in the story, y your heart will break for the man and and uh yeah, I I can't wait to get that out. I've said that twice now, but it's it's it's at the finish line. We're waiting to hear news about everything and it's been a very long battle to get it past lawyers and all these things. So yeah, we're right we're right in the hype of of of that movie right now and the technical one, so Love love the passion. Just, you know, you could see it bleeding through and an observation when you're looking down and you're passionate and you're looking up and you're animated. It's just it's it's nice to live vicariously through you 'cause you know, Matt Suey, Mike Singletary, Walter Payton, Jim McMahon. I would say this about Jim McMahon. I think he was misunderstood, and this is why I say that. He was actually an elite quarterback, but the defense overshadowed everyone because that's arguably the Best defense ever assembled in the history of the NFL, in my opinion, at least top three. So I think he was actually a top-tier quarterback, but unfortunately the defense kind of did its thing. So I I have nothing but respect for him. Everybody that's grown up in Chicago that I've ever talked to, great for the community, great guy, signed autographs, took photos, didn't take crap from the media, challenged Pete Rosell. doing his thing so great. In the in the form of a segue, let's talk a little Tecmo Bowl. So I'm gonna introduce it, give you a second here, but I wanna I wanna I wanna preface something real quick. We're gonna rewind the clock thirty-two years. My parents would give me five dollars on a Friday night and two dollars and fifty cents to rent the Tecmo Bowl from Doug and Carol Bean Blossom in Akron, Indiana. I had to drive five miles or ride my bike. It was seven dollars and fifty cents. And I had to pay two dollars and fifty cents in insurance in case I broke the game, spiked the controller, or came back with tape wrapped around it. The last thing I'm gonna say before you get talking, just to give you a second, is at three o'clock in the morning because you're pushing down on the directional button, because we all know the Z pattern is effective, at least for us rookies out here. You had to tape your finger because you're you're it would separate your nail from your under finger. So by three o'clock in the morning you had to retape that. So I know that was a week segue, but I just had to share that 'cause I get cold chills because that was my game back in the day. I'm gonna queue it up and let you kind of take uh your current project from there. Well actually I have a segue, uh an additional one, though to your point about Jim McMahon. For the documentary, we brought the Tecmo Bowl, it all happens in the film we it's the twenty twenty three uh national championship, and I brought Jim out to give away the trophy and surprise everybody. And I he was in New Mexico and I got him a flight from New Mexico to Omaha and uh he told me that he would drive from New Mexico back to Arizona and fly from there in the morning so that the flight would be cheaper and he would get there earlier. It's just like I mean, and that's like the smallest thing. I didn't it just saved a bunch of money that I didn't necessarily have at the time for the budget of this thing and and him driving eight hours to take a plane to jump to Omaha to sit in a room with all these guys playing Tecmo Bowl that, you know You know, there's every cliche in the room there in the super you know, like the Super Bowl winning quarterback is sitting in there watching all these guys playing this game and he gave all these moving speeches to everybody and was engaged the entire time. Uh and then he flew back early the next morning. he barely had time to be there and and that's the type of guy that he is he always looks out for. He was there th last year as well, him and Carl Mecklenburg came out to the national championships. He's just the best guy. He no matter how big or small it is, if he can help. shine a light on it and he loves you, he'll do it. I know that most people no most people our age have played Tecmo Bowl, but for people that have never played it, how would how do you sell sell it to him? Like how how do you sell it? Like, so it's so awesome that it it's managed to survive all these years. What is it about Tecmo B? I think it's I mean, personally I think it's w a very beautiful game. The colors are very bold and Kiyokosh emoji and and the fellows over there, they did a fantastic job. It's on the surface, it's four plays and it doesn't have all the players on the field. But if you actually dig into the game, there it this here's your clickbait. It's as intricate as the Madden games, which gets people to go like it's surprising because of course Madden has a thousand plays and you can do all these different things. But there is as much going on in that game that you have to do that makes if you're two percent better in Tecmo Bowl than the next guy. it's a massive advantage. It's one of those games that you really have to deep dive. Super Tecmo Bowl, that the game that is more v vastly more popular than the original, that a lot of people remember playing, like you said, the zigzag pattern, that's more for Tecmo Super Bowl. But that game relies heavily on what's called RNG, which is random number generation. Whereas if you throw a pass, you'll remember growing up, you'll throw a pass and there'll be three guys covering them and it it'll be a catch. Or the guy will be wide open it'll bounce off his head. In the background of that game, it's sort of it's rapidly doing a number and it's like doing these computer coin flips that decide that game. And it also had fumbles and all these things. So there is a certain amount of managing the code in Super Tecmo Bowl, whereas Tecmo Bowl, every pixel that you get, you have to earn and you have to it's it's really chess versus checkers, which is a boring analogy. But the original Tecmo Bowl is just much more of a mind game. Whereas the original the Tecmo Super Bowl is much more of a fun, let's get drunk and have a tournament in a basement. It's it's it's way more fun for that. But this game is a little more it's all about pattern setting up patterns and when to break them. Uh and like you said, there's only four or like I said, there's only four plays. So uh it's really how much better you can be than somebody else with almost no tools to pull that up. The odd statement that I'm gonna make for you, because we gotta have the thread of the mosaic there is, is sometimes poor penmanship would cost you four to five hours in that game. Because an L was a one, an I is uh, you know, a capital I or a number one. Cause I remember like it was yesterday, getting halfway through it, you're trying to advance through the season, all of a sudden you lose that code, you're kinda out of luck. You know, and back then. Growing up in the country, I didn't have the cheat codes or the resets and stuff like that that later became popular in the magazines and stuff. So that was just a grassroots game. I liken it to a a non-sports game. I'd I'd almost call it like a Donkey Kong or a Pac-Man, a Galaga from the same era because it was it was simplistic. It stood the test of time. And to be honest with you, I mean, you almost got me convinced to start playing it again and look into it because I actually watched the videos. Where the guys are running down the field, you know, they're bouncing off of 'em. It's showing that big graphic scoreboard that almost overwhelms the screen. There's just a lot of iconic moments within that game. Yeah. If you get the bug, you're in trouble. It's it's it's just it's really fascinating and it's it's a type of thing where there is a lot to it, but I've put everything on our website. There I I all everything that I know, uh there's some articles that still need to be put up there, but I I share everything that I know 'cause I want everybody that plays it to be elite. It's not fun it's it's you would think it would be, but it's not fun to have somebody just show up and get beat up. We want at the It's better for the league and for the brand of what we're doing for everybody to be as elite as possible. And it's it's a type of game where you know, in three or four hours oh that's a that sounds like a long time. But i in a handful of games, a top player can show somebody a handful of things and you can be competitive pretty quickly. But to your point, one of my favorite movies coming up was King of Kong with Billy Mitchell and Steve Weeby in them and and and that whole thing is about pattern recognition and and those like you said in games of the eighties and nineties where you had to memorize all these different patterns, otherwise you were getting to the next level. There was no there was no way to to just sort of finesse your way through it. You had to memorize all these very intricate things and and there's a lot of that in Tecmo Bowl. You can certainly just play off instincts and you can do okay, but getting to the level where a lot of us are at, it takes a little bit of time, but it's such a fun game that I mean, what you know, what else are you gonna do in life in But uh but indulge in the things that that used to bring you joy when everything's kinda going sideways in the world. It's nice to to to have a group of people as Ben says in our documentary, i it's difficult to make friends in your thirties and forties. And this game has brought a lot of people together and and there's all these tournaments over the years over the course of the year and everybody gets together and hangs out and and beats the piss out of each other in in these games and uh and it's it's a hell of a lot of fun. So go ahead and talk talk about the league just a little bit and kind of what you know, what it is and and how people can watch it and that sort of thing. Yeah. We have uh the website's Techmobole League dot com. It's we have a dynasty league, uh which we started in nineteen eighty seven, the the video game year nineteen eighty seven, which is what the rosters are in that game, and we did a custom draft with the twelve uh players in that league and divvied up all the players and then after that season we had coaches and and our commissioner Drew Manster made all these uh it's weird to say a man's name that's a screen name like that. Our commissioner Drew Manster. He he worked out this coaching system and free agents and all that. And then in nineteen eighty eight he had the draft class of nineteen eighty eight and we ingested these new players 'cause a bunch of us know how to code the game. So we have like I'm the Buffalo Bills. They're not in the original uh techno bowl, but you can change a couple of things. It's just a couple of jersey colors and you're You're going. And the other league that's been going the longest is the draft league and it's it's open to anybody essentially. And we draft all the players from the original roster, same thing, but it's a one off season. We're in the seventeenth season of that. We're about to enter the playoffs very soon. We have I think ten games left in the season. Drew Manster is in first and I'm in second. And yeah, we we have Facebook group and and all sorts of th uh ways to find us. Uh and on the site you can sign up. we have uh I have I've made like an animated thing that has four steps and the the steps are highlighted with a little animated thing that shows you how to do it. Even if you don't wanna sign up, you can go to that link and download the software and and the little and the game file and uh and practice on your own. You can beat up the computer for a little while but but sort but sort of the the the joke is that the computer doesn't fight back. They click on their receiver right away and you have plenty of time to get down there and intercept it and and I i i it's good to get back in the in the gist, but but the head to head players thing i is pretty intense and and and and a hell of a drug to to get into. Love the hustle, man. I I I I wholeheartedly remember it like it was yesterday, the art of taking a very simple controller, temporarily compromising the controller by throwing it. And then how do you hook it? together, get it back to the store with all honesty. Cause if I break something, I'm gonna pay for it. Okay. I paid the insurance, all that stuff. But that's just such a good memory because you gotta spike that controller after the guy beats you or kicks your butt or eliminates you that double elimination. So that's that's just a great memory is when I was young. Well, I'll say one thing. I don't ever remember having to buy replacement NES controllers, but I've had to buy my son's multiple uh controllers for whatever console they're using now. But they have like a million I I kinda gave up on gaming a long time ago 'cause they have so many buttons and everything and I'm just my brain's not it's not, you know, ready for all that. I Got to give a quick shout out to my son. He was telling me how basic the NES controller is because he was saying there's seven buttons, which is kind of weird because there's an A and a B, and then there's the four directional patterns. And then I think there might be a start button if I'm not. But I'm telling you the intricacies, because I'd be curious off record, the two percent. How do you identify the two percent? You know, how much of a difference is that in four quarters? But I absolutely agree with you because there's a difference between being a hack and I played it. And a very good, you know, consistent player at it. And then how can you beat different styles? And there's there's there's a twenty five percent chance to blitz somebody and just cover them up before the play goes, but it's more than that because it's kind of like literally a defense and offensive coordinator, that's what you are every play. And I think that's what made the game kind of a neutral, but it also separates you, I'm sure, from the talented, you know, higher level versus mid-level players. Definitely. And there's just there's basic stuff that that we don't even think about that that people don't know. It's like if you run to the bottom and you the defense takes any of the guys on the bottom, the bottom three, the computer will send a drone at your human guy and then it's constantly chasing you around. If you get grabbed, you're torched. You call a run to the top, you need to take the one of the three guys on the top, because if you call a run to the top and they call it, it's a play pick and they can't get yards. Or if they run to the bottom If you're one of the guys on the top, you're unblocked and you can go down and catch the guy right away. Super speed and yep, super speed in the widest trip. yeah. So a lot of people will just take Mike Singletary because they remember him being good, but every single run play, there's a drone that's assigned to Mike Singletary and they don't understand why they're getting torched over and over and over again. Like these are just like the most base level things that that that someone that kinda walks in off the street may have forgotten and all that's on the website. I I've got things that if you call pass one and they pick pass two, which of your computer guys will auto cover certain receivers so you only have to cover this guy. Uh w we give you as much material as you wish to ingest to be as good as you want to be. Let me ask you this. Um you've already kind of pitched this a little bit, but let me give you one final opportunity. What's the venue? Approximately how many players are you looking to get and maybe the date of the official tournament just as one little uh kind of short separate from the long. Yep. The national championships this year is August eighth. we do them every year at DJ's Dugout in Omaha at the Miracle Hills location, which is seven seven seven one fourteenth Avenue. And that is August eighth. I said that already, but it is for the next five years. It's the first this first weekend of August. So next year is August seventh. So you you have no excuse for next year if you're just hearing about it now. But we're also we I don't wanna jinx it, but we're putting together with this guy an online interface that you don't need to use our software that you will find on our website that I was saying earlier. We're designing a way that you can just plug in your controller and link up with anybody so that we can have online like a online national championships.'Cause there's a lot of people. Yeah, yeah, yeah. And there's a lot of people on our Facebook page that say that they're the best and on and on and on. And then they go, Well, I can't go to Omaha on August eighth, it's my kids, blah, blah, blah. It's like, okay, for sure. Of course it is. Yeah, yeah. Of course it is. So I've I'm so tired of it's a very popular Facebook group and I try to read every comment and each one I want to convince the person about how much this game is amazing. So when they say that they're the best, I'm like, All right, come to the thing and then and then they BS. So I so we're designing a whole thing that that takes away all the excuses. So we can, you know, do like a ten dollar entry fee or something and all of it goes back into the pot and uh or like for the national championships we always get signed jerseys or uh, you know, cash prizes and and things like that. So we'll find out some some cool things to to to give out to people. But uh this is uh we we need to erase the uh the the the hurdles We need to find the next l greatest and and there's a thousand or two of on my Facebook group, but uh but we're looking for sixty four to show up to Omaha. So there's uh a g handful of spots left. So w we wanna see you out there. Let's see what you got. Yes, you can use Bo Jackson. Go, okay. That's that's yeah, all right. All right. Well, let's let's definitely mention the a the documentary. So the documentary for the Techno Bowl, that's that's not out yet, right? No. That's uh we're about to be putting it out for sale soon. Okay. So hopefully when you sell something it takes three to four months for whoever buys it to put it out. That's the backlog at the moment. So we're hoping it will come out before the end of the year. But yeah, it's we got all sorts of people. Carl Banks, Jim McMahon, Carl Mecklenburg, Willie Galt. I can't it doesn't matter. We got a bunch of football guys in the movie and and as well it's about these three friends that all live around Omaha that are the best friends and they are the top players at Tecmo Bowl and they each have a fascinating story that has nothing to do with Tecmo Bowl, but it's it's it's a sort of a bad analogy, but how uh how boogie nights is to porn, it's not about the porn industry, but porn links them all together and is this story about uh about these these people that that you care about. So this is Tecmo Bowl boogie nights. Okay. I'm trying to give you headlines here. Love it. So it it just it's it's the nucleus that that brings all these stories together. They it all comes back to Tecmo Bowl and it it it crescendos into the into the you know, the the national championships of that year and uh e even that goes sort of sideways. So it's it's a story that a lot of boyfriends and husbands will uh will force their wives or girlfriends to watch and they'll be annoyed, but at the end I they'll be wiping a tear away and like saying like that they were happy that they watched it. Well g that's awesome. I that is a great promo. I love that. All right. So what about Mad Mac? Do you have a I know that you're you're excited to get it out there. Do you have any kind of like projection on when when that will be? I'm waiting on the phone call any minute to to hear where where its home is. So Yeah, any second and we we've got uh my Twitter and all that and Facebook groups. we we definitely will not be subtle. I'm sure it'll be on your website as well, I'm sure. Yeah, definitely, yeah, yeah. Absolutely. But it'll be on a a place that that you probably already have a subscription to. So uh we'll we'll make it as easy as possible for you to find it. And it it's an hour and fifty minutes, five zero, but it it moves very, very quickly. I it could have been six hours. There there's just so much stuff. So We're thinking of maybe doing little vignettes for for YouTube uh of all the stuff that didn't make it in and just sort of keeping the documentary alive after it comes out because Jim's got stories for for years and years. That's so cool. Yeah, it c it could have been an eight part mini series. He's he's lived a crazy life and and we got this much of it in there. So how often do you have people that that call you up or message you and you're like, Hey, I got this great idea for a documentary? I'm sure it has to happen all the time, right? Yeah, and and read my script and all that. And that's very cool. But I I've everything that I've ever done I made myself and just it sort of didn't wait for anybody. So there's some amount of me that says like, well, y go make this thing. That's the only way to do it. Um the idea is the easy part. And unfortunately it's I sort of half joke about it that that that it's the most exciting part about making the movie is like when Jim sent the email and said he'll do it, that was like the best part of it, but then the next five years was okay, well now there's a obligation of making it as good as as w you know, what what the initial idea was and what everybody would expect it to be. Which is obviously a fun journey and that that's just sort of a half joke. But, you know, there's there's uh I don't know, it's it's I can't wait for it to be out. That's it. It's been a a very long fight, so Tell you what, I live vicariously through you. So I told you my experiences with Tecmo Bowl, you know, binging it, you know, when I can only rent it for 48 hours because I wasn't allowed a video game system in my house. I had to play outside sports. That was cool. Jim Mack, I mean, come on. I mean, iconic. I've already kind of told you my thoughts of the Bears, you know, everything there. Price is right. Watched it at my grandma's because she had cable television before we could get the cable television out in the country. Cause that just became, you know, a populous area. So I I want to tip my cap and say this has been fun for me because everything that you've done is a cool project. It's a mainstream project, but yet you get to put a spin on it, your own information. It's factual base. It's interactive. So man, just hate to be cheesy, but two thumbs up, man. You know, whatever whatever rating that is, that's a high rating from us, man. That very good. Very good stuff. We worked very hard to make sure that, you know, th there's a lot of Chicago Bears documentaries of eighty five and you've sort of heard all the stuff a bunch of times. And we have three or four stories in there that you've heard a bunch of times, but I found more stuff for them and they're told in a way that's different. Uh and I mean nobody knows what happened to him on the Chargers or on the Vikings or on Philadelphia. He had a entire career resurgence on the Eagles and half And ninety percent of people have no idea. And the stuff that he went through on the Eagles is crazy. The the the Browns, the Cardinals, everything after football. We worked very hard to uh to to to be a warm bath to to Bears fans, to uh to to give you something that that you haven't seen before, 'cause there's a lot of the same out there. And they just did the Super Bowl shuffle documentary, it's forty minutes long, which I mean, that's fantastic. I watched it, it was great, but it was forty minutes long. So yeah, so there's all sorts of stuff in there that that people haven't seen before and and a lot of stuff that Jim went through in his playing career and afterwards uh that that that applies to football and everyday life. And uh and Jim's a a hell of a storyteller. So uh it's it's been an honor to uh to be able to handle his story and and and get it out there. That's awesome. Well before we get all your information for everybody. Are there any unreleased documentaries or videos that you plan on releasing sometime soon? I know during COVID, I'm sure you have some stuff in the in the back that, you know, that you want to do something with. Is are there any that you want to talk about or anything that that'll be coming up soon? Yeah, I got well, I got we've got three or four of them. So very, very shortly. One of them is guy named Tim Colaseri from Full Metal Jacket. he plays a door Yeah yeah. He plays a door gunner in in Full Metal Jacket, the you know, the get some, get some guy. He was meant to be Lee Ermery's role, the main role that everybody knows from that movie, the drill sergeant in the first half. And him and Kubrick had this crazy relationship and it's forty years later and Tim is still very bothered by this. And it's a very cool Hollywood story uh about the life of an actor. And in the same way with the Chicago Bears, that every Stanley Kubrick story has been told a million times and I think I found one that hasn't been told and certainly not in this way. So as a Kubrick guy, that's my little love letter to Stanley. We got Jan Harlan, who is his brother in law, to interview and we got the Kubrick Estates blessing for it. so that was very cool. Kevin Trudeau, I don't know if you know him. Yes, I know who he is. Yeah, yeah, yeah. The infomercial guy from the nineties and He went to federal prison for ten years for pissing off the DEA. Uh and now he has a or not now, but he's always had this thing called the Global Information Network, which is like these Tony Robbins seminars with twenty thousand people and he he gives people life lessons and business lessons and all these things. And uh it's one of those situations where people uh learn a lot of positive things. other people think it's a scary cult. It's uh insane story. Um very similar to Ted. I wrote a narrative movie about Kevin, but and it was the same thing as with Ted with Price is Right. I like, this will make a cool movie, but like who cares about Ted beating a fake game that I make up? You need the guy to beat the institution that is the Price is Right. So Kevin, I was writing this script forever and it just sort of was this thing that I was gonna make and I realized that Kevin was about to get out of a prison very soon. So I sent him an email and we went back and forth and and I've had unlimited access to his events and his life and it is a wild situation. Yeah, that is so cool. You know what's crazy is he so listening to his nat was a natural cures that they don't want you to know about. I I listened to the audio book whenever I used to run a route years ago. And that is what got me into I'm I wouldn't say I'm into it. as much as I should be now. But that's what got me into like more of the natural health kind of stuff, you know, gotten interested into like, you know, organic stuff and more natural, you know, and and the idea behind, okay, these pharmaceutical companies and also the the parallel between them and the people that make food additives and things like that. You know, just insane. Like things I would have never thought about. So that's really interesting that you're doing that. Yeah, he's very cool. The other one is a guy named Jim Dunlap. is friends with Doris Day's personal assistant her whole career. And uh Doris would record read fan letters and record responses onto these little tapes and send them to Judy, the assistant, to transcribe and then Doris would sign them. We got these tapes and we went and found the people that she was writing to uh and surprised these fans with these tapes of Doris Day. So we t we're telling a Doris Day documentary about her life and and you know, her son Terry Melcher and and I don't know how much we're gonna get into the Manson stuff, but Doris Day had a very troubled life and and and bubble that she was surrounded in. But she always was very positive and and and brightened up America's day and these letters. Nobody I listened to everyone, the these tapes. She could have she was speaking privately to her friend. She could have said anything about any of these people and she was just the kindest person and she was going through this stuff and crying. and and reading these letters and w and we I say we went and found all these different people. One of them is George Slatter who started Laughing uh and all these great shows. George Clooney's parents, the Billy Joel's mom were still trying to get Billy Joel to talk about this. Billy Joel's mom. Doris reads a letter to her on this thing. Uh but we just found all these fans and and got them to tell their story about Doris Day and and then surprised them with these tapes and played them for and It's a very powerful thing and it's just gonna it's it's tricky to make people remember these these people from the past and and these games. So as long as everybody still loves Doris Day and we can remind them why, uh, and they they take the shot on this movie, it's uh it's very powerful a and a very heartwarming little thing. Like just like she was. And then and uh any idea on any dates for some of these or just I just need to get I just need to get Jim and Tecmo Bowl out. That's those of those have been hanging around. Kevin is sort of been an ongoing thing. Uh the Trudeau. I mean I'm still editing it it and and the Full Metal Jacket one is almost done as well. But this Jim thing, uh it it's been made and remade I don't know how many times over the last three years and and recut. And it's not for take this out or it's not coming out, you know, like story stuff. It's not anything but that. It's just always clearances and and just lawyer stuff. So there's only so much footage from the eighties that you can use. So when if you if you if you write a story and then they say you can't use any of these this list of words and then you rewrite it and they go, Okay, well you can't use any of these words and really rip the page in half, you go, man, so it's it it was a long process o of doing that. But like I said, Jim's story is incredible and and Jim is the best guy you will ever meet. So You never consider that legal party. Or at least I don't. You know, like I don't ever think about that kind of stuff. But we're like, I I'm sure that like some a p like a show like Stranger Things, they probably had to go through everything with all the eighties stuff that they had in there. Yeah. Probably had to have all kinds of And it's yeah, it's it's just a thing of like the NFL it's not a hit piece, but of course we tell about the things that Jim went through after his career, which were very serious, very scary things. So the NFL is not about to license us a whole bunch of footage. And if they did, it would be so expensive. I mean, price is right, we had five minutes and it was d it was my life savings. Wow. It was in Bob Barker t doing his patented three second of the actual retail price. That little dramatic pause uh you know cost me a a week of salary. Wow. Yeah, it it's a nightmare because you need that. He he's a showman, he knows how much time you need to waste to to do that. But so there's just to to edit the documentary and and and to get it out with Jim, it just took a very long time. And uh like I said, it's it's what else are you gonna do? It's very frustrating, but you get to you be a filmmaker and and and you're you're at the end of the day you're making a movie about Jim McMahon. So as frustrating as it is, you can get over it mostly. Yeah. Well where okay, so where can everybody find you, CJ? I'm at forty FPS frames per second and that's everything. That's Instagram and and Twitter and all that sort of stuff. I came up with that name when I was eighteen and it's very difficult to say and remember. So I wish that now uh as a marketing guy I could adjust that. but that's what it is. So it's too long of a history. I a Pepsi can't change to yeah to something else. Understood. Not I'm Pepsi. Are you are you coke? I'm g yeah. Well shit. The light, the sun went down. I had a bi I have a huge window here that was doing orange light and now it went down. So now I'm in a I'm I'm Mr. Freeze and Batman returns or whichever one that is. You know, I was I was looking for like the Clockwork Orange poster or picture or something like That's all out there. That's what I said. I I I I just I I don't know what it is, but I just I've having like the perfect bid poster behind me and all I just don't I don't know. I just wanted to I just wanna sit in this little bunker looking room and and and talk about this stuff. All the Kubrick stuff is definitely over there though. All all an eye shot of the editing system. Well, thank you so much for being on, man. I'd love I'd love to have you back on again. I think that there's lots more to talk about. I mean, I know there's other other productions that you've done that, you know, that we didn't get to. So maybe we can maybe we can do a part two of this sometime. Absolutely. Like I said, Jim's uh we're trying to get it out by the time they kick off this year. So hopefully, uh hopefully that's the case. Yeah, yeah, give us a heads up and we'll we'll definitely get you back on to promote it. Absolutely. Thank you. Yes. Cool.