SOMEbody once told me this podcast's gonna roll me. I ain't the sharpest ogre in the swamp. Er, we're trying to find out what's under the various layers of the Shrek fandom. Memes? Sincerety? More memes? Is it infinite? PLUS, we have special guest Alicia Kraft of the Ogrecast to help us out! ## Episode Outline ### Fandom Facts **History and Origins:** The Shrek franchise traces its origins back in 1990 with a picture book titled _Shrek!_ by William Steig. It wasn't until 1995 that the first film was put into active development: > "Every development deal starts with a pitch and my pitch came from my then kindergartner, in collaboration with his pre-school brother. Upon our second reading of Shrek, the kindergartner started quoting large segments of the book pretending he could read them. Even as an adult, I thought Shrek was outrageous, irreverent, iconoclastic, gross, and just a lot of fun. He was a great movie character in search of a movie." > > — [Wikipedia - Shrek](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shrek#Development) [// where Bill Murray would play Shrek and Steve Martin would play Donkey... Nicolas Cage, Chris Farley]: # The Shrek films follow the (mis)adventures of Shrek (played by Mike Myers), Donkey (Eddie Murphy), and Fiona (Cameron Diaz) and subversions of fairy tales and pop culture as developed by DreamWorks animation. The first film was eventually produced and released six years later in 2001. It has since had a re-shrek-table three sequels (with a fifth movie planned for an unscheduled release date), two holiday specials, a spin-off film (with another spin-off in the works), a Netflix series based on the spin-off, several short films, almost thirty video games, _and_ a broadway musical. **Search Data:** Using Google Trends as a measuring ...
The Nicks dive deep into personal nostalgia (that's good), the divide between fans (that's bad), the different shows that the Simpsons has been (that's good), and more for this long running (that's bad) media franchise! Can I go now? ## Episode Outline ### Fandom Facts **History and Origins:** > The Simpsons is a long running animated TV show, spanning 27 seasons over as many years, and counting (As of Dec 2016). It revolves around the lives of a supposedly average American middle class household; Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie. > > Over the years, The Simpsons' cast grew from the original five family members into over a hundred unique characters, along with numerous cameos. > — [Fanlore - The Simpsons](https://fanlore.org/wiki/The_Simpsons) Created by Matt Groening, _The Simpsons_ debuted as a series of shorts on the _Tracy Ullman Show_ in 1987 and since then has become a worldwide cultural phenomenon spanning hundreds of episodes and many comics, video games, and so much more. It is the longest running TV show in history and airs in over 180 countries. "The series is a satirical depiction of working-class life, epitomized by the Simpson family, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa, and Maggie. The show is set in the fictional town of Springfield and parodies American culture and society, television, and the human condition" (Wikipedia). **Search Data:** Using Google Trends data, there is about as much search data available as there is missing, since it starts back in 2004. That being said, search interest in the show [has been on a slow decline](https://trends.google.com/trends/explore?date=all&q=%2Fm%2F07c72) since approximately May 2010 (despite being relatively stable from 2004 - 2010). The show has had a particular spike in interest in July 2007 (_The Simpsons_ movie), ...
What if you only had 60 minutes to _escape from this podcast_? To unravel the puzzles of _Crimson Room_ or the (surprisingly) lucrative business of locking people in a room? Well, you'd probably fail (but so would we). Listen in as we talk about fans of an even more puzzling experience: Escape Rooms! Next week, we wrap up the season with a Nickscast favourite (and a special guest) as we talk about fans... of the _Legend of Zelda_ series! ## Episode outline ### Fandom Facts **Origins and history:** Escape rooms, also known as _room escape_, _escape games_, _escape the room_, and so on, are physical adventure games where participants are required to solve a variety of puzzles using riddles, clues, and hints contained in the room within a fixed time limit. Sometimes, the rooms are thematically linked (e.g. a museum heist) or they can be a series of abstract puzzles with no linking theme. The concept of an escape room is heavily inspired by the similarly named video game genre where players are required to escape a room by pointing and clicking around a room to exploit their surroundings. The earliest example of this style of game is likely the 1988 text adventure, _Behind Closed Doors_, where the player has to escape a restroom, but some better known examples might include _MOTAS_ (Mystery Of Time And Space, 2001), _Crimson Room_ (2004), and _Viridian Room_. Arguably... fans of escape rooms are fans of this genre of video games, but that remains to be seen! The first escape room was created in Japan by SCRAP in 2007 and the concept later spread to other parts of Asia, then Europe... then, the world! There are now almost ...
