Sega's Weird, Fake TV Show For The 32X | Sega's Insane 1990s Infomercial!
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 14 ก.ค. 2018
- In 1994 Sega commissioned an insanely absurd 30 minute infomercial with one goal, to sell consumers on their newest add on for the Sega Genesis, the 32X.
But unlike the direct sales pitches made by the Atari Jaguar and Philips CDI infomercials, Sega decided to go with a more subtle approach. The end result was Absolutely Rose Street, a 30 minute production that’s presented to look more like a TV show than an infomercial. This is the story of Sega's ridiculous, and at times hilariously bad 90s infomercial, Absolutely Rose Street.
Watch the full Absolutely Rose Street Infomercial ► • Sega "Absolutely Rose ...
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There's nothing more 90s than teens living in what appears to be an abandoned warehouse with no jobs but electricity.
Didn't we all live in brick-lined 20,000 square feet warehouses back in the 90s?
@@WrestlingWithGaming Yes. Yes, we did.
Truely the Citizen Kane of Informericals
In the future, people will describe great pieces of art as the "Absolutely Rose Street" of their genre. So sayeth the Great Kalinske.
Haha
A classic that just gets deeper every time you watch, you see subtle things the director put in there that are revolutionary even 20 years into the future.
Brilliant it its own way, no?
"Roooooose Streeeeeeet"
I like how they conveniently forget to show the 50 wires you need to hook up to the back, and pretend like you just put it in the Genesis and you're done.
Haha, right? To be fair Max probably can't count to 50 wires let alone connect them.
If Sega had just gone with the SVP chip that's all you would've done lol. But nooooo Sega had to be all complicated haha.
If the games are good who cares about the cables . All Sega had to do was release good games for it and support it for some time
@@aceofhearts573 yup. One awesome Sonic title and a couple other great first party games and that would be all it needed to become a must have item. Then 3rd parties would have no choice but to support it. Why fund Knuckles Chaotix? I mean I respect trying new things but surely they knew that it wasn't going to be that good fairly early on. I bet that game cost as much if not more to develop than a "regular" Sonic title. They could have thrown in all the fancy scaling and rotation effects as long as it played good and fast. Oh well, so much wasted potential.
I also see the logic in releasing an adapter versus making a bunch of expensive SVP based games. People don't want to spend over 100 bucks on a game, but a one time expense of 160 dollars to upgrade? Seems like a more attractive option on paper. Reality worked out differently though. If they could have found a way to get the price down on the SVP chip I guess that might have been a good compromise. Or you know, just shelf all of it and wait for the Saturn, then throw that saved R+D money at giving your 32-bit console a decent release with some good launch titles.
The Genesis looked like it was on life support when all of the add-ons were hooked up. I mean, I guess it was kinda on life support, lol
This infomercial really illustrates that there is a fine line between insanity and genius.
Haha well said.
Stella was 80's hot
Cristina was 90's hot.
Big difference, very important.
I don't care if this was a departure, I had no idea this "show" even existed, and I fancied myself to know a thing or two about Sega in the 90's. I learn something new on every single one of your videos.
Thanks man. Sega seems to be an endless trove of the weird and obscure.
I ended up watching that entire infomercial. It's so bad, it's awesome.
It really is!
I'm going to sell my pogs to buy a 32x.
Ha ha
Man I had too many Pogs.......
I can't believe I just typed that
Lmao
There at the end they were charging $5 for a trash bag full of whatever. That was an amazing day in my childhood.
Be sure to come back Saturday, 7/21/18 for a livestream viewing party of the full Absolutely infomercial! Come watch and comment along with myself and special guest HistoricNerd.
This one is a departure for me as it isn't a straight up documentary, although there is some history & research covered at the beginning. Don't worry, the next video will be back to my normal documentary style format for the XBAND.
Thanks to Master-Cast TV, the mystery of who played Christina has been solved. It appears that K.K. Dodds played Christina. She's gone on to do Prison Break, as well as a bunch of other TV roles and films.
Wrestling With Gaming love your work, greetings from México
Thanks for watching man! Yo soy originalmente de Puerto Rico. Gracias por el apoyo!
Love your work man. Have you done anything on the Sega channel? That'd be fun.
Thanks man. Haven't covered the Sega channel yet, but it's on my list of topics to get to.
You should try getting in contact with the actors. It’d be so cool
That Max is too much
Dude, did you notice American Mcgee trying not to laugh at the end of his interview with Max? haha, like come on man. Just do another take lol.
You can see the regret in his face the second he appears.
I actually tried reaching out to American to see if he had any info or just anything he wanted to say about his appearance. He didn't reply... he made the right choice.
Whang! In da house
Wow. I remember Nintendo having VHS infomercials on some of their 90s games like DKC and N64. But, this was actually on the air? Points to you, Sega, for actually getting on the air. And kudos, to this channel, for this video. As an 80s baby and 90s kid, this is a great vid.
Thanks so much! Glad you liked it.
Wrestling With Gaming You're welcome. Great channel
I remember the Donkey Kong Country VHS tape. My cousin had it. I think it came with the SNES game when you bought it at a certain store.
The DKC vhs was mailed to my house. I believe as a Nintendo Power subscriber. I vaguely remember there being a Mortal Kombat 2 Easter egg at the end.
@@REEE_Larson I remember that tape as well. I believe the easter egg at the end was for Killer Instinct
An infomercial with an actual plot? That's crazy. Some of it even seems pretty funny and/or clever. I never saw this air back in the day so it's neat to see it now. Great video as always, thanks for covering this topic!
Thanks. I can see how they might have thought this was a good idea when someone brought it up at a meeting, but once they got the script I don't see how they thought this would sway someone to buy a 32X or anything else.
Stella would have been an awesome Harley Quinn.
She sounds a lot like her!
32X DOOM is as fast as 486!!! The nerve they had!
You have such quality content. Love the blast from past trip you take us on. Great work!
Soo much edge in that infomercial
This infomercial was powered by Surge soda and pogs.
Thunder in Paradise reference... I really should have known, it was coming!
I may be slightly obsessed with that game.
Proof that, contrary to what we're always told, weed was just as potent 24 years ago as it is today.
😂
Dude, it's the 90's. We grew up with Mario and we learned to eat lots of shrooms.
@@salvatronprime9882 Shrooms mixed with Meth and Cocaine.
We should team up and reboot Game Beat. Or maybe it's Game Beet? You know, because it's an extremely digestible show. This was great fun to watch. It's the kind of show I don't actually want to watch, but want to see someone else review. It was like something from video production class in middle school. Maybe most crazy of all is that Styling with Stella idea is actually a legit and popular show format on youtube, who would have thought? ..... Actually, the most insane thing is the roofie slipped to Brad.
haha. I don't think anyone can beat the original Game Beat crew. The lady that played Stella and Joe were awesome. They really went for it. The guy that played Max did too... with less success.
Archie Kao! He was the Blue Ranger in Power Rangers Lost Galaxy!
Sure was!
Just what I was coming here to say!
10:30
That awkward moment when your infomercial predicts your own down fall.
It's almost spooky.
The meme potential here is _staggering!_
There are tons.
Did you hear? DOOM IS COMING TO VIDEOGAMES!
This really takes me back to the 90s. Excellent video as always, love this obscure marketing stuff
Thanks for watching. I love this oddball stuff too!
WWG, I don't think I was prepared for that much 90's 'tude. Gotta warn us next time buddy. Great video still man, I enjoyed the laid back feel.
Hahah thanks man. I had to watch this infomercial over a dozen times. I started to feel like I was living in 1994 myself.
Wrestling With Gaming Ack, I didn't even think about that. I'm surprised you didn't start quoting Friends after this.
Incredible
This thing is a 90s meme factory.
As cheesy as this and other video game informercial were, I kinda missed when they would do that. Of course video game companies don't need to anymore. Anyway, thanks for bringing this to my attention, and Game Beat seemed like a show I would watched unironically in the 90's if it existed.
Thanks for watching. I'd watch Stylin With Stella unironically right now! Lol
Can't wait for the Xband documentary.
Jeff Mcdaniel I just watched that one. Great doc.
Thanks!
Oh dude now we're getting into the oddities here. I love this video, one of my favorite of yours for sure!
Thanks man. Yeah, this was a weird topic lol
Great video. You always find the most obscure information on a topic. I had never seen this before. This show awesome in a “The Room” kind of way.
Yeah, it does have that The Room vibe, but the acting here is much better.
Nintendo: Welp. The Wizard ending up becoming the most cringeworthy live-action promo for video games ever!
Sega: Hold my beer...
Nice job man. I really enjoyed the recap of these infomercials!
Haha! Sega really did outdo Nintendo here.
I had the same sickening realization about five minutes in. My God... it's somehow WORSE than The Wizard!!! As Lucas so famously said, "It's so BAD."
Absolutely Rose Street is somehow both worse yet way better than The Wizard. At least Absolutely Rose Street doesn't take itself seriously... I think lol.
I saw it opening day...u got a booklet from Nintendo that had the first screen shots of super mario 3!!! God I wish I still had it but I lost everything in a fire in late 1989.
@@WrestlingWithGaming Sega outdoes what Nintendon’t!
I've been in to gaming as long as I can remember and never even heard of this. Good work man. This obscure nostalgia is awesome.
Dude, this is probably my favorite video you've done.lol. Just pure awesomeness. But man... I can't believe they ended that show with only 1 episode... That's worse than Firefly!! I WANT MORE!
Hey Camaro! Thanks man. I wish there were more episodes but hey, at least they went out on a high note... I guess lol. I loved watching this all 15 times I had to for this video.
I got to wonder if they even understand what they were saying. I hardly did
So 90's. I love it.
Real1Gaming that's why its awesome !
There are a lot of things that are called the most 90s thing ever, but I think this might actually be it.
Early 90's best time miss early to mid 90's. Late 90's was not too bad but got dull. Miss my child in 90's
This is so fascinating, they set up interviews where people voice their concerns about 32X making the sega genesis obsolete then they don't even address their perfectly legitimate concerns
What a fantastic channel this is! So much attention to detail and great research. Can't wait for the next video!
Thanks so much!
No problem, thank you! Your videos are on the same or even higher lever than the History Channel, when it was about history of course.
It looks like it’s on life support!
I grew up during the console wars, and I do NOT remember this informercial. Never even heard of it. Great original topic choice. God Sega was so off the wall in the mid 90's.
Love the new format!
Thanks! I love how off the rails video game companies would sometimes get in the 90s.
This laid back format will just be for when I review something odd like this infomercial. The serious documentaries will still be more straightforward but I do plan on being on camera more often for those too. Thanks for the feedback though. I was worried this format would put people off so I'm glad to see it's been well received.
Wrestling With Gaming I think "off the rails" perfectly describes youth marketing in the 90's in general. We were so extreme and cool and anti-authority! This Max dude perfectly sums it up. Lol.
Lol I think Max's dad was a can of Surge 😂
My god, I've seen this.... Thanks horror... The horror
Crazy Max Jackson will not be denied your soul!
@@WrestlingWithGaming I will fight Max Johnson in a "Brawl For All" Match.
If I won he has to Grant Me.
If I lost I'll be Denied.
Brilliant! I'm not even a gamer, but I always enjoy watching your videos, and appreciate the work you put into them.
Thanks Andrew, I appreciate that!
Damn I miss the 90s what a damn good time to be alive I was becoming a teenager in life was so great had no idea just how rough it would get but thanks to guys like you putting videos like this out I can take myself out of it for a while and go back to a better day.
GAME BEAT is on the NEXT Level
It's totally rad!
“Has Sega shot themselves in the foot?”
Talk about a self-fulfilling prophecy.
Fairly certain the main actress is K.K. Dodds. She's the mom in Grosse Pointe Blank (1997) that let's Martin (John Cusack) hold her baby during the dance. Had a larger role in Soldier (1998) where she played the aid to Captain Church (Gary Busey).
Just looked KK Dodds up, they do look quite a bit alike. You may be right. I'll try to get some confirmation one way or the other.
The voice too. Her dialogue is far more clear in Soldier. The dance sequence in Grosse Pointe Blank is a little hard to make out over "Under Pressure."
Good eye.
Thanks! Did some more digging and found that someone had asked Blake Harris (Console Wars) if he had written the article discussing the infomercial. The guy had asked who the girl was and Harris replied, "Yeah, I think her name's K.K. Dodds." That Tweet was made in 2015.
sweet. I've added that she played Christina to the pinned comment and credited you for the discovery. Once I looked at some older pictures of Dodds it became pretty clear that it's the same person. Thanks for the info!
Man your production values are so top notch. Thank you for yet again another great retro docuvideo!
Thanks so much!
Hooked me immediately. You knocked it out of the park again. Thanks for putting in the time!
Thanks a lot man! I appreciate it!
I was looking for this for years, I can't tell you how excited I was once it hit TH-cam years ago.
"Wherefore art thou Romeo" doesn't mean "Where are you Romeo." "Wherefore" = "Why." It means "Why do you have to be Romeo." As in, "if you weren't you, our problems would disappear." That is such a pet peeve of mine.
I really wonder what happened to that ad agency.
Really great video. It was a bit different than your normal but it works and I found it refreshing. I liked being able to see you on screen during it as it felt a little more personal, and it shows the good camera quality and your editing abilities. This remains to be one of my favorite channels to watch on youtube
Thanks a lot. I won't make this style of video a regular thing but there are a few other really cheesy gaming VHS tapes and infomercials that I'll probably cover in the future. It was a fun change of pace for me so I'm glad to see others enjoying it.
I love that you got a Thunder in Paradise reference in this video
And after watching the full video, I would have watched it as a kid. But then again, it almost seems like a parody of a show that Nostalgia Nerd grew up with, Bad Influence. So maybe SoA took influence from SoE when they made this
Ha ha. I was an opening and just had to bring up Thunder in Paradise. I agree, Game Beat does come off a bit like an over the top Bad Influence parody.
One day, my children will ask me, "What were the 90s like?" and I will show them this.
That’s one of the more ridiculous things I’ve ever seen. Along with the other mimicked 90s shows, add in 21 jump street. I love how you bring up the fact that renting an apt like that would be insanely expensive, lmao. Also your portal jumping cat chasing a metatron cube is pretty awesome. Loved the break down of a horrible and otherwise forgotten “TV” show.
Comparing this to other 90s sitcom trash, the actual acting ain't too shabby
two words: absolutely rose street
Quite possibly the worst title ever
I wonder if the 32x going up against "Stella" is an obscure shade thrown at Atari. "Stella", as we all know was the code name for the VCS during it's development & the name of the TIA chip inside the machine. (as well as the most famous 2600 emulator.) The Atari Jaguar, at the time, was one of Sega's competitors. We'll never know for sure, but, I think my theory is plausible.
damn! I didn't even know that sega did this ad. Thank you for creating this video.
Thanks. I love weird and obscure stuff like this.
These videogame untold stories always fascinate me in your channel. Hope to see you soon, bro!
Another great video Bro, fantastic channel
Thanks man!
Great job on the video. I haven't seen the infomercial yet, but it looks pretty great from footage and your description!
After watching "Absolutely Rose Street" I thought it was fantastic... seriously. Christina "Juliet" Savage was the obvious star of the show and the actress did a great job.
We love your videos! We watch a bunch of gaming docus and yours are easily some of the best!
Thanks guys!
i didnt have sega consoles growing up so i've always been a nintendo fanboy, but man these videos on sega's history really make me respect how cool they were back in the day. they were underdogs that proved they could go toe to toe with nintendo and they were willing to try all kinds of interesting, innovative and crazy stuff to make it to the top
Sega in the 90s was like a bad Hollywood d list and mtv together, especially around the sega CD time. So much fake production value and straight to video level scripts
Your videos are amazing and deserve more views!
Thanks!
Oh man, I remember this. I am going to be sending you my therapy bill.
Haha. Well, make sure to send it attention: Crazy Max Jackson, care of Absolutely Rose Street, Hell.
"Has Sega shot itself in the foot?" "We'll see"
Well that line didn't age too well.
Hahaha! Crazy Max Jackson is the king of foreshadowing.
Truly a man ahead of his time. Great video man, even though it's outside the realm of your usual content it was still a great watch! It's been great watching your channel grow and I can't wait for the XBand documentary to come out.
Nice! 44K subs! Think I found you around 10K, keep up the great content!
Thanks! I've been pretty fortunate with my channel's growth the last year. Can't complain at all. Thanks for still watching, I appreciate it!
Well...it worked on me ! SOLD!
Hey I've got a stupid 32X in my closet and I kinda like it!
Amazing video as always man! I've never knew this documentary even existed, thanks for all the information on it :-)
Thanks checking it out!
Fantastic video. I had heard about this infomercial in passing on a Nintendo forum years ago, but hadnt ever seen it. Really enjoyed your overview on it.
Thanks for watching, it was a fun one to put together. I love weird stuff like this from the 90s.
I remember 1994 pretty well, even the console Wars to some extent, I would have been 6 at the time. I don't remember this. I wonder if my brother does. I will say, I enjoyed some of the really bad acting, because the thing is, is that some of these people can actually act very well, but I think it was part of Sega's philosophy at the time to do things that are, kind of over the top. Personally, I would have voted for Stella's show.
Oh yeah, I think everyone here is acting as directed. Pretty much everyone on here actually can act pretty well. Like you, I think they were just told to be over the top.
As someone who was 10 at the time and buying gaming magazines whenever he could, I can say I remember the ad. But I don't remember the actual show at all. I think I skipped over the ad in the magazines, honestly. I just remember seeing it there.
I agree, I remember when this aired and being a teenager in the 90’s, it was a lot more entertaining than the cheesy infomercials of the time. It felt very “MTV”, if that makes sense. It’s just too bad about the internal strife between Sega of Japan and Sega of America. Imagine if this had been about the Saturn instead of those crazy Saturn commercials we got and Sega of Japan never forced the doomed 32X on the consumers.
Been slowing catching up on your videos. All amazing stuff!
Thanks!
11:25 that is NOT what “Where for art thou Romeo” means! It means, ‘why do you have to be a Capulet?’ Not, ‘Where are you located?’
I wish Absolutely Rose Street had been a playable FMV game from Digital Pictures, it has serious Sewer Shark / Night Trap vibes in the acting. This is amazing.
Great video! Would love to see you do something on some of the 32X CD FMV games published by sega that didn’t get as much attention as the Digital pictures games. Fahrenheit and Surgical Strike were intriguing games for me as a kid...
We need to track the actors/producer down and ask question about this mess.
The promotional video for the TurboGrafx-16 is still the GOAT.
I own this beast of a machine known as the 32x, i got it back in the 90's on launch, fell in love with Mortal Kombat 2 on it and doom...sadly...these are the only games i really play on it...still..at the time, it was all about MK2 for me.
I love the Apple 20C hard drive noises when she first is shown stuff at Sega.
11:43 she hacked in! Reminds me of Hackers
I had never heard of this before but thank you for your retrospective on it. Keep up the awesome work.
Thanks for watching!
Great video man, love Sega, keep these videos coming, been collecting for Sega since 2000.
It is entirely possible that nothing else completely encapsulates the '90s as well as Absolutely Rose Street.
It's pure 90's cheese, and I love it. I honestly remember seeing this late night as a 13 year old kid as during the summer I could stay up long as i wanted, and had a TV setup with cable in my room, and I would ask my friends over the years after seeing it if they remembered the show, but none of them ever did, and I also never did call the phone # in fear of my parents yelling at me if there was a long distance fee on the phone bill, and as a kid I would have voted to see more video games, but as an adult I would vote for Stella lol!
Stella is awesome! This actress looked like she was having a blast playing her.
In a weird way Stella reminds me somewhat of the lady who played in Jane from the 3DO game Plumbers Don't Wear Ties.
There were two types of adult villains for the 90's rebellious youth:
- Stuck-up, smarmy businessman
- Agressive, bully businessman with a New York accent
Here we have type 2. Lol. I seriously can't get enough of this. Everything about it.
Well done, good episode. I had no idea they made this for the 32X. SEGA!!!
How do we get styling with Stella back on the air?
I would legit watch the hell out of her show. She's a fun character and the actress was so good in that role.
This is my favorite video from you Absolutely rose street... seen it about 9 or 11 times
Damn, The cringe is real with that one !
Very much so.
Absolutely Rose Street looks fantastic! I would watch a similar show today.
Damn I bought the 32X as soon as it came out and I have zero recollection of this "show." I can't believe I missed it. But I'm glad to have finally seen it in 2018! Really cool video and commentary -- thanks for this!
Archie Kao was also the Blue Ranger from Lost Galaxy and the First Blue Ranger of Asian Descent
Absolutely Rose Street is some next level "The Room" shit! Thanks for the change-up upload!
Thanks for checking out man. I know it was a change of pace from what people subbed to the channel for.
Top-shelf videos AND a DS9 fan ? Excellent taste sir 👌
An infomercial dressed up as a fake TV show? This feels like something out of Max Headroom.
"An email that would normally end up with a restraining order, somehow ends up providing massive SEGA secrets". This had me in tears.
Thanks 😊
When can we expect a Netflix/Hulu/Prime reboot of this?
Keep it up, man! Hoping to see more of your content soon!
Thanks!
Can't wait to watch this properly this evening dude
Just found your channel. Well done on your content.
The sheer amount of 90s nostalgia on show here takes me back to a better time, a time without responsibility, without kids and non stop fun!!! Damn, I miss the 90s!!!
I miss them too man.
Wrestling With Gaming don't mate, I'll start welling up!!! Why haven't they invented that time machine yet??? It's my only hope for redemption haha!!!