I went to Pokemon league every Saturday at wizards of the coast around 1999-2000 ish. I remember the gym leaders would make their own decks. One of them I remember had made a stall deck, and offered double stamps to anyone who could beat him.
Almost 1 am for me and just finished watching this. Before I pass out I gotta say my boy Porygon did nothing wrong. We need to ban Pikachu from the anime for the same amount of time Porygon was banned.
I love how you also talk about the artist for each card and give them props for their style! The illustrations have always been about 80% of the draw for me with pokemon cards, but I don't seem to see ppl talking abt the artistic value of cards as often as I think they should. So great video! 🌟 PS: Justice for Porygon!!
Had a rough child hood growing up poor but the best times I had were when me and my two brothers were spoiled with a base set pack of cards from our local book store that was near by that had packs for sale. It was rare but me and my youngest brother cherish those memories
First off it was the best honesty probably my favorite time of my life. Second these others saying you need to be rich? My parents were cheap and strict as hell! I got a job mowing lawns to pay for my cards and used all my birthday/Christmas on it. Was I buying a box a week? No maybe 1-2 packs. League itself was free. It was just a bunch of kids not knowing what the hell we were doing.
Honestly, I have never played a single Pokemon game. Neither have I ever finished any Mario or Zelda game. This, however, didn't stop me from watching all of your videos with great pleasure. I love your content and am looking forward for more. Good luck with whatever you will be working on in the future!
thank you so much, that really means more than I could put into words! I'm in the middle of another zelda video and it may possibly be my first video to cross the 2 hour mark, but we'll see! i'm about 75% done with the script!
Aww man, that Entei promo takes me back. I remember seeing Pokemon 3 in theatres and getting that card. Good times, man. I've still got a few of those cards squirreled away somewhere
2024, august 2nd. Its 2.14am and you just gained a new subscriber. Perhaps the most comprehensive explanation I've come across as a new collector in search of my WOTC nostalgia. Greatly appreciated this video, and I'm keen to watch your full icebergs. Keep up this great work!!
The cardshop I went to only gave away the Birthday Pikachu to people on their actual birthday. I remember other people getting it and when it was finally my birthday I ran down to the store. The old guy who ran the shop said he didn't have anymore atm. I asked if I could get one when he got more, but he said it wouldnt be my birthday anymore. I remember almost crying then I never played the card game again after that.
Only thing I'd say in productive feedback is I wish you'd have included their Japanese promo origins, too. That Eevee is a sort-of reprint of the Fan Club Eevee, which is a weird and wild card to obtain. Flying Pikachu and the Dragonite were originally released on Japanese airlines as a promo. Also, the Psyduck promo was part of a cool comic series in Japan. Love your videos!
Looking it up on Bulbapedia, the name inconsistency for the early Pokémon movies that NesC talked about throughout the video wasn't an inconsistency at all, the longer titles were just their subtitles, which weren't used on the posters, but were used in the movies themselves in their opening credits. So for example, Pokémon 2000's full title was Pokémon The Movie 2000: The Power of One, with the first half of that title showing up on the poster, and the second half showing up during the opening credits. If I had to guess why the titles turned out like that, I'd guess that 4Kids was asked by Nintendo to keep the titles similar to the Japanese releases, where the titles all start with the prefix "Pokémon The Movie" before a more specific main title, but they wanted to just use numbers to keep things shorter and simpler, so they just put the numbered titles on the posters, DVDs, etc, and the main titles in the opening credits, which naturally doesn't stick with a lot of people as much, resulting in this confusion. That's all just speculation on my part, but you gotta admit, it does sound like a problem 4Kids would invent, lol.
Ancient mew was 100% a promo card, numbered or not. Besides the fact that PSA labels them promo cards it is literally the definition of promotional material...its probably THE promo card.
Idk what it is about these videos, but I get absolutely hyped when you drop em. They're just so charming, calming, informative, and the little recurring jokes are also great. Keep it up, man.
Very nice to hear all those funfacts of these vintage black star promo cards. Some of them I've never even seen as a kid growing up in Europe. As they were exclusive to US. But very cool to know more background to all these cards now. Keep up this work 😊
Played Pkmn League at my local shop from 99-05. Employees and friends of employees had green star stampers that were given out by the store. Once you gathered 50 stars on each page of your League booklet, it was like 2 for wins 1 for loss- you could redeem your gym badge. Had all the Gen 1 badges. Once in a lifetime fun.
I was recently out of college and gainfully employed when I started collecting and playing. I found a LGS that held Pokemon gatherings, but the employees couldn't be bothered to run the League, so I volunteered. While I can't speak for other "Gym Leaders", I was able to teach new players how to build a deck, play against the trainers with various different decks for badges, and even attend the STS East. Also, I pulled 2 1st Ed. Ivy Pikachus from 1st Ed. Jungle Booster Boxes. I still have them today (BGS 8.5). They're called The Twins. ;)
I remember going to a card shop and a guy had a ton of Pokémon center and lucky stadium promos he had around thirty Pokémon centers and twenty two lucky stadiums and was selling them for 400$ a pop he also had a bunch of Meowth promos that’s about it
I'm really happy to hear you're enjoying it so much! I'll do my best to continue to make videos that meet, or hopefully exceed your expectations of the channel!
I am almost done collecting every WOTC BSP in condition PSA 9, recently purchased Lucky Stadium and Birthday Pikachu, only 10 more to go! And I find your video a godsent, since I only remember half of those promos from my childhood. Its awesome to know the story behind every one, where its been given out, etc. Thanks so much!
Absolutely love your videos dude! I'm really surprised you don't have more subs/views for these videos you make that are greatly detailed and really long. Keep up the good work!
Oh hey, I forgot all about these events. Turns out I did go to them, seeing as I have the Surfing and Flying Pikachu cards. I remember my friend tried to claim the cards with "Promo" on them were fakes, lol. (Other people also said the ones with the Japanese backs were, too) Excellent Porygon rant BTW
So the leage "gym trainers" or leaders had pre made decks provided by pokemon for the battle purpose. There was like trainer deck A and B and it had them written on the back of each card in red I believe. Theres a couple videos of old employees posting their stuff they stole/kept on youtube
Love your work! I’m sure someone already posted…Pokemon had a partnership with Japanese airline ANA…since that’s a Japanese company…they probably removed the ANA jet from cards outside Japan…That original ANA poke jet with Pikachu tied to balloons on the tail was sweet…
pokemon the movie 200 is divided into 2 parts. The 20 minute short " pikachu's rescue adventure" and then the actual movie " the power of one." At least according to Wikipedia
I noticed that you didn't start that long ago, welcome! I've been watching your icebergs on Pokemon and Legend of Zelda and I'm really intrigued that some of the information that you share. I really hope that you find purpose in this channel, may growth and luck be with you, May the wind in your sails be filled with fortune!
I picked up a while bunch of these cards before the recent craze of collecting them. Don't remember the site but they had a ton of rare cards for good prices! So it was cool to learn about the history of them. Also, I think you have a really good increase audio! It's a good bit clearer. Going back tonyour mario 64 videos will be hard now after this. One last thing, I'm happy to hear you talk about anything you'd like! TH-cam could use a few more people like you.
That microphone is doing wonders, your audio was so crisp and I could hear all of your pain and suffering when talking about our boy Porygon (who to this day has done nothing wrong)
I remember that I got my Marill promo card at Toys R Us. I can remember it clearly. All of the alternative titles for the movies were included at the beginning of each movie, somewhat like a title card for each movie. Also “Spell of the Unown” was used in the title of the novel book released by Scholastic.
I love your videos! I'm down for anything you want to give us all formats! I found your channel a couple of days ago and blew through all of the (except smash bros. saving that one for last 😄) Your great background content while I'm cleaning and doing other various chores! And yes I'd say the audio quality did improve in this video! 👌🏻
To get the league badges, you had to get stamps in the league book for completing tasks. Tasks included battling, trading, cleaning up, helping teach how to play etc.
I was super into the Pokemon cards (and Pokemon in general) at the time. This was a good excuse to dig out a card album I have from back then - it's only for the special cards, the rest is of course in a classic shoebox, somewhere. There's a section for hologram cards, Promos, and of course my favorite, Meowth. I have a lot of promos from being active in the Pokemon league from early on (and even living in NYC at the time) so it was nice to know where and when they all came from, great video like your others.
3:50 The local Toys R Us Pokémon League in San Antonio did not require for you to beat a gym leader in battle; You’d just get the badge upon reaching the appropriate amount of points.
This basically happened to me. I went to the Toys R Us pokemon league with my cousin and his friend, even though I didn't play pokemon tcg, because there was a phone call from his friend's mom. We ended up getting mario kart toys
Pokemon truly has been an integral part of mine and many other people's childhoods I remember being at a friend's birthday party and him getting a birthday Pikachu Pretty much since the anime first aired on TV I would come home everyday from school and watch Amazing how large of an impact it had on so many
This video brought up so many fond memories. I went to a Pokemon league at Toys R Us with my sister. Our league had a "gym leader" but she just kind of hung out. I remember we had stamp books. If you played a game you got 1 stamp and if you won you got 2 or 3(?). I remember getting all the badges, and a lot of these promo cards. However! I only remember going for a few months. Yet I had cards which you stated came out over a period of a few years. So, either I ended up going much longer than I remember or I acquired the cards in different ways? Anyway! Thanks for the video, and excellent nostalgia trip
fun fact: the Arcanine at 7:41 was was distributed in Japan "through a Toyota campaign between October and December 1997. This card, along with Pikachu, came sealed in a card booklet presented to visitors at participating dealerships." I'd be willing to guess that the edited photo behind the Arcanine art is a car, and I'd LOVE to know which one. Also, re: Christopher Rush's Mewtwo - the japanese version of the promo was the same exact Ken Sugimori art as the one in the Pokemon The First Movie promo Mewtwo card (just flipped, if I remember right), so Wizards had one of their people (Chris) do some new artwork.
The reason they use that second Mewtwo copy with the same attacks but different artwork it's for a couple of reasons. Of the four cards that came with the movie ticket the mutual was actually really useful and that meant people wanted it for their Hamaker Dex so this is just an easier way to get it and which is why I think it was chosen. There are a lot of Japanese promos we didn't get but it's hard to imagine a more appropriate Pokemon Mewtwo except maybe Mew
Okay so promo Mewtwo number 12 has artwork by Christopher rush for a very specific reason. Its Japanese counterpart came with quote bubble Mew and the promo number for Pikachu that we got on a special version of the vending machine guards. That need to use the exact same again tsukimori artwork as the promo number 4 Mewtwo so in order to avoid confusion they decided to have Christopher Rush draw Mewtwo. The original art isn't exactly the same, the background is different however it is incredibly similar and they felt it would be very confusing for children. It's a different reason than why they decided to change the artwork for the second movie promos. They did that because they thought the original legendary bird artwork was too cutesy or some shit
It’s base set haunter and gastly who were 3D art. The fossil ones had drawn art. Also Marril was in the anime begore the johto show. The Orange islands. I think Tracy had one. So I think hence marill also being one of the first promos for gen 2. Great video tho
oh man, you're 100% right. you're the first one to point out this mistake. I even pulled out my Base/Fossil/Jungle folder just to check, and you're totally right. I completely mixed them up. good call!
@@NEScRETRO no problem ! I just know because I play haunter and gastly in a competitive deck. The fossil ones are way superior. And I think the 3D art has aged like milk compared to the others 😅 Definitely do more of these if u can. Really apreciate older cards being covered in videos, and you went into great detail, a lot of stuff I didn’t know, so good job keep up the good work ! ☺️👌🏻
That first Mew promo...I remember when I was a kid I went to a trading card meet up pretty frequently, and there was a guy there who turned up with a straight up deck of those mew cards. He said he had ordered it off ebay thinking he was buying one card, but 99 showed up instead lol. I have a ton of them now because he traded them pretty liberally, ie. "I'll give you 7 mews for that card".
I don't know how many were printed, but the original Pokemon Center & Lucky Stadium cards were left over in abundance after opening day. Unfortunately, the extra cards (literally boxes full) were kept locked-up at the corporate office and were eventually destroyed when Wizards of the Coast & Pokemon USA split ways shortly after the store opened. Pokemon didn't want the possibility of a lawsuit and, unfortunately, all saw their end by a cheap shredder in a closet-sized office.
Hey bud, I still have some of the activity pages they gave out at the events. One is a draw your own comic, one a crossword puzzle, and the third was to write how a battle played out in detail. I’m in Arizona, so this took place in the back/stockrooms at Toys R us. I caught the bus at 7 am to get there when they opened. Such good times!
I remember my mom and grandma taking me to these Pokémon League things every now and then. I remember them being hosted in places like book and toy stores as well as actual card game shops. I feel like I went to them so many many many times, and yet I only ever really made it to the Boulder Badge before getting kinda burnt out. I wasn't really very good at the whole TCG, even tho I love collecting them and even owned the Game Boy Color game (Which also came with that neat promo Meowth card) so it was mostly just a chore to get points. You would get 1 stamp in your book for every match, and an additional 1 if you won. I believe once you reached something like 50 points, it would qualify you for a badge. You didn't have to battle a gym leader or anything, at least not where I attended. Once you had that 50th stamp, you just got handed a badge. Given how matches could easily take over 10 minutes and the whole event usually only lasted for a few hours, even if you were swift and won every match, it would likely have taken months to get all of the badges and I don't remember these events being hosted for that long. After the 50th match tho, you needed something like 20 extra stamps on the page in the book before you could go on to the next page where you needed 50 to get the next badge. So basically it was 50 for the first and 70 for every additional one. You could also get handed a pop quiz with lots of TCG trivia and if you could answer them all correctly you would get handed a silver mentor sticker star that you'd then plastered onto the back of your book. I don't have any recollection of promo cards getting handed out at these events tho, neither for attending nor as prizes. At least not at the places where I attended. I think that's all I really remember about the whole Pokémon League thing. I remember once winning a CD single with music from Pokémon The First Movie. But all I remember was not recognizing the music when I eventually listened to it xD I also remember once having a Blastoise card stolen at one of those events because I wasn't careful and had my card binder laying. Didn't make that mistake again but I'm still grumpy about it xD And that was my essay about the Pokemon League as I recall them going down in Copenhagen, Denmark Regarding the Ancient Mew Promo card. while I remember getting it in theaters, I remember them first handing you a (really simple) crossword puzzle where you just had to fill out the names of the 3 legendary birds from the movie (Don't think it had Lugia) then you handed it in and got your Mew card handed out. I also remember the store where I later purchased my Pokemon 2 (It was called that over here) VHS tape that they would hand out the same Mew card there. Perhaps Nintendo had some old stock that they figured they might as well get some promotional use out of for the home release
I think that Reverse Holo Entei and Reverse Holo Pichu came out the same day, or at least very nearly, depending on when the movie itself premiered. Anyway we started giving out Pichus on the same weekend as the movie so, y'know could depend a lot on that. Japan had been doing reverse holos for a while up to this point, and this one and Pichu came from the Neo 2 binder, along with a third Charizard we never got, sadly. They also had a kind of reverse holo in Southern Islands but it was very different from anything we ever got, but I think it's in the spirit of what we have now.
I went to that exact event at my local toys r us. I brought my shitty deck and somehow got a Boulder badge and promo pikachu #1. I remember they gave one stamp in the badge book if you lost a match, and two stamps if you won. ill always remember that day.
I remember getting Marill at my local blockbuster as a kid. They had a box and I grabbed 20 of them thinking they would be different cards but they were all Marill 😂
Magic dragon, a local card shop in my town hosted pokemon events every saturday. There was an older guy Patrick who worked part time there who was like 17ish. He was a gym leader. He had a water deck with 4 mistys cloyser 4 articunos and blastoise. That's all I know of his deck and i played him once for fun. The couple who owned the shop i heard would play people too but kinda stopped when i had started. i never saw their deck. When you hit certain milestones on you record sheet like so and so many battles. you got to play a gym eader for a badge. They didnt care about wins just how many battles. I think every 10 got you a badge but i may be wrong. Most of the time they would just give you them when you hit the amount of battles. I started right when most people were on the last badge and they just gave me 5 of the eight badges free. They didn't have some of them anymore, so i got what they had. They were about to turn over to the 2nd gen badges and season. I did get through like half that season before I stopped going. They handed out black star promos like candy as they came out. First they were prizes if you hit top 8 for the week. Then it was a 8 person tourney of who had the best records after 5 to 7 matchs depending on how much time they had left and how fast peoples matches were when everyone got done. Top 8 tourney single match elimination. Top 4 they would call the elite 4 that week. Top 8 was a promo. 3 and 4th place was a promo and a pack. 2nd place was 2 packs and promo. 1st was a promo and 3 packs. Sometimes more packs if there was a good turnout. When they got the next promo they would give out the old ones to people if they didn't have them. About 15-20 people would show every week. if you paid the 3 dollars admission for the tournament they would catch you up with the promos they had.
I believe chris chan was a gym leader and he used his own team and eventually tried to use his own custom cards if im remembering right to no luck on the ladder.
I don't know what happened to my old cards but I decided to make myself a complete set of bootleg cards for the original series sets up to the two gym leader sets just to have in a binder to look at. I remember when I went to see the first movie they were out of the mew cards so never got that one as a kid.
That Celebi promo is weird because they reprinted it a few years later in the Nintendo Black STar promo set. No idea why. But I guess this is the last thing I'll have anything to say about since I stopped Doing the Pokemon league in November of 2001, but if you ever wondered why we never got Pokemon Vs. in the west, it's because Wizards felt it didn't line up with their vision for the series, which is really weird considering they'd lose the license to the series within the year. It's not that they never had time to make the cards, they never intended to. I was very disappointed to learn that. Like many things I know, this was basically only ever said in a Wizards Pokemon Chat.
I remember playing in the Pokémon league when I was young at my LCS they had a book and you got stamps for I think battling and an extra stamp for winning or something along those lines. When you got enough stamps they give you the WOTC badge. I got a boulder badge, then my LCS was supposed to give me a water badge but they were just out of stock forever sadly.
I had no idea how expensive Pokemon Center and Lucky Stadium were until I brought my promo collection to the card shop. I got REALLY lucky with those cards, I cannot for the life of me remember how I obtained them, but god knows it wasn't that expensive.
You might want to take another look at the history behind the Ancient Mew card sometime. There are actually multiple versions of it, some more rare than others...!
do you know where I can find further information? The pokemon wiki has no further information on the card outside what is generally known, and I've never heard anything about other versions of it
I lived in anchorage alaska and our local card/comic store a1 comics participated in the pokemon league I remember the way the ow er ran it was you just had to play and beat a certain number of other players it was kind of a get together in the mall outside the shop and when you finally did beat that player you'd run to the owner of the shop and receive a stamp in your league book then eventually after a few wins you'd get the badge
Birthday Pikachu is one of my favourite cards of all time as well. I cherished mine when I was a kid. I had no idea until watching this video where that card came from. I was also the only one I knew back in the day who had it and I have absolutely no idea how I obtained it. Unfortunately I don’t have it anymore.. I wish I did. I’m curious how it would grade
I went to Pokemon league every Saturday at wizards of the coast around 1999-2000 ish.
I remember the gym leaders would make their own decks. One of them I remember had made a stall deck, and offered double stamps to anyone who could beat him.
I also still have all my badge books and badges and promos. :)
Almost 1 am for me and just finished watching this. Before I pass out I gotta say my boy Porygon did nothing wrong. We need to ban Pikachu from the anime for the same amount of time Porygon was banned.
Discovered this channel the other day and wanted more videos to watch at work. This is very welcomed
Hearing you talk about your childhood experience with Pokemon is awesome man. Kinda bring me back to 1999. Thanks for sharing!
Hey man I wanna thank you for you’re hard work on making these videos with this great commentary hope you’ll never stop with it
I love how you also talk about the artist for each card and give them props for their style! The illustrations have always been about 80% of the draw for me with pokemon cards, but I don't seem to see ppl talking abt the artistic value of cards as often as I think they should. So great video! 🌟
PS: Justice for Porygon!!
Dang I wish I had grown up during the late 90’s, it sounds like an awesome period to grow up in.
If you had loving parents it was….I just watched everyone else enjoy it.
Had a rough child hood growing up poor but the best times I had were when me and my two brothers were spoiled with a base set pack of cards from our local book store that was near by that had packs for sale. It was rare but me and my youngest brother cherish those memories
First off it was the best honesty probably my favorite time of my life. Second these others saying you need to be rich? My parents were cheap and strict as hell! I got a job mowing lawns to pay for my cards and used all my birthday/Christmas on it. Was I buying a box a week? No maybe 1-2 packs. League itself was free. It was just a bunch of kids not knowing what the hell we were doing.
Idk, I think there was even more racism, less working rights, more misogyny, less technology
@@michele_ thats not even true
Quick correction 18:30. This card has an english printing as a promo card (DP50). I only know this because I own the card.
Honestly, I have never played a single Pokemon game. Neither have I ever finished any Mario or Zelda game. This, however, didn't stop me from watching all of your videos with great pleasure. I love your content and am looking forward for more. Good luck with whatever you will be working on in the future!
thank you so much, that really means more than I could put into words! I'm in the middle of another zelda video and it may possibly be my first video to cross the 2 hour mark, but we'll see! i'm about 75% done with the script!
Aww man, that Entei promo takes me back. I remember seeing Pokemon 3 in theatres and getting that card. Good times, man. I've still got a few of those cards squirreled away somewhere
2024, august 2nd. Its 2.14am and you just gained a new subscriber. Perhaps the most comprehensive explanation I've come across as a new collector in search of my WOTC nostalgia. Greatly appreciated this video, and I'm keen to watch your full icebergs. Keep up this great work!!
The cardshop I went to only gave away the Birthday Pikachu to people on their actual birthday. I remember other people getting it and when it was finally my birthday I ran down to the store. The old guy who ran the shop said he didn't have anymore atm. I asked if I could get one when he got more, but he said it wouldnt be my birthday anymore. I remember almost crying then I never played the card game again after that.
That's so awful wtf
Only thing I'd say in productive feedback is I wish you'd have included their Japanese promo origins, too. That Eevee is a sort-of reprint of the Fan Club Eevee, which is a weird and wild card to obtain. Flying Pikachu and the Dragonite were originally released on Japanese airlines as a promo. Also, the Psyduck promo was part of a cool comic series in Japan. Love your videos!
And the Natte Wake magazine had the original birthday pikachu too!
this guy is honestly god tier at describing what it's like to be a child.
Great comment other then the god comparison . As I’m a Christian anyhow he definitely made me feel like a child again
I love the beginning of this episode, how you describe a Saturday
Looking it up on Bulbapedia, the name inconsistency for the early Pokémon movies that NesC talked about throughout the video wasn't an inconsistency at all, the longer titles were just their subtitles, which weren't used on the posters, but were used in the movies themselves in their opening credits.
So for example, Pokémon 2000's full title was Pokémon The Movie 2000: The Power of One, with the first half of that title showing up on the poster, and the second half showing up during the opening credits.
If I had to guess why the titles turned out like that, I'd guess that 4Kids was asked by Nintendo to keep the titles similar to the Japanese releases, where the titles all start with the prefix "Pokémon The Movie" before a more specific main title, but they wanted to just use numbers to keep things shorter and simpler, so they just put the numbered titles on the posters, DVDs, etc, and the main titles in the opening credits, which naturally doesn't stick with a lot of people as much, resulting in this confusion.
That's all just speculation on my part, but you gotta admit, it does sound like a problem 4Kids would invent, lol.
Ancient mew was 100% a promo card, numbered or not. Besides the fact that PSA labels them promo cards it is literally the definition of promotional material...its probably THE promo card.
I agree!
You deserve so much more subscribers man. Your videos are so well made and provide so much nostalgia
Idk what it is about these videos, but I get absolutely hyped when you drop em. They're just so charming, calming, informative, and the little recurring jokes are also great. Keep it up, man.
Mew card also was free purchasing a magazine as i remember .
Very nice to hear all those funfacts of these vintage black star promo cards. Some of them I've never even seen as a kid growing up in Europe. As they were exclusive to US. But very cool to know more background to all these cards now. Keep up this work 😊
Great video idea! Keep it up, man. I'm loving the content coming out of this channel.
finally finished the video, id love to see more random videos alongside icebergs
Played Pkmn League at my local shop from 99-05. Employees and friends of employees had green star stampers that were given out by the store. Once you gathered 50 stars on each page of your League booklet, it was like 2 for wins 1 for loss- you could redeem your gym badge. Had all the Gen 1 badges. Once in a lifetime fun.
I was recently out of college and gainfully employed when I started collecting and playing. I found a LGS that held Pokemon gatherings, but the employees couldn't be bothered to run the League, so I volunteered. While I can't speak for other "Gym Leaders", I was able to teach new players how to build a deck, play against the trainers with various different decks for badges, and even attend the STS East. Also, I pulled 2 1st Ed. Ivy Pikachus from 1st Ed. Jungle Booster Boxes. I still have them today (BGS 8.5). They're called The Twins. ;)
I remember going to a card shop and a guy had a ton of Pokémon center and lucky stadium promos he had around thirty Pokémon centers and twenty two lucky stadiums and was selling them for 400$ a pop
he also had a bunch of Meowth promos that’s about it
You may be my favorite channel, top 5 for sure. Keep up the good work!
I'm really happy to hear you're enjoying it so much! I'll do my best to continue to make videos that meet, or hopefully exceed your expectations of the channel!
Yo gamer Vergil back with a vid that's not an iceberg? That's hype as fuck
My neighbor showed me his cards, I remember the first one I saw, it was Kakuna. I was hooked ever since.
The store I got my promo Marill from was the Babbages in the Florida Mall in the early 00’s. Still got one sealed in the package.
I am almost done collecting every WOTC BSP in condition PSA 9, recently purchased Lucky Stadium and Birthday Pikachu, only 10 more to go! And I find your video a godsent, since I only remember half of those promos from my childhood. Its awesome to know the story behind every one, where its been given out, etc. Thanks so much!
Always happy to see new uploads!
Absolutely love your videos dude! I'm really surprised you don't have more subs/views for these videos you make that are greatly detailed and really long.
Keep up the good work!
Oh hey, I forgot all about these events. Turns out I did go to them, seeing as I have the Surfing and Flying Pikachu cards. I remember my friend tried to claim the cards with "Promo" on them were fakes, lol. (Other people also said the ones with the Japanese backs were, too)
Excellent Porygon rant BTW
As much as I play the porygon rants as a joke, porygon is among my favorite pokemon!
@@NEScRETRO They gotta bring him back, man... It was Pikachu who did the shock after all!
So the leage "gym trainers" or leaders had pre made decks provided by pokemon for the battle purpose. There was like trainer deck A and B and it had them written on the back of each card in red I believe. Theres a couple videos of old employees posting their stuff they stole/kept on youtube
More random topic videos honestly sounds lovely, if only just to have in the background
Love your work! I’m sure someone already posted…Pokemon had a partnership with Japanese airline ANA…since that’s a Japanese company…they probably removed the ANA jet from cards outside Japan…That original ANA poke jet with Pikachu tied to balloons on the tail was sweet…
Been loving your videos, whether its iceberg related video or not. Keep up the good work
its great to see you upload again! i love your vids, your personality is very endearing and the subjects you cover are very fascinating to me
pokemon the movie 200 is divided into 2 parts. The 20 minute short " pikachu's rescue adventure" and then the actual movie " the power of one." At least according to Wikipedia
"The power of one" might be a regional title. Sometimes UK English calls movies a different title than US English regions
Great video man! Always wondered some of the origins of these cards, awesome watch as always keep it up dude :)
I noticed that you didn't start that long ago, welcome! I've been watching your icebergs on Pokemon and Legend of Zelda and I'm really intrigued that some of the information that you share. I really hope that you find purpose in this channel, may growth and luck be with you, May the wind in your sails be filled with fortune!
I’m a Play Pokèmon League Professor. It’s sooo fun giving away promos, stickers and playmats to young trainers.
I picked up a while bunch of these cards before the recent craze of collecting them. Don't remember the site but they had a ton of rare cards for good prices! So it was cool to learn about the history of them.
Also, I think you have a really good increase audio! It's a good bit clearer. Going back tonyour mario 64 videos will be hard now after this.
One last thing, I'm happy to hear you talk about anything you'd like! TH-cam could use a few more people like you.
I loved this video i needed some explanation for this cards. Thanks ❤️🔥
Be ready to stand up and salute for what goes down at 16:28
That microphone is doing wonders, your audio was so crisp and I could hear all of your pain and suffering when talking about our boy Porygon (who to this day has done nothing wrong)
Props to you putting the 99-00 civic si in the thumbnail. That car was hot shit in 2000
Lol I don't think you commented on the right video, but you're right about the 99-00 Civic si!
I'm only about a third of the way through the video, but I'm really enjoying it! Thank you!
I remember that I got my Marill promo card at Toys R Us. I can remember it clearly. All of the alternative titles for the movies were included at the beginning of each movie, somewhat like a title card for each movie. Also “Spell of the Unown” was used in the title of the novel book released by Scholastic.
I love your videos! I'm down for anything you want to give us all formats! I found your channel a couple of days ago and blew through all of the (except smash bros. saving that one for last 😄) Your great background content while I'm cleaning and doing other various chores! And yes I'd say the audio quality did improve in this video! 👌🏻
You seem like a cool dude to hang out with
To get the league badges, you had to get stamps in the league book for completing tasks. Tasks included battling, trading, cleaning up, helping teach how to play etc.
Damn bro it's 1 in the morning for me. Calm down with the uploads that i obviously have to watch right now.
I was super into the Pokemon cards (and Pokemon in general) at the time. This was a good excuse to dig out a card album I have from back then - it's only for the special cards, the rest is of course in a classic shoebox, somewhere. There's a section for hologram cards, Promos, and of course my favorite, Meowth. I have a lot of promos from being active in the Pokemon league from early on (and even living in NYC at the time) so it was nice to know where and when they all came from, great video like your others.
3:50
The local Toys R Us Pokémon League in San Antonio did not require for you to beat a gym leader in battle; You’d just get the badge upon reaching the appropriate amount of points.
This basically happened to me. I went to the Toys R Us pokemon league with my cousin and his friend, even though I didn't play pokemon tcg, because there was a phone call from his friend's mom. We ended up getting mario kart toys
the cinnamon toast crunch, the star fox 64 sesh, this was so close close. It was ALMOST how it went down exactly.
Pokemon truly has been an integral part of mine and many other people's childhoods I remember being at a friend's birthday party and him getting a birthday Pikachu
Pretty much since the anime first aired on TV I would come home everyday from school and watch
Amazing how large of an impact it had on so many
No more rewatching old vids, LETS GO!
This video brought up so many fond memories. I went to a Pokemon league at Toys R Us with my sister. Our league had a "gym leader" but she just kind of hung out. I remember we had stamp books. If you played a game you got 1 stamp and if you won you got 2 or 3(?). I remember getting all the badges, and a lot of these promo cards. However! I only remember going for a few months. Yet I had cards which you stated came out over a period of a few years. So, either I ended up going much longer than I remember or I acquired the cards in different ways? Anyway! Thanks for the video, and excellent nostalgia trip
please make more vids like this things like this really inspire me to want to make my own videos in the future.
fun fact: the Arcanine at 7:41 was was distributed in Japan "through a Toyota campaign between October and December 1997. This card, along with Pikachu, came sealed in a card booklet presented to visitors at participating dealerships." I'd be willing to guess that the edited photo behind the Arcanine art is a car, and I'd LOVE to know which one.
Also, re: Christopher Rush's Mewtwo - the japanese version of the promo was the same exact Ken Sugimori art as the one in the Pokemon The First Movie promo Mewtwo card (just flipped, if I remember right), so Wizards had one of their people (Chris) do some new artwork.
The pokecraze in the 90’s will NEVER be recreated. It was an epic time being 8yrs old! Tech hadn’t taken over. I miss those days dearly.
Your videos are so well made thank you bro
The reason they use that second Mewtwo copy with the same attacks but different artwork it's for a couple of reasons. Of the four cards that came with the movie ticket the mutual was actually really useful and that meant people wanted it for their Hamaker Dex so this is just an easier way to get it and which is why I think it was chosen. There are a lot of Japanese promos we didn't get but it's hard to imagine a more appropriate Pokemon Mewtwo except maybe Mew
Okay so promo Mewtwo number 12 has artwork by Christopher rush for a very specific reason. Its Japanese counterpart came with quote bubble Mew and the promo number for Pikachu that we got on a special version of the vending machine guards. That need to use the exact same again tsukimori artwork as the promo number 4 Mewtwo so in order to avoid confusion they decided to have Christopher Rush draw Mewtwo. The original art isn't exactly the same, the background is different however it is incredibly similar and they felt it would be very confusing for children. It's a different reason than why they decided to change the artwork for the second movie promos. They did that because they thought the original legendary bird artwork was too cutesy or some shit
It’s base set haunter and gastly who were 3D art. The fossil ones had drawn art. Also Marril was in the anime begore the johto show. The Orange islands. I think Tracy had one. So I think hence marill also being one of the first promos for gen 2. Great video tho
oh man, you're 100% right. you're the first one to point out this mistake. I even pulled out my Base/Fossil/Jungle folder just to check, and you're totally right. I completely mixed them up. good call!
@@NEScRETRO no problem ! I just know because I play haunter and gastly in a competitive deck. The fossil ones are way superior. And I think the 3D art has aged like milk compared to the others 😅 Definitely do more of these if u can. Really apreciate older cards being covered in videos, and you went into great detail, a lot of stuff I didn’t know, so good job keep up the good work ! ☺️👌🏻
That first Mew promo...I remember when I was a kid I went to a trading card meet up pretty frequently, and there was a guy there who turned up with a straight up deck of those mew cards. He said he had ordered it off ebay thinking he was buying one card, but 99 showed up instead lol. I have a ton of them now because he traded them pretty liberally, ie. "I'll give you 7 mews for that card".
Smeargle was in the Ruins of Alph, you can't find it at first but you can after you get surf.
I don't know how many were printed, but the original Pokemon Center & Lucky Stadium cards were left over in abundance after opening day. Unfortunately, the extra cards (literally boxes full) were kept locked-up at the corporate office and were eventually destroyed when Wizards of the Coast & Pokemon USA split ways shortly after the store opened. Pokemon didn't want the possibility of a lawsuit and, unfortunately, all saw their end by a cheap shredder in a closet-sized office.
Hey bud, I still have some of the activity pages they gave out at the events. One is a draw your own comic, one a crossword puzzle, and the third was to write how a battle played out in detail. I’m in Arizona, so this took place in the back/stockrooms at Toys R us. I caught the bus at 7 am to get there when they opened. Such good times!
I remember my mom and grandma taking me to these Pokémon League things every now and then.
I remember them being hosted in places like book and toy stores as well as actual card game shops.
I feel like I went to them so many many many times, and yet I only ever really made it to the Boulder Badge before getting kinda burnt out.
I wasn't really very good at the whole TCG, even tho I love collecting them and even owned the Game Boy Color game (Which also came with that neat promo Meowth card) so it was mostly just a chore to get points.
You would get 1 stamp in your book for every match, and an additional 1 if you won.
I believe once you reached something like 50 points, it would qualify you for a badge. You didn't have to battle a gym leader or anything, at least not where I attended. Once you had that 50th stamp, you just got handed a badge.
Given how matches could easily take over 10 minutes and the whole event usually only lasted for a few hours, even if you were swift and won every match, it would likely have taken months to get all of the badges and I don't remember these events being hosted for that long.
After the 50th match tho, you needed something like 20 extra stamps on the page in the book before you could go on to the next page where you needed 50 to get the next badge. So basically it was 50 for the first and 70 for every additional one.
You could also get handed a pop quiz with lots of TCG trivia and if you could answer them all correctly you would get handed a silver mentor sticker star that you'd then plastered onto the back of your book.
I don't have any recollection of promo cards getting handed out at these events tho, neither for attending nor as prizes. At least not at the places where I attended.
I think that's all I really remember about the whole Pokémon League thing. I remember once winning a CD single with music from Pokémon The First Movie. But all I remember was not recognizing the music when I eventually listened to it xD
I also remember once having a Blastoise card stolen at one of those events because I wasn't careful and had my card binder laying.
Didn't make that mistake again but I'm still grumpy about it xD
And that was my essay about the Pokemon League as I recall them going down in Copenhagen, Denmark
Regarding the Ancient Mew Promo card. while I remember getting it in theaters, I remember them first handing you a (really simple) crossword puzzle where you just had to fill out the names of the 3 legendary birds from the movie (Don't think it had Lugia) then you handed it in and got your Mew card handed out.
I also remember the store where I later purchased my Pokemon 2 (It was called that over here) VHS tape that they would hand out the same Mew card there.
Perhaps Nintendo had some old stock that they figured they might as well get some promotional use out of for the home release
I think that Reverse Holo Entei and Reverse Holo Pichu came out the same day, or at least very nearly, depending on when the movie itself premiered. Anyway we started giving out Pichus on the same weekend as the movie so, y'know could depend a lot on that. Japan had been doing reverse holos for a while up to this point, and this one and Pichu came from the Neo 2 binder, along with a third Charizard we never got, sadly. They also had a kind of reverse holo in Southern Islands but it was very different from anything we ever got, but I think it's in the spirit of what we have now.
I went to that exact event at my local toys r us. I brought my shitty deck and somehow got a Boulder badge and promo pikachu #1. I remember they gave one stamp in the badge book if you lost a match, and two stamps if you won. ill always remember that day.
I remember getting Marill at my local blockbuster as a kid. They had a box and I grabbed 20 of them thinking they would be different cards but they were all Marill 😂
I have Cool Porygon. I got it in a binder I bought at a garage sale which also had a Japanese Brock’s Rhydon, Ancient Mew, and Ivy Pikachu.
Magic dragon, a local card shop in my town hosted pokemon events every saturday. There was an older guy Patrick who worked part time there who was like 17ish. He was a gym leader. He had a water deck with 4 mistys cloyser 4 articunos and blastoise. That's all I know of his deck and i played him once for fun. The couple who owned the shop i heard would play people too but kinda stopped when i had started. i never saw their deck. When you hit certain milestones on you record sheet like so and so many battles. you got to play a gym eader for a badge. They didnt care about wins just how many battles. I think every 10 got you a badge but i may be wrong. Most of the time they would just give you them when you hit the amount of battles. I started right when most people were on the last badge and they just gave me 5 of the eight badges free. They didn't have some of them anymore, so i got what they had. They were about to turn over to the 2nd gen badges and season. I did get through like half that season before I stopped going. They handed out black star promos like candy as they came out. First they were prizes if you hit top 8 for the week. Then it was a 8 person tourney of who had the best records after 5 to 7 matchs depending on how much time they had left and how fast peoples matches were when everyone got done. Top 8 tourney single match elimination. Top 4 they would call the elite 4 that week. Top 8 was a promo. 3 and 4th place was a promo and a pack. 2nd place was 2 packs and promo. 1st was a promo and 3 packs. Sometimes more packs if there was a good turnout. When they got the next promo they would give out the old ones to people if they didn't have them. About 15-20 people would show every week. if you paid the 3 dollars admission for the tournament they would catch you up with the promos they had.
As a collector of this set I really enjoyed it. Would have loved some more info about the error cards/variants in this set
I dont know how else Marill was distributed, but we gave them out at the Pokemon League for the better part of 11 months.
Glad to see you back!
I believe chris chan was a gym leader and he used his own team and eventually tried to use his own custom cards if im remembering right to no luck on the ladder.
I love your content so much! Congrats on all of the success!
Great vid man love these semi-obscure tcg things
I was the kid with the promo venusaur 💪🏼 love that card.
"its 1999 where are you?" the void i wasn't alive
I don't know what happened to my old cards but I decided to make myself a complete set of bootleg cards for the original series sets up to the two gym leader sets just to have in a binder to look at.
I remember when I went to see the first movie they were out of the mew cards so never got that one as a kid.
I remember getting the Misdrevous promo in 2005 for Christmas in a pokemon box that came with 6 to 10 packs.
I'd love to hear an in depth look at all of the Pokegods
That Celebi promo is weird because they reprinted it a few years later in the Nintendo Black STar promo set. No idea why. But I guess this is the last thing I'll have anything to say about since I stopped Doing the Pokemon league in November of 2001, but if you ever wondered why we never got Pokemon Vs. in the west, it's because Wizards felt it didn't line up with their vision for the series, which is really weird considering they'd lose the license to the series within the year. It's not that they never had time to make the cards, they never intended to. I was very disappointed to learn that. Like many things I know, this was basically only ever said in a Wizards Pokemon Chat.
I remember playing in the Pokémon league when I was young at my LCS they had a book and you got stamps for I think battling and an extra stamp for winning or something along those lines. When you got enough stamps they give you the WOTC badge. I got a boulder badge, then my LCS was supposed to give me a water badge but they were just out of stock forever sadly.
Funny you mentioned everybody having a bunch of the non-holo Mew. I still have four of them 😂
I had no idea how expensive Pokemon Center and Lucky Stadium were until I brought my promo collection to the card shop. I got REALLY lucky with those cards, I cannot for the life of me remember how I obtained them, but god knows it wasn't that expensive.
Another awesome vid as always, keep it up!
yo good to have you back man!
You might want to take another look at the history behind the Ancient Mew card sometime. There are actually multiple versions of it, some more rare than others...!
do you know where I can find further information? The pokemon wiki has no further information on the card outside what is generally known, and I've never heard anything about other versions of it
I lived in anchorage alaska and our local card/comic store a1 comics participated in the pokemon league I remember the way the ow er ran it was you just had to play and beat a certain number of other players it was kind of a get together in the mall outside the shop and when you finally did beat that player you'd run to the owner of the shop and receive a stamp in your league book then eventually after a few wins you'd get the badge
yes please make more random videos like this I found it very fun :)
Birthday Pikachu is one of my favourite cards of all time as well. I cherished mine when I was a kid. I had no idea until watching this video where that card came from. I was also the only one I knew back in the day who had it and I have absolutely no idea how I obtained it. Unfortunately I don’t have it anymore.. I wish I did. I’m curious how it would grade
Yeah those Mew promos are insane, a few years back I bought 3 of them for like, 7$
If u were to make a deck from the promos, what would it look like?
I have no idea, I've never actually played the card game before!