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S5 E191 Machini-ick: Happy Wheels (July 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 23, 2025 Leave a reply

In days of yore, when Machinima ruled the digiwaves, they commissioned stuff like this week’s pick… we have a rather more heated discussion than usual about the pros and cons of the choice and the commissioning strategy. Check out our thoughts and let us know what you think. Maybe you were caught up in this mess, we certainly hope not… or at least, we hope the lesson was well learned. Ricky tells it from his experience, as part of the Hollywood set – seen it all before. Enjoy the show!



YouTube Version of This Episode

Show Notes & Links

Happy Wheels: The Series (machinima), released 15 November 2016 by BMP Digital – episodes available on the Internet Archive here.

Eps 1-4 on JeffX Zavier’s channel –

This was the trailer for the original series –

Information sources worth checking out –

‘Happy Wheels’ Series Trailer Litters the Street With Blood and Guts, Bloody Disgusting.com, 2 Nov 2016 https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/3413174/happy-wheels-series-trailer-litters-street-blood-guts-exclusive/
Creators Going Pro: CEO Ryan McNulty Is “A Serial Entrepreneur” Whose First Business Was His Own YouTube Channel, 28 Aug 2019 https://www.tubefilter.com/2019/08/28/creators-going-pro-ryan-mcnulty/

About Bunim/Murray Productions – https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bunim/Murray

John P Roberts https://www.imdb.com/name/nm10847638/

Gil Goldschein https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2251455/

About go90 channel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Go90

About Happy Wheels: The Series https://happywheels.fandom.com/wiki/Happy_Wheels:_The_Series

S5 E186 WoW: I’m So Sick (June 2025)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes June 18, 2025 Leave a reply

Our latest deep dive into machinima history, and this month we focus on Baron Soosdon, a Finnish creator whose work is legendary among us. The film pick, I’m So Sick, is an excellent example of the type of work he produced during his machinima career (circa 2006-2011) which, shockingly, never actually won an award – it was however runner up at a Bitfilm Festival. The film is a WoW fan fiction and a cultural mashup of its era, including subtle references to some of the key happenings in niche entertainment at the time: release of Edge of Remorse by Jason Choi (machinima), Ergo Proxy’s classic anime series, appearances by the WoW legendary band L70ETC, the BlackWingLair level play-throughs and Lacey Sturm’s incredible primal scream and the Flyleaf music video, song of the same title. Enjoy the discussion.



YouTube Version of This Episode

https://youtu.be/UN92SAzYMgI

Show Notes & Links

I’m So Sick by Baron Soosdon, released in September 2007

For those interested in the back story about the Elite Tauren Chieftain band, the fan wiki has some interesting dates and appearances here and here is a video about the band –

This is Flyleaf’s music video of I’m So Sick –

ETC’s best known song, Power of the Horde, was recorded by LFP Gaming in 2009 –

and here is a link to an Ergo Proxy playlist, the anime series mentioned in the discussion and included in the backgrounds of the film –

This is the film that inspired Baron Soosdon to create WoW machinima, back in 2006 –

and here is Baron Soosdon’s alt ego channel’s latest release, as a musician –

S4 E118 Slapstick: 100 Ways to Die in Starfield (Feb 2024)

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes February 29, 2024 Leave a reply

100 Ways to Die in Starfield is wonderful stuff – whether you are 15 or 50! For all those who have distant memories of seeing classic slapstick comedy featuring Charlie Chaplin in B&W, well now you can see a contemporary interpretation in the incredible Starfield universe – and enjoy it with the grandkids! @mans1ay3r has a rich stream of work to his name – others in the ‘ways to die’ series include RDR2 and Star Wars. Importantly, given the game environment in which this has been made has been less well received than expected, the success of this short exemplifies the role #machinima plays for publishers in keeping it at the forefront of players’ imaginations. Great job all around!



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes and Links

Film, by Mans1ay3r, released 23 December 2023 –

What is slapstick comedy? History, examples and advice – check out this link

Starfield updates mentioned in our discussion are here

S3 Special: Machiniplex Intro

Tracy Harwood Podcast Episodes July 28, 2023 Leave a reply

In this episode, Phil introduces the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection, a curated selection of machinimas from the early years. Machiniplex was a site created to host classic machinimas at the point that Machinima [dot] com began to assert its energies over the community as a corporate entity. The site was a community endeavour, with both Ricky and Phil playing a pivitol role in managing the project to preserve the original content the community had contributed to the early original Machinima website… until such time as it ran its course. In this ep, Phil and Ricky reminisce about the origins of Machiniplex and its contributors.

To celebrate the release of the curated collection, we have each selected a film we recall with particular fondness and discuss its significance. Phil has remastered each of the films using AI, not always a perfect process, so we also discuss his approach and techniques in bringing the original works up to 4K standard.

We encourage machinima fans everywhere to check out these films, not only were they brilliant in their day but in terms of storytelling, remain some of our favourite creative works against which we often draw comparisons when reviewing latest films.



YouTube Version of this Episode

Show Notes & Links

Blahbalicious by Wendigo and Avatar, 1997 –

BOT by Digital Yoke, 2005? –

Edge of Remorse by Riot Films, 2006 –

The Snow Witch by Britannica Dreams, 2006 –

Phil’s trailer for the Machiniplex [Remastered] Channel –

Go to the Machiniplex [Remastered] Collection on Phil’s Vimeo channel here – website https://bit.ly/machiniplex or access the playlist here –