What is the origin of this phrase? The first time I heard about it was three years ago in a PC games magazine, but it was just referred to as the flame of the week. Anybody know?
It appeared originally in a Sega Genesis game called Zero Wing in 1991. At the time, Japanese-produced animé and other cultural imports were starting to gain a foothold (the big-league animated film Akira had come out just a few years earlier).
The phrase appears in the opening animations, and is just one of a big pile of comical mistranslations.
For an amusing shockwave animation on the subject, including footage from the original game, go here.
It should be noted, that the animation (not the game) is the reason this phrase came to be the biggest “in-joke” in the history of the internet.
ROFLMAO! Hehe, thanx Bryan. I was wondering about “somebody set up us the bomb” too.
for great justice
Planet Tribe, the official “All Your Base” site. This site has both video versions and info about the whole All your Base happening.
ive been saying a related all your base things recently…like one of my friends said…i have no cash this week…i then said…all your cash are belong to us…he was like…wth you talking about
Whoa… I found myself amused by the video for the first time since… well, since about a week after it first appeared. Maybe it has faded enough from the internet consciousness that it can be genuinely funny, rather than the most over-quoted geekery since Monty Python and the Holy Grail, again.
Creepy, I was just thinking about this today.
I blame myself for this, since I used it in some Truman thread.
Heck, unless it was more than 18 months ago, I beat you with this reference.
There was another one too, I can’t remember it, something about becoming death. Maybe I’m remembering something wrong
“I am become death, the destroyer of worlds” ?
It’s from Hindu scripture, a warning from the god Vishnu. Possibly the Hindu language make no distinction between “I am” and “I have”.
Some one set us up the 1920’s style “Death Ray!”
You have no chance to burning your dog, make your time.
Yea that its. Thanks.
I thought there was some connection between that and All your base.
I don’t get it.
Shiva is the destroyer, not Vishnu.
I thought the “All Your Base” phrase was on a protest sign in the Phillipines to get the US military bases out.
And I think that “I am become death, destroyer of worlds” was also uttered by Susan Ivanova at some point in Babylon V. Which may be a more relevant reference for nerds.