# Short video gane rant **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [October 15, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380 "2002-10-15T18:42:10Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 16\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 6:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/1 "2002-10-15T18:42:10Z")
I am so God **Damn** sick and tired of TV and radio ads that use Atari 2600 sounds for video games! “brng brng brng…oolee oolee oolee oolee! bo be bo be!” Damn it, you idiots, these sounds are nearly THIRTY YEARS OLD now! Please, please, find something else, anything else to use for generic video game sounds! Whew! Glad to get that out of my system. ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 7:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/2 "2002-10-15T19:15:28Z")
What’s sad is, from that jumble of text, I’m almost positive you were referring to the 2600 PacMan game’s startup sounds, weren’t ya? That sound has outlived the game it comes from by like 20 years now, hasn’t it? You still hear it used in movies, now and again. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 7:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/3 "2002-10-15T19:49:54Z")
This constantly irritates me. You would think _someone_ on the sound crew would have noticed this glaring discrepency. Not to mention how people are always _portrayed_ as playing video games. You’d think they were amshing fucking potatos instead of playing a game the way they use those controllers… ---
**Author:** ![Miller](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/miller/32/481_2.png) [@Miller](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Miller)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 8:09pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/4 "2002-10-15T20:09:50Z")
> [@](#): > > _Originally posted by Erislover_ > Not to mention how people are always portrayed as playing video games. You’d think they were amshing fucking potatos instead of playing a game the way they use those controllers… Which is closely related to Hollywood Screen Typing. You know, when a character in a movie puts his hands on a keyboard and just drums his fingers on them? You can tell if they doing this even if you can’t see their hands, because it sounds all wrong. They never hit the space bar, for one thing, and the rhythm is all off. Back to the OP, there are a number of canned sounds I hear over and over in movies and TV. There’s a distinct Big Creaky Crypt Door sound, which was used in a couple of the _Hellraiser_ movies, and a woman’s scream I last heard in the series promos for _Firefly_. And, of course, Pac-Man, which has to be the most iconic sound effect in the history of noise. ---
**Author:** ![erislover](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/71e660/32.png) [@erislover](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/erislover)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 8:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/5 "2002-10-15T20:20:25Z")
or, um, smashing, even… ---
**Author:** ![Skippman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b4bc9f/32.png) [@Skippman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skippman)\ **Post date:** [October 15, 2002, 8:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/6 "2002-10-15T20:53:24Z")
The Aliens door closing sound is way over used to. If you’ve ever seen The Score, at least they show a REAL gamer playing Quake 3. “Oh no, you did NOT just kill me biatch! Now I’m pissed! Come get some!” ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 12:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/7 "2002-10-16T00:19:50Z")
There’s a particular clip of fighting cats that’s been used over and over again. I remember it from a Disney record that I had as a child – “The Thrilling, Chilling Sounds of the Haunted House” – but it turns up in animation all over the place, Disney and non-Disney … . ---
**Author:** ![AtomicDog](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ac91a4/32.png) [@AtomicDog](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AtomicDog)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 3:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/8 "2002-10-16T03:47:00Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by Skeezix \* > \*\*What’s sad is, from that jumble of text, I’m almost positive you were referring to the 2600 PacMan game’s startup sounds, weren’t ya? > > \*\* Yeah, that’s the one. Another anachronism are the Space Invaders sounds used every time a TV show wants to depict video game weapons fire. ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 4:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/9 "2002-10-16T04:25:54Z")
Oh, yeah, I’ve caught that one, too. I think **Miller** ’s onto something, there. It’s like there’s some arcane repository of sound files on some Hollywood Studio server, and when a videogame/computer sound is needed, they just download and insert the thing into the soundtrack, without checking what the hell they’ve got. “Hey Fred, we gotta spice up that bit where the two leads are talking about hacking an ATM machine in the arcade. Get some ambients offa ftp:\[Crusty.ass.old.noises.net](http://Crusty.ass.old.noises.net) wouldja?” “Here we go! Fire.wav, Gamestart.wav, Levelcomplete.wav, and Bossmonsterkilled.wav. We’ll stick 'em in and loop the sound itermittantly, that oughtta do it.” Fer fuck’s sake, people, check the “last modified” dates on those files… Find something recorded _after_ 1986, willya? ---
**Author:** ![Skeezix](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/839c29/32.png) [@Skeezix](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skeezix)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 4:35am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/10 "2002-10-16T04:35:23Z")
And before I catch any heat for the above (I’m feeling a bit paranoid tonight… Space Paranoids!) I do **not** punch in my PIN number to get money from an ATM machine, just so I can pay some guy with cash to grind the VIN number offa my car’s engine block… However, I’ll fess us that I _didn’t_ misspell intermittently on purpose. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![ElwoodCuse](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/edb3f5/32.png) [@ElwoodCuse](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ElwoodCuse)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 4:40am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/11 "2002-10-16T04:40:24Z")
How about that scream? It kinda sounds like “yeeeearrrrrrgh!” I’ve heard it in a couple video games and a couple of extreme-type commercials, like for Mountain Dew or something. Also some TV shows, I think. ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 4:54am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/12 "2002-10-16T04:54:09Z")
Or the favorite in movies(usually low budget ) in which your supposed to beleive its a mod ren super computer and its a trs-80 or c64 repainted or soemthing Or in hacker the scene where hes in his room and supposdely hacking soemthing and they edited all but 3 seconds of the aol sign on screen ---
**Author:** ![nightshadea](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/7ba0ec/32.png) [@nightshadea](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/nightshadea)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 5:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/13 "2002-10-16T05:02:15Z")
Or the favorite in movies(usually low budget ) in which your supposed to beleive its a mod ren super computer and its a trs-80 or c64 repainted or soemthing Or in hacker the scene where hes in his room and supposdely hacking soemthing and they edited all but 3 seconds of the aol sign on screen ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 11:06am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/14 "2002-10-16T11:06:24Z")
> [@](#): > > \*Originally posted by ElwoodCuse \* > \*\*How about that scream? It kinda sounds like “yeeeearrrrrrgh!” I’ve heard it in a couple video games and a couple of extreme-type commercials, like for Mountain Dew or something. Also some TV shows, I think. \*\* Believe it or not, there’s a name for that one. It’s called “the Wilhelm scream”. Took some searching for me to find that name, too. There’s a brief history of the Wilhelm scream, and an abundance of other movie sound cliches, at [Film Sound Cliches](http://www.filmsound.org/cliche/). ---
**Author:** ![Max\_Torque](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Max\_Torque](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_Torque)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/15 "2002-10-16T11:15:25Z")
Actually, let me correct myself before someone else does. The Wilhelm is a cliche scream, but it’s not the one you and I are thinking of. I’m still trying to find the origin of that one. ---
**Author:** ![Phoenix\_Dragon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/65b543/32.png) [@Phoenix\_Dragon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phoenix_Dragon)\ **Post date:** [October 16, 2002, 11:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/short-video-gane-rant/132380/16 "2002-10-16T11:53:49Z")
And don’t forget that one sound that big bad final head guy in Doom 2 makes when it fires out those monster-spawning cubes. Dunno how to “spell” the sound… Kinda _whump-pa-whoosh_. Heard it in so many damn movies and shows. Hell, I don’t even know if Doom 2 was the first to use the sound, it wouldn’t surprise me if it wasn’t.