A while back, I was emailing a friend, and one of us linked to a movie trailer. I think it was 2022s The Batman or maybe Thor: Love and Thunder, but at this point I’m not certain. He came back with a comment about the music, “Oh great, another slow version of an old song.” I immediately knew what he meant. By then I had heard this phenomenon dozens of times, but it was something that I’d never really noticed as a trend. Now I can’t help but notice it every time.

In The Batman you hear Nirvana’s “Something in the Way” play slow and echoey in between synth beds. In Thor: Love and Thunder you hear an orchestral version of “Sweet Child of Mine.” Using a pop culture song to help nail the feel of a movie trailer is a technique that’s been in use for decades. (These examples don’t bother me. I guess I’d say that they’re examples of this trend done well.)

Here are a few examples from the 90s with pop culture songs that help tie the right feel to the trailer:

Reservoir Dogs - Stuck in the Middle with You

Billy Madison - ABC

Army of Darkness - Sad But True

But rather than selecting a pop culture song to fit the emotion of the movie trailer, this modern trend is all about bending a song to fit. Typically, this is done by slowing it down and really wringing the emotion out of it, then sprinkling that in between trailer dialogue.

Here are some examples of that:

The New Mutants - Another Brick in the Wall

San Andreas - California Dreamin’

Ghost in the Shell - Enjoy the Silence

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Phew! I watched way too many movie trailers doing this and thanks to YouTube, I think I saw a million Liberty Mutual commercials.

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This might piss some of you off, but I’m still not done talking about the Nintendo Entertainment System. See, the thing is the NES didn’t just have a huge impact on me but on culture itself. As the ‘80s bled into the ‘90s, this played out across pop culture more than any other video game console.

In 1988, Nintendo made an official cereal called the Nintendo Cereal System. I remember being bombarded with the annoying yet catchy commercial. Even now I think it’s a neat gimmick. Two varieties of breakfast cereal in one box. One Mario themed, the other Zelda. The top was even perforated, so you could only get at the cereal you want. Ultimately, I never tried the stuff. At the time I was only into a cereal if it had marshmallows or turned your milk chocolaty.

The IRATE Gamer goes even more in-depth in this video

Starting in 1988 was Nintendo’s official magazine Nintendo Power. It was a bi-monthly game magazine that offered maps and game tips, a fold out poster, the occasional comics, as well as other fun stuff like fan letters and game awards and rankings. Whenever you bought a NES game, one of the slips of paper in the box would be a Nintendo Power subscription card. I got started in January 1990.

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And then came the cartoons. On Saturday’s I’d watch Captain N: The Game Master. (1989 - 1991) Essentially its Nintendo themed Tron. A teenager and his dog get pulled into his NES and join a group of heroes from popular NES games, Mega Man, Simon Belmont, Kid Icarus, and a made just for the show Princess Lana. They constantly clash against a group of NES villains, Mother Brain, King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard.

The show I was really interested in was The Super Mario Brothers Super show. It was a cartoon mish-mash of Mario Bros. 1 & 2. The show itself had a live action skit that would play out and act as a wrapper to the cartoon. But much like the Nintendo cereal, the show also contained a Legend of Zelda cartoon that would play on Fridays. That was my jam! In fact, I’ve found YouTube videos of these old shows and the only one I could stand to watch as an adult was the Zelda one. I can remember getting off the school bus and racing home to make sure I caught this one.

They followed this show up with The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 in 1990 and Super Mario World in 1991. They were separate from the original show with some different voice actors, but I always considered this one big long show.

Late in the game, there was a Mega Man cartoon in 1994. I seem to remember catching this one in the morning before going to school. Which is good because at the time it had to compete with killer shows like Spider-Man, Gargoyles and The Tick.

One more topic before I sign off. Movies.

In 1989, Fred Savage stared in The Wizard, where he chaperones his (I assume) autistic little brother on a road trip to escape being institutionalized. When they arrive at their destination, they learn of a video game tournament and enroll the gifted sibling. I’m sure at the time I didn’t really care, just tuning out the commercials until I saw what happens at the 18 second mark of the following video...

Yeah, that’s Mario Bros. 3, a Nintendo game I had no idea existed until right then. Turns out they slipped the best product placement of all time into this movie in the form of a yet to be released video game!

And then there was Super Mario Bros. in 1993. No, not that new one with Chris Pratt, but the crazy one with Bob Hoskins. I remember it being very weird. Ancient CG effects, Dennis Hopper with spikey hair, and strange animatronics. It’s since gone on to be a cult classic, but I don’t think I’d ever want to try revisiting it.

Well, that’s all I’ve got on the NES. I could probably scrape up some more cultural impact about it, like the copious Nintendo merch with Mario’s face on it, but these were the things that really applied to me.

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Last week I turned on the computer and something jumped out at me from the mosaic of new videos on my YouTube homepage. A three-hour interview on the Tim Ferris Show with Brandon Sanderson as the guest. It was just minutes old, so I watched it straight on through the beginning of my writing time and finished it all in one go. (It’s still winter here and my productivity sucks.)

Here’s a link to the podcast:

While I enjoyed the whole thing, I especially liked these parts:

1:23:00 | Direct to consumer.

1:42:00 | The escape velocity of attention.

2:03:00 | Beta readers.

If you’ve been reading my blog since the start, you might remember me mentioning Brandon Sanderson. Between his podcasts, Writing Excuses and Intentionally Blank and his creative writing lectures, I’ve picked up all sorts of useful information about writing technique, tools and the writing business.

Well, he’s currently in the midst of posting new 2025 lectures. The production quality is higher than ever before. And I’m keeping an eye on his YouTube page for updates:

https://www.youtube.com/@BrandSanderson

He’s currently up to 4 lectures and some side Q&A videos.

But if you simply can’t wait for them to be done, here’s a playlist of his previous lectures from 2020:

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