Letters: E.T. The Video Game, And Spoiler Alerts
NPR
Friday, March 28, 2014
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Audie Cornish reads from listeners' letters about spoiler alerts and E.T. the video game.
Transcript
AUDIE CORNISH, HOST:
It's time now for your letters.
(SOUNDBITE OF FILM THEME MUSIC)
CORNISH: Kids of all ages know that's the theme to the Steven Spielberg classic "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." And people of a certain age know that this...
(SOUNDBITE OF VIDEO GAME MUSIC)
CORNISH: ...is the sound of "E.T." the video game, which was not a classic. In fact, it was a colossal flop. Atari allegedly dumped all of its unsold "E.T." cartridges in a New Mexico landfill. Our story on a filmmaker's quest to find the old game didn't make Charlie Depner, of Atlanta, nostalgic. He writes: Like many of my generation, my heartstrings plucked and soared when hearing the first bars of John Williams' score for "E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial." But the same heart crashed through the floor with an eight-bit thud when subsequently hearing the same notes as interpreted by the Atari video game.
Mr. Depner continues: Unlike the archeological artifacts recovered by another Spielberg property, "Indiana Jones," some things are best left buried and forgotten.
(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW THEME MUSIC)
CORNISH: And proof you can seemingly never have enough spoiler alerts. Our story on the TV hit drama "The Good Wife" and the last episode's stunning plot twist did come with a warning to the show's fans. We said we were going to talk about the twist. Not enough warning for some of you, including Mark Marino of Los Angeles.
He writes: Imagine my horror when, in waning seconds, the report spoiled another show, "Downton Abbey," of which I am a season or two behind. I suppose you can't put spoiler warnings before every part of every story. But I will say, Ishmael never gets the whale, Soylent Green is made of people, and we all shot J.R., at least, in our dreams. So there.
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(SOUNDBITE OF TV SHOW THEME MUSIC) Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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