Episode 89: Fantasy Contra

Original air date: February 27, 2019

Episode overview

Bingo disguises Final Fantasy XIV character and guild events as workplace gossip until Danny exposes the game context, after which the hosts retrospectively name the hybrid story segment. Bingo and Danny compare Final Fantasy XIV with World of Warcraft, discuss crafting and fashion systems, and finish with a Puzzle & Dragons Street Fighter V gacha pull that yields Blanka. The hosts open the listener-poetry feature, read Carly’s Halfway Okay poem, and award her one sticker; this is a submission reward, not a contest win. Chelsea’s self-identified voicemail poem praises the show, banter, and virtual friendship; the hosts call it sweet and award two stickers. The hosts present an anonymous religious tract as a supposed final poem, jokingly attribute it to Tony Wartinger, and abandon the reading; no reliable submitter, winner, or prize is established. The hosts cover Tamera Mowry-Housley trying her twin’s breast milk, a dead humpback whale near the Amazon jungle shore, and a cobra blocking an ATM. The hosts revisit Li’l Shermie’s lore, play Wheel of Time and Castlevania music, then play listener recordings that add bowling-alley, Pastamania, 1980s food-stock, papier-mâché-ball, foundry, wall-grandfather, and summer-camp lore.

Segments

• **Game Corner Secret Story Corner** — 0:04:55 · citation pending — Bingo disguises Final Fantasy XIV character and guild events as workplace gossip until Danny exposes the game context, after which the hosts retrospectively name the hybrid story segment.
• **Game Corner** — 0:10:15 · citation pending — Bingo and Danny compare Final Fantasy XIV with World of Warcraft, discuss crafting and fashion systems, and finish with a Puzzle & Dragons Street Fighter V gacha pull that yields Blanka.
• **Official halfwayokay Rhyme-It-Up Rodeo Poetry Slamboree** — 0:18:37 · citation pending — The hosts open the listener-poetry feature, read Carly’s Halfway Okay poem, and award her one sticker; this is a submission reward, not a contest win.
• **Sundries Sack** — 0:24:26 · citation pending — The hosts inspect a Marie de’ Medici bust, The Crone’s Book of Words, an antler-handled knife, and Danny’s taped happy-face box, including a reading of the spell ‘To Weave Ropes of Sand.’
• **Official halfwayokay Rhyme-It-Up Rodeo Poetry Slamboree** — 0:31:59 · citation pending — Chelsea’s self-identified voicemail poem praises the show, banter, and virtual friendship; the hosts call it sweet and award two stickers.
• **Official halfwayokay Rhyme-It-Up Rodeo Poetry Slamboree** — 0:40:42 · citation pending — The hosts present an anonymous religious tract as a supposed final poem, jokingly attribute it to Tony Wartinger, and abandon the reading; no reliable submitter, winner, or prize is established.
• **Newspaper Party** — 0:52:51 · citation pending — The hosts cover Tamera Mowry-Housley trying her twin’s breast milk, a dead humpback whale near the Amazon jungle shore, and a cobra blocking an ATM.
• **Li’l Shermie’s Update** — 1:07:10 · citation pending — The hosts revisit Li’l Shermie’s lore, play Wheel of Time and Castlevania music, then play listener recordings that add bowling-alley, Pastamania, 1980s food-stock, papier-mâché-ball, foundry, wall-grandfather, and summer-camp lore.

Verified episode facts

• **Game corner gacha outcome**: Bingo’s live Puzzle & Dragons Street Fighter V gacha pull yields Blanka; this is an in-game result, not a show contest winner or prize.
• **Poetry slamboree outcomes**: Three submissions are presented across separated Poetry Slamboree installments: Carly receives one sticker, Chelsea receives two, and the anonymous religious tract receives no stable reward; no overall winner or score is declared.
• **Episode-title phrase**: Danny describes the Wheel of Time music as ‘fantasy Contra with real instruments,’ supplying the official episode-title phrase.
• **Li’l shermie’s lore outcome**: Two listener recordings add bowling-alley, Pastamania, 1980s food-stock and papier-mâché-ball lore; the hosts add foundry, wall-grandfather and summer-camp details and explicitly reject the proposed Ayn Rand statue as non-canon.