Xbox Wire - Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast – How (Not) to Anger the Film Industry

Xbox Wire - Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast – How (Not) to Anger the Film Industry - Printable Version

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Xbox Wire - Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast – How (Not) to Anger the Film Industry - xSicKxBot - 06-06-2018

Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast – How (Not) to Anger the Film Industry

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Attention movie lovers, this post is a sequel! Before reading, <a href="https://news.xbox.com/en-us/2017/05/03/oh-sir-the-insult-simulator-preview-xbox-one/">it’s advised to see the previous one here</a>. But in case you didn’t, here’s a piece of unceremonious exposition: previously our hard rock anti-heroes under the band of Vile Monarch managed to get one step closer to world domination by creating a successful video game called <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/ohsir-the-insult-simulator/bq3tmbm7jgqj">Oh…Sir! The Insult Simulator</a>. The Vile Monarch can rest now… or can he? Announcing <a href="https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/store/p/Oh-Sir-The-Hollywood-Roast/C09RRCL0CM5S">Oh…Sir! The Hollywood Roast</a>.
The Insult Simulator was a game where you could build absurdly rude sentences against a living or artificial enemy in unlikely conflict scenarios ripping-off inspired by Monty Python. What started as a fun 42-hour game jam experiment, eventually turned into a full-fledged, surprisingly successful game that conquered many platforms (Xbox One being among them) and hearts of millions of YouTube viewers. As we learned from the movie industry, this is when you should make a quickly glued together, direct-to-DVD, cash-grabbing continuation.
Which we didn’t do. Instead, we wanted to – firstly – improve the things we considered lackluster in the previous game and – secondly – refresh the setting, so the insult-based combat can be enjoyed by people with an allergy to tea and crumpets. So, using a movie jargon, it was meant to be more of a spin-off than a total sequel. And yes, all the insolent film-related vocabulary in this post is for a reason, as we ultimately decided to insult the movies and the movie industry.
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-92196" src="https://news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/01-120.jpg" alt="Oh...Sir! The Hollywood Roast Screenshot" width="1440" height="810"/>
Movie parody seems like the easiest kind of comedy, right? Everyone does that, including movies parodying other movies and millions of bad YouTube videos. But early on we realized there’s gonna be some hurdles. First of all, we didn’t want to get into trouble, being sued by movie studios. People to this day keep asking us, “How could you use Gandalf, Harry Potter, or Deadpool?” The answer is: we couldn’t.
The decision to stay away from real properties was made early on and it was an easy one. But then we realized it’s not a parody if you stop at turning famous characters to Gundalf or Herry Putter – this is a cheap knock-off. So, the idea was to squeeze some comedy out of not having these properties.
The first one to figure out was Gandalf, who at first was meant to be a mix of all wise wizards in the history of fiction. But this didn’t seem to lead to anything particularly funny. Then we made what we called internally “Gandalf The Pink” – Gandalf dressed as an elderly lady. Obviously, he needed a better name and… well, he wore pink and that’s it, the joke’s over.
<img class="alignnone size-full wp-image-92198" src="https://news.xbox.com/en-us/wp-content/uploads/03-79.jpg" alt="Oh...Sir! The Hollywood Roast Screenshot" width="1440" height="810"/>
Finally, it turned out that a good idea is to start with a story – what happened to Gandalf after his famous adventures? Maybe he moved to a normal neighborhood Maybe he still wears a robe for the sake of the old times but thought that a bathrobe would allow him to blend in. This is how The Greasy Wizard was born – if Gandalf was your creepy old neighbor, he would be our man. Goes with a Hobbit-style basement, a full set of Tolkien-inspired innuendos and a booming voice of an amazing British actor Rosko Lewis.
The Greasy Wizard is still one of our favorite characters and he taught us how to build the rest of the cast. The key was to build each of them around a single, clear and hopefully humorous idea. Dirty Potter – what if Harry Potter’s story takes place in the wild west and he’s played by Clint Eastwood? Groan the Destroyinator – what if Conan and Terminator are really the same character? Nosferateen – what if Nosferatu became a vampire as a teenager and is even whinier than the pale dude from “Twilight?” This approach worked for most of the characters, but of course, some turned out better than the rest. Chop Sue E. is one that you might like if you get her, but we didn’t make it easy. She’s a combination of a lot of ideas related to Asian martial arts cinema but would probably find more fans if this mix had a clear dominating part. We did it the right way with Wisecrack – he represents all superhero blockbusters in one Frankenstein body, but with Deadpool as a centerpiece (although his earlier iteration wasn’t as clear – nor as good!).
This basically concludes the relatively unadventurous story of how we managed to get away with roasting Hollywood, while still having a lot of fun. We were sharing this fun across different platforms for a while now and are finally able to bring it to Xbox One. As a special treat for the boxiest of consoles, we added Mixer integration, that lets you watch other people insult each other while messing with the result by voting on the sickest burn.
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