Jason Ritter

**SPEAKER_1** (0:00)
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**Chris Hardwick** (0:30)
Welcome to I Think You're Overthinking It, number 1170 I don't have much to say at the top of this episode, other than you can watch the episode now in all the places where you watch things YouTube, Spotify, AMC Plus if you have it, or you can just listen. But I love this episode. This is Jason Ritter. I adore him and you can see Jason on Matlock and he's in the upcoming Lanterns series on HBO. He is an amazing TikTok dancer and he's just the sweetest. I love him and I love this conversation. So I happily present episode number 1170 of I Think You're Overthinking It as we lovingly roll the thing.
Jason Ritter.
Jason Ritter. We were having so much conversation before the podcast, where I was like, stop talking, this is good. No, no, no, no, stop talking. Because we just went on this whole Gen X-y video game.

**Jason Ritter** (2:06)
Yes, we did.

**Chris Hardwick** (2:07)
Remember this, remember.

**Jason Ritter** (2:09)
Do you remember those times?

**Chris Hardwick** (2:10)
We remember those times, because you said you just started playing video games with your daughter.

**Jason Ritter** (2:15)
Yes, it's very fun.

**Chris Hardwick** (2:16)
Ours is four, so she's not quite there yet, and I cannot wait until we get to that point.

**Jason Ritter** (2:21)
It is, it's very, very fun. And then the key is trying not to use my 46 years of expertise against her.

**Chris Hardwick** (2:29)
Of course.

**Jason Ritter** (2:29)
You know, she gets very frustrated, and she's like, so it's not that I let her win, but I don't go full force.

**Chris Hardwick** (2:36)
No, you don't go full arcade mode.

**Jason Ritter** (2:38)
Yes, exactly. Destroy all opponents mode.

**Chris Hardwick** (2:40)
We were talking about like Dragon's Lair and Space Ace, and I was saying, in those days, in the 1900s, you had to just hang out at the arcade and watch a kid play who was better than you to learn the patterns. There was literally no other way to find out how to do that.

**Jason Ritter** (2:57)
Yeah, no internet. I remember I had a friend who was like the Zelda guy, the Legend of Zelda. So you'd be like, I don't have enough hearts, or how do you get the sword? And he'd be like, where are you? You'd be like, I'm kind of by the ferry. And he'd be like, all right, go left.
Left. Up. Like he had the whole map memorized.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:16)
He was your Reddit thread.

**Jason Ritter** (3:17)
Yeah, burn that third tree on the, like, oh my gosh, it's a secret to everybody, except for-

**Chris Hardwick** (3:22)
Was this being on the phone, or like he'd come over?

**Jason Ritter** (3:23)
On the phone, yeah.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:24)
Oh my god.

**Jason Ritter** (3:24)
Yeah, and so like, but he just knew that much about the game. It was incredible.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:30)
But you had to be lucky enough to have a person, by the way, in your town-

**Jason Ritter** (3:34)
Who would spend the time.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:35)
Because calling long-distance was very expensive. It was very difficult to justify to your parents that you needed video game tips in the 80s.
And that's why you have like a $40 phone call.

**Jason Ritter** (3:45)
And not every edition of Nintendo Power Magazine had the games that you were playing.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:50)
Exactly.

**Jason Ritter** (3:50)
So like-

**Chris Hardwick** (3:51)
Or the exact tips that you needed.

**Jason Ritter** (3:53)
Yes, exactly, exactly.

**Chris Hardwick** (3:54)
So you'd have to write in to Nintendo Power Magazine and hope that in six to 14 months, maybe they'd get to your letter.

**Jason Ritter** (4:02)
It was very fun though, it was like a word of mouth thing, because I also, I remember my cousin was the one who told me how to beat King Hippo, who I thought was just impossible.

**Chris Hardwick** (4:11)
Oh, from Punch Out?

**Jason Ritter** (4:12)
In Punch Out, yeah. Like, I was like, you can't even get a punch in. He's like, when he goes like this, you go like this.

**Chris Hardwick** (4:19)