Cakes and Cookies, my aunt bought me my first game console for my fifth birthday. It was the Super Nintendo, or SNES for short. I thought it was the most incredible toy in the world, and I dedicated many an afternoon to swapping cartridges and exploring different worlds through the window of my tv screen.
Of course, my parents curtailed my time playing to reasonable increments so that my eyes wouldn’t ooze out of my skull and my brains blacken like burning cauliflower. However, many a night had I woken up at two a.m. in our tiny apartment to pee and catch my mom bathed in television light as she button-mashed Mario through the Mushroom Kingdom.
But my favorite game, shortbreads, was Zombies Ate My Neighbors (ZAMN). This game was the perfect recipe for B — movie, horror, and camp. A story of two kids, the shock blonde Zeke and the red-capped Julie, as they rescue their neighbors and town from the monsters of the Mad Scientist Doctor Tongue.