Pop Culture Timelines Go-To Thread

As we all know, Hulk Hogan's Pastamania was a miserable failure in the culinary world. The main issue (beyond the fact that according to those who went, it was basically Chef Boyardee levels of pasta) is the conceit of Hulk Hogan, the Real American, and a man bulging with questionably-veiny muscles, is a huge fan of Italian pasta dishes so as to be evocative of the man himself.

I wonder, though, would a Hulk Hogan themed restaurant have worked if he had instead gone with something more befitting his character? What if instead of Pastamania, we got the Real American BBQ? Would a place that served steaks, burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill have been more successful?
I would have went to that BBQ restaurant with my entire life savings.
 
got the Real American BBQ? Would a place that served steaks, burgers and hot dogs fresh off the grill have been more successful?
The whole pasta mania was Hogan punching air when foreman won the grill endorsement first..I think Hogan did it too late,his star was already passe before the nwo revival
 
Would’ve a ATL Sega Saturn with the guts of OTL’s Nintendo 64 been plausible for a December 1994 launch in Japan?
Probably not, Sega was barking up the wrong treee design wise OTL and even if they had teamed up with Nintendo it took another 2 yeara to get the N64 released. 1994 is to early for that.

A better bet is to call off the surprise launch, get plenty of AAA games in the pipeline and try and drown PlayStation with quality instead of speed.
 
Probably not, Sega was barking up the wrong treee design wise OTL and even if they had teamed up with Nintendo it took another 2 yeara to get the N64 released. 1994 is to early for that.

A better bet is to call off the surprise launch, get plenty of AAA games in the pipeline and try and drown PlayStation with quality instead of speed.
The 32X addon was designed in less than a year, and so was the Reality Engine that SiliconGraphics had made for the N64. Of course, NINTENDO's engineers had never put together a 3D pipeline before and didn't understand how to move and store textures, etc. They made a lot of mistakes putting the memory system together for the 2-chip MIPS 4300i. Using RAMBUS, they were limited to 250MBs and had to go through the Reality Co-Processor for pretty much everything, resulting in slightly less than half the original bandwidth. The $40 chipset needed fast VRAM that it never got.

Had Sega of America's great engineers put their own MIPS/RCP system together, it may well have hit the market by Christmas of 1994. Strangely, Tom Kalinske, Joe Miller, and much of SoA's hardware team knew about and lobbied SoJ hard to stop the Saturn project and replace it with the even more powerful (and easier to program) Reality CoProcessor developed by SiliconGraphics. In fact, the SGI chipset may have worked out better as a Megadrive/Genesis (4 bits/pixel) add on because the tiny 4KB texture cache would hold 8K pixels uncompressed and about 20K pixels compressed. That could also have been done as a stand alone console, but Joe Miller suggested the lower cost solution of an add on to get the extra colors and graphics power.

It was SoJ that pushed the Hitachi SH2 for that project.
 
Here’s a possible event that could change pop culture in the future:

What if the Heard/Depp trial ended in favor of Heard, and caused so much outcry and infuriation that someone who hated Heard wound up assassinating her shortly after?
 
Here’s a possible event that could change pop culture in the future:

What if the Heard/Depp trial ended in favor of Heard, and caused so much outcry and infuriation that someone who hated Heard wound up assassinating her shortly after?
She's a martyr for Metoo, Depp never works again and this is very close to getting political.
 
What if Tamalewood (in Albuquerque, NM) started in the advent of sound revolution back in late 1920s (for Spanish-speaking US film industry)?
 
I was wondering. What would be a good POD for a alt pop-culture timeline where Anime is mainstream by 2000. (To the point where Anime Movies are regularly shown in theaters, and the "Anime Style" is more popular than pure western style animation)
 
How can I get Sega of Japan to have a better relationship with Sega of America in the 90s?
Have Sega beat Nintendo in Japan—or even usually second but close and sometimes ahead like USA—so they aren’t furious & embarrassed by the Americans always doing better, OTL key problem gone. CEO didn’t care, just many major execs under him.

Having Sega do that well against Nintendo in Japan is uh, tough, of course.

Edit:
I was wondering. What would be a good POD for a alt pop-culture timeline where Anime is mainstream by 2000. (To the point where Anime Movies are regularly shown in theaters, and the "Anime Style" is more popular than pure western style animation)
Break up Disney for parts in the early 1980s as could have happened and combo it together with some studio bringing over a Japanese anime PG-13 probably comedic of some kind dubbed with movie stars instead of actual voiceover talent.

This breaks out due to novelty and funny and stars but also the huge market gap left by collapsed Disney. After success the drifting talent from broken Disney latch onto it and pitch their own anime style movies all over town. But of course using a handful of Americans and mostly Japanese or Korean hand animators because vastly cheaper.

Meanwhile Steve Jobs decides not to buy Pixar, and with thirty-five various venture capitalists and corporations passing on them is shuttered with the tech and a few people sold to a car company (as came close, OTL). This gives anime a few bonus years before computer animated movies dominate.

Anime style but computer animated probably still a going concern ATL.
 
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Break up Disney for parts in the early 1980s as could have happened and combo it together with some studio bringing over a Japanese anime PG-13 probably comedic of some kind dubbed with movie stars instead of actual voiceover talent.
80's are too late, animation is already for the kiddos at that point. you need a point back further in Hollywood, maybe not even hays code either, Japan animation got the leverage as was just another medium for narrative, not chained for kids only
 
80's are too late, animation is already for the kiddos at that point. you need a point back further in Hollywood, maybe not even hays code either, Japan animation got the leverage as was just another medium for narrative, not chained for kids only
Challenge wasn’t making anime for grownups, only to make anime style animation popular
 
Have Sega beat Nintendo in Japan—or even usually second but close and sometimes ahead like USA—so they aren’t furious & embarrassed by the Americans always doing better, OTL key problem gone. CEO didn’t care, just many major execs under him.

Having Sega do that well against Nintendo in Japan is uh, tough, of course.
How can I make Sega successful in Japan?
 
How can I make Sega successful in Japan?
Difficult. Firstly Nintendo had a huge headstart and has functionally dominated the industry since 1983 and world wide since '87. It also doesn't help that excepting Sonic almost all the Mega drive/Genesis killer apps were things far more popular in the west than at home. By the time it did get sonic the SNES had appeared and being more powerful and able to count on brand loyalty promptly crushed anything Sega could offer.

Add in the flawed Game Gear (to powerful for the time which meant the battery life was non existent) and its hard to see how to make it all work.

Maybe get Sonic a year or two early, have SNES delayed for some reason and accept that only apping the Game Boy directly had a hope of competing?
 
If Sega of Japan had a better relationship with Sega of America in the 90s, would the 32X still exist or at the very least some form of it?
 
What would have happened if Power Rangers and VR Troopers had a official crossover ? What I mean by that what would be that Plot synopsis behind the scenes etc .
 
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