“‘What’s Nintendo,’ you ask, and why should you care?” Ah, mainstream media, how you love to present gamers as either glassy-eyed child addicts or hopeless doofs from Planet Nerd. We love you like that special aunt, you know the one: she’s a bit older, still waxes nostalgic for the golden Crooner age of radio , dresses mostly in floral print muu-muus and wears enough Wal*Mart perfume to completely shut down your olfactory senses when she looms in for kisses. Every year, someone in Mainstream Medialand notices that people are playing video games and they are always astounded! Here’s proof positive that mostly-incorrect stories about the Wii or GTA IV have a long and storied history in the field of journalistic excellence.

We’ve got all the classic games tv coverage tropes here in this 20/20 clip from the dawn of time (aka “the 80s”): an introduction referring to games as “addicitive,” the inevitable shot of a line outside a store, an interview with an obsessed older fan waiting in said line, cute white kids saying cute white things about Mario, an obviously puzzled and clueless VO from the smoooooth teevee reporter, brief snippets from two “wacky” game creators (Greg Fischback pre-fall of Acclaim!; Rob Holmes’s awesome porn/cop mustache), etc. All that’s missing from this clip is Michael Pachter and some cos-play.

“After school, even on a day that brings the first beautiful snowfall of the season, everyone’s eager to get inside the house so they can rush to get to the television set.” Um, it’s f#@%ing cold outside, dude.