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Lost in Translation: The German Musical That Preceded ‘Hamilton’ but Remained Unknown

Did you know that before ‘Hamilton’ there was a musical dedicated to Barack Obama… that was performed exclusively in Germany?

Surely you’re familiar with ‘Hamilton’. It was the musical that brought Lin-Manuel Miranda to success and garnered acclaim and awards wherever it went, blending history with modernity through its hip-hop and pop rhythms. Many rightfully applauded the unique blend it presented, and quite a few were captivated by its charm. You can even watch the complete production on Disney+! Yes. But. Did you know that before ‘Hamilton,’ there was a musical dedicated to Barack Obama… that was exclusively performed in Germany?

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Yes, we can… dance!

20th of January, 2009. Barack Obama wins the election and becomes the 44th President of the United States of America. At the same time, in Cologne, Germany, a man named Randall Hutchins decides that this momentous occasion deserves not just a play, but a full-blown musical. With his expertise in musical composition, he begins to fill pages and staffs with songs, eventually completing ‘Hope! Das Obama Musical’. One year after the presidential election, in January 2010, it premieres in Frankfurt to a surprisingly packed audience.

The story begins in the suburbs of Chicago and gradually makes its way to the 2008 elections. John McCain shouts, “I’ll see you in November!” Hillary Clinton promises to be “ready on day one,” and Sarah Palin sings and dances with a group of performers while calling herself the “Pitbull mom.” But the musical had one more surprise: it was interactive.

And by “interactive,” I mean that each seat was equipped with either a percussion system for everyone to play certain songs with the orchestra or maracas. Thousands of people making noise at the same time. The first performance of ‘Hope’ filled all 2,000 seats in the theater, received applause, and was covered by the press around the world. And then, what happened? How is it possible that there was a musical about Obama and you hadn’t heard about it until now?

Well, after that first performance, there wasn’t much more. Despite plans for a tour in Germany and the United States, it remained a brilliant premiere followed by a subsequent downfall, apparently due to a lack of sponsors. Songs like ‘Yes we can’ or ‘Rock the vote’ faded from the collective imagination, and Obama would never have his own musical. Or maybe…?

“Barack Obama exclaims, ‘Of all the musicals about my presidency, this is one of them'”: This is the promotional phrase for ’44, the Obama musical,’ which was performed for a few months in the United States and is more of a parody than anything else. But at least the legend of ‘Hope’ has a successor. Whether he likes it or not.

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Deepfake videos can make anyone say or do anything

The future of video manipulation could have terrifying consequences.

Imagine being able to make it look like any person in the world is doing or saying anything you want. With deepfakes, this is not only possible, but free and easy.

For those who don’t know, deepfakes are videos that use motion capture technology to impose someone’s face onto another person’s body or to impersonate another person entirely. A basic example of the technology can be seen below:

As you can see, the technology is incredibly realistic. With a skilled vocal impersonator, it can be very difficult to tell a deepfake from an actual video.

Deepfakes aren’t the result of some sort of top-secret CIA technology, anyone can download an app and make them without much hassle. Deepfakes are created by machine learning algorithms that manipulate video footage until the “realistic” algorithm can reliably be fooled. The technology works best when the algorithms are fed tons of footage, which explains why presidents, actors, and other public figures are the most frequent subjects of deepfakes.

There are several ramifications of this technology and nearly all of them are scary. Before we dive into all that, here’s the only harmless example of deepfaking that we’ve seen: Nicolas Cage being inserted into movies he never starred in.

And here’s Steve Buscemi’s face mapped over Jennifer Lawrence for some terrifying reason.

Despite how great those videos are, the vast majority of deepfakes are created for far more nefarious purposes. Currently, the most common use of deepfakes by far is to put the faces of popular celebrity women onto pornstars.

This deepfake has Star Wars star Daisy Ridley's face put on a porn star's body — This deepfake has “Star Wars” star Daisy Ridley’s face put on a porn star’s body

Numerous victimized women have spoken out against this gross trend, including Scarlett Johansson, who said, “Nothing can stop someone from cutting and pasting my image or anyone else’s onto a different body and making it look as eerily realistic as desired. The fact is that trying to protect yourself from the internet and its depravity is basically a lost cause… the internet is a vast wormhole of darkness that eats itself.”

It’s not just celebrity women either. An increasing number of people have fallen victim to deepfake revenge porn from vengeful exes. Because the technology is so new, there’s no concrete legislation to protect people from being deepfaked into porn. Much discussion has been had as to whether the creators of these videos could be charged as identity theft, harassment, or cyberstalking. At the very least, nearly every major porn site bans the uploading of deepfake videos. Mainstream websites like Twitter, Reddit, and Gyfcat have also banned the posting of deepfake videos.

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In addition to sexual harassment, deepfakes could also have a devastating effect on politics. Deepfakes could be used to make powerful people say alarming or sensational things. It also works in reverse, as politicians have plausible deniability if they get caught saying or doing something embarrassing (for example, if deepfakes were around in 2016 President Trump could have claimed the infamous “grab them by the ****” video as a deepfake). The last U.S. presidential election already had enough fake news floating around, so imagine the chaos and misinformation that would be caused by widespread deepfake use.

While national defense organizations like the CIA are at work developing technology that can distinguish deepfakes, the moral of the story is to use research and critical thinking whenever you see a video that seems suspicious. Deepfakes are the newest addition to the post-truth/fake news era, and it is more important than ever that people carefully consider where their sources are coming from.

5 weirdest product placements in games

Uh, what’s that thing doing in your video game?

Any economist can tell you that video games are a goldmine. High profile games like Grand Theft Auto V have generated more revenue than any movie that’s ever released. Naturally, advertisers want in on the action. Just like in movies, the logic is that if a product is featured in a popular game, people are more likely to buy it. Product placement must be used carefully, however, as it can easily stick out like a sore thumb and turn people off from both the game and the product. Whether they worked or not, here are the five weirdest product placements that have ever been featured in a video game.

5 weirdest product placements in games

5. Mercedes-Benz in Mario Kart 8

Mayonnaise-colored Benz I push Miracle Whips!

Seeing Mario and friends hurling bananas and Koopa shells at each other out of a Benz will never not be hilarious. It’s so jarring that it actually works. It’s common for car companies to license their vehicles for racing games, but usually, it’s for realistic racers like Forza, not kart racers. Funnily enough, some car brands like Toyota don’t allow their cars to be featured in video games at all, because they fear that their brand would become devalued. Then, a luxury brand like Mercedes hops straight into the Mushroom Kingdom. You can’t exactly blame Mercedes-Benz for wanting their cars featured in the most popular racing game in the world, even if that game is cartoon chaos. Plus, the crossover gave us this amazing commercial:

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4. Everquest II and Pizza Hut

Since the dawn of time MMO players and pizza deliveries have had a symbiotic relationship: one cannot exist without the other. Realizing this, Pizza Hut teamed up with popular MMO Everquest II to allow players to order pizza in-game. If you’re hours into a raid and IRL starvation is preventing you from getting your hard-earned loot, simply type “/pizza” into the all chat to get a pizza at your door within minutes. While many people mock MMO players for their fast food addictions, you have to hand it to Pizza Hut for this stroke of marketing genius.

Finally, a pizza delivery service for me!

3. Burnout Paradise and Barack Obama

Back in 2008, then president-elect Barack Obama was noted for using the internet to advertise his campaign. He took it a step further and bought advertising space in the racer Burnout Paradise. Burnout Paradise is famous for its massive open world that spans multiple American states. Billboards for Obama appeared in-game in Ohio, Florida, Iowa, Colorado, Indiana, Montana, North Carolina, New Mexico, Nevada, and Wisconsin, states that had voted Republican in the last election cycle. It’s unknown how well this campaign strategy worked, but look forward to seeing Trump’s face plastered all over the next GTA come 2020.

2. Sonic Adventure 2 and Soap Shoes

Sonic’s iconic buckle shoes vs. his TUBULAR Soap shoes

Sonic fans may have noticed that in Sonic Adventure 2 the titular blue hedgehog wears brand-new shoes. The new shoes are Soap shoes, which is actually a real brand of extreme sporting shoes. The shoes had a hard plastic indent on the bottom that allowed wearers to “grind” on rails, like so:

I will give you $50 if you can find a more early-2000’s picture than this one

As if Sonic wasn’t radical enough already, Sega teamed up with Soap to let the blue blur grind rails. I didn’t know anyone who wore Soap shoes back then, but I can only assume that attempts to grind rails with them led to countless injuries. Remember kids, just because Sonic can grind on rails and run through loops doesn’t mean you can.

Note: The final product placement truly needs to be seen to be believed. I truly believe, deep within the recesses of my heart, that no one will ever top how absolutely baffling this next product placement is.

1. Skittles and Darkened Skye

Look at the above screenshot, what do you see? At first glance, it may just look like another mid-2000’s fantasy game. But if you look in the bottom left corner, something looks extremely out of place. That something is a Skittle.

Back in 2002, publisher Simon & Shuster wanted to make video games based on Mars candy, like M&M’s and Skittles. After securing the rights to use the candies, S&S quickly got their developers at work creating the candy based games. The developers of Darkened Skye initially refused to make a Skittles-based game, but eventually agreed to make it on the condition that it would be a humorous fantasy game.

In Darkened Skye, the player uses different magic based on differently colored Skittles. It’s clear that the developers knew that making a high-fantasy Skittles game was incredibly stupid. as the characters in-game constantly use self-deprecating humor. The most hilarious part is that Skittles do not appear at all on the game’s box art, which instead appears as a normal fantasy game. I can only imagine the poor kid who bought the game expecting an epic fantasy adventure only to find themselves using the magical power of Skittles™ candy!

Do you think these ads actually worked? Any weird crossovers we missed? Let us know!