User blog:Hippie Rat/Kirk Fogg's Verse in Alex Trebek VS Pat Sajak by Dragon Rap Battles - Hippie Rat Writes

Hey yo hi hello

Welcome to a new series that isn't at all another ripoff of Chisel This. In this series I will be showcasing the writing process for certain things I write and/or chisel and explain why I include certain ideas and leave out others and how I incorporate delivery into my substance rather than smush a bunch of, just, stuff into a thing.

Because I'm so fucking awesome and undeniably perfect at this stuff

So today we will be looking at the chiseling and writing process for my first ever vocal role, holy shit it's about fucking time, Kirk Fogg of Legends of the Hidden Temple in the Game Show Host Royale of Dragon Rap Battles.

So let's begin at the beginning, shall we?

March 25th, 2017 - Dragon hit me up about doing a voice role along with chiseling one or two of his other battles. He assigned me this and told me he wanted it by earlyish May. Okay let's be honest, he expected it around April when I promised it, but I didn't get around to recording it until May 22nd. Aren't I the best. It wasn't even that amazing of a recording but whatever, I was probably at an audio quality on par with Dragon so at least it wasn't a jarring difference.

Now then, the writing. The actual bit. I wrote most of it by like the day after he assigned it to me. I made some very slight changes that I'll talk about later, but essentially yeah I had all the lyrics ready to record for like two months and I suck.

But enough about me, let's complain about Dragon's writing for a while.

The Original Lyrics
Olmec:

It’s Legends of The Hidden Temple with your host, Kirk Fogg

(So we have Olmec make a very dry introduction to Kirk in such a way that we kinda just waste all potential of greatness Olmec had and we unnecessarily waste a line explaining this guy's name. Who needs it? Like, yeah no one knows Kirk Fogg offhand, but when you say it out loud it's like "The guy from Legends of the Hidden Temple was good" "You mean Kirk Fogg?" "Eh whatever his name was he was alright." Even if you say the name no one will just go and be like "oh wow so that's the name I'll make sure to use that from now on" they'll just continue saying "that guy from Legends of the Hidden Temple." So why not just cut out the middle man and not outright say his name and instead throw in some more substance.)

Kirk Fogg:

Thanks Big Guy for the intro, but now gang let’s move on

(We waste an entire second line just wrapping up the introduction scenario. It's filler and has no reason. We have eight lines here, man, we don't need to waste two of them on nothing.)

As I make a Splat attack when it comes to my raps

(This line does nothing to say "I rap good". It makes a reference, not even a pun, to Splat, that I rework in my final draft, and that's about it. Nothing actually comparing these game shows yet.)

No items here kids, as these game show hosts are the artifacts!

(The items in this show are the artifacts you're thinking of. And, sure yeah, cute idea, boring execution. Using "as" as your synonym for "because" doesn't feel quite right.)

Doubt that these guys could even try to cross upon The Moat

(This line does nothing but say "you guys couldn't even [reference]." Again, how does this apply to Legends being a better game show?)

So you should take a Step of Knowledge that you’re all out of hope

(...are you failing your English class? Seriously this is like two different sentences that you accidentally combined by the reference. "You guys should...take knowledge...that you're all out of hope." Fucking what? Like, steps of knowledge is the most boring part of the show, we don't need to reference it. Also, it's grammatically fuck, and otherwise a boring filler line.)

With exploration and mystery that’s far beyond The Crystal Maze

(You've made, what, 2 references to Legends, why are you talking about yet another game show?)

As you’re looking at the best survival show that was ever made

("Haha I have won because I am best survival show." The next verse starts off with the next guy being from another survival game show saying "how cute a Nickelodeon show thinks it's the best" or something, so yeah there you go, this is why it was like that. 1)Don't say that, it's filler, 2)Don't say this line, it's filler, 3)Look man each of these verses are eight lines each let's not limit so many of these lines. There is stuff to talk about just find it.)

General overview:

Some of the more astute of you may have noticed the order in which some of these lines were presented. The original lyrics used the "telling the story in order" gimmick. It begins with the intro to the show, then references the moat, then references the Steps of Knowledge, then ends with vague stuff about exploring, which would be the actual temple, going in the order an episode of Legends goes by. Too much focus is put on that and it destroys all semblance of substance. Pro tip: quit focusing so much on the gimmicks.

My Background
Getting the chance to do Legends of the Hidden Temple was interesting to me. Back when I was a little kid I would always stay up all night to get a chance to watch the show, back then the only reruns would be at 4:00 AM every night. I happened to stumble upon it one night while trying to pull an all-nighter, something unheard of as a little kid. It was such an interesting game show to me mostly because of the last part, where they go through the temple and try to find the thingy. They would rarely ever succeed but I found it fun to watch anyway. I was always confused about why it would be on so late at night and at no other time. Eventually I forgot about it.

I only remembered the show a few years ago when it happened to pop into my head. I looked it up and was surprised to see how rarely people actually won the game on the show, only once or twice if I remember. I looked further into it and realized how weird it was that most of the show was spent with mostly space-filling segments used to make the game a competition but shortened the time allotted to complete the temple game. Not to mention they make it even more difficult to win by throwing in temple guards that make you either lose immediately or make you hand over a magic pendant you better hope to have won earlier in the show.

Thus when I got to writing this verse I knew there was a few major points to make and try to twist into the favor of the speaker: the game is very difficult to win, where after going through the qualifiers you only have three minutes to get the thingy and get out while also having to avoid the hidden guards that are in random locations and require a magic pendant to escape from. The difficulty of the game would normally be a bad feature and something to rag on the show over, but it can be turned around as a boast, implying that Fogg couldn't be beaten in a rap just as his game is so difficult to beat.

So I wrote the verse with that stuff in mind.

My First Draft
I sent Dragon two different versions of the lyrics. The differences were slight but warranted being talked about.

The first change between the two drafts were the third and fourth line were originally in a different order. Instead of "Not even Indiana Jones could ever navigate my temple; let you escape with that swag? No magic pendants will," it was originally "let you escape with that swag? No magic pendants will; not even Indiana Jones could ever navigate my temple!" I switched it around simply because it had a better potential for a groovy flow and just generally sounded better. In terms of substance, I was hesitant, as the Indiana Jones line was more of a punchline kind of bit while the pendant line was less so, with a lesser version of the temple rhyme that I originally didn't belong at the end of the couplet. It worked out better in the second draft because the Indiana Jones line was more of a non-sequitur that didn't work as the end of a phrase, and the magic pendants line actually held substance toward the show and the message being delivered in the verse.

The second and last change I made was the change from "..Eastpak Backpack as compensation" to "..Eastpak Backpack as consolation." That was simply the result of me forgetting what "consolation prizes" were called and remembering after I sent in the first draft. Some of you may notice the subtitle error of compensation slipping by and accidentally being put in the subtitles rather than consolation. Welp. The fuck you gonna do.

Only other subtitle mistakes I noticed was "you" rather than "you's". I know grammar and stuff. I just used "you's" because hip-hop. Also "Let" was taken out of the subtitles, which is noticeable because "You escape with that swag? No magic pendants will" doesn't make any sense at all. Doesn't help that I slurred that word with "temple" from the last line so it could easily be mistaken for the lyric in the subtitle. Again, the fuck you gonna do. Next time I'll try not to slur shit I guess

The Final Draft
So here is the final draft of the lyrics that you can hear in the battle and why I created them as they are.

Kirk Fogg (and Olmec):

I Double Dare you to find a better game show than (Legends!)

(One of the biggest things I was thinking when being given the task of Legends of the Hidden Temple was "Wait wasn't Double Dare a bigger show? Like didn't Nickelodeon kids watch Double Dare more often than Legends?" I decided not to call Dragon out on it and instead replace the Crystal Maze reference with a nod to the show that's more comparable to Legends and is arguably bigger than Legends. Now this is how to incorporate a title pun of any sort. Notice that I include the whole title in the pun, but every part of the title fits cohesively into the sentence. If you were to say "I double dare you to find a better game show than Legends of the Hidden Temple," the sentence still works even if Double Dare didn't happen to exist. Compare that to, say, "you should've quidditched this fight," where the syllable "qui" has no reason to exist if it weren't for the pun, and the sentence out of context does not work, and if Quidditch didn't happen to exist, then the line makes no sense. The line itself offers the simple challenge of finding a better game show than Legends of the Hidden Temple, showing pure confidence in their failure in doing so, while also casting aside the only true opponent of the claim, Double Dare. It also knocks out the implication of Legends being the best early on, making the "how cute a Nick show thinks they're the best" or whatever line make sense in its own context. Olmec is given less things to say, but strangely a bigger role. Instead of just introducing Kirk Fogg, which he managed to do himself here as shown, he gets to pick up the last word of the line, acting as a semi-hype man. The actual word said is the first emphasized word in the introduction to the show, still giving the verse an introduction reminiscent of the actual show without being as on-the-nose.)

Knock you's back in the moat with this fade you're (catching!)

(This line implies the characters already passed the moat to reach Fogg, metaphorically accomplished by the others having completed their rapping. Instead of doubting the small potential of the others, Fogg instead places himself above the others by saying he'd beat them in a physical match. One thing to notice is the use of the urban-thesaurus synonym of punching someone - having someone catch this fade. Urban-thesaurus synonyms of things are something that aren't used enough in these rap battles and should be utilized a tad more to accomplish more of a feeling of it being genuine rap.)

Not even Indiana Jones could ever navigate my Temple.

(As I mentioned earlier, this line held much less actual substance to the show and the message of the verse than the next line, so I placed this more as buildup. So you may be wondering, what's the point? For one, it slowly introduces the idea of this game show being difficult by making a very big claim that Indiana Jones himself would find the game difficult. Simple enough. Indiana Jones was also a thematic inspiration for Legends. So yeah boom just a bit more stuff to it. Altogether, having not much to say in the line inspired me to get a bit creative with the delivery, so I bounced the speech with the beat.)

'''Let you escape with that swag? No magic pendants will.'''

(In this case, swag is used in the object sense, being used to generalize luxury goods, mostly those that would serve as valuable artifacts that would be the center of an episode of Legends. This line implies a force greater than the temple guards hindering the others' attempts to win. Essentially, they need to git gud.)

'''I'll send some kids to go in and dig these dudes up. You're ancient!'''

(This was how I reworked the artifacts line. It was definitely a clever idea, but I just wanted to see it reference the basis of Legends a bit better.)

You lost the rap, but I'll send your ass an Eastpak Backpack as consolation!

(Because consolation prizes are such a big part of a lot of these game shows. Lots of huge details about the basis of game shows in general were cast aside in favor of other stuff, blah blah blah, my style is better than everyone else's, I'm sure you get that already. Now I'm sure you wanna hear something about how much my writing sucks, right? Well here's something: there's nothing to the Eastpak Backpack. That was arbitrarily chosen from the list of consolation prizes throughout the history of Legends of the Hidden Temple to fit the "a" rhyme scheme. Plus I crammed the syllables. Sometimes I suck and I'm willing to say that sometimes. Happy?)

Ask The Splat, odds are stacked against Alex and Pat

(This right here was what I put to fully introduce the idea of the temple being difficult to win in. It's one of those things where he takes the thing that would usually be a weakness in the given context, in this case the game being unbeatable, and turns it into a strength in the rap battle, in this case not being able to best him. Imagine if the TMNT said "When you try to play us, we can't be beat" instead of the Artists saying it. Basically that.)

'''So good luck jumping and dodging and crawling and climbing and all in under three minutes flat! Ha!'''

(I essentially improvised this. The cadence was thought up five minutes before I had to leave for work that day and the action words were thought up just before I left. So yeah, more arbitrary stuff. The three minutes flat thing was the short time given to beat the Temple. Granted, having the time at three minutes was pretty arbitrary, so I guess me being arbitrary was very fitting for this. So yeah I guess there's greatness in badness. But yeah whatever sure I don't deserve to be able to talk about this because I suck so much right? Eh fuck it I'm awesome.)

On Everyone Else Involved
So it's official, I was awesome, but how was everyone else? Generally it was cool. The clip editing from Dragon worked well with what was being said. His voice work was also pretty good, with only two bits I'd really complain about: the way he says "the price is wrong, biatch," and how fast Total Drama responds to "the most total drama you'll ever get" (which in itself is a contrived way to bring in the character). GravityMan's accent and energy was good, but in terms of staying on beat, well, at least he gave a reason for the issues (he had no way to listen to the beat as he recorded). Shovel Night was great, with highlights on the cadence and comedic timing of the "watermelon to the face" part. So yeah, great job Dragon, great job Grav, great job Shovel.

Conclusion
Yo Dragon thanks for giving me the motivation to lend my voice to a thingy. I hope to do it again sometime soon :)

So, a cute little spinoff from Hippie Rat Reviews. We'll see if I do this anymore than this.

Not entirely sure what else to say. See you later I guess