It’s 3 p.m., let’s destroy our brains with some video from the Gallagher arcade game
It’s 3 p.m.! Let The A.V. Club briefly make use of the waning hours of your productivity with some pop culture ephemera pulled from the depths of YouTube.
In 1992, something very strange happened. The waning popularity of famed prop comic Gallagher intersected with the quickly rising popularity of full motion video graphics and light gun games to create something wholly unnatural. It’s called Gallagher’s Gallery and, thanks to one resourceful YouTuber, the entire thing is available online for your viewing displeasure. That’s not to say we recommend watching the full 27 minutes of repetitive clips devoid of context. Instead, allow us to highlight some choice bits from this haunting digital artifact.
Like Mad Dog McCree, American Laser Games’ previous, more popular release, Gallagher’s Gallery is a series of light gun shooting galleries intercut with live-action video of characters either giving you instructions or admonishing you for missing your target. Except the only character to appear in this game is the watermelon-smashing comedian himself, who occasionally changes it up with different costumes and voices. For example, at the 3:40 mark we see Gallagher dressed as a little boy, bouncing around an over-sized bedroom set, whining about how his “mommy” wants him to take his medicine. It is, to say the least, very fucked.
Later, Gallagher addresses the player as a flamboyant, giant-handgun-wielding cowboy and then again as a faux-strongman complete with disgustingly fake muscles. Each of these little scenes is punctuated by a montage of random objects exploding in slow motion with sound design right out of a David Lynch movie. Of course, it wouldn’t be a Gallagher project if it didn’t end with a bunch of watermelons getting needlessly destroyed, which is what happens if you make it to the game’s final level: Death By Melon.
“Was it worth the money to you? It was to me,” the comedian says before the credits role, tainting the whole endeavor with a bit of cynicism. If you’ve made it that far into the game, you’ve already lost. Gallagher owns your soul now and, for the rest of your life, and all your quiet moments will be haunted by this balding, mustachioed hippie screaming about his Sledge-o-Matic.