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By Jack Beresford
Senior Reporter
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A Stranger Things fan has uncovered an error in the latest batch of episodes that only true children of the 1980s are likely to spot.
The hit Netflix series prides itself on offering up an authentic depiction of life in 1980s America. In 2022, an interview with star Winona Ryder in Harper's Bazaar noted that the actress, who rose to fame in the decade with movies like Heathers and Beetlejuice, made a point of fact-checking scripts on the show.
Some things still slip through the editing process though, whether it’s an error about the names of the kids on the show, or the mistake spotted by Jacob, a content creator who recently took to X to highlight an error on the latest batch of episodes that may have passed some viewers by.
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Jacob, who posts to the platform under the handle @thegrayfruit, is a fan of Stranger Things, though believes the series is not without its flaws.
“It's drifted away quite a bit from its more small-scale horror-adjacent roots in Season 1 into a kind of campy adventure show that's got a lot of spectacle,” Jacob told Newsweek.
Jacob believes you could find lots of anachronisms and inaccuracies throughout the series, but doesn’t believe that’s an issue.
“The show isn't necessarily striving for accuracy but more a sort of idealized, half-remembered, indulgent wallowing in media nostalgia, which isn't an inherently bad thing,” he said. “However, it does feel a little cynical at times when it essentially just amounts to product placement.”
With that said, Jacob could help but take notice when, during the latest batch of episodes, the characters were shown playing the video game Ghosts N’ Goblins on their Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
“My fiance were both chuckling at that scene right away when it showed up,” he said. Jacob is a huge fan of the game. “Ghosts N' Goblins is pretty cool, it's famous for being absolutely brutal to beat but it's a fun, sort of Castlevania-like platform game that feels great to achieve even the tiniest amount of progress in,” he said.
However, he was quick to notice that the version displayed on the television in the series was not the NES version but rather the one that was played in video arcades at the time. “I kind of hate the NES port, however, it's noticeably worse than the arcade version, so while I would sit here and scoff at the wrong game being used in the show, the one they did show footage of in the show is the superior version for sure,” he said.
After doing a little digging, Jacob concluded the footage was potentially gleaned from a YouTube longplay video of a gamer trying to complete Ghosts N’ Goblins.
Taking to X, Jacob highlighted the issue with a tongue-in-cheek post. “New Stranger Things shows a kid playing ghosts n goblins on an NES but it's clearly NOT the NES version displayed on the screen and I for one am apoplectic with rage at this development,” he wrote.
The post has so far earned 1.1 million views on X, which isn’t necessarily a surprise to Jacob. “Stranger Things is an immensely popular show and the whole thing has just the tiniest whiff of controversy to it, and controversy travels fast on the internet, like a wildfire,” he said.
However, he thinks part of the popularity is down to the fact his post was misconstrued. His claim about being “apoplectic with rage” was intended to be sarcastic.
“I figured it was an obvious exaggeration, but as the post gained more and more traction, it did a thing we X users call ‘breaking containment’ where the tweet leaves your target audience and new people seeing the post have a higher chance of misinterpreting it,” Jacob said.
“I am not actually ‘apoplectic with rage’ about this, it's certainly a bit of a trashy move for such a massive show to do, particularly this specific show that puts nostalgia for the past in full focus so frequently, but in the grand scheme of things it is a molehill of an issue, not a mountain.”
He does however think this was a “very avoidable problem” that “anyone with the slightest knowledge of this niche interest” might have been able to fix. On the flip side, he also appreciates this isn’t a “dealbreaker” for the show.
Jacob doesn’t know how the show will end, but is expecting some “whammy gut-punches” in the episodes to come. “The Duffer Bros. have been hinting at some kind of late-game revelation they've been planning for all along that will recontextualize the whole show, but frankly, I'm not inclined to believe that,” he said. “Hopefully whatever they pull out of their hats will at least convincingly resemble a good idea even if they're just making stuff up as they go along.”
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