This week's Mortal Movie Monday is another great Mortal Kombat reference parody found in another medium. As we all know, Mortal Kombat is referenced and parodied all around the world. So it wasn't a total surprise to see a great parody of Mortal Kombat in the menu system of the DVD for The IT Crowd Series 2.

For those unfamiliar with the show, The IT Crowd is a british comedy focusing around a small group of IT workers and the people they interact with. It's a brilliant show created by the self proclaimed geek Graham Linehan and is created in such a way it appeals to the geeks and non-geeks alike. It wasn't available until recently in the US, as reruns now air on Tuesday nights on IFC Channel. Also earlier this year the DVD sets are becoming available on Amazon as well as instant streaming on Netflix.

The previous season's IT Crowd DVD had many pop culture and video game references, and the second season goes above and beyond that. It is riddled with video game references from the 90s. From their own All Your Base/Zero Wing spoof, to Lemmings and as I mentioned earlier, Mortal Kombat. During the episode select screen you'll be greeted with a Mortal Kombat 1 style character select screen along with parody music. If you wait you'll see battles between the various characters set in each episode. So if you have seen the show, and this season already, the parody is even more amusing. Also watch for the unintentional Mortal Kombat 9 "Attack of the Dogs" reference thrown in. Go ahead and watch the clip below, courtesy of Luke from TotalMortalKombat.com, who also put some great notes on the video as well which you'll see popup during the clip.





I highly encourage people to check out the show on Netflix Instant Watch, and if you like it you should purchase the DVD sets to support the show. To make it easier, we've added referral links to each season set below. That way you can support the show and TRMK at the same time!

Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another great video. We're always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured.

A recent job posting made by WB Games Inc. Chicago for the upcoming Mortal Kombat 9 is revealing that the Mortal Kombat Team is aiming to focus on strengthening it's online game play. In particular they want to make the game the “gold standard” for online games and add "brand-new features that will revolutionize online play."

Here is the relevant part of the job description:

WB Games Inc. seeks a Senior Software Engineer, Network to help us implement cutting-edge online features to ensure the Mortal Kombat franchise is an industry leader in online functionality. We are looking to position Mortal Kombat as the “gold standard” for network play, and we are looking for someone who wants to push the boundaries of what is possible with online interaction.

You will work closely with architects and designers on both the Mortal Kombat team and the advanced technology group to help design and implement functionality ranging from the core network transport layer all the way to owning the final implementation of brand-new features that will revolutionize online play.

The job opening can be viewed in it's entirety here at TimeWarner.com's job page for those interesting in applying to join the team. We can't wait to see what the team has up their sleeves as far as these "revolutionary features" go. The dynamic interactivity of playing at the arcade has not yet been duplicated properly in an console fighting game yet.

This week's Mortal Movie Monday featured presentation could be considered a piece of Retro Mortal Kombat as there are not many videos from this era. Around the time of the original release of Mortal Kombat on the home consoles, the popular UK video game show Gamesmaster had a Mortal Kombat themed episode in September of 1993. In the episode they brought over the actors from the game to talk about how it was made, and even includes a challenge between Sonya and Johnny Cage in a round of Mortal Kombat.

The actors who appeared are: Elizabeth Malecki who played Sonya, Dan Pesina who played Johnny Cage (and the ninjas) and Ho-Sung Pak who played Liu Kang. You should watch the clip to see who goes home the victor.





Thanks to Tim Static for suggesting the video and MKSecrets for providing the video. Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another great video. We're always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured.

This week's Mortal Movie Monday featured presentation is a bonus video from the game Mortal Kombat Armageddon. In the video you see the audio team at Midway putting together sound effects and voices for the game Mortal Kombat Armageddon with the help of many various other employees at the studio. We actually found this video on an old backup drive earlier today, hense the older TRMK logo, but figured it would be a perfect video for this week's feature.





Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another great video. We're always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured.

This week some proof of a cancelled sequel to fan favorite Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks was discovered. The details found the personal website of a Matthew Doyle, a former Midway Los Angeles employee, who posted some level design concept from a Mortal Kombat: Shaolin Monks 2, which was marked as cancelled.


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When FDMK questioned him about the title, Matthew said that the game was cancelled early on his tenure at the company, and at the time was working under the codename of Fire and Ice because of the use of Scorpion and Sub-Zero.

Matthew Doyle: It was canceled within a few weeks of my arriving at Midway. I don't have anything else to show you unfortunately. Half the studio was laid off, and new management was brought in. Then we started work on TNA Wrestling.

A prototype level was built, but that was it. A few design docs were worked on, and a few characters were made in 3D - Scorpion and Subzero. The game was codenamed Fire & Ice - as those two characters were to be the main characters. I was really looking forward to doing level design and construction for it. It was a shame it was canceled.

Since Matthew only worked for Midway for the period of a year from April 2006 — April 2007 according to his LinkedIn profile so it's very likely the game was cancelled in April or May of 2006 since after that the Los Angeles studio started to focus on the TNA Impact project before the studio was merged with the San Diego studios in 2008.

Does this mean we'll never see a sequel? No, just means a version of the game that was worked on in the Spring of 2006 was shelved. We have no idea or knowledge if the game ever was picked up again for development, but we doubt this is the last we'll hear about another Mortal Kombat Adventure game.

This week's Mortal Movie Monday featured presentation is another much older video from the early years of Mortal Kombat. It's a tour of the Williams/Bally pinball factory along with the Midway game development studios from the long running WTTW Chicago series Wild Chicago. They stop by to talk to series creators Ed Boon and John Tobias just after the development of Mortal Kombat had wrapped or was about complete. Lots of great history is to be found in this rare look into the past of Mortal Kombat and Midway Games.





Thanks to @OriginalRazer on Twitter for suggesting us the video. Come back next Mortal Movie Monday for another great video. We're always looking for great clips to showcase, so don't forget to suggest us a future video to be featured.