How did James Rolfe and Mike Matei Meet?

There are certain questions I get asked all the time and one of the most frequently asked is “How did you first meet James”. I’ve told this story before, but if you still don’t know, here it is!

James Rolfe and I went to the same college. He got a degree in Film and I got a degree in Animation. We never had any classes together, we met outside of class at a party I was having at my apartment at the time.

There was a night where we had a bunch of friends over and ended up playing a drinking game with a deck of cards, as is typical when you’re in college.

We had played several rounds of the game, and then I got a knock on my door. It was James with a friend of his who knew someone else at the party. With the game we were playing, the idea was every time you lost you had to take a swig of beer. Well, unfortunately James had a few too many! A bit later on in the evening, James started to feel sick and said he might throw up. He go up to go to the bathroom, but I could tell he wasn’t going to make it. I handed him a vintage metal Pac-man trash can for him to use, but he missed and threw up all over my arms.

He then proceeded to the bathroom and shortly after, went home. That was that, or so I thought.

The next morning I got a knock on my door, and there was James. He apologized for what had happened and told me that he forgot his hat. We went into my bedroom where I had brought his hat and he saw that I had some old Transformers toys. We got into a discussion about G1 Transformers figures and nostalgic things from the 80s and have been doing the same thing ever since.

I talked about this with James a few times over the years and the day we met was also the same day he met Ozzy Osbourne. This was October 20th, 2001 (which also happens to be Bela Lugosi’s birthday).

You know what they say, nothing brings two people together like hot vomit..we’ve worked together ever since! 😀

 

28 thoughts on “How did James Rolfe and Mike Matei Meet?”

  1. That’s awesome. It’s really cool to see two friends and the history behind of how they became a part of pop culture ! You do an excellent job running the show in James’ absence. Make an actual show based on the mf’er mike character!

    Question though, in many recent videos James mentions being very busy – too busy for even games, meaning he’s not busy with nerd projects. What’s he so busy with????

    1. Well, he has a family which I can imagine would take lots of time. Also he has to edit a film review every week as well as Playlist Junkie, and AVGN clearly takes a lot of time (Watch episode 102 to see why!)

  2. Haha you handed him a vintage pac-man trashcan to throw up in and he missed. I honestly thought James would of went all nerd when he seen it.

  3. Long time watcher from Israel. even though i never had an NES ( nor did anybody i know) because the system was pretty much none existing in my country, i could still relate to most of the stuff you guys produced. Which means you are doing something right.

      1. quick question.

        Though we didn’t have NES in Israel (SEGA ruled the region), we did have an 8-bit system called Megason which was pretty popular with kids who couldn’t afford a Megadrive.

        Was it just a Famicom knockoff?

  4. This kind of thing happening is somewhat of an embarrassing event, and a person would likely want to avoid meeting anyone from when it happened. Just think, if he didn’t forget his hat there, he likely never would have gone back.

  5. Hi mike im from méxico i been see your videos from many years and like to see your mike mondays every week to see some retro game play and i want to say that you are the best duo from retro gamming nostalgic era a good friendship history ends up very well after the puked arm and was fun to read before new year thanks for sharing. : D

  6. That’s for sure a Funny story. I know the channel for a quite while now, and slowly i started admiring the passion that You and James put on every video.
    This little bump that turned out into a friendship it’s quite silly but still one of those stories like no other… I admire you both and also envy the long time friendship you have. Keep doing James and Mike Mondays! And keep that passion going on.

    Thanks 😀

  7. and since then, Mike willingly get vomited on shit on by James, lol
    it was beautiful, may this friendship last
    and, how can we expect Munky Fuck sequel?

  8. That is a cool story. Thank you for sharing. It is always nice to know more about you guys.

  9. That’s not sanitary; more seriously, I’m delving deeper into Cinemassacre. I’ll soon be out of YouTube content to catch up on, so it’s only natural I let my fingers slide across the CM web space and find out what’s more to discover.

    Dude, Mike, you had me rolling on the Doub Drag ii playthrough

  10. This is a pretty interesting story, but it is also funny that you guys met by James throwing up on you

  11. You guys are great together, a bromance I could say but you guys are like Matt Damon and that other guy, very good best friends that make awesome videos and have awesome hobbies! Regards.

  12. That makes perfect sense. I could always tell you guys were tight, but there seemed to be a bit more mutual respect than childhood friends tend to show each other. None of that bickering or petty “big bro/lil bro” behavior.

  13. Hey mike! Not sure if you’ll see this, but I’ve got 2 questions I’d love to have answered.
    1. What have you been playing lately for fun, not for recording?
    2. What beers do you normally drink? I’m a natty daddy and ipa guy.

  14. That’s cool, sounds like the day James meet you was one of the best of his life too. You guys make a great team, and content.

    Uhhh Review “M” next month? or not. Thanks for sharing, have a great day Mike.

  15. Dear Mike,
    I’m a big fan of your work and joy for games.
    I don’t know, how to write you other than here, so please consider my request. There is a brand new NES game for the original NES as cartridge. Its made by two awesome dedicated guys. Its called “Micro Mages”, and honestly it is one of the best NES games I’ve ever played. I never had so much fun playing an NES game with friends.
    http://morphcat.de https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/morphcat-games/micro-mages-a-new-game-for-the-nes
    You really want to play a James and Mike Mondays session on it. Let me know if you’re interested. I can ask the game designers (via kickstarter, where I backed them) to send you an original cartridge.

    You guys rock!
    Take care!

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