Release the Bogus

About

"Release the Bogus" is a common catchphrase/portmanteau said by Super Macho Man in 2009’s Punch-Out!! Wii. It is a common catchphrase used in videos featuring Super Macho Man and in forums by his fans. The absurd sentence mixes a couple of voice clips that can occur naturally in the game.

Origin

In 2009’s “Punch-Out!! Wii”, there is an unlockable feature in the game called “Title Defense”, where players can rematch the game’s combatants in more difficult and remixed fights. Oftentimes, in Super Macho Man's "Title Defense" fight, he will use a powerful uppercut that can be prefaced by him saying "RELEASE THE BEAST." However, if the user dodges at the right moment, the word "BEAST" will get cut off by him verbally reacting to the whiffed attack. Super Macho Man will usually say "BOGUS" as a result, hence the portmanteau "Release the Bogus." Two examples of the voice lines spliced together can be seen below.

Early instances of the quote can be traced back to Urban Dictionary and Gamefaqs, shortly after Punch-Out!! Wii's U.S.A. release. Urban Dictionary has two separate entries on Releasing the Bogus, with one definition being an optional preparation before "Releasing the Beast" in fighting. This definition was created by user "Harmanecha" on June 17th, 2009 with a score of 276 upvotes and 19 downvotes, and the other – "discribed" as taking any given thing to its logical extreme – was created by user "Creeper Jones" on September 11th, 2009.^[1]

In Gamefaqs, the message board section of Punch-Out! Wii has several topics all about Super Macho Man's "Bogus" Catchphrase. A dozen topics under the keyword "Bogus" can be found, showing off various instances of "Bogus" and other popular sentence mixings in the game. All topics and replies appear to have been contained in the timeframe of mid-to-late 2009. The earliest two topics (under the "Bogus" search query in particular) both talk about the "Release the Bogus" quote, with its first post on May 26th, 2009.^[2]

Online Presence

Soundbytes of "Release the Bogus" can be found on several websites and with varying quality, most notably Youtube and 101 Sounboards.com, where it is free to download. Embedded instances can be found on sites like myinstants.com and soundbuttons.net, shown below. Memes have been made from this incidental catchphrase as a result of the unintentionally absurd sentence mix through audio, images, and videos.

Sparta Remixes/YTPMVs can also be found on Youtube, with several examples coming from German Youtuber “EscarBOOM”. The YouTuber released a grand total of nineteen whole "bogus-es" on the platform between March 24th, 2015, and September 8th, 2015, although the last few videos in the series appear to be called that in name only.

More recent original images related to Bogus can be found in r/punchout, usually garnering an average of around 70 upvotes per image (examples shown below).^[3]

Various Examples

!

Search Interest

External References