YMMV / pannenkoek2012

• Ensemble Dark Horse: TJ "Henry" Yoshi became this with his comment about how "an A-press is an A-press. You can't say it's only a half." that became a meme.
• Funny Moments: Koopa the Quick is trapped by cloned bowling balls, causing him to jump in place repeatedly. Mario joins him, jumping and kicking in the air, as text reads "Forget racing. We're training for the high jump."
• Game-Breaker: If you've watched Pannen's coverage of other challenge runs, you'll soon realize that the A button itself is the game breaker. Remember how Mario had to build up speed slowly without the A button and had to carefully conserve it using water or pause exiting into the lobby? Watch Pannen grab the star Mario Wings to the Sky Coinless/Capless/Cannonless, where he builds up -1.67 million speed in 7 seconds by Backwards Long Jumping and proceeds to use it to completely obsolete the purpose of the Wing Cap in this challenge. It's no wonder the ABC is the largest project out of them all- the A button breaks the other challenges way more than any obscure glitches can break its own challenge.
• Gateway Series: To the handful of casual viewers who end up staying not just for the Rolling Rocks memes, Pannen's educational videos serve as this to the greater TAS community and even other areas of the Super Mario 64 community. Visit any Super Mario 64 video where something strange happens (particularly to speedrunners), and you'll often see one or two comments explaining the glitch and how they knew of it because they watched Pannen's explanation on it.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • It's hard not to see the entire Rolling Rocks video as this, after Pannen's FAQ reveals that he made it largely out of turning all of his negative energy into productivity. He soon discontinued making main channel videos because he thought he'd never make anything as good as that again without subjecting himself to a similar level of emotional torture. It's even harsher when you look through his backlog of videos and saw how much enthusiasm he used to convey through his descriptions, text commentary, and frequent replies to comments. The Rolling Rocks video was followed by a 7-year hiatus on the main channel (broken into two halves by one video that only announces the ABC trials), with pannen's only activity for the challenge being uncommentated videos on his second channel for the better half of the decade.
  • TJ "Henry" Yoshi's situation, since he was just one of many viewers confused about the half-A press notation and happened to be singled out for the video. TJ got a ton of undeserved hate for his comment, and it's hard not to cringe when you see internet randoms still harassing him over the half-A press comment whenever they see him. Thankfully, he managed to turn the experience into something positive; it's genuinely heartwarming to see him become more involved with the Mario 64 community and use his platform for good causes.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • Back in 2014, Pannen unknowingly flung himself into a Parallel Universe while trying to look for ways to productively clone Blue Coins. He had no idea what was going on, describing it then as a "limbo world" that had camera issues.
  • The Watch for Rolling Rocks - 1x A Presses video, particularly the comments that say that they don't want that A press to be saved because the strategy was so cool-looking.
• Memetic Mutation: "Watch for Rolling Rocks - 0.5x A Presses" launched a sizable amount of memes:
  • 0.5x A Presses.^Explanation The goal of the video is to collect the star with the seemingly nonsensical restriction of 0.5x A Presses. What this actually means is that the player starts the level holding down A and holds it through the entire level, never releasing the button and completing one whole A press. Doing so saves A presses in the long run since some actions are automatically performed even when A is held. The 0.5x notation is used as a convenience representing the average between two scenarios; when going for the individual star, it requires 1 A press, while in a full run, it can piggy-back off the run's previous press, adding 0 A presses to the run.
  • TJ "Henry" Yoshi: "an a press is an a press. You can't say it's only a half" ^Explanation TJ "Henry" Yoshi left a comment challenging the idea of half an A press. He's basically become pannennkoek2012's Sitcom Arch-Nemesis for that comment alone.
  • One big Scuttlebug jamboree.^Explanation While talking about Scuttlebug Transportation, pannenkoek notes that Scuttlebugs can't go through doors, so if you wanted to hold one of these with all the Scuttlebugs in the level, you're out of luck. This, in tandem with Scuttlebug's Memetic Badassery, caused another meme.
  • QPU Aligned. ^Explanation The aforementioned Parallel Universes can be most easily traveled between in intervals of 4, a movement called Quadruple Parallel Universe Movement, or QPU movement. The map of QPUs is represented as a grid, and Mario is considered QPU Aligned if he is on the QPUs. This interesting-sounding phrase went viral with the rest of the video.
  • "After all, I do build up speed for 12 hours."^Explanation In order to do QPU movement, you need speed, and lots of it- such speed is fittingly termed "hyper speed" by the Mario 64 TAS community. The fastest method of achieving this speed is by Backwards Long Jumping, which of course is not viable for a low A press run. The method used in this video, "hyper speed walking," is a much slower method that involves moving backwards parallel to a steep slope submerged in water, using walls, ceilings, and the game's own out-of-bounds failsafes to keep Mario in place, to build up the necessary speed. While it does not require A presses, it takes 12 hours using this method to be able to meet the minimum required to navigate to the Rolling Rocks star. Like the above memes, this phrase took off once the video got popular.
• Misaimed Fandom: pannenkoek's videos were meant to provide documentation on Mario 64 glitches and discoveries as well as progress on the ABC to those who were already in the TAS community, or at least closely following it. His Rolling Rocks video ended up instead being memed on by the masses, many of whom had nothing to do with Mario 64 and did not understand a word he said.
• My Real Daddy: The A-Button Challenge was all but dead before Pannen got hold of it. He managed to halve the number of A-presses required for a full run in a matter of months, permanently associating the challenge with him.
• Self-Imposed Challenge: The majority of his videos demonstrate ways to beat Super Mario 64 levels with as few A presses as possible. He has also branched out and has created "no joystick" videos on occasion.
• That One Level:
  • Treasure of the Ocean Cave in Jolly Roger Bay used to be the most frustrating example. It looks easy enough to grab, since the star spawns right out in the open. However, it spawns at such a location and height that almost all known ABC strategies (such as vertical speed conservation) fail to work to grab it. The only hope for a 0x strategy is building up enough speed to fling to the star off a nearby rock; the lowest amount required to do this is currently around 262. However, the maximum achievable speed in JRB is currently 181, which is quite a bit off from where Mario needs to be.
    • However, on February 11, 2023 a breakthrough came at last, and the curse was dispelled. Investigation into an old strategy devised by Tyler Kehne, for a 0.5 save, reopened. Stomp On The Thwomp planner Marbler posted a promising lead in the Discord server. They tried their hand at it after it was brought up again, and succeeded where previous attempts faltered. One week later, it all came together. Using Hyperspeed Jump Kicking for multiple, absurdly unit precise speed building interactions, along with some brute forcing to lower the total speed needed, the long sought after solution was found.
    • Watch it for yourself here. It is astonishing that it only takes a mere five minutes compared to the multiple hours required for previous saves.

  • For the longest time, Bowser in the Fire Sea was the ultimate obstacle for an any% (70 star) 0x A press run. There was seemingly no way to dismount from the pole and continue with the level without pressing A. This A press was saved, however, with the discovery of a Wii VC-exclusive glitch where imprecise float rounding causes the blue platforms in the stage to rise. The ABC team is still investigating faster ways of saving this A press (the current method takes 3 days) that would also be compatible with the otherwise superior Japanese N64 version, which as explained below saves 3 A presses in Tick-Tock Clock thanks to spawning displacement. The most promising is the "Bully battery", but there's currently no way to use it to save the A press in practice.
  • Tick-Tock Clock was the ABC crew's nemesis for a long time. The vertical nature of the course means that even with the discovery of a hyperspeed building method in the course (hyperspeed grinding on a treadmill), there was no way to complete the majority of stars without using at least one A press. However, a recent revolution of ideas has brought Tick-Tock Clock's A-press count all the way down to 1 in mid-2022, with the final press for Stomp on the Thwomp being saved in November of the same year. The ABC crew discovered strategies such as Behind Camera Anywhere and squish-cancel ground pound chains; when combined, they completely vanquished every A-press left in the course. Finally, one of the challenge's biggest obstacles has been completely conquered.
    • Despite these developments, Mario still can't enter the course without jumping, as the player can't conserve speed into the upstairs area. At the very least, the Japanese N64-exclusive spawning displacement glitch^note By landing on certain moving platforms after grabbing a star, Mario's position when he exits the course can be slightly altered. can allow Mario to leave the course while landing back on top of the clock, which saves 3 entry A presses in a full-game run.
  • Wing Mario Over the Rainbow is a wrench in several of the restriction challenges. It requires 2 A presses in the ABC (not including the 1 A press needed to enter the course), can't be done without special caps or coins (and for a while, couldn't be done without the cannon until sm64expert figured it out), and likely will never be done without the use of the joystick. The Red Coins in the level are just too spread out and too high up for anything else to work.