How to Use Youtube ‘Missile Command’ Easter Egg (to Defend Francoise Hardy)

It was my finest moment — using the Youtube Missile Command Easter Egg to defend Francoise Hardy.

Except in the end I failed.

It was November 2013 — youtube had introduced an Easter Egg that allowed you to play Missile Command on any video, as follows:

1. Start playing any video,
2. Pause it,
3. Click anywhere in whitespace, and
4. Type 1980

And bam — the Missile Command music came on and you had 4 guns at bottom of the video to shoot incoming missiles that started coming down just like the arcade game.

I took to the keyboard, drew up a Francoise Hardy video on youtube — “Comment te dire adieu” — and followed the steps — running Camtasia Studio at the same time to record the defense.

Midway through I thought I had it — I’d be able to defend Francoise through the course of the video. But then I a missile got thru and cracked the screen. The first sign this wasn’t going to be so easy. And then the missiles started coming faster. I didn’t expect that. Soon I lost two of the 4 guns. And soon after, it was curtains.

Sorry Francoise.

I should have kept playing and tried to win a battle, but I figured I’d have time in the coming days to do that. I tried again a few days later, but the Easter Egg was gone — didn’t work anymore.

Youtube has yet to bring it back and it’s been 10 years. I’ve asked Rumble CEO Chris Pavlovski to consider this amazing, fun feature. No response yet.

I hope they do it will increase traffic on the popular challenger to youtube. Rooting for youtube to bring it back as well.