Behold the Sax-A-Boom. This garish beauty is a toy instrument resembling a saxophone, apparently first released in 1998, with eight buttons and a speaker, with each button triggering a synthesised musical loop. It wasn't an especial hit at the time but, at some point, one found its way into the hands of Jack Black and Tenacious D.
Tenacious D has a live song, simply called Sax-a-Boom, which the band would crack out to the delight of audiences over the years. But it was Black's later appearance on Jimmy Fallon in 2018, during which he played a Sax-a-Boom alongside in-house band The Roots, that saw interest in the toy shoot through the roof. According to the Tenacious D wiki, and who knew that existed, Black's advocacy has seen the instrument become "highly collectable and rare."
Now an enterprising modder has added the instrument to Monster Hunter World: Iceborne. TalonGrayson's mod has the straightforward title "Sax-a-Boom Hunting Horn" and, as you can see in the image, blesses hunters with a comically oversized version of the toy. If you're not a Monster Hunter player, all you need to know is that the hunting horn is basically a giant hammer that you play melodies on while smashing it into monsters, so the Sax-a-Boom is a weirdly good fit for this exact vibe.
"This mod replaces the Awakened Safi'jiiva hunting horn with a Sax-a-Boom, complete with accurate honks to complement your accurate bonks," says TalonGrayson. "Honk n Bonk, fellow rock stars!"
Here's the Sax-a-Boom being rocked in Monster Hunter World:
The real world Sax-a-Boom is, sadly, long discontinued. The eagle-eyed will notice the "Kawasaki" branding but it's not made by the Kawasaki Motors Corporation: manufacturer DSI Toys held the license to make toys with the branding on them, and clearly just decided to slap it on some instruments (the Sax-a-Boom is part of a wider musical toy line called the Kawasaki Rockers Band).
Anyway, we can truly say that this is a mod of which Jack Black would approve. And TalonGrayson's fine work already has many admirers on NexusMods. "If anyone asks me why modding is important for gaming," says Elseyrdh, "I'll show them this."
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