NetherRealm audio director Dan Forden has left the studio after 15 years, where he’s worked since its founding in April 2010—although since NetherRealm was a rebadged Midway Chicago, it’s perhaps more accurate to say that he’s left after 36 years. Forden’s first game credit, for sound, is on the 1989 Midway arcade basketball game Arch Rivals. He’s most famous for being the voice (and face) of one of the most random but iconic soundbites in gaming history: yelling “Toasty!” when you uppercut someone in Mortal Kombat.
“Wednesday was my last day at Netherrealm. We made a lot of fun stuff over the years. I’m really proud of what we accomplished as well as how much fun we had making that stuff,” Forden wrote in a farewell post on Instagram.
Forden was part of the tiny team that created the original Mortal Kombat in 1992, alongside designers Ed Boon and John Tobias and artist John Vogel. When they set to work on Mortal Kombat 2, Foden was again responsible for the game’s sound and music, and credits Boon with suggesting they add an image of him appearing in the corner and saying “Toasty!” as an inside joke; the catchphrase started as a taunt when the two of them were working on Midway football game Super High Impact.
“I’d say ‘I predict toast,’ like ‘you’re toast,’ and somehow that turned into “I predict toasty,” Forden explained in a behind-the-scenes interview. When someone at the studio said they should “put some of that weird stuff you say into the games,” Boon ran with it.
“Toasty!” returned in Mortal Kombat 3 (where it morphed into “Crispy!” in a particular Scorpion fatality), and Mortal Kombat 4, and even the modern 3D games from NetherRealm.
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Forden may have left NetherRealm, but his presence remains in some form at the studio—his Instagram post shows a sticker of his MK3-era self stuck on a bathroom mirror.
“I love the little touches that people left around the studio like this little Toasty homage on the bathroom mirror,” he wrote. “There are so many smart, talented people there—look for more great things to emerge over the next several years. …
“I wouldn’t have lasted 37 years in the industry if fans weren’t out there playing the games we made. Thanks to all of you for supporting what we’ve done. Live long and… Toasty!”
