Nintendo Cartoons Perpetuate Weirdness

It's not until I viewed the cartoons of my childhood with an adult lens that I realized how truly bizarre the world of Nintendo is when its attempts to tell a coherent story on the small screen. When you're playing a video game - especially on the godly Nintendo Entertainment System - storylines don't have to make much sense. Take the plot of 1990's Bad Dudes, by Data East: "The president has been kidnapped by ninjas! Are you a bad enough dude to rescue the president?"

Then the player says, "Uh, sure, as long as I get to beat up hundreds of palette swapped ninjas." See? Instant story.

Now imagine trying to make a Bad Dudes cartoon. Would they try to save the president every week? How do you keep the series going? Either the president would have to be kidnapped every Thursday, or the Dudes would have to fail in their mission to save him a bunch of times. That's neither very good for the country nor a positive reflection on our favorite dudes' badness.

In the '80s and '90s, video game based cartoons like Pole Position, Darkstalkers and The Super Mario Bros. Super Show faced a very similar problem: How do you take off-the-wall, paper thin video game plots and turn them in to weekly or even daily cartoons? The answer was simple: Emulate shows like Thundercats and Voltron by having the heroes beat the villains every time, but somehow, the villains come back just as strong in the next episode.

The results were a mixed bag, but for the most part, anyone unfamiliar with Nintendo would think these cartoons were written by someone who is very familiar with the Wacky Weed. Let's take Captain N: The Game Master for example. Here's the intro:



So 15-year-old Kevin Keene is the savior of video land, which apparently only includes Metroid, Kid Icarus, Donkey Kong and Castlevania. Screw Mario Bros.; that game was overrated anyway!*

*No it wasn't.

Kevin's mother continues to badger him to "clean up [his] room" as he's sucked into a 15 inch television set, just like in real life. Then he's given the ability to "pause" the action around him, jump several stories high and shoot enemies with his Zapper gun as long as he's got enough energy. If you've never played a Nintendo game, this makes no sense. And even if you have, you're likely to be more than a little confused when characters like the abnormally vain Simon Belmont and the inexplicably green Mega Man start, uh, doing ANYTHING.

Kevin battles against an obviously African American (and decidedly more kick ass than in the game) Mother Brain, a light blue King Hippo who's nothing like his Punch-Out!! counterpart, and a very angry Donkey Kong. Also, the soundtrack features high-pitched, off-key singers belting out classic radio hits like "Walk Like a Man." My brain was reduced to a thick pea soup within three weeks of watching this tripe, and I was, and still am, a Nintendo maniac. Anyone had never been ensnared by the NES's hypnotic grip who caught a few episodes of Captain N must still in therapy right now.

Despite the inconsistencies and mind-numbing craziness featured in Captain N: The Game Master and the other video game based shows, I've got plenty of fond Saturday morning memories of my video heroes come to life on TV. Take a minute to reminisce with these awesome intros for the Super Mario Super Show and the Legend of Zelda if you lived through them. And if not... well, I'm sorry I just hurt your brain.

Super Mario Super Show intro featuring the late Lou Albano as Mario and Danny Wells as Luigi



The Legend of Zelda intro, from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show (Fridays)



The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 Opening

Back to School Week: The Learning Game Vol. 2

Image by Ilese Lotta, frustrated student from Germany

Does your writing hand ache yet from the billions of notes you've been taking? Is your back sore from walking around all day with a backpack chock-full of awful reading goodness? Are you ready for summer 2011 already?

Well don't look now, but the educational entertainment has just begun! Everyone's favorite underemployed English teacher, me, has a few assignments for you. This second double-sized dose of The Learning Game explores some of the obstacles that prevent gaming from being integrated into the current world of American education, and then we'll take a nostalgic gander at the benefits of the good ol' Nintendo Entertainment System on the totally radical youth of the '80s and '90s.

Yes, it's homework. No, it's not that hard. And yes, it'll be on the quiz. Any other questions?

The Challenges of Implementing Gaming in the Classroom

I have no idea what these kids are doing, but it looks important.

If mixing education and video games were easy, I'd have done it already. You might have already guessed that, but if you take a minute to sit down and ponder all the problems associated with such a proposal, your head starts to hurt worse than the time your little cousin forgot to wear his Wii remote strap and lobbed it right into your eye socket. Here I examine just a few of the ways both education in America and gaming itself would have to evolve in order to truly fit hand in Power Golved hand.

Thinking Critically: A Link to the Past

When I was but a wee lad, most adults in my life were either indifferent to gaming or spent long amounts of time trying to convince me that Nintendo was evil and would eventually consume my family and I as some sort of fleshy midnight treat. Whenever someone said I was wasting my time, I replied that I was developing my hand-eye coordination, though I never knew why that was a good thing.

In this essay, I finally found a solid way to defend the gaming heroes of my youth. And it only took me two short decades!

Extra Credit Bonus Link: PlayStation Home:

All Investment and NO RETURN....

Hey guys! I think I found Waldo!

One of the first posts I made when I this blog started picking up steam was about PlayStation Home, the PS3 social networking program. It's scarier than words can describe... so of course, I spend the whole article trying to do just that. Fun for the whole family over 18!

Okay, so are you all done reading this edition of The Learning Game? Then in the words of the immortal Duke Nukem (the game character, not the guy from Captain Planet): "Get back to work you slacker!"