Welcome to another edition of Playing With Power. The review article that looks at all things Nintendo Entertainment System. For the last six articles, we’ve reviewed many of the classic games for the console. Now it’s time to look at another aspect of the NES. That being the advertisements. Commercials are important to pretty much any product. A good commercial can make your product, and a terrible one can destroy it. And of course, a cheesy one can be fun as hell to watch. So, when it came to advertising for the NES, how well was it handled? That’s what we’ll be doing here. We’ll take a look back at five classic NES commercials in this first edition of NES Ad Break.
#1. Legend of Zelda Rap
Let’s kick this off with one of the most legendary commercials from the NES era. Around the time of it’s release, The Legend of Zelda got two very terrible commercials. But we’ll look at the most infamous one for now.
The ad stars what could easily be the most polar opposite of friends I’ve ever seen in a commercial. You have Corey Feldman’s understudy, and a reject from the latest Revenge of the Nerds movie. Poindexter, as I’ve coined him, shows Feldman the latest issue of the Nintendo Fun Club Newsletter. Feldman gushes over the graphics, and wants to play the game badly. Lucky for him, Poindexter responds with “You mean you haven’t played it yet? We can play it on my Nintendo Entertainment System.”
They then proceed to shame the white man by producing a rap so bad that even the 80’s wouldn’t want it, as game footage is shown. Let’s sing along shall we?
“It’s the Legend of Zelda and it’s really rad
Those creatures from Gannon are really bad.
Octoroks, Tektites, and Leevers too
but with your help, our hero pulls through.
Yeah! Go Link, go! Get Zelda!
WICKY! WICKY! WICK!”
(I swear that “Wicky Wicky Wick” is like a chainsaw to my ears. )
The two lads are wowed by the game, spouting that it’s “Awesome!” “Intense!”, as the commercial ends. Not before reminding us that our parents help us hook up the NES.
Okay, first off. Why is Poindexter feel the need to show Feldman the newsletter if he already owns the game? Was this ad also a stealth Nintendo Fun Club commercial as well? Second of all, and this has always bugged me about this ad…
That is NOT the Zelda cart! The textless black label, and the lack of the ever-so-epic gold cart makes it kinda depressing to look at. I mean, you’re already trying to get the people to buy your game, can’t you at least try to build up the fact that it’s in a swanky gold cart? Cool buttons on the NES tho.
All in all, this is easily a case where a game earned it’s popularity without the help of advertising, because lord knows this wouldn’t help anyone out.
2. Back to the Future
LJN’s Back to the Future game is one of the most notoriously bad licensed games, especially on the NES. Bad music, terrible gameplay, and barely scraping anything that actually resembles the actual 1985 classic. But, how does the ad fare?
it involves this kid, who is playing the Back to the Future for the NES. Meanwhile his family, who are slowly fading away in the background, watch on. He runs into an in-game bully, who launches a pixelized fist right into the face of the little sister, which causes her to start fading. Next, a cartoon milkshake beans dad, which causes both mom and little sis to vanish. Finally, he tries the Delorean level, only to end up failing by hitting 86 miles per hour. The result causes an explosion. The kid looks behind him, as his family is nowhere to be seen. And he too vanishes.
Back to the Future: Lose once, and you cease to exist.
The ad does do a fair bit better at selling the game then the Zelda ad did. The theme of the ad still fits the major plot of the movie. It also shows off plenty of of game footage, including the final level. Though my only real gripe is the use of that god awful in-game song. But other than that, this still does a fairly decent job at selling a bad video game.
3. Ultra Games
Most people probably know the history of the short lived Ultra Games company. But for the uninitiated, here’s the skinny. Ultra was a spinoff company from Konami. During the early years of the NES, Nintendo of America had a strict licensing rule that restricted the amount of games a company could release a year to a mere five. Since Konami had a huge library of games at the time, they created Ultra Games in order to get most of them released. The company lasted until 1992, when Nintendo of America got rid of the rule.
So, of course with a new company came advertising to sell their product. But how does one get their new company across to a new audience?
By creeping them out of course.
The ad features a Dr. Smith wannabe who materializes in front of the T.V, and introducing himself as the creator of Ultra Games. He then begins to shill in a ghoulish voice games like Metal Gear, Defender of the Crown, and Skate or Die. All the while, constantly popping up out of nowhere, no doubting causing many traumatized children. He ends the commercial by materializing back into static with a grim warning that “I’ll never be further than your T.V”
Well, time to throw the set out I guess. Lord knows when he’ll pop out to kill me.
All kidding aside, this ad is okay at best. It shows plenty of footage of the games (You know, when his head isn’t obstructing the view), and hypes them all up quite well. Too bad most of the time I forget this is a video game commercial for fear that this guy’s gonna take my soul. The power of Mario compels you!
4. Game Genie
You know. I love a lot of things from the 90’s. Hell, if given the opportunity to relive the decade, I would in a heartbeat. But even I know some things have not aged well, and a good pair of nostalgia glasses can’t help a lot of things. Especially certain ads.
In this ad, we have two Bill and Ted wannabes, who are hyping up the new video game enhancer, the Game Genie. With their surfer dude accents turned up to 11, they tell us that the device can be attached to games like Double Dragon 3. (Oh, I’m sorry. Double Drahgun 3). And you can make the games do plenty of neat things. Like live forever, or jump higher.
As shown in these fake NES games.
But the enhancer is so tubular, radical, and Reaganomics that it causes the television to explode. Does this worry our two bodacious boneheads?
No, they find it to be most “EXCELLENT”
While this ad feels like nostalgic vomit, it still does a decent job at selling the product, despite Galoob being unable to show real video game footage. In fact Game Genie would be one of the most controversial peripherals on the NES. But we’ll get into that another day.
So, we’ve dealt with bad rapping, games that can cause life erasure, a creepy man that lives in your T.V, and two cheating dimwits. How do we finish this article up? We need a commercial that’s really memorable. But for all the wrong reasons.
5. You Cannot Beat Us
Yeah, I had to cover this one. Out of the depths of Australia comes a fine piece of classic nightmare fuel.
We start the commercial with an eerily show version of the main Super Mario Bros theme, as a blocky CGI man appears. Sounding like a gargling robot, he proclaims that “WE ARE NINTENDO! ULTIMATE TV GAME SYSTEM!” As if that wasn’t bad enough, as we see gameplay footage using peripherals like the Zapper and R.O.B, we are greeted by his friends. Demonic robot versions of Lakitu, Bowser, one of the Smicks from Gyromite, and the Duck Hunt Dog (as if there wasn’t already enough reasons to hate that damn mutt). Each of them boasting that “YOU CANNOT BEAT US!”. With their dead eyes, they challenge all players, and the commercial ends.
This ad is just plain freaky. The early CGI, and the evil, robotic voices sure as hell don’t make me want to bug my folks for an NES any time soon. Even with the video game in the background, and some emphasis on the product, this still doesn’t convince me that this commercial helped sell the console in any way. If I was to compare it with a more recent ad, I’d say it chalks right up there with the infamous PS3 baby ad. Were they so confident that the console would be a hit that they felt the need to make the potential buyers brick their pants? Either way, this ad is awful. I’d rather hear the Zelda rap over these soulless hellspawns any time son.
And that’s the first installment of the NES Ad Break. I hope you enjoyed this look back at classic video game commercials, and hopefully we’ll return to this soon. But next week, it’s time to get back to the meat and potatoes of Playing With Power. And that’s reviewing the games for the console. See you then.