The Wizard

Now this movie was essentially an hour and a half Nintendo commercial but what's not to love? You've got Fred Savage gettin all hot headed about Nintendo games, Jenny Lewis tears it up as Haley, Beau Bridges as the cool dad that get's hooked on the TMNT game, Kids running away, and of course lots of video game footage. So the story goes Corey (Savage) and his brother Jimmy (Luke Edwards) run away to go to the video game championships in Las Vegas to make some dough. Okay that out of the way (there's more, but just watch it to get more of the story) Let's get to the beautiful game footage.

Here's some shots of where Haley joins in by betting her bus ticket on a game of good ol Double Dragon. I love these shots because they use the actual Nintendo Playchoice cabinets. This is also where Jimmy displays his stellar talent for the games.
I mean this kid is pretty damn good, I remember being all jealous of his skills when I was a kid watching this. That aside though I know I wasn't the only one - there was something about Nintendo playing a big role in a movie that made this rediculously exciting.

This is what it's all about Dad gets in on the games a bit. He first turns them down for being a waste of time but it doesn't take him long to get hooked. This was a turn of hope for many kids. "Look Dad, he likes Nintendo!". Luckily my dad was already down with the NES and I actually did find him up early the day after christmas of '88 rockin some Duck Hunt. Okay back to business, runnin away aint cheap so what to do? hustle some more money playing games (Jimmy is flexing his skills on "F-1 Dream" in this shot)

Okay, now if you were a kid of the 80's we all knew at least one kid like this. The rich bastard that had all of the NES games he could ever want. Although for me this was empowering since I shared his name - Lucas :) He was an ass though. He even tried to put the moves on Haley. Don't worry though - my man Fred Savage wasn't having any of that, He was ready to fight for Haley as if she was Winnie Cooper from "The Wonder Years".

Okay, now he's done it! Lucas even had the Power Glove! and he could kick ass on "Rad Racer" I really despised him at this point of the movie and it made me cheer on little Jimmy even more. I had one friend that had this that was actually cool, but I kid you not - the rest of the little turds that I knew who owned this pinnacle of superfluous components were total jerks.

After I saw this whenever People asked me what I wanted to be when I grew up - I promptly responded with Nintendo game tech support guy. Now this would be the sweetest job ever! Too bad it's a little outdated. I know there's Xbox and PS2 game support lines out there but it's a dead business thanks to the internet.

This just comes with the territory, you run away cross country and your parents are bound to find out. Who knew that they sent out a breast grabbing pervert! This doesn't happen in the movie but this is one of the key moments in the movie that I remember. I was laughing histarically when I watched this again and heard Haley spout out her classic line to alert security when the bounty hunter tried to grab Jimmy.

This is what we've all been waiting for - It was our lucky day my friends when we fiested our eyes upon not only a huge Nintendo monitor, but the first preview of Super Mario Bros. 3. We even learned one of the key secrets to the game - where to find one of the secret warp whistles! I was so excited when I got the whistle for the first time and thought back to when I first saw Jimmy do it at Video Armageddon. Needless to say it was on a 13 inch tv and not a humongo screen that made Mario rival the size of your younger brother.

I hope you enjoyed looking back at one of the pinnacles of Nintendo advertising, but believe me this isn't a half bad movie and definitely stands the test of time. Sorry kids it's not on DVD yet, you'll have to rent that warn out VHS tape at your local video store - have fun though!