Back in the day, Nintendo was actually quit the advertiser. Unfortunately, in recent years they seemed to have lost this gift. In the NES days it was just plain cool to own a Nintendo and as many games as you could get your grubby little hands on. With propaganda like The Wizard, and Captain N, it made you feel like a loser for NOT being in on the whole video game thing. And for those that were, it was like being in some secret society. As for Captain N, you knew all the characters… hell you played AS all of the characters. They were the greatest things to ever grace the planet as far as an 8 year old was concerned. Even though many games and gamers have grown up I still think modern game companies could benefit from some good old fashioned movie and cartoon tie-ins. I guess there was that Pokemon cartoon... but that does not really count since Pokemon is a lame franchise and never deserved its success. If you look at the characters of Captain N you can clearly see they are all solid, cool characters (except for Gameboy) even if Megaman and Kid Icarus have speech impediments. But I guess that is just sentimentality talking.

In this episode of Captain N, we are introduced to none other than Gameboy. What's that you say, the Gameboy as a character? Yup, Nintendo had the audacity to introduce the Gameboy as an actual character. I am sure it had nothing to do with the fact that the episode aired in 1989 and happened to correlate very well with the release date of the Gameboy… They really did stretch the limits of product whoring on this one, but I think they managed to just barely pull it out and make it watchable and not a complete train wreck. I mean really, how much emotion can you convey through a talking Gameboy? How did they expect the audience to make a connection with this thing?



The episode starts out with the N-Team about to rescue Princess Lana's father from the mirror world through a portal when they receive a transmission from him. He informs the team that there is only room for one person in the portal and that it would be best if he sent someone who has been like a son to him. Yup, you guessed it, that person is Gameboy. For some reason, he is under the impression that the Gameboy will one day be their greatest hero. This really has to be a slap in the face to Kevin, who has always been touted as the savior of Videoland. But I guess these things can all be overlooked if it all results in greater sales for the Gameboy.



Although saddened that her father will not be returning, the impending arrival of Gameboy seems to make up for it and sends the princess into a tizzy of anticipation. She sets off to prepare a new room for her new "little brother". Naturally, this makes the rest of the N-Team very jealous, since they want the princess all to themselves. Kevin and Simon both want to get into her pants and somehow view the Gameboy as a threat to that goal, whereas Kid Icarus and Megaman love being babied by her… Uh-oh, I can already see the tension here.



Meanwhile, in the dark world of Metroid, the evil Mother Brain hears of the Gameboy and the potential power it possesses. The evil Doctor Willy concludes that the Gameboy is the most sophisticated computer in Videoland and would be a great asset for Mother Brain's evilness. She decides the best course of action is to send her two cohorts, Eggplant and Hippo to fetch the Gameboy so she can use him to achieve her evil deeds.

Back at N-Team headquarters, the Gameboy makes its arrival via inter dimensional satellite. After getting the Gameboy's batteries loaded and powering him on, it is revealed that Gameboy is a disrespectful troublemaker. How the princess's father saw this jerk as a son and savior of the galaxy is a little hard to understand. The only thing Gameboy seems to be good at, is breaking the toys the princess gave him and pissing off the rest of the team by harassing them. Fed up with the annoying Gameboy, the team decides to do the wise thing and pull the plug on him until they can think of what to do with the trouble maker.

With the team distracted Eggplant and Hippo warp into the N-Team headquarters and kidnap the deactivated Gameboy. With their new prize in hand Doctor Willy sets to work on converting the Gameboy to do evil things instead of just the rude things it did before.




The team eventually notices that the Gameboy is missing and immediately know who is responsible; it has to have been the insidious Mother Brain. The team decides that they might as well rescue the troublesome computer, and they all head for Metroid and Mother Brain's lair. On Metroid they make the disturbing discovery that Mother Brain has reprogrammed Gameboy. With the Gameboy now under Mother Brains control she commands him to send monsters after the team. We are then treated to a remake of the song Monster Mash in which many of the words have been substituted with video game references as the N-Team try and battle the myriad of monsters the Gameboy sends after them. Just as all seems lost Kevin's faithful dog Duke, sneaks his way into Mother Brain's lair and pulls the plug that must have been feeding the evil juice into Game Boy. This causes the Gameboy to explode. I don't know how but the explosion does not destroy Gameboy as you might imagine but rather, it reverts him back to his old self.



With Gameboy back to his old self and in the safety of the N-Team headquarters, they decide to make Gameboy a permanent part of the team. Now I don't understand why the hell they all decided that the Gameboy was such a good guy all of a sudden, but I am guessing that they were just feeling guilty about shutting the assface down earlier. At this point they have the mandatory group laugh that signals the end of the cartoon and we are left with the realization that we will have to watch this stupid Gameboy many more times in the future.

This episode of Captain N is a perfect example of how Nintendo could just tug a few strings and their latest product would become a character on a major kids television show. That's a lot of damn power to have when you are marketing a product to very impressionable young kids. It is quality advertising that the television networks ended up paying Nintendo for, just for the honor of showing it. This is just one of the many reasons Nintendo has stuck around for as long as it has. They have smarts.

BONUS!: Video cassette cover and back