Homestyle Flashback: Captain N - The Game Master

You’ve got to hand it to the marketing geniuses at Nintendo. Back when they were running the world, they had their hands in everything from cereal to movies (like the Wizard, a feature-length commercial). Their influence was also felt in that most sacred of periods - the Saturday morning cartoon. If you grew up in the 80s, you’ve seen Captain Lou Albano sporting the Mario costume and Link spouting “Excuuuuuuuuuu….uuuuuse me, Princess.” Those guys had their own series (technically, Link just had a series of cartoons piggybacking off of Mario) because they were A-listers, but Nintendo, not content to let their B-listers avoid promotion, slapped them all together, threw in a spunky teen, and created Captain N: The Game Master. I have fond memories of this show, but will it still hold up once I removed the rose-tints?

For those of you who have never seen the show, let me give you a quick rundown of the premise (conveniently re-explained at the beginning of every episode). Kevin Keen is a typical teenager, addicted to video games and hanging out with his dog, Duke. What he doesn’t realize is that, gasp!, his video games are real and exist in a place called Video Land (creative). The princess of this realm, Lana, is currently being attacked, so she opens “The Ultimate Warp Zone” and pulls Kevin through his TV during a quick bout against King Hippo. Now armed with a zapper and a controller belt buckle, he battles video game villainy in Video Land.

Let me just tell you, after writing that, I realize how ridiculous it sounds, even for a children’s show. What I’m going to do for this particular Flashback is give you a running commentary of the pilot episode, titled “Kevin in Videoland.” For those of you who have never watched it, consider this a taste, and for those of you who have, I hope you enjoy this look back.

The episode begins with a map of Video Land. Video Land apparently consists of 6 areas - Castlevania, Metroid, Mount Icarus, Kongoland, Megaland, and the Palace of Power. Once the map fades away, we get a HOLY CRAP WAS THAT MEGA MAN? What was that thing?! It was a little green man that whizzed by on a scooter and screamed “MEGA HI!” at the screen. No….that couldn’t have been Mega Man - just someone who was mega high. Ok, moving on and we get to WHAT THE BALLS? KID ICARUS? Sleeping on a cloud?! And then he shoots a lightning arrow over to Castlevania where we see George Hamilton in Han Solo’s Hoth outfit chasing a bat. Wait…Simon Belmont? Wasn’t Simon Belmont damn near a caveman? Loin cloth and whip? ALrighty….Let’s just get through this 30 second intro of zaniness - we see Donkey Kong wearing an apron and cooking, Mother Brain sounds like the plant from Little Shop of Horrors, Kevin gets sucked into his TV, end opening. Mega High, indeed.

Now, Kevin is like the typical teenager as seen through the eyes of the late 80s - clean cut kid, athletic, voice like Zach Morris, all around good guy. What I never understood was where the letter jacket came from. In my day, either you were a jock, or you were a nerd who sat around and knew the ins and outs of the Metroid map - it was near impossible to do both, and if you were that second kind of kid, the only athletics you took part in involved the Power Pad. Maybe it’s just me, but I like to think that Kevin’s dad was in Vietnam and he just wears his old man’s high school jacket. In fact, that would explain why he’s a shut in, living his life through Nintendo, but whatever - he’s the Game Master.

Now that the episode has kicked into gear, we find that the Palace of Power has been under siege for 7 years, thanks to Mother Brain and her army of Wizard of Oz rejects - they seriously do the “Oh We Oh” thing from Oz. King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard are MB’s goons. Hippo declares that they’re simply too strong for the Palace to withstand, which is funny, because they’ve been withstanding MB’s attack for 7 YEARS! MB gets upset by his comment and attacks Hippo and Eggplant Wizard, who apparently craps vegetables when he’s nervous, which makes a delightful popping noise.

Back at the castle, Princess Lana (strangely, an original character living in Video Land) is worried that she’s doomed. Icarus (who ends random words with -icus; “Just doing my duty, your highnicus”), Mega Man (who sounds like he’s had a tracheotomy), and Simon Belmont (awesome in his arrogance) stand around and just kinda scratch their heads for a bit. At the height of her despair, a Power Glove talks to her (really) and tells her the legend of a hero who can save the day. Kevin and Duke get pulled into Video Land, and now the story can begin.

Kevin instantly recognizes all of the characters that are now standing around him, which is amazing because they look NOTHING like their game counterparts. He asks what’s going on, so Lana catches him up about the Warp Zone. Let me remind everyone reading this that this is now the 3rd time we’ve heard about the warp bringing Captain N to Video Land. I realize this was a Saturday morning cartoon and kids were probably loaded up with sugar at this point, but it probably wasn’t necessary to keep repeating the origin 4 minutes into the first episode.

The newly minted Game Master turns down the position, saying that it’s basically too weird for him to handle. Back on Metroid, MB sends King Hippo to “punch out their defenses” (clever) and sends Eggplant Wizard with him. I don’t know if I picked up on this right, but I think Eggplant Wizard has a crush on MB - he calls her his sweet potato pie. Just the logistics of a purple blob nailing a brain in a jar makes me nauseous to no end.

Icarus, Mega Man, and Simon decide that, in this most dire of situations, their top priority needs to be to cheer the princess up, rather than protect the castle. Simon, being the suave pimp that he is, decides he’s going to take the lead on that particular task. Little does he realize that King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard are already in the castle, following him to locate the princess.

At this point, I realize two additional things about King Hippo - 1. he doesn’t have his signature band-aid on his stomach, and 2. he has the BIGGEST NIPPLES EVER! Seriously, you’d need a pasty the size of an LP to cover one of those things. They (Hippo and Wizard, not Hippo’s nipples) capture Simon and throw him down a warp just before grabbing the princess. Captain N walks up to the door and suspects something weird is going on so, faster than you can say NRA, he takes his Zapper and shoots the door down. King Hippo throws Lana at him while Eggplant Wizard throws vegetables at him. Kevin now discovers that he has Matrix-like powers when he uses his Power Pad belt buckle. Kevin and Eggplant Wizard then have a showdown, with Eggplant Wizard winning by way of…turning Kevin into a banana…sigh. Lana is taken, and Kevin smells like a Runt.

Captain N rounds up the troops, who are busy barricading doors with furniture. Icarus has a weird accent that I didn’t notice before. It’s like a Boston newsie, with a speech impediment, just hitting puberty. Kevin and Simon argue over the best route to Metroid. Simon insists he knows where it is, but Kevin states that he’s played this game a whole lot and knows where the warp to Metroid is. I don’t even know what that means. You mean he played a game called “Lana is Kidnapped” and there’s a warp in that game that leads to a completely different game? How does that work?

They take Simon’s route (after he pulls the ol’ Harvey Dent on Kevin) and wind up in Donkey Kong’s shower. There’s a warp in Video Land that leads to Donkey Kong’s shower, folks. After a brief fracas with the giant ape, including Simon being squashed flat against a tree, they find another warp leading out of Kongoland, located inside a volcano. Dun Dun DUUUUUUUUNNNN.

Meanwhile, on Metroid, MB sends Lana to a locked tower guarded by THE MOST RETARDED LOOKING GUARD EVER CONCEIVED IN LIFE! Seriously, look at that guy and tell me his parents weren’t siblings. I realize the villains in this show aren’t all that spectacular looking, but geez, check that guy out. Wow…

Kevin and the Chan Clan make it up to the top of the volcano where Kevin insists there’s a warp, using the same logic he used before. “I’ve played Donkey Kong enough times to know what I’m doing. Trust me.” I don’t remember a volcano or a warp in Donkey Kong, so my faith in Kevin at this point is wearing thin. I think for the next week or so, I’m going to make random suggestions and back them up with nonsense.

“Let’s punch that homeless man. He’ll pay us money if we do.”
-”I don’t think that makes sense.”
“I’ve played this game plenty of times to know what I’m doing. Trust me.”
::WHAM::

The volcano shoots boulders up and Kevin hits pause long enough for everyone to hop onto one. His pause button is fairly inconsistent - earlier, it paused everything but him, now it only pauses the boulders. This must be one of the earliest examples of context-sensitive buttons. I guess by “warp” Kevin meant “bus stop” because they wind up riding those boulders all the way to Metroid, a trick he picked up while playing Donkey Kong. Simon insists he knows the way to the princess and goes down a pipe on his own, while Mega Man tosses Kevin into the locked tower. Kevin lands on the Reguarded Tard (I think I spelled that wrong), killing him. Kev and Lana reconcile, both apologizing for really no reason. MB shows up and challenges Lana, Kevin, and Duke to make it through “the corridors of Metroid.” What follows is a musical montage of chase sequences not worthy enough to warrant dialogue other than “WHOA!!!”

The three heroes bust into MB’s chamber only to find that Kevin’s zapper and power pad are out of juice, at which point, in clichéd fashion, Simon, Mega, and Kid bust through every wall imaginable to back up Captain N. At this point we find out that Simon’s whip is magic, and not in the Vampire Killer sort of way, but in the it-has-a-mind-of-its-own kind of way. It pulls an Anaconda on Hippo and Wizard, while Wizard craps radishes. Technically, at the end of the day, Kid Icarus is the hero, shooting the “Make Mother Brain Spin and Shoot Electricity” switch that she leaves lying around by her jar. In typical fashion, he receives no recognition. Tough breakicus.

Back at the palace, Lana urges Kevin to stay and help out, but Kevin says he has to get back to his world, the world of acne, girls who aren’t into video games, and homework. However, when he walks up to the warp, he hears his harpy of a mother tell him to stop playing that foolish game and take out the trash. The prospect of having to do a menial chore makes Kevin reconsider his leaving. The only thing worse than fighting a giant brain in a bottle is taking out the trash.

I also want to mention that, while the end credits are running, we get to see the origin story again. We’re now up to 4 times.

This show was great as a kid. Seeing all of the characters that I recognized from games that I was currently playing, coupled with the cool little gimmicky things, like having a controller over your junk, and sound effects from classic games, was a total blast as a kid. In hindsight, it’s super cheesy, with corny dialogue and even cornier situations, but it was what it was supposed to be - a kid’s show that pushed Nintendo further into the public consciousness. Seriously, short of grinding up an NES cartridge and injecting Fester’s Quest directly into my veins, there was no way Nintendo was getting further into my brain than this show. The entire series is currently out on DVD. If you’re as nostalgic as I am, you should at least rent it. It’s worth a peek. And honestly, it’s a masterpiece next to the Mario movie. Til next time, folks, PAUSE!

Technorati Tags: Captain N, cartoon, Mother Brain, NES, Simon Belmont, Zack Morris

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