Videogame cartoon adaptations.

[Ike]

 

Was watching the Super Mario Bros cartoon on Netflix one day and an advert for the Zelda cartoon played halfway through which reminded me watch this again. So I imported the DVD since Netflix didn't seem have the cartoon available to stream.

 

I had watched the series a looong time ago, but didn't remember much about it apart from it being terrible. And it still is. Anyway, I decided to do a summary of the first episode.

 

Episode 1: "The Ringer"

 

 

 

Like most good Zeldas/RPGs the series starts with Link just waking up. Link awakes in a bad mood, complaining about how he's now living in Castle and not going out on Adventure and sleeping in the mud like he used to.

 

 

Of course he keeps the Triforce, which by the way can talk (sometimes in rhyme) and there are only 2 pieces of the Triforce according to the opening so it's actually a Biforce, in his bedroom in plain sight without much protection.

 

 

Link soon remembers why he stays at the castle "Beautiful morning today Princess, especially from this view".

 

 

Wait, is this a kids cartoon?

 

Zelda if offended and Sprite the fairy brings Zelda her robe to cover up.

 

Meanwhile, since Link is distracted, some Moblins break into his room and 2 of them grabs Link while the other goes for the Triforce.

 

 

 

"Hey I'm ticklish".

 

Link procedes to Kick one of the Moblins into the one trying to grab the Triforce which knocks them into his bed and knocks his sword and pillow in the air.

 

 

"Pillow fight!"

 

Link battles the Moblins using his pillow to disorientate them and leave them open. Of course it's a kids cartoon so they couldn't have Link going around stabbing enemies so he defeats them by using the beam sword to "zap" them.

 

 

 

One of them even drops a magic bow, how nice.

 

Zelda then conveniently knocks on Link's door right after he defeats the moblins. Link, of course, expects to receive a "reward" from Zelda for defending the Triforce, however he ends up getting a slap to the face for his earlier comments.

 

 

Link explains what happens and Zelda comments how his is the third attack this month so Link has to stay and guard the Triforce while Zelda judges an amateur wizard contest which Link isn't very happy about.

 

 

The scene cuts to Ganon, cursing his minions for failing their mission. He then hatches a new plan to infiltrate Hyrule castle by posing as an amateur wizard and entering the contest.

 

During the contest, Ganon summons a keese to scout the area and check if the Triforce is guarded, which it is by Link and Sprite so Ganon turns one of the lizards into a dragon to draw out Link so he can save Zelda. Link immediately jumps into the action after hearing Zelda scream.

 

 

 

"Whoa, toasty!"

 

Link eventually defaults the dragon with 3 zaps of his beam sword with a little help from Zelda using a silver dish to reflect the beams. But it's too late, Ganon has just ran off with the Triforce!

 

Zelda hacthes a quick plan to catch up with Ganon by planting an acorn having one of the wizards use their grow spell to grow the tree which Link and Zelda use to launch themselves into the air.

 

 

 

They hadn't considered how they were going to land and they end up falling into some trees before Zelda lands on Link. Link tries to get a reward for "saving" her but Zelda points out they nearly died. Ganon is approaching however so Link zaps one of the Stalfos carrying Ganon's carriage sending Ganon into the air.

 

 

 

Ganon summons some more Staflos so Link and Zelda team up by tying each other together with Link's belt so they can fight back to back. The stalfos loose of course and Ganon tells them ti fight "like this" and does some boxing moves.

 

 

Ganon gets caught by a bomb blast during and gets caught on fire.

 

 

Eventually there's one Stalfos left who throws a bomb at the heroes, Link zaps him while he's open and Ganon tried to make a break for it, but Link knocks the bomb thrown earlier at Ganon which blows up just inside the entrance to the underworld and the Triforce lands safely at the heroes feet.

 

 

 

 

The day is saved and Link tries his luck once again about getting a reward, refusing to untie his belt until he gets one. Zelda eventually agrees but right before they kiss they get interrupted by Sprite who then frees them. They laugh (apart from Link) and the scene cuts to Ganon again now sealed in his "Evil Jar" cursing them and promising they will pay for this.

 

 

 

 

The end.

 

The cartoon is pretty "so bad it's good", Link is really annoying and this cartoon is pretty much why I hope Nintendo never makes Link talk. He spends most of the time trying to get a kiss from Zelda, which is fair enough I guess, he did save Hyrule. And she does usually agree but they end up getting interrupted or Link offending her. Not to mention his catch phrases which the cartoon creators insisted he had to say had least once an episode. I know he won't act the same way as he does in the cartoon, but still, the trauma is already there. "Evil King" Ganon is reduced to a Saturday morning comedy villain.

 

To it's credit, the cartoon does use music and sound effects from the games which is always a good thing in my opinion.

 

So what are people's favourite video game to cartoon adaptations? The Super Mario Bros cartoon wasn't bad. I enjoyed The Adventures of Sonic, the Archie Sonic cartoon, bits of Sonic X. Ys has an excellent and fairly accurate adaptation. Or what shows do people love to hate?

 

 

Well excuuuuse me, Princess!

[Mokong]

Ah the memories.

 

On Cartoon I keep meaning to look for on DVD (or download) is Captain N The Games Master

 

So many fond memories of that show.

 

Wreck It Raplh 2 should have a reference to this show

 

Intro:

 

 

EDIT

Ah seems there's a few eps on Youtube Wohoo

 

1st Ep

[Retro_Link]

These were my two favourite video game cartoons!

 

 

 

 

I felt because of the way video games were much more limited in terms of story back in the day, and just a few text boxes, these cartoons really fleshed out the worlds of Mario and Sonic. You got to know the characters this way (whether accurate or not). Just a lot of fun!

 

They also used to inspire me to draw when I was young, and create scenes based in the Mario world.

[Agent Gibbs]

ahh so many memories, i have all those Zelda episodes on my computer somewhere

[Jonnas]

That Zelda cartoon sounds so 80s, it hurts. I do dig how it made Zelda into an "action princess" before the games did, though.

 

I liked watching a Sonic cartoon back in the day. I have no idea what it was called, but it felt really faithful to the games.

Sonic Underground came later. Still enjoyable, but it was a different beast, very little to do with the games.

[Helmsly]

Donkey Kong Country

I used to watch this all the time on cable in the late 90's. Most episodes had King K.rool trying to steal a crystal coconut, with characters breaking into song at least once in an episode. Looking back the show wasn't very good, I think I just watched it because it was something to do with Donkey Kong country.

 

Earthworm Jim

Channel 4 used to show this Sunday mornings in the mid 90's, so this would be the first thing I watched at the weekend for a couple of years. What I liked about this show was that it constantly broke the 4th wall, with character talking to the audience and poking fun at what was happening. This show has aged very well, still funny today. Fun fact: Earthworm jim himself was voiced by Dan castellaneta (voice of Homer simpson).

 

Kirby: Right Back at Ya!

I used to catch the occasion episode of this back in 2004 on Fox kids, I don't know why I like this show, maybe because its unashamedly goofy in what its doing. I really liked that Nintendo gave this show its own channel on the Wii!

 

 

Captain N and the Mario bros cartoons were also favorites of mine.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Helmsly

[Hero-of-Time]

No Pokemon in this thread? For shame!

 

I watched Pokemon up until around the Orange Island series. I hated how Brock was replaced with Tracy and I also got annoyed with Ash. I hated how he wouldn't catch Pokemon or would just release them randomly. He was always a shoddy trainer in my eyes.

 

My hatred started off when he lost the championship battle to Richie purely because he was a bad trainer. Charizard did right to just sit there and not obey him! Yes, i'm still bitter.

 

Earthworm Jim

Channel 4 used to show this Sunday mornings in the mid 90's, so this would be the first thing I watched at the weekend for a couple of years. What I liked about this show was that it constantly broke the 4th wall, with character talking to the audience and poking fun at what was happening. This show has aged very well, still funny today. Fun fact: Earthworm jim himself was voiced by Dan castellaneta (voice of Homer simpson).

 

THIS!

 

I honestly loved this cartoon to bits. I was a big fan of the games as well, but the cartoon was freaking awesome. The writing in it was so funny, it had so much charm and humour to it. Are these out on dvd? I would snap them up straight away if they were.

 

*heads to amazon*

[Ike]

On Cartoon I keep meaning to look for on DVD (or download) is Captain N The Games Master

 

Pit's voice is terrible. My poor ears.

 

THIS!

 

I honestly loved this cartoon to bits. I was a big fan of the games as well, but the cartoon was freaking awesome. The writing in it was so funny, it had so much charm and humour to it. Are these out on dvd? I would snap them up straight away if they were.

 

*heads to amazon*

 

It was released on DVD in Australia in 2011, I can't find it on Madman's website any more though. Sure I heard it was getting a US release but I have no idea what happened with that. I imported the Australian version though, and it is indeed good. Still hilarious.

 

Edit: Found this one on Amazon.com.

Edited February 25, 2013 by Ike

[-Dem0-]

Some of my favourites have already been mentioned; SMW, Adventures of Sonic & Pokemon. Here are some others:

 

 

I remember seeing the advert before this show started to air, I wasn't interested at all until one day I caught the opening, and it hooked me, I thought it was awesome. The show itself was okay, I hardly remember much of it. Might give it a re-watch.

 

 

If there was ever an opening that would get you into a show, it would be Medabots. So catchy and cool, still gives me goosebumps.

Anyway, this was one of my firm favourites during the Fox Kids era. I really liked the characters in this show, even though the art style was a bit bland, but I think it suited the animation. My favourite was the main character; Ikki his voice actor was nice which is quite hard to find (imo) for a dub. Perhaps the best part of the show was Medabee and his personality which I found to be down right hilarious.

 

I actually watched the TV show before playing some of the GBA & DS titles, was still very enjoyable though.

 

 

Who could ever forget Pokemon's favourite cousin?

 

The original was my favourite show on Fox Kids. The characters were so varied yet well developed, I liked them all except for T.K. My favourite characters were Tai & Izzy.

 

I've watched the episodes countless times, never got tired of it as it was such an enjoyable adventure. The opening was just Epic. The only thing that continues to sadden me is that I hated every other series after the first, each one just seemed like it was getting worse when compared to the one before to the point where I just stopped around Series 4/5. The first is still amazing though, maybe that's just my nostalgia speaking to me, but I watched through the whole of Series 1 about 2 years ago.

 

The first group of 'DigiDestined' will always be my favourites, this show was awesome.

 

I'll try and remember some more later on.

[Debug Mode]

Oh man, Medabot's! Used to love that. After me and my friend found out it was based on a game, we were going nuts about the possibilities and how awesome it would be, but with a lot of stuff around that time, they were gauging things with the cartoons to see if they had potential to be the next Pokemon and the low popularity probably killed our chances to see a localisation.

 

I'm most likely going to buy the new Medabot game here on 3DS before I leave Japan as I've always been curious. I'll probably let my friend play too as we're still good buds and we sometimes bring it up, but I imagine it'll be a pain assisting him through it.

[Jonnas]

I loved the Medabots cartoon. A shame the franchise never took off properly (also, what the hell was up with the 2nd series/season? It just wrote off a bunch of characters while reusing bot designs)

 

Digimon is based off some tamagotchi thingy... And god, that American opening is just awful. I hate the dialogue changes they did, too. I swear, if the show was aired in that package here in Portugal, I'd never watch it (the music and dialogue were kept closer to the Japanese version, instead).

It's still a bit amazing how good the 1st Series was, though. The 3rd series (Tamers), too.

[Guy]

Pokemon is probably the best videogame cartoon in my opinion. It's extremely faithful adaptation, even down to every episode eventually following the same goddamn format just like the games.

 

The Mario cartoons were fun when I was a kid, but they were very hit/miss when I watched a bunch again recently. The later shows in particular feature some truly atrocious artwork and animation. Something in particular that always bugs me were the completely bizarre name changes made to the Koopa Kids and Kamek. Wasn't he called like.. Wizenheimer in the show? Also, did it tick anyone off in the original Super Show series how the animators coloured Toad wrong sometimes? His head would randomly have white spots on red rather than red spots on white.

 

I always much preferred the "serious" Sonic cartoon to the zany one with Scratch and Grounder. It had a cool ongoing plot and a couple of nice attempts at dark story elements. That season 2 cliffhanger was insane, it drove me mad the story was never concluded even though the creators of the show have since gone on record with what was planned if the show had been renewed. Deep down inside I'd always hoped those glowing red eyes at the end of season 2 belonged, completely inexplicably, to Knuckles.

 

As an adult, I'd probably enjoy how fucked up and weird the zany Sonic cartoon was. Actually, I'm gonna try watching that sometime soon.

 

Oh yeah, if you like the Sonic games and plan to hit Sonic X up for some good animated times, don't. I liked some parts of Sonic X, but the whole thing felt so truly mishandled. There are some pretty strong emotional moments spread throughout though, unfortunately most of them focus on that twerp Chris Thorndyke.