From Sprites To Cels: Classic Games That Turned Into ‘Toons
Any look back at classic video game merchandising would be remiss in its duties if it didn’t mention some of the most highly visible - and yet least memorable - spinoffs: Saturday morning cartoons.
Video games had quickly been picked up as a theme in cartoons - does anyone remember the godawful Super Friends episode where our heroes are miniaturized and chased around a maze by a huge, omnivorous, blue Pac-Man controlled from on high by a diabolical mad scientist? No? Then you’re lucky. There was actually such a cartoon, but trust me, it’s not the sort of thing you’d want to remember.
But then again, the same applies to some of the cartoons which were actually licensed by various video game makers.
Naturally, Pac-Man was the first to appear, premiering in 1983 on ABC. The pilot episode actually aired first in prime time, during a preview special with several other kids’ shows, and this pilot episode was the only instance in which Pac-Man ever got chomped on screen. Perhaps the ABC brass thought this was objectionable or scary for we youngsters. (And some ten years later, they didn’t think the sight of Dennis Franz’s butt would scare or offend us as adults?!? But I digress.) As some expected expected, the subsequent episodes of Pac-Man spiraled downhill quickly, essentially turning into a clone of Popeye: swap out the sailor man for the round yellow one, Olive Oyl for Ms. Pac, Swee’pea for Baby Pac, and spinach for power pellets, add a dash of the Three Stooges for the ghosts’ cameraderie (or lack thereof), and you’ve got - in a nutshell - Pac-Man the cartoon.
Perhaps even more surprising than the fact that this thing stayed on the air for more than one year was the fact that Bally/Midway and Namco turned around and modeled the Pac-Land arcade game on the TV show - complete with theme song! A game, based on a cartoon, based on a game? Don’t even try to keep up with it. A later and much more obscure game called Pac-Man and Chomp-Chomp also borrowed from the cartoon.
CBS was the next network to cash in on the arcade action with its Saturday morning programming block called “Saturday Supercade.” Long before Donkey Kong and Diddy Kong were brought to life in Re-Boot-style CGI, Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Jr. had their own separate cartoons on CBS, along with Q*Bert and Frogger. The video-game-themed ‘toons offered by CBS did little to improve on the animated incarnation of Pac-Man.
Frogger played the role of a newspaper reporter in a swamp occupied by fellow amphibians (and was cancelled pretty quickly). Q*Bert went from profanity-spouting to plain-bread in his segment, which showed the noser as a teenager in a 50’s-style high school (with Coily the snake and his cohorts as the school bullies). The cartoon based on Donkey Kong paired the ape up with rival Mario and Mario’s girlfriend as a sort of reluctant Odd Couple, while Donkey Kong Jr. searched for his father with the help of a motorcycle-riding pal with a knack for getting into trouble.
Not all of the Saturday Supercade shows survived. Frogger and Q*Bert were early casualties, replaced by cartoons based on Pitfall! and the Don Bluth animated laserdisc game, Space Ace.
On the subject of Space Ace, it’s worth mentioning that Dragon’s Lair also had an animated series, which vastly watered down the tone and look of the characters in the original game. Those of us who were entering adolescence at the time never quite forgave the TV show for covering Princess Daphne up, even though a vast improvement was made in giving her more personality and more intelligence, rather than the original game’s helium-voiced ditzy blonde.
On average, the game-spawned cartoons had little to do with their quarter-sucking counterparts. As embarrassing as it was to watch at times, Pac-Man actually came the closest to retaining the elements of the original game.
Of course, these days, we’ve had the aforementioned computer-generated Donkey Kong/Diddy Kong cartoon, and numerous shows are hitting the air which blur the lines: what was created first - the cartoon, the game, or the toys? Check your local TV listings for Monster Ranchers or Pokèmon for further details.
Super Mario Bros. later made it to full-fledged movie status, as did Mortal Kombat (which then morphed into a short-lived live action TV series).
The question remains: were other classics overlooked in the annals of animation? The answer, in my mind, is YES. Some games were plotted so well - even if the plots were tenuous links between sequels - that they begged for some Hollywood-style fleshing-out of their stories. The mind boggles at the thought of a properly-executed, animè-style show following the Defender-Stargate-Robotron-Blaster cycle of games. Sinistar could have easily made the leap to TV or movies. One of the creators of Joust claims that he’s had, from day one, visions of a Joust movie - but I have a hard time with that concept. (Maybe it’s because I occasionally have to feed a gaggle of real live ostriches, but I just can’t fathom anyone actually riding the things.)
I’m sure that everyone has their own favorites about which they’ve imagined whole epic storylines - but that, friends, was the charm of the early games. What they may have lacked in graphical finesse, they made up for in spades by forcing the player to use his imagination - and in so doing, the player invented half of the adventure in his head.
Sometimes, when I remember these cartoons, I think that it may have been better that way to begin with!
