Tag: animation

Sundry Sunday: The Failed Pilot for the Bubsy Cartoon

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

Bubsy has been undergoing a bit of a revival lately, with a well-received collection out from Limited Run/Atari and an upcoming 3D platformer that’s the talk of the flat-toned polygonal town.

Soon after release hopes were high for Bubsy. Games like Sonic the Hedgehog and… well… Sonic the Hedgehog 2 had the world convinced that edgy animal mascot platformers were golden, and characters like Aero the Acrobat and Awesome Possum invested our consoles like wisecracking vermin. Bubsy was just one of them.

Bubsy got a pilot for an animated show. It follows. (27 minutes)

Another failed pilot from the time was one for Battletoads (22 minutes). Earthworm Jim’s pilot was actually successful, and its cartoon lasted for two seasons, and it wasn’t all that bad. Bubsy’s cartoon… well, see for yourself.

Sunday Sunday: Kirby Air Riders Meme Videos

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

Aah these were laying around my video list. If I don’t post them now I’ll never have the chance, so let’s get them out of the way.

Made after the first Global Test Ride, where one particular character was very popular…. (1 minute):

This video seems to imply the two versions of pretentious penguin King Dedede have different designs, but honestly all I see is one of them has bigger irises than the other? (2 minutes)

Thirteen seconds about the dangers of being a pedestrian in Sky City Place Location Zone:

Finally, this isn’t an animation, but something that can actually happen in game. This is a major spoiler, so some space….

For the solid of mind and stout of body who has braved this far down….

There’s a new legendary machine that relates to events near the end of Road Trip, KARs’ story mode, called Gigantes, with stress on the middle syllable: Gigántes. Imagine saying it like SoulCalibur’s narrator says Cervantes. It’s an incredibly huge thing that takes up almost half the city! Immediately the remaining time becomes about defeating it, sort of how like, in Strange Adventures in Infinite Space, certain games get randomly chosen to be Mission Games, where in addition to turning a profit you have to save the universe.

If Gigantes is still active when time expires, then the Stadium automatically becomes Vs. Gigantes, the Gigantes player against all the others in a big dire battle. Like this (3 minutes):

Sundry Sunday: Recent Wigglewood

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

Presenting Wigglewood here is kind of a cheat, I suppose. It has the aesthetic of an old VGA MS-DOS game, with voice acting supplied on CD-ROM, but it’s really more of an animated fantasy cartoon. Its DOSness is more of a stylistic choice than something that really connects it with the world of interactive eclectic electronic entertainment (with the slightly fitting acronym IEEE).

But they’re fun anyway, and if I’m breaking the rules I was the one who set them to begin with. Here is The Quest, which finally advances whatever flimsy plot this series could be said to have. (2 minutes)

So the villain the barbarian and wizard are chasing is Wormdahl after all. Funny, although he hangs out with a succubus he doesn’t really seem that evil, even, as this video shows us, he has a vampire friend. He probably should find better friends. (also 2 minutes)

When these two groups finally meet up they’ll probably get into a slap fight, or maybe stub each others toes. I can’t wait.

Sundry Sunday: Mario & Luigi’s Vacation Videos

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

A few years ago, former long-time voice of Mario, Luigi and Wario, and current Nintendo “brand ambassador,” Charles Martinet posted some amusing videos on Instagram, of him playing around with some figures of the plumbers and improvising their voices during his vacation in Chile. At the time I found them charming! I don’t know about others? The posts have been preserved here (10 minutes), but they aren’t the point of this post.

SuperStaticPro made some Source Filmmaker animations that repurposed the audio into little vignettes. I also like them, and they are the point of this post.

The first (1 minute):

And the second (also 1 minute), and also containing possibly my favorite Wario interaction of all:

Sundry Sunday: Malo Mart Animation

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

This week’s subject: The Legend of Zelda: Twilight Princess.

The first LoZ didn’t have much ROM space for whimsy, but every Zelda game afterward made sure to spare some space, and time, for goofy characters.

Zelda II had Error and Bagu (a.k.a. “Bug”). Link to the Past had that bat that “cursed” you with a doubled magic meter. Link’s Awakening, basically, had everyone. And so forth.

One of the darkest Zeldas is Twilight Princess, the story of a lost race of Hyrule that was sealed away in a parallel dimension by its oh-so-helpful goddesses. But it’s also the game with Agatha the Insect Princess. And it’s the game with Malo.

After an unfortunate fate happens to Kakariko’s shopkeeper, the town’s shop stands empty. Around that time Link rescues three children from Moblins, and the youngest is the surly Malo, whose baby-like appearance and stern expression contrast hilariously with each other.

As it turns out, Malo has plans for that empty shop, for when Link visits at a later time, it has turned into… Malo Mart (31 seconds):

Malo Mart is where Link can buy the Hylian Shield, but also the Magic Armor, a hugely powerful piece of protective equipment that converts damage Link received into rupee costs. As long as your money holds out, even the final boss can’t scratch Link, and, somehow, it’s all thanks to Malo.

In the half-minute video above from Patrick Alfred, Malo himself doesn’t actually appear, although that is his face is plastered all over the outside. The shopkeeper is an employee; Malo himself can’t see over the counter. I assure you though, the music in the video is directly from the game, in all its dubious glory.

Sundry Sunday: Game Over by PES

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

(grumble grumble… stupid WordPress…)

PES is an acclaimed and Oscar-nominated stop motion animator. They’ve done terrific work. One of their videos is game-related, and additionally references classic-era arcade games. Have a look (1½ minutes):

Nintendo’s “My Mario” Cartoons

Nintendo has released a series of short animations starring Mario in various inoffensive, vaguely humorous situations. They average at a little less than a minute each, are nearly wordless except for Mario’s vaguely-Italian noises, and are obviously intended for children. Hey, it’s a low-effort week. Consider yourselves informed.

The first:

Number two:

Tres:

One interesting thing bout them, they’re on Nintendo UK’s YouTube channel, and I think on Nintendo of Japan’s, but they’re not on Nintendo of America’s channel. I wonder why?

Sundry Sunday: Wario’s Day Off

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

I’m a little late on this one, I was watching the end of SGDQ late last night. This week’s video is from deep i the files, a fan animation by Mario Ramirez of Wario stealing a statue from Bowser Jr. and Kamek. It’s pretty simple and disjointed, but watchable. It’s around 6 minutes long.

Sundry Sunday: Wigglewood & Amazing Digital Circus

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

It was vitally important to tell all of you about Pugberto last week, I’m sure you’ll all agree. A couple of other items had to wait a week before I could present them to you.

The Amazing Digitial Circus has a fifth episode now. It got over 40 million views in a few days so there’s a good chance you’ve found it by now. Still though, here ’tis (25m):

The Amazing Digital Circus has merchandise, and some pretty amusing videos to sell it. There’s a new one of those too (4m):

Over on a much less trafficked portion of Youtube, the hapless heroes of the Wigglewood Tales have a couple of new videos too, The Bandit (2m):

And, the Mystic Emporium (2m):

Baldur’s Gate 3 Final Patch Animation

Larian Studios has announced the last Baldur’s Gate 3 content patch, and they commissioned a cartoon, from Spud Gun Studios, to commemorate it. It’s more mass-market than most of the things we present here, but eh, it’s the final patch. 4½ minutes:

The same people did some other animations over the past months as well, so we might as well make this a roundup post. They’re all official content.

Mod Support (3 minutes):

The game’s leaving Early Access (3½ minutes):

Christmas (3½ minutes):

And The Greatest Foe (a particular frog in the swamp, 2 minutes)—but Youtube’s awful policies think it’s made for kids, despite the frog getting murdered bloodily at the end, so they made it unembedable. YOUTUBE HAS DONE A STUPID THING, LET THIS ALLCAPS MESSAGE STAND IN TESTAMENT TO THIS RIDICULOUS FACT.

Sundry Sunday: Parappa is Bad at Driving

Sundry Sunday is our weekly feature of fun gaming culture finds and videos, from across the years and even decades.

It’s been ten years since a little line drawning animation called URappinBad! shows up on Newgrounds. Now its creator Kevin Fagaragan has gone back and not only made it into a full color animation, but shows it side by side with the original.

This is the new video (3 minutes), which has the comparison at the end, and its Newgrounds page:

And this is the original by itself (1½ minutes):

Be on the lookout for cameos by Parappa’s friends PJ Berri and Katy Kat, Cheap Cheap the Cooking Chicken, and UmJammer Lammy. Both videos of course feature music taken directly from the Playstation classic Parappa the Rapper, which still has one of the best soundtracks in gaming. They got the music stuck in my head all over again. “When I say boom boom boom you say bam bam bam, no pause in between! C’mon let’s jam!