If you were born and raised in any period from the 70s to the 90s, odds are that you had some fantastic cartoons on your television. Odds are even greater that you had one you loved especially. One you never missed if you could help it. One that you would hum the theme song to or daydream about in school. If not, then I envy you. Life in a cave must have been amazing too.

Mine was a little tale about a place called Eternia, where swords and magic met technology and one ripped-as-fuck hero fought tooth and nail to keep a buff, angry skeleton from ruling the world. Not Predator. That’s a horror movie. I’m talking about He-Man, the superhuman punk-destroying pillar of righteousness who has endured as a pop culture icon for 37 years so far.

I was fascinated by He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as a kid, since I was perhaps three years old. I watched most of it on syndication, but I was devoted. The toys, the books, all of it. I even had a sort of pup-tent that went over my bed frame bearing the logo and likeness of the Blonde One himself.

The real story of Eternia began, surprisingly, in 1976. Mattel was in the throes of a classic struggle that many toy buff and kids would insist continues today: The search for the next big action figure line. Lots or R&D, along with some concepts similar to He-Man (that didn’t go far commercially) led up to the final product in 1981. Instead of “Masters of the Universe,” the toy line was meant to be called “Lords of Power,” but members of the team suggested that might sound “too religious in nature.” I guess I see what they meant, but have you ever been to the Church of the Lords of Power? I haven’t. It sounds awesome. Odd nitpicking aside, Mattel was ready to ride into battle. In 1982 the toys hit the shelves, and on September 5^th, 1983 the episode “Diamond Ray of Disappearance” aired on television. He-Man had hit the big time, and history was made.

Diamond Ray of Disappearance, the very first episode to air. Enjoy.

The cartoon incarnation of He-Man was made by Filmation, a production company that did both live-action and animated programming for TV. Founded in 1962, the folks at Filmation had serious experience, serious chops, and a fantastic end product. The show ran for 163 episodes, which his a testament to the impact it made on its audiences.

Let’s start with this sick fucking intro. I mean, just the music alone – a chest-welling, uplifting rock-orchestra piece worthy of a galactic superbowl – is colossal in its weight and cheeseburgery beefiness. Then here comes Prince Adam, a guy who is built like a brick shit-house and yet somehow convinces everyone that he’s the biggest pussy on Eternia. I mean, he does still live with his mom and dad… but it’s a little different when your parents are monarchs. “Fabulous secrets” were revealed to him, however, and so he can turn both himself and his pet giant cat into total, rampaging badasses by calling on the power of Castle Greyskull.

The source of the aforementioned “fabulous secrets.”

Not a bad thing to have in your back pocket when you have shitty neighbors; the evil sorcerer Skeletor craves not only the secrets of Greyskull, but rule over Eternia as well. The cackling, imperious dickhead and his gang of hooligans are constantly flexing on King Randor, He-Man, and the Sorceress who guards Castle Greyskull. Both sides of this epic conflict fill their ranks with numerous allies… I mean, this is a cartoon meant to sell toys, right? Adam (and He-Man) usually rolls around with a minimum entourage of the following homies: Man-at-Arms, the royal arms-master with a super-sweet stache; Teela, Man-at-Arm’s daughter, a serious ass-kicker who has no patience for Adam’s bullshit but just adores He-Man; and Orko, the addle-brained court magician who always seems to fuck things up but sometimes manages to save the day with his poorly-controlled spells. Of course, Skeletor has some friends, despite being a serious douche. He has a tense but workable relationship with Evil-Lyn, a sorceress whose main magical strength seems to be conniving fuckery. A roster of goons including Beast Man, Trap Jaw, Mer-Man and Tri-Klops serve as Skeletor’s vanguard (read: cannon fodder) in the long war against Eternia.

The classic clusterfuck poster, in all its glory. I don’t know if this is the full final roster, but it’s a lot of them.

One really cool thing about MOTU – and perhaps a lost art in all but the softest-themed toons today – was the moral message at the end of each episode. Sure, this show was a consumerist vehicle for an extensive line of kid’s toys, but why not drop some wisdom on the kids? This would always be a theme presented in the story itself (like sharing, responsibility, safety, etc), and more often than not, it was He-Man or Man-at-Arms sitting down for the fireside chat moment.

The animation is remarkably smooth for a timetable-produced toon, and characters are shown running, jumping, etc. in a very natural way. In the tradition of Filmation (and by spiritual sisterhood, Hanna-Barbera), the backgrounds are lush and skillfully colored, on par with motion picture matter paintings sometimes. But what really does it, what really sells the product, is that music.

A total of 72 figures and toys were released, and the series made Mattel insane amounts of money. As for the cartoon, it ran in syndication until 1988, when USA Network bought it and ran it until 1990. The heroes and villains of MOTU briefly returned in a new 1990 series (with its own new toy line), and He-Man resurfaced once more in a new show on Cartoon Network’s Toonami. This show was presented more seriously in tone, and also delves more into the history of Eternia (including an origin for Skeletor). In 1987, Cannon Films released a movie under the MOTU banner, with a more cosmic focus and a somewhat darker tone. This film starred 80s action bull Dolph Lundgren as He Man, and also featured Frank Langella as Skeletor and Courteney Cox as… A normal woman.

If you have a taste for cheese, it’s great. Definitely up there with any other awesomely ridiculous Cannon film.

Needless to say, He-Man and the Masters of the Universe has secured itself a high spot in 80s pop culture. Even now, in the digital age, it can be seen on Netflix, as well as on YouTube. Mattel markets high-end versions of the original figures as collectibles, perfect for the nerd who always wanted a more poseable, articulated sci fi barbarian. There have even been video games; the two that come to mind are the Intellivision (naturally) and Game Boy Advance versions.

Perhaps the war on Eternia will never end. After all, without one another, good and evil have no meaning. He-Man taught us a lot of things, but perhaps that was the bigger message.

We’ll see you next time, barring any technical difficulties due to Orko’s bullshit. Stay Retro!

😉

By this point I’m fairly certain a lot of our readers were kids or preteens when the Disney lineup of cartoons was popular in the 1990s. Some of them were barely memorable, but the ones like DuckTales, TaleSpin and Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers were good enough that some of us (definitely including myself) can sing the theme songs verbatim on the drop of a dime. Of course, in the period between ’89 and ’92, during the last big boom for the NES, a lot of these and other pop culture staples got licensed games. Again, some of these were unfortunate flops in terms of quality, but Rescue Rangers was actually one of the decent ones.

I sang along with this all the way through before grabbing the embed code. Please feel free to do the same. If you’re self-conscious, just make sure no one’s watching… they may want to join in.

If you’re not familiar with the history of the chipmunk duo, they had been around well before someone put clothes on them and made them tiny detectives. They were actually created back in 1943, and appeared in 23 short films until about 1956. They usually acted as gentle antagonists or foils to the dog Pluto, another staple background character in the Disney lineup. In 1988, Disney got the idea of reviving the two chipmunks as part of their flourishing series of network cartoons. The series was run on Disney channel in 1989, and entered network syndication on ABC and CBS in 1990. The show lasted until 1993 on television, and was quietly phased out along with most of Disney’s early-90s afternoon syndicated toons.

While researching this article, I actually learned that their names are a pun on the name of a famous 18th Century cabinet maker, Thomas Chippendale. It has nothing to do with the erotic male dancers. that’s… oddly comforting to me.

In the summer of 1990, Capcom released the Rescue Rangers game for the NES. This was Capcom’s second Disney-themed release for the NES, after 1989’s hugely successful DuckTales title. Overall, Chip n Dale sold 1.2 million copies worldwide for the NES, which we’ll acknowledge as a modest but solid success for a game of the period. It is widely praised not only for its creatively designed gameplay, but also for its engaging 2 player experience wherein many parts of the game are much more fun if played with both chipmunks.

The North American and Japanese box art. The game’s Japanese title is Chippu to Dēru no Daisakusen, which just means “Chip n Dale’s Mission.”

The plot of the game begins with the duo investigating a lost kitten, which turns out to be a ruse by the series villain, Fat Cat. The porcine feline has used the trick to kidnap Gadget, the team’s tech wizard, and put her talents to nefarious ends. From stage to stage, she is able to send small hints via a crude phone she makes without Fat Cat’s knowledge. Chip and Dale must navigate a not-totally-linear series of stages to try and reach Fat Cat’s lair before he achieves his evil plan, whatever it is. Part of your pursuit of Fat Cat involves using a rocket to go to a whole new map of levels.

He not only used a baby as a diversion, but a baby of his own kind. Heartless bastard.

Our tiny pair of gumshoes are besieged the entire time by a strange crew of baddies: evil robots, metal mice, shapechanging glop monsters, rude kangaroos, and assorted other ne’er-do-wells who want to keep them from their goal. Chip and Dale are able to defend themselves by taking a page out of Super Mario Brothers 2‘s book, lifting and hurling all kinds of objects. They can even hurl one another, although this can be a risky tactic at best. Larger items, when lifted, can slow you down a little, but these are few and far between. Gameplay involves not only tossing tiny boxes at your enemies, but also navigating nasty puzzles. Notable are two examples: a series of faucets you must turn off as you advance to avoid being scalded, and a set of switches attached to machines that will drop heavy metal ball bearings on you if not deactivated. The bosses are all huge (compared to you), and require a few smacks with some item nearby to put them down. You can also get a powerup that summons Zipper, the little mosquito or hornet guy, or whatever he was supposed to be. Not only are you invulnerable while he stays on screen, but he flies around stinging the shit out of anything he can reach, which can clear a screen pretty quick.

A small gallery of the lunacy our eensy-weensy heroes must endure to rescue their friend and stop Fat Cat. Click an image to enlarge it (a little bit).

Both this game and DuckTales got sequels on the same console, and those titles were fairly popular as well. A completely unrelated Chip n Dale game came out for mobile in 2010, but I wasn’t able to find much about it anywhere. Also of note, the game was ported to Nintendo’s PlayChoice10 arcade-style console.

I grant Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers for the NES 7 out of 10 stars. It’s a really fun game to play with two players, it’s respectably difficult but approachable, and overall it’s a memorable Capcom title. It also deserves credit as another example of a licensed game that isn’t utter shit.

That’s all folks! See you later in June for more NRW Gaming action! Tune in next time!

If just seeing that logo didn’t fire off a powerful twinge of nostalgia for you, then we probably grew up in very different places. You probably grew up on the Moon or in Narnia. I’m not sure where you were, and I’m not going to focus on it. It’s a downer if you didn’t have the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles in your life. As they might say, a “bummer.”

The Ninja Turtles were our generation’s Pokémon. I can recall that from 1989 to about 1996, you couldn’t turn your head 90 degrees without seeing either a Batman logo or (more likely) that one up above. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, created originally as a (rather mature) comic by Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird, became wildly successful in the late 80s and early 90s. Though the comic strip had been around since 1984, TMNT became a franchise when it branched out and was marketed to kids. Part of that huge marketing empire was a little NES game made in 1989.

Leonardo, Raphael, Michelangelo, and Donatello. 

Remember in the Contra article when I said that Konami made so many games for the NES that they had to use a shell company to get around Nintendo’s licensing rules? TMNT was one of those games, produced (at least on paper) by Ultra Games. Most of us didn’t pay attention to much of that as kids; the box could’ve said anything. It could’ve said Chef Boyardee as long as the cartridge fit in our NES slot and played a Ninja Turtles game. That said, many of us may also not have noticed the small ways in which TMNT was pretty gnarly for a 1989 NES title. While it’s above average at best in technical terms, the game was innovative for its time, in however small ways.

The plot of the game involves rescuing April, then rescuing Splinter, and then finally defeating the evil Shredder. Both overhead and side-scrolling views are used, although the focus is pretty heavily on side-scrolling. In top-down view, you sometimes have access to the Turtles’ van, which can run over Foot soldiers and shoot missiles at other baddies. By going down into sewers or into buildings, you enter side-view. This is where the real action happens. You control any of the four turtles, and are even able to switch between them at a moment’s notice. This can be used as part of a strategy; most players like to use Michelangelo and Raphael (whose weapons are shorter-reaching) to slog through parts where there’s lots of danger, saving long-reaching Leo and Don for bosses or other important bits. Pizza can be found to replenish the active turtle’s health bar, and while it is usually in out-of-the-way places, you may need it. You can also pick up boomerangs, throwing stars, ropes to climb across gaps, missiles for the van… it’s like a shopping trip down there in the sewer. A gross, dangerous shopping trip.

The reason you will need the pizza to replenish health? Oh, that’s simple. Shredder has apparently recruited an entire city full of monstrosities to murder you. Remember all the chainsaw maniacs and guys on fire that were in the cartoon? Me neither, but here they are, trying to send the mean, green machines to an early grave. There are anime space men who throw their own heads at you, flying Star Wars-style robots, and even circus balloons with incendiaries dangling from them. It’s like a lot of franchise platformers; they run out of legit sources for enemy fodder and have to fill in the blanks. As you progress from streets to sewer to warehouses to evil base, some enemies stick around and some change. All the main bosses tend to be TMNT regulars; you get to fight Bebop and Rocksteady, smash up the Technodrome, and eventually meet Shredder himself in combat. The difficulty of the bosses is considerable but never overwhelming. Really, nothing compares (in terms of difficulty) to the underwater level…

I won’t post a whole carousel of images here, because this is a pretty good idea of what you’ll be looking at. This, and your turtles dying.

Let’s talk about the underwater level for a minute, because if you’ve played TMNT, you’re waiting for me to talk about it. You have two minutes and twenty seconds to disarm eight (8) bombs in an underwater maze full of electrical seaweed, insta-death tentacles, and intermittent shock-traps. First off, who even set those bombs? Who had the balls? Secondly, who fills their freshwater dam with such awful things? Don’t people have to go down there for maintenance? Thirdly, would you like to see a video of someone just hot-dogging the damned thing? It exists, just to compound the madness of it all. Now that we’ve talked about the underwater level, f*ck the underwater level. Just thinking about it makes my blood pressure spike.

The graphics for TMNT were actually pretty sweet, especially since the turtles and their main enemies were usually easy recognizable. There are only a few cinematics, but they are decent. The soundtrack sticks out in my mind, both from repetition as a child and from it being a pretty good soundtrack. The sound effects included a lot of digitization, and it didn’t sound like crap, either. Remember that this game was actually produced by Konami, who didn’t screw around in terms of production quality.

Yeah, I’ll be there in a while. I still have to beat the underwater level.

Not everyone loved this game, but nearly everyone with an NES had a copy, because 1) it was TMNT 2) a lot of copies were produced. I’ve seen them a lot at pawn shops, swap meets, and flea markets. Almost all of them look well-played. I will speak on the level: TMNT was honestly a fair-to-middling NES game, but as a small part of one of the biggest franchises of an era, I felt that it very much deserved our attention. Later games would come; arcade ports, fighting games, and several other sequels dot the Turtle Timeline. The franchise is even enjoying a gentle breath of air as we speak, but it can probably never achieve the dizzying heights it did. Cowabunga, RetroFans!

Next month, we’ll look at Golden Axe, Dragon Warrior, and more!