The Legend of Zelda

The Legend of Zelda is a cartoon contained within the much more successful Super Mario Bros. Super Show based on the game of the same name.

This cartoon is obviously a big screwup. It does no justice for the awesome game series it is based on, and anyone can you tell that.

Yet still, there's something about it that is extremely funny. Maybe it's how they turned Link into a cocky jerk, or the nightmarish acting, but it manages to be so funny you just have to keep watching.

In closing, the show is horrible, but it's hysterical. It's a guilty pleasure. Too bad it only lasted 13 episodes.

There are two types of bad in television. Cringe-bad and Fun-bad. The Legend of Zelda (1989) definitely fits into the second category. It is based on the Nintendo video game of the same name (1984). While watching this absolute mockery of Zelda lore, I would constantly find myself laughing at the atrocities of the dialogue and plot. The animation and music are both ok, but not as good as some '80s classics. If you somehow don't know this already, Link's catchphrase is "Well, excuse ME princess!" This catchphrase is basically everything wrong with the show. It turns Link into the most unlikable a$$hole in history and he is one of the worst parts of all of this.

But, as I said before, it's ok because this show is fun to watch. Fun-bad but fun.

If it were unironically bad this would be 3.5/10 but because it is fun-bad I rank it as 7.2/10

If you are a Zelda player then this will appeal to you for how bad it is, but if you are not you will be completely miserable.

Next to The Super Mario Bros. Super Show is The Legend of Zelda, Altough not lasting long on it's run. It's still a can't miss!

I have this on DVD and my 5-year-old loves it. Watching it now as a 43-year-old man, I can see how there are some irritating aspects to the storylines... but those aspects were necessary to perpetuate the series.

Yes, plenty of times, Link should have zapped Ganon again instead of warning him "one more zap and you're history", giving him the chance to defend himself. Plenty of times, Link or Zelda should have grabbed the Triforce of Power when they had the chance, instead of saying "there's no time". Plenty of times, they should have kissed instead of talking about it for so long that something happened to stop it.

But if Link destroyed Ganon or got the Triforce of Power, what would've been the plotline of the next episode?

As a 9-year-old in 1989, I lived for this show. I always watched the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, but Fridays when they played the Legend of Zelda were by far my favorite. There will always be a soft spot in my heart for this. It was awesome, for a kid in 1989, and all of my friends loved it. Okay, so Link does say "Ex-CUUUUUse me, Princess!" too much, but in 4th grade, plenty of us said it and thought we were cool. It became a cultural icon for a brief moment. It was never meant to entertain the adults who complain about it now. And don't forget, when this show was running, all we had in the Zelda series were games 1 and 2. They never had the chance to expand the storyline to the games that came afterward.

Yeah, it's kind of annoying in retrospect that they changed the roles so that Link was a somewhat derpy teenager and Zelda was a strong and often snarky woman who wore pants instead of the dresses she was shown wearing in the Nintendo games, but think of how it helped show girls that they could and should be strong. It did much better on gender balance than the video games did.

It only gets a 9 out of 10 because it has nothing to offer adults that didn't grow up with it. But if you'd asked me how I felt about this in 1989, it would've gotten about a 100 out of 10. And obviously it still grabs the hearts of kids.

I see a few reviews here criticizing this series because it isn't "FaItHfUl tO tHe sToRy oF aLl tHe zEldA gAmEs," but these individuals aren't too bright. You need to keep in mind that when this was aired on TV, there were only two Zelda games in existence: The Legend of Zelda, and Zelda: Link's Adventure. Both of those games contained the most simplistic of plots and little to no story whatsoever. So for the creators of this series to take a couple of 8-bit games and create this animated series, it deserves some applause. Now granted, when you look in hindsight, the writing is pretty bad, the cheesy catchphrases are used way too often to the point that it becomes hilarious, and the trope of Link wanting to kiss Zelda only to have it interrupted each episode does get annoying; however, the sound effects pulled from the game give it an excellent nostalgic feeling. Plus this is a kids show and you can't say that you wouldn't have loved watching this when you were 4 or 5 years old. I mean damn, I remember watching Pokemon every morning before school and loving it, but when I look back at it now I can see all kinds of flaws.