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The Super Mario Bros. Movie hints at a potential cinematic Nintendo crossover with its universe expansion. The success of the film may lead to adaptations of Legend of Zelda and Donkey Kong. Captain N: The Game Master has key similarities with the movie and could be used to set up a Nintendo crossover.

The Super Mario Bros. Movie shares a concept with one of Nintendo's weirdest adaptations, and highlighting it could be the key to a massive cinematic Nintendo crossover. The Super Mario Bros. Movie features plenty of loving tributes to the history of the game franchise and Nintendo as a whole, with easter eggs pointing to other titles from the franchise. While the focus remained largely on Mario and the characters directly connected to him, the film's universe also quietly set up several ways to expand the universe thanks to references to other games like Punch-Out! and Kid Icarus.

When a property runs long enough, there are adaptations and versions of the characters that become infamous for being so off the mark and bizarre. There’s that time when Dennis Hopper played Bowser as a politician with silly hair in a dinosaur dystopia. The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles once went on tour as a rock band. The United States made a Godzilla movie so bad that the monster was later killed within seconds in a fight against the true Godzilla. The animated series Captain N: The Game Master once introduced Alucard as a radical skateboarding teenager with sunglasses.

Captain N also gave us a terrible take on Mega Man, making him an annoying toddler-looking guy with a froggy voice. That isn’t the most infamous version of the Blue Bomber…even if he wasn’t even blue. No, that honor goes to the character on the cover of the first Mega Man game.

Some early Nintendo animated series were cash-grabs with bizarre changes to beloved characters, while others stayed faithful to the source material. Captain N: The Game Master mischaracterized iconic Nintendo characters, creating a strange and forgettable footnote in Nintendo's history. F-Zero: Gp Legend stands out as one of Nintendo's greatest cartoons, with high-speed chases, a serious tone, and a climactic Falcon Punch finale.

As the creator of some of the world's most beloved family-friend video games, it's no surprise that Nintendo properties have received multiple animated series adaptations over the years. Ever since the early video game craze of the 80s, various animation studios have been quick to take advantage of the Japanese company's popularity, with several of their games becoming licensed TV shows. Even in recent years, Nintendo's popularity has shown no signs of waning in the animation world, with The Super Mario Bros. Movie putting up impressive numbers at the box office.

Quick Links Mega Man's First Animated Appearance Was Not at All What Fans Expected Mega Man's 1994 Animated Series is a Crown Jewel in Video Game Cartoon Adaptations Mega Man's Had Many Animated Series Over the Years, But It's Time He Got a True Anime Mega Man's early adventures on the Nes were top-notch, with vibrant graphics, pinpoint action platforming, and memorable music. Mega Man's first animated appearance in Captain N: The Game Master was different from the Nes version, but disappointed fans had to wait a few more years for a faithful adaptation. The 1994 animated series Mega Man was a crown jewel in video game cartoon adaptations, with slick animation, fantastic action, and a faithful representation of the Nes games.

There’s a very good reason why Mega Man has become one of gaming’s most popular and beloved characters since his debut in 1987. The Blue...

After years of languishing with disasters like the 1993 Super Mario Bros. movie and Captain N: The Game Master animated series, video game adaptations are reaching a level of quality once thought impossible. 2023 marked another massive year for gaming, with The Super Mario Bros. Movie and Five Nights at Freddy's making waves at the box office and hits like Castlevania: Nocturne, Onimusha, and Twisted Metal gracing the small screen. The crown jewel of game adaptations, however, was undoubtedly The Last of Us led by Pedro Pascal and Bella Ramsey. Heading into 2024, one of the shows that will hope to match the heights of the much-lauded series is Halo which returns for Season 2 in February. New cast member Joseph Morgan is already comparing the two favorably in a few ways.

Nintendo in the mid-to-late 80s sure was something to behold. It’s probably the closest thing the video game industry had to a monopoly. Sure, the Sega Master System was around and Atari was still on life support, but the Nintendo Entertainment System was absolutely dominant in society. We didn’t even call it “the Nes.” It was just “Nintendo.” For many, “playing video games” was “playing Nintendo.”

Nintendo’s major market share led to some interesting marketing experiments. Captain N: The Game Master was an animated series that not only advertised different games as part of its lore, but even included third-party game heroes like Simon Belmont and Mega Man as supporting characters. Then there’s The Wizard: an attempt to promote the upcoming Super Mario Bros. 3 via a bizarre family film version of Rain Man that included the questionable choice of casting Christian Slater and doing nothing with him.

Three years after the self-proclaimed final chapter in their long-running Resident Evil saga, B-movie power couple Paul W.S. Anderson and Milla Jovovich are back to the lucrative well of Capcom video game adaptations for Monster Hunter, another hyperkinetic CGI spectacular from the director who inspired the term “vulgar auteurism.” Those who celebrate the contrived nonsense of Anderson’s original screenplays as postmodern anti-art manifestos will be over the moon at this one: We begin with a platoon of all-American Un troops led by one scrappy badass babe (Jovovich) scouring the wide-open desert of… somewhere, in search of the ominously disappeared Bravo Team.

Suddenly, in a twist reminiscent of Captain N: The Game Master but with far more instances of gruesome death (Anderson really pushes the PG-13 rating to its stomach-churning limits), Jovovich and her unit are transported via magic electrical storm to a completely different barren desert: one inside the fantastical world of Monster Hunter,...

Stu Rosen, best known for his work as the creator of “Dusty’s Treehouse,” died Sunday after a battle with cancer, his cousin Donna Siegel confirmed on Facebook. He was 80.

“This is a very sad day for my family and I. My wonderful, colorful, fantastic cousin, Stu Rosen died this morning,” she wrote. “My heart is broken and I’m sure anyone who has ever met him feels the same way. What a character he was… I will always have a special place in my heart for this fabulous man. Rest in peace my special cousin.”

Rosen first entered the entertainment industry as a production assistant for Kcet, before pitching “Dusty’s Treehouse” to CBS in 1965. He would end up working on the show for ten years, starring as the eponymous Dusty himself alongside a number of puppet animal costars. “Dusty’s Treehouse” would also go on to win eight...

The latest issue of Titan’s excellent anthology series A1 features dinosaurs, Super Mario, and a magic Saddam Hussein. I can’t imagine you’d need more persuading to pick up this comic but if you need it, here it is.

For newcomers to this series, A1 is an anthology series featuring 3 ongoing stories with different creative teams contained within 35 pages of comics. First off, for the price alone you’re getting a better deal than Marvel/DC who, for the same price, will give you fewer pages and if that comic sucks, you’re stuck with it. Here, if you don’t like one story, chances are you’ll like one of the other two. So it’s even better value that all three stories here are awesome.

The first one, The Weirding Willows, creates a story using famous literary characters, kind of like The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen but the early books,...

by Matt Hawkins

Metroid and all its games would be the perfect basis for an animated program or motion picture. Unfortunately, especially in the case of the former, that's not happening anytime soon. Why? Because Nintendo's track records on both ends have been less than stellar.

Captain N: The Game Master was the best show they helped to produce, which perhaps is not saying much, and the less said about the live action Super Mario Bros movie, the better.

It's a shame because, in the right hands, a Metroid show/movie would be awesome. But whose? Here's a suggestion: Dave Rapoza.

His take on the animated adventures of Samus Aran, which Kotaku was the first to point out, is one of the hottest going on the internet at the moment. And for good reason:

The number one reason why it's so awesome is the art style. Instead of going the...

With cover art featuring a giant brain with a face it was only a matter of time before It Came From 1980 X got its pause on this flick. Straight out of the vaults of Vhsps (that’s the Video Home System Preservation Society to the uninitiated) we bring you the 1988 classic feature of hypnosis, teen angst and most of all… a man eating brain controlled by none other than Dr. Carl Hill or at least David Gale. It’s mind over matter as the tag line says. Get ready for an effect filled, 80′s fashion sense swaddled affair complete with bright shining 80′s boobies. 1980 X! X! X! VHS junkies get your head cleaners ready. Make sure your tapes are rewound (or face the $.50 penalty). We’re going to give you something to think about (Pun You!)

Straight from the back of the VHS:

Imagine a pulsating mass of grey matter,...

Viggo Mortensen is a reasonably talkative fellow, and he is definitely an expert in telling you why David Cronenberg deserves an Oscar or how stealing the blood of virgins can make you look like a teenage skate rat on the cover of the New York Times magazine. However, if you really want to go deep with Mortensen — and we mean really, really deep — ask him the seemingly general question "Who were your heroes growing up as a child, and who are they today?" Though most of us would make do with a simple response like "Captain N: The Game Master and Elizabeth Warren," Mortensen named around 230 heroes to the Boston Globe. (And this was not even the point of the interview, but merely the opening question.) The list is truly magnificent.Here is a part of it: As a child — say, before age eleven — I suppose they were...

It has been twenty five years since gamers were first introduced to one of Nintendo’s biggest and most respected video game franchises of all time: The Legend of Zelda!

Delving into the games that have made up one of the most popular RPG game series of all time, we will look at what made each game unique and what are considered to be the best of this classic series.

Please feel free to leave a comment on what is your best memory, your favorite game or anything related to the series!

The Legend of Zelda – Nes – 1986

It started off with this classic 8-bit game from Shigeru Miyamoto, the mastermind behind the previously successful Donkey Kong games on the Nintendo Entertainment System and would later make many landmark games in the industry.

With the iconic music, characters, gameplay and plot line created for new gamers, it was seen by many...