Nintendo has always suffered from a severe lack of self-worth. For all intents, they are still fundamentally a larger scale version of that company from the 1970s that produced quirky, off-beat gadgets and toys like the master hand and the love tester. They are home to some of the most treasured brands in video gaming history; however, they rarely utilize them outside of their native environment – video games. Ultimately, Nintendo is a game company, much like Disney is a movie studio, but unlike Disney, Nintendo has not yet fully grasped the concept of marketing and promoting their brands in outside media.
This was not always the case. Back in 1989, Nintendo co-produced the Super Mario Bros. Super Show with DiC Entertainment. That show is largely responsible for endearing the “character” of Mario (separately from the brand’s already existing reputation of awesome games) to an entire generation of kids, one of whom is writing this article right now. The problem is, that was 22 years ago. A whole new generation of children now enjoy today’s assortment of bright and colorful characters and brands. Unfortunately for Nintendo, their brands are a lot lower on the cultural list than they used to be. You and I have long since been indoctrinated into the cult. We know Nintendo’s AAA first party games are a golden standard bearer for quality, but many of today’s kids don’t. They’re too busy playing Angry Birds.
And guess what? Angry Birds is getting a cartoon. Angry Birds is billed by its creators as “the new Super Mario Bros.” For a game so simple and brainlessly addictive, its creators over at Rovio have marketed it brilliantly. Everybody from Conan O’Brien to Jon Stewart and Stephen Colbert regularly make borderline obsessive compulsive jokes about it every week. It’s sold over 100 million units on every mobile device under the sun (soon to include even the 3DS). They have every right to brag.
Nintendo is essentially the Disney of video games, but much like the House of Mouse has done in the past, Nintendo is going to have to alter their role in the business and do some soul searching. No longer can Nintendo “Pull a Mickey Mouse” and bank on their long-standing reputation as a leader in entertainment, merely assuming that the kids of today already know their brands are the golden standard. Those kids are too busy hurling exploding birds at green pigs on their smart phones to give a shit. Nintendo needs new cartoons to promote their characters.
Yet I understand Nintendo’s dilemma. They are very cautious about producing new media to promote their brands because as Miyamoto has clearly pointed out over the years, cartoons – when poorly managed – have a bad habit of restricting brand flexibility. Nintendo’s games are so good because they don’t allow logic (or the marketing department) to have any influence on their game designs. This is what has kept Mario fresh for nearly 30 years. If handed off to the wrong people, an anime/cartoon can have a negative effect on a franchise. Be it blatant or subconscious, a cherished brand can be shoehorned to fit within the narrow minded confines of a cartoon script writer. Imagine a world where the imagination and creativity of a Zelda game had to be tailored to fit within the confines of a television series just for the sake of cross-promotion. Nintendo has suffered due to this before, mostly due to a simple lack of confidence.
Nintendo signed off on an anime to promote Kirby in 2002 (ironically right after character creator Masahiro Sakurai left the company). It had limited involvement from Nintendo, and HAL heavily tailored the brand to reflect the cartoon. The F-Zero series was burdened with an even worse anime in 2004 that more or less blew the franchise’s image straight to hell. The problem with both of these shows was that Nintendo handed them off, and the companies they handed them off to (specifically Studio Comet, Ashi productions, and localization by 4Kids Entertainment) failed to treat the brands with the same level of care, attention, and delicate touch that Nintendo themselves would have delivered.
Nintendo needs a cartoon that will help indoctrinate a whole new generation of children into the cult of Nintendo. Many people think of the Nintendo family tree of characters/brands as a cohesive family unit. Super Smash Bros. likely has a lot to do with that mindset. Henceforth, I propose a brand new collective Nintendo comedy (half) hour: The Super Smash Bros. Show!
Think of it as a Looney Tunes structure where there is no running plot, no long term story ramifications, and no potential damage to be done to the core brand of games. Each show can consist of a collection of six to eleven minute shorts featuring Nintendo characters, both A-list (Link), D-list (Tingle), and everything in-between (Pit). Newgrounds, Video Game Director’s Cuts, and College Humor have long proven that Nintendo properties are endless sources for parody and humor. Why not make it official? Disney has been doing this for years. Does the existence of Goof Troop make any difference on the long-term image of Goofy as a character? No. Neither would a Smash Bros. cartoon.
Nintendo is in a new position in 2011 going forward. Their casual audience is going to the iOS, if they haven’t already totally left. The Touch Generation already has for Steve Jobs’s walled garden. Nintendo has the best stable of characters, franchises, and original ideas in the gaming world, but it’s time to utilize them in new ways other than riding on the fact that the original generation of Nintendo kids is growing/grown up and passing the games on to their kids. Nintendo is in need of a direct, hard sell to a new generation. Cartoons are a natural way of doing that. Look what one well managed anime did for Pokemon in the late 90s? Branding Smash Bros. into something beyond a one-in-a-generation fighting game melee (pun not intended) is the best way to sell them all as a group with no long term franchise effects, and without spending a ton of money on multiple series.
Oh yeah, Nintendo…one more thing. Do that other thing Disney has been really good at over the past three decades: create new brands. Mickey may have built that house, but he had a lot of friends to help maintain it. Mario is no different.
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