While video games have suffered from poor adaptation in live-action, the cartoons have at least scored the occasional victory…or at least was a decent show. Then you have Double Dragon but that’s not worth remembering. Also not worth remembering were the Mario Brothers related shows I brought up this morning. However, if you think that and the movie so bad even the people working on it hated it are the only horrible things Mario-related, I have to be the bearer of bad news.
There have been attempts to make game shows around video games. Video Power in its second season switched to a game show and it could have been worse. It could have been The Video Game, a show that made the future announcer for the original Double Dare act like a dragon while some kid walked around a “maze” and that wasn’t even the dumbest game in the show. You did have Starcade and Nick Arcade but those were hosted by professionals who either wanted to make a good show, actually liked video games, or just wanted to entertain kids. And then there’s The Super Mario Challenge, a UK game show that tried to theme an entire game around the world of Mario and Luigi Mario. In this look back Harry Yack shows that about as much love as the first two video game shows we mentioned was put into it. As in none at all, and apparently the UK had more of these than we did in the US. I think we were lucky.
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