Kirby vs. Dashing Super Guy-The 1992 Commercial for the American Release of KIRBY'S DREAM LAND on Nintendo Gameboy

Another round of them commercials… I guess.

It's been a while due to my Veteran Medical Group animation work.

But now I've got the free time I deserve....

Well, I've got new employment at BC INDIGENOUS HOUSING but that's a blogpost for another time.

Now, it's Commercial Commentary time!

This time, it’s for a video game.

A NINTENDO GAME!!!

And one from the early 90s.

"POYO!!!"

And who do they pair our puffball with?

Why, it's none other than DASHING SUPER GUY!!!

This was part of a phenomenon where us MACHO AMERICANS want things that are considered MANLY!!!

Like Arnold Schwarzenegger during his Prime Years. 

Much to our mother's Chagrin.

The funny thing is that KIRBY is not meant to be macho as he's just a pink puffball.

Or in this Commercial's case, He's GHOST-SHEET WHITE:

Just like he's portrayed in the original North American BOXART for the original 1992 GAMEBOY Game.

The commercial's commentary was to prove that despite the expectation that you need to be as cool or macho like RAMBO or ARNOLD SHWARTZENEGGER, 

You can prove that being Cute and Cuddly can still be the definition of heroism.

Clearly, this 1992 commercial was meant as a TAKE THAT against SEGA OF AMERICA's CEO TOM KALINKSE & his mantra of COOL or ATTITUDE considering this was about a year after the release of SONIC THE HEDGEGOG on the SEGA GENESIS((MEGADRIVE in JAPAN & EUROPE).

That and NINTENDO was pissed at SEGA for those GENESIS DOES WHAT NINTENDON'T commercials from 1990.

Of course, KIRBY doesn't have MUSCLES and his flailing here proves it.

Also, KIRBY here is as bald a Baby's Behind.

Unlike MR. DASHING SUPER GUY here as he admires not only his muscles, Sunglasses, CHADLY Chin, and his wonderful looking Mullet.

But KIRBY doesn't even need MUSCLES, Glasses, Chins, or even hair just to be a hero.

This gives DASHING here the opportunity to mock KIRBY for lacking MUSCLES by flexing them

even showing off his BADASS Tattoo on his Bicep.

"Who knew the Super Guy was such a MOMMA'S BOY."

But to really accentuate that KIRBY does not need any macho muscles,

he has no choice but to pick a fight with MR DASHING IN HIS OWN METHODS.

Ok.... That's a little DISTURBING!

DASHING SUPER GUY being spat out like that all merged and crap reminds me of what happened with SETH BRUNDLE in THE FLY(1986) but I won't spoil the plot in there.

Then the Commercial segues into clips of GAMEPLAY from the game itself.

I won't use the screenshots from the Commercial or my own screenshots since we all know what the game is all about...

The Commercial ends with KIRBY having stolen SUPER GUY's glasses.....

Clearly about a year before KIRBY'S ADVENTURE on NES which would release in 1993

Since the ORIGINAL GAMEBOY GAME didn't have his copying powers yet.

And he flexes his Muscles like a MACHO MAN

before DUKE NUKEM made it cool in 1996.

Before segueing into this scene with SUPER GUY's hand grabbing a GAMEBOY and proclaiming....

Such were the 90s.

Makes me wish I was alive in the early 90s but I however was born on the same year and month JAMES CAMERON's TITANIC premiered in theaters: DECEMBER 1997.

So who am I to judge.

If you want to watch the Commercial in full, here it is in glorious 4K.....

Later commercials for Future Games would keep KIRBY's American Redesign but revert him back to his intended PINK COLOR but he also developed a slight attitude problem.

Fortunately, by the time the NINTENDO 64 came along and companies mandated that Japanese entertainment that get localized in the UNITED STATES should not be tampered with considerable, 

AMERICAN KIRBY dropped the attitude and returned to being the loveable PINK PUFFBALL we know and love.

Even if KING DEDEDE's antics prove annoying to KIRBY......

that is when he's not wanting 

A MONSTER TO CLOBBER THAT THERE KIRBY that is....

ZOI!!!!!

(The ZOI is DEDEDE's verbal tic in the Japanese version of RIGHT BACK AT YA!)

I planned this post back in 2025 but I just got around to finishing this up due to my NEW JOB ORIENTATION and my final few shifts in the Paper Planes Cafe at YVR Airport

I've got more Commercials to cover on this blog so stay tuned.

The Feline that got away-Cool Kat: AKA ORSON KATZ+A surprising connection(To my affinity to Cats and OMAHA)

No Fanart Fridays today.

Things in life just happen so I need a break.

In the meantime, How's about a nostalgia trip to one of my old Drawings.

This does take me back.

This wasn't my idea.

This was an idea made by someone I knew who's working at the 

Pacific Autism Family Network Community Centre near YVR Airport.

He asked me personally to create a concept for this comic strip featuring a cat named COOL CAT.

I also had my own say about such a basic premise.

You can't just create a one-dimensional character called COOL CAT and just call him that.

You need a backstory and a birthname.

So I came up with the name ORSON KATZ.

This is Orson Katz shown below.

(Pay no attention to the Fiery Sprinter wording above the Y-7 rating. 

I no longer use Fiery Sprinter name as my company. 

My Company is now MAVERICK MARTINEZ.)

Why two cats?

Well, the plan was to have the same cat with another persona called COP-OUT KING.

And the rat?

Well, I needed to create a mediator, 

sort of a Principal Skinner/Lamar Bone style kind of character who would at all odds discipline the main character but also bond with him as well.

The result, was Dr. James Norvegik.

He's a 2 year old Berkshire Rat

(Rat's don't live long so I need to be true to biology)
who's also half Ukrainian.

And he's a therapist.

However, the idea never got off the ground. 

Why you ask?

A multitude of problems I encountered from the start.

But let's simplify the problems so I can get this over with.

The problem was of course, the premise of the character, according to this description page this guy sent me:

This reeks of TUDE, a problematic personality trait that ensures that that's the only defining thing about the character which in turn risks turning or already made the character one-dimensional.

Had to use GEX because using Sonic would have been egregious.

Plus, Sonic has an all-around personality compared to GEX...

Unless you bribe the Gecko with both money and a suit with Glasses, 

and 007 training from Pierce Brosnan.

Another reason for backing out of the ORSON KATZ project was because of this sick Schmuck below:

Ladies and Gentleman, 

that tiger you see above is the infamous COOL CAT, originally voiced by Larry Storch.

He's from Looney Tunes' much maligned Seven-Arts era.

That Tiger above looks nothing like the staples of anything Looney Tunes.

That's because he comes from an infamous period in time when Depatie-Freleng Enterprises took over the Looney Tunes after retiring the rest of the classic characters.

The irony is that Looney Tunes was being taken by one of the original animators since the 1930s.

That being Friz Freleng.

Despite FRIZ FELENG's takeover, The characters were actually designed by ALEX LOVY.

How lame are the COOL CAT cartoons from WB's Seven-Arts Era?

They're nothing but flat jokes revolving around the damn tiger having to outwit his nemesis COLONEL RIMFIRE,

And the drawings are truly flat,

With the Mechanical Elephant being so off-putting that looks like a rejected design for the then-soon to be released ANT & THE AARDVARK.

Also from DePatie-Freleng Enterprises.

And jokes that worked the first time often don't work with new characters

"I TOUGHT I TAW A PUDDY TAT!

A TIGER-TYPE PUDDY TAT!!!"

Oh put a sock in it Colonel Rimfire!!!!

Nothing but a pale imitation of THE PINK PANTHER.

"Pink Panther and Inspector Clouseau we are not!!!"

Anyway, everybody hated COOL CAT.

Fans and even the executives at Warner Bros. in the 1960s could not take this tiger anymore to the point that they don't even feature him as a staple in anything Looney Tunes related nowadays.

Barring his return to TV via the beloved MeTV Toons Channel 

as well as a purported cameo in TINY TOONS UNIVERSITY.

But it still strikes me as odd that despite COOL CAT's infamously bad era of Cartoons for the LOONEY TUNES, he's one of the only Characters of the infamous SEVEN-ARTS era to have survived the CLASSIC CARTOON era of WARNER BROS.

So that implies he's a popular character to have survived this long...

But even he got overshadowed by the likes of newer characters such as...

Buster Bunny, Elmyra Duff, Lola Bunny, Pinky & the Brain, just to name a few.

Anyway,

There are multiple reasons why ORSON KATZ never got off the ground but for the sake of this blogpost, I'm kind enough to simplify it to the two examples I described.

But this did give me experience with designing Anthropomorphic Animal Characters. 

Aside from the Designs above,

I also experimented with drawing my Cat MISO THE FELINE

And it's also a given I do this blogpost because of my interest in developing a Tv Series concept based on Reed Waller and Kate Worley's OMAHA THE CAT DANCER Comic from the mid-80s to 2013.

I don't know why but you can tell that I have affinities for Cats since I have my Miso to thank me for that since 2018 when I adopted her.

I don't know if I'll ever revisit the Orson Katz Concept in the future but if possible, I'd like to fix the issues that plagued me in 2019 and restart the concept but just with a greater control of the premise, as well as not be jinxed by the ghost of Larry Storch and his COOL CAT character he voiced in the mid to late 60s.