Captain N: Game Master

In 1986 gamers were introduced to the Nintendo Entertainment System commonly known as the NES. We loved playing many of these classic games, like Mario, Zelda, Megaman, and Castlevania. Many fans of the games wanted to bring these characters to life and in 1989 they got their wish with the release of the series Captain N: Game Master. This was a funny action adventure show that ran for three seasons as part of a Saturday morning cartoon lineup on NBC from 1989 to 1993.

The idea of Captain N was originally featured in Nintendo Power magazine as a short series of comics and stories. The idea was Captain Nintendo was an employee of the Nintendo corporation and would have to face the evil mother brain, a computer mainframe gone rouge. Captain Nintendo had the ability to make characters and weapons from the Nintendo universe come to life and assist in his struggle against the Mother Brain. Once Mother Brain was defeated it left room for a sequel to this quaint little series with Mother Brain vowing to find a way to return and take down captain Nintendo.

The story grabbed fans attention and the thoughts and ideas mentioned really got readers Excited. Nintendo put forth plans to creature a recurring cartoon show featuring the character from the magazine, but with a lot of changes of course. Captain Nintendo was shortened to Captain N and his real name was Kevin Keen. Kevin, in the pilot episode of the show was sucked through a portal in his TV and reemerged in "Video Land" along with his dog Duke. Here he would meet a cast of characters from many of the most popular NES titles of the day, including Link, Megaman, Simon Belmont, and Kid Icarus. The series premiered in 1989 and no credit was ever given to the man who plotted the story in Nintendo Power Magazine, Randy Studdard.

Mother Brain still appeared as the main villain with sidekicks including King Hippo from Punch Out, Egg Plant Wizard from Kid Icarus, and Dr. Wily from Megaman. Together these villains would devise plans to bring down Captain N and his team and capture the Palace of Power and Princess Lana, in doing so they would rule all of Video Land. But Captain N and his N team were always there to throw a wrench in the evil doer's plans.

Some of the weapons each character in the show would use were very reminiscent of the games. Simon Belmont would use his trusty whip, Megaman his arm cannon, and Kid Icraus his bow and arrows. The most memorable however was Kevin, who wore an original Nintendo controller as a belt buckle and used the Nintendo Zapper as his primary weapon.

The stories were a bit corny, but keep in mind this is a kid's show directed at gamers. Many times the N team would venture to different video game worlds, like Hyrule, Faxanadu, Mount Olympus, and many other various locations including some in the Megaman universe. Each week the team would face off against the boss of the game world they were currently in, like The Count from Castlevania, and Gannon from Zelda. This always made for a very interesting and fun show, seeing these characters do battle with foes that they could have never really faced in their games.

This show was canceled in its third season after bad reviews from fans and critiques alike. The animation underwent a drastic change, and was considered low quality and the story lines suffered drastically. Apparently the rights of the show were in dispute, causing the shift in quality. Episodes in season three were cut to be only 15 minuets long upsetting many in the shows fan base. All in all the season ended and was canceled, leaving an unfinished series, as Kevin never returned home and the fate of Video Land remained in question, also upsetting fans of the show who wanted a proper ending to the plot.

It was a shame that this show was taken off the air so prematurely but it had a decent run. In 2005 Dic released its tapes to the company "Short! Factory" so they could make a DVD version on the show available to the public, and so on February 26, 2006 America's retro game fans rejoiced as Captain N: Game Master hit the DVD scene. This was all fine. But season 3 was omitted from the mix due to some licensing issues with the companies; these issues were what are thought to have been the ultimate downfall of the series. Season 3 was released in Australia separate from the season 1 and 2 DVD's and has yet to cross into the United States.

Captain N will remain in our heats as one of the only shows to be based on such lovable characters from the video game genera. I missed this show when it was canceled in 1993 and was thrilled to have it reintroduced on DVD. There will never again be a show as fun and quirky as Captain N: Game Master.