It’s not often that The U.S. and Canada team up on things. The two nations often disagree about the appropriate course of action to take in any one situation. But sometimes, the way to go is absolutely clear and the whole of North America teams up to give us one of my favorite cartoons from my childhood, “Captain N: The Game Master.”
“Captain N” ran a part of NBC’s Saturday morning cartoon lineup from 1989 to 1991, with a total of 34 episodes. During season two and three, the show was paired up against “The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3” and “Super Mario World” respectively.
The character of Captain N was created by Randy Studdard and appeared in Nintendo Power magazine. Most of the original core concept was stripped when the character moved to television.
The first episode titled Kevin in Video land opens in video land at the castle of Mother Brain, a rogue Nintendo main computer who’s a mix of Cassandra from “Doctor Who” (Moisturize me) and Little Richie. Let’s stop for a minute and talk about how Mother Brain is maybe one of the creepiest villains ever to grace a children’s cartoon.
The heroes of video land, Kid Icarus, Mega man, Simon (of Castlevania), and Princess Lana stand around a mysterious disembodied voice where they learn about Captain N and the ultimate warp zone opens.
Cut to Kevin playing video games in his room with his dog Duke. He and Duke are pulled into his television via some “Ghostbusters”-esque proton beams just in time to get out of cleaning his room.
There he is equipped with a super power pad (Nintendo controller) and a zapper. Despite immediately falling in love with Princess Lana, Kevin says they’ve found the wrong guy and attempts to go home, but the ultimate warp zone closes.
Mother Brain sends her cronies, King Hippo and a sentient eggplant to go capture the princess and bring her back to Mother Brain’s lair; in an attempt to strike at the heart of video land and insert herself as the new queen (She would look just terrible on the money).
Sidebar- Kid Icarus has a tendencey to add the suffix “icus” to everything he says “The princess is very much upset-icus” It makes everything he says sound like a Harry Potter spell. Hermione casts Upseticus, swish and flick.
The minions arrive looking for the princess. They follow Simon to her chambers then wrap him in a giant sack before throwing him down a warp zone. The princess opens her chamber door and is captured. Kevin arrives as they are rolling her up in a rug.
Kevin uses the zapper to vaporize the door and rescue the princess. He then gets into a fight with an eggplant and gets turned into a banana. By the time he gets out the princess has been taken.
Kevin and Duke enlist Kid Icarus, Mega man, and Simon to search and find the princess. The background music is pulled from Nintendo video games and sets the tone perfectly.
The team hops a warp zone to Metroid to rescue the princess but on Simon’s orders they take the wrong warp zone and end up exiting from a shower head in Kongo Land, the home of Donkey Kong.
DK isn’t happy that his bath is interrupted and begins to do what giant gorillas are good at, smash stuff. DK takes Kid Icarus and climbs up a tree. Kevin is able to use the super power pad to jump an incredible height and rescue Icarus-icus from the oversized ape.
Kevin locates a warp zone inside a volcano in Kongo Land, he pleads with everyone to trust him, the volcano erupts and launches them out of DK’s grasp. They ride volcanic rocks to Metroid and discover the princess in her tower cell.
Sidebar- Simon is insufferable. I mean, who sprays perfume in their mouth, seriously.
Kevin busts through the roof of the tower cell, killing the guard, and rescuing the princess. Or so it seems, before they all get locked inside and Mother Brain’s visage appears dumping Kevin, Duke, and Lana into the corridors of Metroid.
Kevin uses his formidable gaming skills to navigate the corridors and defeat the various villains. Surprisingly, his dog is at least as good as him at games. They get through the corridors and arrive in front of Mother Brain as Kevin’s blaster runs out of power. Just when all hope seems lost, Icarus, Mega man, and Simon arrive and through the power of teamwork they win the day. Sort of redeeming Simon in the process.
Kid Icarus uses an arrow to set Mother Brain rapidly spinning, presumably filling her water chamber with her own vomit. They arrive back at the castle of the princess where she asks Kevin to stay and defend video land. Kevin begins to return home but when the warp zone opens he hears his mother harping on him (as mothers are wont to do) and decides he would rather stay in digital danger than take out the trash.