CAPTAIN
N: THE GAME MASTER
(NBC, September 9, 1989-October 26, 1991)
DiC Entertainment, Nintendo of America, Inc., Saban
Productions (season 1)
MAIN CAST:
Dorian Barag
– Kevin Keene (live)
Garry Chalk
– King
Hippo, Donkey Kong,
The Count,
Malkil,
Mayor
Squaresly, Bayou Billy,
Guts Man
(past), various
Ian James Corlett
– Dr.
Wily,
Alucard,
Dr.
Wright, Rush (past)
In the late 1980s, Mario
had firmly cemented himself as Nintendo’s
mascot. However, while his iconic status was assured, he lacked a certain
technological and superhero-esque flash Nintendo wanted their mascot to
encompass. Randy
Studdard, editor and contributor to Nintendo’s then-new Nintendo
Power magazine,
took the challenge and worked on a concept for an entire marketing proposal and
even a potential animated series.
 |
| Nintendo Power #3, the first appearance of Captain Nintendo. |
After taking an informal survey of customers,
Studdard realized the thing people wanted to know most about was the inner
workings of Nintendo. So, he created Captain Nintendo: a Nintendo technician
named Brett Randalls who gained the ability to bring characters and items from
games to life after being bombarded by exploding experimental microchips. He
was pit into battle against Mother Brain, the villain from Metroid that was brought to life through the same explosion. The
character made his debut in a prose story split between issues three and four
of Nintendo Power magazine during the
winter of 1988/1989. The story ended with an opening for a potential sequel.
However, despite the extremely positive reaction readers gave the story,
Studdard’s direct supervisor nixed any future entries; deciding readers rather
have game information than be entertained.
 |
| The game worlds of Videoland. |
Studdard took his idea to marketing
to try and move forward with getting Captain Nintendo in the door as Nintendo’s
new mascot. Nintendo
of America, Inc. decided to follow through with Studdard’s
ideas, but ultimately cut him out of the process (however, he was Nintendo Power’s point-person to answer
all correspondence about and to the
good Captain, earning him the nickname “Captain Nintendo”). At the time,
Nintendo had hired DiC Entertainment
to produce a series based on any of their games, and executive producer Richard Raynis
chose Paper Boy. The series would
have ultimately been named Buddy Boy when Nintendo
didn’t want the game’s name used. Buddy
Boy would have followed the title character as he delivered his papers
around the wacky world of Nintendo game characters. However, Nintendo decided
to trash the original concept and recycle much of it for a Captain Nintendo series.
 |
| Kevin with his Zapper and Power Pad. |
The
only aspect of the original Captain
Nintendo idea to carry over into DiC’s production was the name (shortened
to “Captain N” by the network in order to stave off commercialism criticisms)
and use of Mother Brain as the main antagonist. Captain N became teenaged gamer
Kevin Keene (Matt Hill) who was sucked into an alternate dimension called
Videoland through his television with his dog, Duke (Tomm Wright). Kevin found
himself landed in the middle of an ongoing battle by Mother Brain (Levi Stubbs)
and The Forces of Chaos to attempt to conquer Videoland. Kevin joined in the
conflict against her in fulfillment of a prophecy that declared him to be
Captain N: The Game Master, armed with a real-working NES Zapper
and wearing an NES controller (called the Power Pad)
as a belt buckle that allowed him to pause things around him, shift locations
and jump higher. A Nintendo
Power Glove was also instrumental in opening the warp
that brought Kevin into Videoland.
 |
| The N-Team: Princess Lana, Kid Icarus, Mega Man and Simon Belmont. |
Kevin
wasn’t alone, however. Already involved with the battle was Videoland’s
defenders: the N-Team. The N-Team was led by Videoland’s acting regent,
Princess Lana (Venus Terzo), who assumed command when her father, King Charles
(Long John Baldry),
was abducted by Mother Brain. The rest of the team was comprised of three video
game characters from popular Nintendo series: Simon Belmont (Andrew Kavadas)
from the Castlevania series, Kid Icarus (Alessandro Juliani) from Kid
Icarus,
and
Mega Man (Doug Parker) from the Mega
Man series
(Icarus and Mega Man were holdovers from the original Buddy Boy pitch). Their
animated incarnations, however, differed a bit from their videogame
presentations; partly due to the fact that Nintendo supplied DiC with very
little information about the characters during the series’ development, leaving
the producers to fill in the gaps as best as they could.
 |
| "Mirror, mirror in my hand..." |
While
Belmont was still a vampire hunter that primarily used a whip, he was depicted
as arrogant and vain and was in constant competition with Kevin for Lana’s
affections. Belmont was garbed in winter exploration gear and goggles instead
of medieval-style clothing. His backpack had a seemingly unlimited storage
capacity and often pulled a variety of useful—and not as—items from it,
including fishing line, a magnifying glass, a cowboy hat, an ape dictionary,
and a phone.
 |
| Kid Icarus holding a glowing heart-icus. |
Kid
Icarus, named “Pit” in his games, was a diminutive angel and very protective of
Lana. He largely retained his videogame appearance, but his hairstyle was
changed to always constantly be covering one eye. Icarus used a bow with a
quiver full of specialized gadget arrows, however despite his accomplishments
as a marksman he often failed physically in combat situations. Icarus also
tended to add “-icus” to the end of various words when he spoke.
 |
| Mega Man looking mega-small. |
Mega Man was about the same size as
Icarus, but as a robot was a lot stronger, more durable and extremely agile. As
in the games, he was created by scientist Dr. Wright (named Dr. Light in the
games and with a different appearance, voiced by Ian James Corlett) and
possessed energy cannons on his forearms (although they didn’t take the place
of his hands when in use). However, instead of his well-known blue coloring,
Mega Man’s suit was colored green and had a helmet visor and shoulder and knee
pads. The green color was the result of character designer Fil Barlow
having only
played the game once and incorrectly remembering his color,
and nobody on the production end catching and correcting the mistake. Mega Man
was shown to have a longing to be truly human, and had a tendency to begin his
words with the prefix “mega.”
 |
| Mother Brain under glass. |
Over on the floating base Metroid,
Mother Brain spent most of her time in her base’s control room. There, she used
a mirror to spy on the N-Team in order to find a weakness to exploit. As in the
games, she was represented as a giant brain, but was put inside a liquid-filled
jar and given a stretched fleshy face with retractable tentacles that she used
to punish her minions for failure.
 |
| Dr. Wily, Eggplant Wizard, King Hippo. |
Speaking of her minions, she had
partnered with several videogame bosses to aid her in her conquest. From Mike
Tyson’s Punch Out!! and
later versions of the game was King Hippo (Garry Chalk), a large, rotund,
dimwitted boxer who wore a crown and had a face like a hippopotamus (hence the
name). Unlike the game, Hippo had blue skin and lacked a bandage over his
bellybutton. From Kid Icarus was
Eggplant Wizard (Michael Donovan), a human-sized one-eyed eggplant that could
conjure up vegetable-themed gadgets and showed some ambitions to subverting and
overthrowing Mother Brain. From Mega Man was
mad scientist Dr. Wily (Corlett using a German accent), the most competent of
Mother Brain’s henchmen and developer of wild gadgets and complicated schemes
dedicated to the defeat of the N-Team. The latter two were the least altered
from their game appearances, while Hippo and Eggplant were also holdovers from Buddy Boy.
 |
| The live Kevin Keene and Duke. |
Captain
N: The Game Master debuted on NBC
on September 9, 1989. The first season was co-produced by Saban
Productions as founders Haim Saban
and Shuki Levy
handled the series’ music. The first season also featured a number of licensed
songs that tied in somehow with the theme of the episode. A live-action
sequence of Kevin (played by Dorian Barag) being sucked into Videoland to kick
the storyline off became featured in every version of the series’ intro. It was
produced by I Square Communications, while the animation was handled by Dongyang Animation.
Each commercial break would be accompanied by a piece of unique art and the theme
song of the game primarily being featured in that episode.
 |
| Mega Man, meet Mega Girl. |
The
entire first season was written by Jeffrey
Scott, who almost didn’t get the job. Phyllis
Tucker-Vinson, vice president of children’s and family
programs at NBC who made their Saturday morning line-up the highest rated for
seven years, was under the belief that all of the scripts he contributed to Muppet Babies had to be heavily
rewritten. Muppets creator Jim Henson
took the time to speak on Scott’s behalf, and he was hired.
 |
| The Robot Masters from Megaland. |
As
the show was an elaborate commercial for Nintendo and its products, the various
worlds within Videoland were based on different Nintendo games released by that
time. Typically, the N-Team would face threats or encounter other characters
related to those worlds, including gigantic gorilla Donkey Kong (Chalk) from Donkey
Kong; gigantic dragon Dragon Lord
(Don Brown)
from Dragon Warrior;
Bayou Billy (Chalk) from The
Adventures of Bayou Billy (the
only game Kevin could never beat); and evil wizard Malkil (Chalk) from Wizards
& Warriors.
Characters
from the home worlds of the series’ stars would also appear, including The
Count (Chalk with a Transylvanian accent) and his son Allucard (Corlett) from Castlevania; Dr. Wright and Mega Girl
(the show’s version of Roll)
from Mega Man; and the gorgon Medusa
(Terzo) from Kid Icarus.
 |
| Captain N and Gameboy with Zelda and Link. |
Notably
absent from any kind of inclusion was Mario and any characters from The
Super Mario Bros. series of games.
That was likely due to the fact that DiC was also producing The
Super Mario Bros. Super Show,
which
aired around the same time. However, Link
(Jonathan Potts),
Princess
Zelda (Cynthia
Preston) and Ganon
(Len Carlson)
from The Legend of Zelda cartoon that aired
as part of The Super Show every
Friday made appearances on Captain N with
the same voice actors. Captain N did
make reference to the Mario games through the use of the Ultimate
Warp Zone that transported him to Videoland in the first place,
and the series shared many sound effects and background music with The Super Show.
 |
| Gameboy. |
In
1989, Nintendo had debuted its portable gaming system, Game Boy.
To promote the system, a new character was introduced in the second season of Captain N called Gameboy (Frank Welker).
He was a human-sized version of the device that was sent through a portal by
King Charles to aid the N-Team. He was able to stretch his limbs to great
lengths, track and analyze substances with his onboard computer, and generate
objects and monsters primarily for the team’s target practice. DiC producer Ken Ito
had tasked Barlow (who had been laid off from the company before the first
season was produced) with designing the character. Barlow thought it was
“overkill” to turn products into characters and quickly rushed
out several design ideas.
Behind
the scenes, Michael Tavera
took over scoring duties from Saban and Levy, licensed songs were no longer being
used, and animation duties fell to Spectrum Animation
Studio. The series used a shorter version of the intro with
narration provided by Terzo for the season. NBC also paired up the season with The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 in an hour-long
programming block called Captain N and
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. A single Captain N episode was sandwiched between two Mario Bros. episodes for the duration of the block. Scott’s
brother, Michael
Maurer, was the primary writer for the season.
 |
| In season 3, Mother Brain was looking a little--under-detailed. |
By 1991, the impressive ratings for Saved by the Bell had prompted NBC
to consider moving away from cartoons and focusing more on teen-oriented
live-action programming. As a result, they drastically reduced the budgets for
all of their Saturday morning offerings; including Captain N’s third season. Saerom
Animation provided the animation for season three and used a
more simplified design style for the characters—such as removing some of the
detail from Mother Brain, Icarus’ sandals and Belmont’s goggles, Icarus’ hair
no longer covering his eye, and Mega Man being more rounded and portly—and the
overall animation quality was greatly lacking in comparison to previous
seasons. Mega Man and Belmont had reduced roles in order to avoid paying the
royalties to their respective owners, Capcom
and Konami.
Each episode was shortened to 11 minutes and was combined with Super Mario World to form the
half-hour Captain N and the New Super
Mario World. A new intro was made with narration by Hill as Kevin, and
episodes went beyond videogames to include parodies of fairy tales. The third
season only had seven new episodes produced, written by Dorothy Middleton,
Matt Uitz,
Al Sonja L. Rice,
Calvin Kelley,
Dennis O’Flaherty,
Paul Dell
and Steven
Weiss. The episodes “Nightmare on Mother Brain Street”,
“Quest for the Potion of Power”, “Invasion of the Paper Pedalers”, “Three Men
and a Dragon” and “Mr. and Mrs. Mother Brain” were recut to 10 minutes to fill
out the remainder of the season’s run.
The show, along with all of NBC’s
other animated programs, were cancelled at the conclusion of their seasons to
make way for their Teen
NBC
initiative. Captain N didn’t stay off
the air, however, as it returned the following season in a syndicated rerun
package called Captain N & The Video Game
Masters,
which
included Zelda, Mario 3 and Mario World. The licensed music from the
first season was removed and replaced by an instrumental version of the season
2 song “Mega
Move”
from the episode “The Feud of Faxanadu.” The Captain N episodes were time compressed and split into two acts
instead of three and used the season 2 intro and credits, while season 3’s
episodes had their title cards removed. The
Family Channel aired time-compressed versions of the
songs for the 1991-92 season, reducing each episode by 2 minutes but
maintaining the original licensed music. From 1993-99, USA Network
aired the series as part of their USA Cartoon Express
animation block on Sundays. The network edited scenes out of various episodes
in order to format it to fit their specified running time.
 |
| Captain N with Bayou Billy. |
When “How’s Bayou” originally aired,
the animation for the episode was raw and unfinished and had several scenes
missing. The episode only aired once and was later replaced by an updated
version with improved animation, additional scenes, and music and dialogue
swaps. “When Mother Brain Rules” was a clip show highlighting events from the
series thus far narrated by Belmont. Upon its original airing, everything was
left intact. However, additional airings had Saban and Levy’s music excised
from season one clips and replaced with music by Tavera.
 |
| The competition for Kevin begins between Lana and Samus in the comics. |
After the first season, Valiant Comics
entered into a publishing deal with Nintendo and DiC to produce a series of comics
based on the show. However, the book had some notable differences from the
actual program. For starters, Valiant chose not to pay the licensing fees for
Belmont and Mega Man and replaced them with Metroid
protagonist Samus
Aran,
who never appeared on the show despite all the other Metroid elements present. The love triangle was reworked to have
Lana and Samus compete for Kevin’s affections. Dr. Wily was replaced by Uranos,
God of the Sky, from Kid Icarus as
Mother Brain’s second-in-command. Lana also gained a new weapon: a scepter she
had in concept art but was only seen briefly once in an episode. The writing
also took a decidedly more serious tone than the cartoon. The comic ran for 5
issues before being abruptly cancelled; with the final issue’s letter page
promising the appearance of Mega Man in an upcoming issue.
In the early 1990s, the first and
second season were released across a series of VHS
tapes distributed by Buena
Vista Home Video. The third season was recut into a
73-minute movie titled Captain N and the
Video Game Masters. In 2007, the complete
series was released to DVD by Shout! Factory
and BMG Music Entertainment.
The set contained only the first two seasons as the third was considered part
of a separate show for legal reasons. They released Captain N and the New Super Mario
World later
that year. The original version of “How’s Bayou” was included, and the second
season was comprised of the Family Channel edits as the masters were not
provided for it. “When Mother Brain Rules” remains the only episode never
released on home video due to it being a clip show. Plans to include a booklet with the set and a scan of the first
issue of the Captain N comic were
scrapped due to time constraints and rights confusion, however the original Nintendo Power story was included as a
bonus feature.
Three years after the end of the
series, Corlett would go on to play Wily’s nemesis Mega Man in a Mega Man animated series. Chalk would
also reprise his role as Robot Master Guts Man (amongst several other roles),
and Terzo would also supply voices for an episode. In 2015, for the final issue
of Archie Comics’
Mega Man
comic, the goofy back-up strip “Short
Circuits” featured a gathering of every incarnation of Mega
Man and his cast; including the version seen in Captain N.
EPISODE GUIDE:
Season 1:
“Kevin
in Videoland” (9/9/89) – Kevin Keene is sucked into Videoland through his TV
and ends up joining Princess Lana and her team against the forces of Mother
Brain.
“How’s
Bayou” (9/16/89) – When Mother Brain discovers Kevin isn’t good at Bayou Billy, she plots to lure him to
Bayouland.
“The
Most Dangerous Game Master” (9/23/89) – Dr. Wily builds a robot version of the
kid who used to bully Kevin and lures the heroes into a trap in Castlevania.
“Videolympics”
(9/30/89) – Mother Brain challenges the N Team to a Video Olympics on Mount
Icarus as a distraction while her forces find the Three Sacred Treasures.
“Mega
Trouble for Megaland” (10/7/89) – The N Team tries to find weapons that can
counter the Three Sacred Trasures.
Games: Kid Icarus, Mega Man
“Wishful
Thinking” (10/14/89) – Pit tries to use a magic lamp to make himself bigger
while Mother Brain plots to get the lamp for herself.
Song: “Shakedown”
– Bob Seger
“Three
Men and a Dragon” (10/21/89) – The N Team heads to Dragon’s Den to battle Mother
Brain and save it from her new ally, Dragonlord.
“Mr.
and Mrs. Mother Brain” (10/28/89) – One of Pit’s arrows causes Simon to fall in
love with Mother Brain.
Games: Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, Kid
Icarus
“Nightmare
on Mother Brain’s Street” (11/4/89) – Mother Brain and Dr. Wily plan to trap
the N Team in the Nightmare Zone.
“Simon
the Ape-Man” (11/11/89) – A blow to the head leaves Simon believing he’s Donkey
Kong, Jr.
Game: Donkey
Kong
“In
Search of the King” (11/18/89) – The N Team heads into Mirror World to rescue
Lana’s father, but instead find themselves in a trap.
Game: Wizards
& Warriors, Castlevania
“Metroid
Sweet Metroid” (11/25/89) – Mother Brain feints defeat in order to conquer
Videoland.
Game: Metroid
“Happy
Birthday, Megaman” (12/2/89) – Mega Man sets out on a quest to become human.
Season 2:
“Gameboy”
(9/8/90) – King Charles sends Game Boy through a warp to aid the N Team, but he
ends up being more trouble than helpful.
“Queen
of the Apes” (9/22/90) – A brain-switching plot leaves Mother Brain in Donkey
Kong’s body, Donkey Kong in Game Boy’s, and Game Boy in Mother Brain’s.
Game: Donkey
Kong
“Quest
for the Potion of Power” (9/29/90) – Kevin helps Link and Zelda keep Ganondorf
from regaining his full power.
“The
Trouble with Tetris” (10/13/90) – Kevin helps Lana’s bother Lyle keep the
Sacred Square from Tetris world out of Mother Brain’s hands.
“The
Big Game” (10/20/90) – Some of Kevin’s friends are brought into Videoland to
compete against Dr. Wily’s robot masters in a football game.
“The
Lost City of Kongoland” (11/10/90) – Trying to keep an artifact from Mother
Brain leads Lana to becoming an even more dangerous foe.
“Once
Upon a Time Machine” (11/17/90) – Link and Pero help Kevin retrieve his Power
Pad and Zapper from Count Gruemon.
“The
Feud of Faxanadu” (11/24/90) – A power overload sneds the N Team to Faxanadu
where they end up in a conflict between elves and dwarves.
“Having
a Ball” (12/1/90) – When Mother Brain fires Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo for
failing to get the Triforce, they go out and steal it for themselves.
Game: Zelda
II: The Adventure of Link
“The
Trojan Dragon” (12/8/90) – Zelda and Link join the N Team in stopping
Dragonlord’s latest plot to conquer Dragon’s Den by using a mechanical dragon
to sneak in.
Game: Dragon
Warrior, Zelda II: The Adventures of Link
“I
Wish I Was a Wombatman” (12/15/90) – Pit teams-up with his favorite TV hero
against Mother Brain.
“The
Invasion of the Paper Pedalers” (12/22/90) – Mother Brain uses a special
newspaper ink to hypnotize the residents of an Earth-like world.
“Germ
Wars” (12/29/90) – The N Team shrinks down to battle a virus Kevin has
contracted.
Games: Faxanadu
“When
Mother Brain Rules” (1/5/91) – A recap of the first two seasons.
Season 3:
“Misadventures
in Robin Hood Woods” (9/14/91) – Kevin and Pit team-up with Robin Hood to take
on the Sheriff of Nottingham’s troops.
“Pursuit
of the Magic Hoop” (9/21/91) – The N Team travels to Hoopland to attempt to
sink a ball through the Magic Hoop and wish for King Charles’ return.
“Return
to Castlevania” (9/28/91) – Simon travels home for a great honor, only to learn
he has dishonored his great-grandfather, Trevor.
“Totally
Tetrisized” (10/5/91) – The N Team returns to the world of Tetris to liberate
it from the Puzzle Wizard.
Game: Tetris
“Battle
of the Baseball Know-it-Alls” (10/12/91) – Mother Brain plots anew while the N
Team is busy with demons in the world of Baseball.
“A Tale of Two Dogs” (10/19/91) – Dr. Wily partners with
Dr. Wright and the N Team to build a Peace Robot, but he double-crosses them
and uses the robot against them.
“The
Fractured Fantasy of Captain N” (10/26/91) – Astos hypnotizes Kevin into
helping him conquer the world of Final Fantasy.
Originally posted in 2017. Updated in 2018.
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