6/15/2007 - Punch-Out!! Trailer

If Mario: Game Over is the greatest Nintendo skit, this is the second greatest. There are so many references to Nintendo games, it's almost impossible to count. Even the music sounds like 8-bit music on steroids. Set against the backdrop of the early NES game Punch-Out, it's supposed to be a trailer for a movie about the comeback of Little Mac, the game's hero.



And boy, was Mac little... The sprite of Little Mac had to be small, because the NES could not do the wireframe graphics of the arcade game or the transparency of the 16-bit Super Punch-Out game. The point of making your character "transparent" was to allow you to see the telegraphed moves of your opponents. This allowed you to discern their pattern and weaknesses which are the keys to beating them. While most boxers are button-mashers, the Punch-Out game was unique, challenging, and rewarding... making it one of the greatest games of all time.

This "movie trailer" was an entry into Nintendo's "Short Cuts" contest: a contest to see who could make the best amateur short film based on Nintendo games. Surprisingly, this movie did not make the top ten for people to vote on! This is an absolute travesty, and this opinion is shared by most of the comments on the video. There is nothing in this video that is provocative or unseemly, so I doubt it violated the rules in any way. That means the judges just plain did not like the movie! What a joke!