Video Games In TV Shows, Movies, And More

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This is just a little something I decided to write about where video games are shown in TV shows, movies, and other things. They aren't based on a video game, like Mortal Kombat or Sonic, but are either shown as parodies or for real in non-game related entertainment. Some of my favorites are:

The Simpsons - Quite a few episodes spoofed video games, such as the one where Lisa becomes obsessed with Dash Dingo, which is an obvious parody of Crash Bandicoot. In the game a floating head of Crocodile Dundee tells Dash he must "find and devour the seven Crystal Babies or spend eternity in deep digeridoo!". Dash is then quickly killed by Ninja Koalas and even though Lisa thinks it's stupid she can't stop playing it.

Another earlier episode had Homer and Bart playing what looks a lot like like Punch-Out for the NES. Homer keeps getting clobbered by Bart so he goes to an arcade where they have a similar game where he starts learning how get good at it and beat Bart, which he does.

Another one was where Bart wanted a video game that is very much a parody of Mortal Kombat for Christmas but Marge refuses to get it for him. So when he sees the game in a store he starts having visions of different game characters like the Mario Bros., Donkey Kong, and Sonic all giving him reasons to shoplift it. Sonic is the worst of them as he zips around yelling "TAKE IT! TAKE IT!", which may be a parody of the old commercials yelling out SEGA!

Tiny Toons - Tiny Toons really made fun of video games for their addictive nature, their being expensive, and non-gaming parents' general belief that they will turn their kids brains into mush. One was a TV ad called Super Pluckyo Bros, for the Numbmindo System, where at the end the announcer tells kids to whine, beg, scream and yell until their parents break down and buy them one.

Another one had Plucky and Buster digging their way underground after escaping from a prison after they were framed for stealing a slushie machine. They start talking about how they can't see anything except each others' eyes, and to keep themselves from cracking up they decide to pass the time using their eyes as objects in what clearly looks like Pong and then Pac-Man.

The 1990's PowerPuff Girls. The Mayor is shown playing what is quite obviously Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, and ends up doing what many fans of the game have wanted to do: kill Navi the Fairy!

Toy Story 2 - The opening to the movie shows what look like Buzz having some kind of outer-space adventure. There is no Dialogue or anything, just Buzz running over and through all kinds of dangers, until he meets up with the evil Emperor Zurg, who promptly and violently vaporizes Buzz. Then it's shown to be an acutal video game that Rex is playing in Andy's house and getting frustrated because he can't beat Zurg. When they are in the toy store he see's a guide to the game the reveals the secret to beating Zurg, but at the end he decides that "defeating" him IRL was much better.

That's all I'm posting for now. If you'd like to talk about any interesting game references in non-game-related entertainment, feel free to post them here.

-In Malcolm in the Middle Malcolm and his friend Stevie discover a game on a computer called "The Verts". It is a spoof of The Sims, where you create a virtual family. Malcolm decides to create one based on his own family, so naturally he makes his virtual self perfect while he makes the rest of the family really horrible. But then the virtual Malcolm does nothing but admire himself in the mirror and later becomes a fat lazy slob while the rest of the family becomes happy, rich, and successful. The real Malcolm goes ballistic, kills his virtual self, throws the computer out the window and tells Stevie "Nobody ever saw this!". He also mentioned how the rest of his virtual family still succeeded at everything, even if he made them Canadian.

-In the 1990's Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, some teens that have joined the Foot Clan are shown playing the game NARC, a particularly violent arcade game where you run and shoot, blow up, kill (or just handcuff) drug dealers. It was bloody and graphic, but on the other hand if you shot vicious attack dogs they'd just turn into little puppies and run off the screen.

-In Diff'rent Strokes, Arnold becomes obsessed with beating an arcade game that was something of a side-scrolling outer-space shooter, so much so that he feigns illness to skip school so he can sneak off to the arcade. He finally wins the game and is overjoyed, but it doesn't last long when Mr. Drummond finds out he skipped school.

-Many TV sitcoms from the 90's would have at least one episode where the main characters are sitting in front of their TV playing a fictional game. Although the console (when it was shown) was usually a real one that was modern at that time, usually Sega Genesis or a SNES, the sound effects nearly always sounded like the old Atari 2600 Pac-Man game. I guess the producers of the shows didn't play games much or they just didn't bother updating the stock sounds for them. Paper Mario: TTYD may have poked fun at this, because a couple of times during the game they played the sound of Atari 2600 Pac-Man when he dies.

Doom was a popular thing to reference back in the day. There's that episode of Friends where Chandler goes "Wanna play Doom?", it's been played by characters and parodied in TV shows and movies, and there's even a sample of a sound effect from the game in a Rammstein song.

How about Quake 2 on PS, we spent days playing that shooter

Anybody recall a show called Code Monkeys? It was a show animated in the style of NES graphics but it takes place during the height of the Atari 2600 years. Some action segments are animated like classic arcade and NES titles. It was about a very dysfunctional group of game programmers working for GameAvision making games. In some episodes, they got guest stars David Jaffe, John Romero, and Lorne Lanning voicing themselves working for the company and pitching their own game ideas (God of War, Doom, and Oddworld series respectively) and getting turned down. I really recommend the show.

I know the 1st post had Simpsons video games in it. But you left off one thing. The Funtendo Zii! Obliviously a parody of the Wii. It first appeared in a subplot for a episode where Lisa bought one and brought it to the Retirement Home. And all the old people there loved. Playing a Wii Sports parody.