Pop Culture Retrospective Episode #5 - The History of Nintendo: a home video game system with origins in Japan in the 1800s. Also, a brief discussion of the 1980s classic film- The Wizard!

Here's Why You're Reminiscing More Than Usual During The Pandemic an excerpt from the Huffington Post

By Julia Ries:  "The pandemic has made life weird, and lockdowns and restrictions are just some of the recent events to have a tremendous effect on the human psyche.  A few months ago, tons of people started experiencing wild and vivid coronavirus-themed dreams. As the days passed, many lost their sense of time and stopped caring about whether it was a Sunday or Tuesday.  Now, people are looking back at their pasts, revisiting decisions they made and relationships they lost. They’re exploring things they could have done differently, regrettable mistakes, and random, buried memories (like this guy who reminisced so much he landed on a years-ago episode of “Bear in the Big Blue House”). Even just scrolling through old photos on Instagram can be tempting right now.  Behavioral health specialists suspect this isn’t a coincidence. Here’s why so many people are revisiting their pasts in quarantine:The past can be grounding.For some, the past can also provide a sense of calm and stability that people aren’t getting from their daily lives right now. There’s a lot of uncertainty and instability ahead, and people may resort to the past to find peace. “The past is very comforting. It’s a known,” Reiff said.  It’s human nature to make negative assumptions when we’re faced with uncertainty, according to Reiff. In this case, people may have doubts about what the future holds. Looking at the past is a way to regain some control in a situation that’s making you feel helpless.  Mayra Mendez, a psychotherapist with Providence Saint John’s Child and Family Development Center in Santa Monica, California, added that looking back can help people understand how they once dealt with grief and uncertainty and that they can overcome difficulties yet again. Most people will realize they have a great capacity for resilience, Mendez said.  The past can also be grounding, she added. It validates our existence and gives our life meaning, especially in a time when there’s so much instability.  “When you’re grounded in your own existence, it stabilizes your thinking, your emotions, your ability to problem-solve and cognitively process information,” Mendez said.

It must have been around 1988/1989...my sister and I had saved up our money and decided to pool it together so that we could purchase Nintendo.  One day, our parents drove us to the local music and electronics store - Coconuts in our hometown.  My sister has always been better with her money than me so she contributed well over $100 to our cause and I must have given $20-30 bucks, maybe less.  For the rest of our time together, every once in a while she would give me a hard time.  Remember when I basically paid for all of Nintendo and you contributed like 5 dollars?  Yes, yes, I remember.  

On today’s episode we will be discussing the groundbreaking home entertainment system known as Nintendo, a gaming console that ruled the world of at-home video games for much of the late 80s and early 90s.  Through our look back you will learn the connection between Nintendo, the Walt Disney Company and Popeye.  We’ll also touch on the Nintendo-inspired film, the Wizard!  So pull up your bean bag chair and slap on your PowerGlove, here we go!

Welcome and thank you for tuning in to the Pop Culture Retrospective Podcast, a show dedicated to reliving pop culture memories, inspired in memory of my sister.  My name is Amy Lewis and you are tuning in to Episode #5 - Nintendo! 

The origins of Nintendo dates back all the way to 1889 in the ancient city of Kyoto, Japan.  A man by the name of Fooshahero Yamauchi created beautiful handmade playing cards called Hanafuda which, roughly translated, means “flower cards” in Japanese.   He started a company called Nintendo Kompai.  Nintendo roughly translates as “leave luck to heaven” and kompai is basically the equivalent to saying “cheers” in English.  My grandmother said this every once in a while before having a sip of saki.  Eventually, the cards became so popular that Foosahero had to hire staff and open a facility to keep up with demand.  There were 12 suits of the cards, one for each month of the year.  Instead of numbers on the cards, there were pictures.  Foosahero ran the company until 1929.  His son in law Sekiyro Kaneda took over for the next 20 or so years.  After 70 solid years of production, the cards became associated with gambling and gangsters known as Yakuza.  Some members of the Yakuza even had tattoos of the Hanafuda.  Because of this association, people in Japan didn’t want to purchase these cards anymore.  

Around 1949/1950 Foosahero Yamauchi’s great grandson took over the company.  His name was Hiroshi Yamuchi and he was just 22 years old and very ambitious.  He wanted to move beyond just making playing cards.  He wanted to transition into the toy industry. That would come, eventually.  

Meanwhile though, the Nintendo company continued to produce playing  cards.  In 1953, they became the first company in Japan to produce playing cards made out of plastic. Also interesting to learn in the late 1950s, Yamuchi met with Disney executives to work on a plan to license Disney characters on playing cards.  The hope was through this partnership, perhaps the stigma of gambling and gangs would go by the wayside when customers saw the likes of Bambi and Thumper on their playing cards.  This partnership proved to be a huge success - they sold over a ½ million packs of the cards.  Yamuchi was incredibly inspired by the Walt Disney Company because they were truly a global entertainment company at this point.  Disneyland opened in 1955 and after working out some kinks it became a big success, they had an animation studio, live action studio, merchandise, etc.  Mickey Mouse had been a household name for decades by this point.  Yamuchi then changed the Nintendo Kompai company name to just Nintendo.  

In the mid 1960s, the Nintendo company attempted to expand their brand via some very random ventures as the playing card industry was on a serious decline.  They ran a taxi company, a food company, a love hotel chain  and developed a remote controlled vacuum called Chiritory.  How you like them apples, Rumba?!  Thankfully, in 1965 Nintendo hired a man by the name of Gunpie Yo koi who would prove to be an asset in the progression of the company.  

Soon the  Nintendo company began getting  into the Toy Industry.  They decided they could utilize the distribution channels they already had from the playing cards to dispense their new line of toys.  The first toy they ever produced was called the Ultra Hand.  It was designed by Gunpie Yo Koi.  It’s an interesting story how that toy came to be.  In 1966, Yamauchi was watching the manufacturing of the hanafuda and he saw something that caught his eye during the production.  He saw an extending hand that was aiding in the creation of the cards.  Yamauchi told Gunpai to please start immediately mass producing these as a toy in time for the Christmas holiday.  It was a HUGE success and sold over 1 million units.  Yamauchi then pulled Yokoi off of the assembly line and shifted him to product development.  Reminds me of the movie, Big.  

Yokoi had a solid understanding of electrical engineering.  This would help Nintendo to continue to progress.  He would go on to develop several other electronic toys including the precursor to the Nintendo Entertainment System toy gun that would eventually be used in Duck Hunt.  He had a little help from Masayuki Uemura from the company, Sharp.  

In 1975, Nintendo started to develop home video game consoles.  Their first one was called Magnavox Odyssey and then the Color TV Game 6. In 1977, the Atari 2600 was released by Atari.  This popularized the use of separate cartridges for games instead of having them built in.  In 1978, Nintendo released a computer game version of the board game, Othello.  In 1979, Nintendo released some arcade games (which was a huge industry at this time), including one named Radar Scope.  Beginning in 1980, Nintendo released a handheld game watch, sort of like a calculator, called Game & Watch which was designed by Yokoi.  It was made until 1991, and sold over 43.3 million units.  In 1981, Nintendo developed Donkey Kong which was designed by Shagearo Miyamoto.  Just before that though, the company was asked to create an arcade game that was based off of Popeye to coincide with the movie that was released in 1980.   I completely forgot about the cartoon Popeye as well as the live-action Popeye movie which starred Robin Williams and Shelly Duvall.  In case you don’t know, Popeye is a sailor who gets his impressive strength from the help of cans of Spinach. The company ended up losing that license but they were able to utilize some of that development into the Donkey Kong game.  Bluto was the villain in Popeye, so that character became Donkey Kong.  Olive Oyl became Pauline the Princess and the hero, Popeye, became Jumpman in the Japanese version and later  Mario in the American version.  Mario the video game character was named after Mario Segale, who Nintendo rented a 60,000 square foot facility from beginning in the early 1980s.  Some reports say he was a bit “hot headed” and quite the character.  By 1982, Arcade games generated 27 billion dollars in revenue. There were approximately 60,000 arcade units at this peak in the United States. Home game console use earned about 14 billion dollars that same year .  Unfortunately though, things changed very quickly.  Just that next year,  the arcade industry started taking a nosedive, there were just too many developers developing too many games, it became an issue of quantity over quality.  Consumers were moving toward using computers at home.  Making note of this, in 1983, Nintendo released a home video game console called FamiCom which was short for Family Computer.  In 1985, Nintendo showcased their new Nintendo Entertainment System or NES at the Consumer Electronics Show. The NES utilized cartridges, although initially when it was in development the console was going to utilize floppy disks and a keyboard.  Hiroshi Yamauchi thought that floppy disks and keyboards would be too intimidating to most people.   They drastically modified the FamilyCom design by having the game cartridges load in the front and not on top.  They wanted it to load more like a cassette player which more and more people were becoming familiar with and using.   Later that same year, they began a slow rollout of the Nintendo Entertainment System via test markets in New York City and Los Angeles and later San Francisco and Chicago.  The full rollout happened in September of 1986 in the US and parts of Europe were included. One key decision they made was to market Nintendo as a toy, not a video game or electronic since consumers were starting to shift away from that.  This marketing strategy, along with the quality in the games resulted in Nintendo being a HUGE success.  In Christmas of 1986 and 1987, Nintendo was the biggest seller.  It cost about $140 or so when it was released and it originally came with a robot named Rob the Robot playmate.  Soon, Nintendo blew Atari out of the water and it took 65% of market share in 1988.  Some of their most popular games for NES included Super Mario Brothers 1-3, Duck Hunt, Legend of Zelda, Dr. Mario, TMNT, Excitebike and Zelda II: The  Adventure of Link.  

Some of the NES accessories that you may remember:  Powerglove, released 1989.  It worked as a controller and motion detector.  You could move your character by pushing buttons, turning your wrist or moving your arm up and down.  The Powerpad could be used for more movement based games including World Class Track meet, Dance Aerobic and Athletic World.  There was also the NES advantage which was a large game controller that had a joystick and two turbo knobs.  

One distinct memory I have about playing Nintendo, whether it was with my sister, friends, cousins, etc. was the infamous blowing of the cartridge.  For some reason, everyone knew that if the game wasn’t working correctly, that was the solution.  I recently looked up some information about it and realized that for 37 years, I have been living a lie!  In a video clip which I will add to the show notes, I learned that although we grew up believing that blowing across the bottom of the cartridge was perhaps clearing out dust to make the game work appropriately, that was not the case whatsoever.  The website the AV Club did some research and learned that this is infact a myth!  Blowing the cartridge doesn’t actually do anything and the liquid particles from our mouths actually make it worse.  The reason why the games worked after blowing on them, had to do with the game getting reinserted and reconnecting, thus fixing any glitches.  The article that went along with the clip on the AV Club site had this to say quote:  “something that a lot of people don’t know is that blowing in your video game cartridges is actually bad, because ‘80s kids were stupid and everything you believe is a lie.”  My sister and I had quite the system of blowing on the cartridge, moving the little shelf that held the game in the console up and down, etc. and even blowing into the console itself to fix any technical problems.  So apparently, we actually, were, in fact, stupid.  Thanks AV club!

 The peak of Nintendo seemed to coincide with the 1989 release of the cult-classic film the Wizard starring America’s sweetheart, Fred Savage along with other well-known names at the time including Christian Slater, Beau Bridges, and Jenny Lewis (who you may remember from Troop Beverly Hills...gather ‘round….)  It tells the story of two brothers who travel to California on a bit of an adventure.  Fred Savage plays the character of Corey whose younger brother, Jimmy is in a psychiatric facility due to his PTSD which resulted from losing his twin sister in a tragic accident.  Corey is very frustrated about this so within  what seems like the first 5-10 minutes of the movie he schemes up a plan to run away with his brother.  In an early scene, he looks at the address of the facility his brother is on a scrap piece of paper and then throws a dart at a United States map he has hanging in his room. It lands on a few different places and then finally on California.  He decides that is where he they should go. Soon, he sneaks into the facility, gets his brother, and they set off on quite the adventure involving riding in the back of a hostess truck, skateboarding without helmets on, in front of semi-trucks no less, video games, and a soundtrack that includes songs by the New Kids on the Block.  Corey befriends a girl at a bus station.  Her name is Haley (played by Jenny Lewis) who is on her way home to Reno.  Long story short, Haley ends up missing her bus and they all end up sort of stuck together, unsure of what to do next.  Corey and Haley realize that Jimmy has an incredible knack for video games, and thus he is dubbed “the Wizard.” They eventually learn that there is a video game contest at Universal Studios in Hollywood, CA.  The prize is $50,000 and Haley and Corey figure that if Jimmy can show how talented of a game player he is, perhaps his parents will reconsider keeping him in an institution. They spend the next few weeks going from state to state, earning money by hustling people with video game competitions against Jimmy.  Corey will approach people who look kinda like some suckers and encourage them to challenge his little brother who is young and quiet so most agree to the battle, but of course end up losing.  In this movie, there is quite a bit of Nintendo Product placement including Corey’s old brother conveniently having an NES in the back of his dad’s pickup truck which he plays when they stop at hotels and when they stop to get their car repaired as they drive from state to state helping to search for the missing boys. There is a scene in which the trio sees the previously mentioned NES accessory, the PowerGlove in action when Jimmy plays Nintendo games against Lucas Barton, kind of a bully character, who has all 97 Nintendo games that were available at the time.  He shows his skills with Nintendo/the Power Glove on a car racing game and at the end he raises the glove against his black trench coat collar and says:  “I love the PowerGlove, it’s so bad.”  Jimmy is very intimidated by Lucas’ video game prowess and decides not to play against him.  Coincidentally, the guy who played Lucas Barton was badder than the PowerGlove as he got into some trouble with the law, don’t want to say for what, but let’s just say he has been on probation for some pretty terrible stuff.  This is a family show though so we’ll just leave it at that! Toward the end of the movie,  we also get the first glimpse of Super Mario Brothers 3  game as that is the game Jimmy plays in the contest.  I remember feeling so excited when I saw that reveal for the first time.  Mario 3 was unlike any game we had played before.  This movie also features the song Send Me an Angel by the band, Real Life. The song is utilized during a montage scene where we see the kids hitching a ride on motorcycles with some hells angels, holding up cardboard signs asking for a ride to Reno, adults on the hunt to find them, etc. This song was also used in the 1986 film Rad starring Lori Laughlin. During a sequence in which her character and the main character, Cru, are at what looks like a school dance, bust out their BMX bikes for a slow motion trick demonstration in front of a large crowd of people who have circled around them.  It’s one of those scenes where it's really obvious that a stunt double/real BMX rider is doing the tricks as they never show Lori’s face while she is showing off her impressive skills on the bike.  Very reminiscent of the dancing scenes in Flashdance where you never see Jennifer Beals face during the complicated dance moves.  Wish my prom could have been more like that! 

Anyways, back to Nintendo….Seemingly out of nowhere, a company called Sega released Sega Genesis in 1989 and that’s when the now long-running competition, dubbed the “console wars” began.  This sort of marked the beginning of the end of the NES home video game reign.  Sega tried to market themselves as being a bit tougher or more extreme than Nintendo.  Old commercial:  Genesis does….you can’t do this on Nintendo! Following Sega Genesis, Nintendo released Super Nintendo, Game Boy, Virtual Boy (which was a big flop, but everyone was really into VR at this time), N64, Game Cube, Playstation, later X box, etc. etc. Then Wii, WiiFit, WiiU, etc. etc.  Although NES didn’t reign supreme forever, it is clear what an impact that system had.  It laid the groundwork for all of the other video game consoles that came after it.  NES sold 62 million units in it’s lifetime! The extent of me and my sister’s video game playing stopped after we had Sega for a few years.  So my knowledge about video games is quite dated to say the least, but I loved revisiting the small window of time when my sister and I played video games.  However, I learned that gaming is up 75% since the pandemic.  It’s still popular and is probably helping a lot of people get through this crazy time.

I hope you have enjoyed this look back on the Nintendo Entertainment System, the most popular gaming system of the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Nintendo company went from making playing cards, to the gambling controversy, to remote controlled vacuums to toys and then of course went on to be the trailblazer for all future gaming systems! If you are enjoying the PCRP please consider subscribing on whichever podcast platform you utilize.  Please also rate the show on Apple Podcasts or ITunes, it helps the show out a lot! Also, I have been meaning to make a correction on a previous show...on the My So Called Life episode I mistakenly said that my family took a road trip from LA to Anaheim that took several hours.  I meant to say our trip was from San Francisco to Anaheim. 

I hope you will join me for my next show where we will be discussing one of the most iconic rappers of the late 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. MC Hammer.  I mean, what could be more perfect during a pandemic than to discuss an artist whose most famous hit was “Can’t Touch This” I think I have been unconsciously saying that to my children since mid-March.  When they reach for a railing - “you can’t touch this” or a door handle located anywhere other than our house “you can’t touch this.”  Until then- be kind, be safe and hold on to your memories.