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Nintendo For Christmas, 1987.

Still putting together the next Macy's Parade review, which'll be up next Sunday. As those who've read the previous features know, one of the big points of glory surrounding these parades were the insane amount of holiday-themed commercials shown during the breaks. Thanksgiving's true meaning notwithstanding, the occasion is important to most of us for three things: a day off, a lot of food, and the true ushering in of the Christmas season. After you sleep off the tryptophan, it's time to start shopping.

So, to tide y'all over before the big feature this weekend, here's one of the ads from the 1987 Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade -- a Toys 'R' Us commercial peddling the then still fairly new Nintendo Entertainment System, successfully converting the few remaining Atari boys to slaves of Mario. The NES had already taken off by the time the spot aired, but with the addition of several classic titles (some of which kicking off franchises that still exist today), Nintendo was about to take an even bigger chunk of the big money pie. Big money pies aren't edible but can be traded for pies that are.

We kick off with a shot of a kid sleeping in the lower bunk, drifting off to slumbertown with a big goofy grin on his face. With no clear sight of the boy's hands, we mustn't assume prelim masturbation. Actually, he's only giggling because when Mr. Sandman punches him in the face, he starts dreaming about Mr. Sandman punching him in the face. Only the second Mr. Sandman looks like a chocolate Bald Bull. Somewhere in this paragraph is something that makes sense.

Led by Geoffrey into Toys 'R' Us much in the same way God will lead you to the smoking section of Angelic Cloud #47 Level C after you DIE, the dreaming child envisions himself in the midst of every wee lad's biggest fantasy. He's gone to TRU before, sure, but never with a giraffe, and never after dark when there's no other kids around to steal the good stuff a second before he can dive at it. This is the kind of dream that makes you protest ever having to be awake.

Notice how he doesn't pay attention to the board games? If you've got a wish-granting giraffe by the balls and it's your dream to direct, why waste time on Topple and Mouse Trap? There's more expensive stuff to wrap your sleepy arms around, and to the boys of 1987, only one thing in the world mattered. Nintendo wasn't a way of life, it was life. It's for this reason that I can remember what the idiot fish who ate Mario were called but still cannot add, spell or tie my own shoes.

And thar she blows! Priced at an affordable 79.97 (actually much lower than its original retail), the Nintendo Entertainment System was the #1 gift choice amongst the four kids who didn't get the thing a year prior. "Batteries not included?" Don't recall ever throwing a battery into my Nintendo, unless they're talking about those small gold pills we fed to busted Zelda cartridges.

The ad also promoted the Zapper (and by association, Duck Hunt), proving in plain view that nobody who owned the light gun could resist standing just two inches from the television for extra special aim. Other games were on sale for thirty bucks and up, while the assortment featured in the second pic displays some of my all time faves, including the irresistible Pro-Wrestling, starring King Slender and a mutant lizard whose finishing hold alternated between eating his opponent's face and giving them a noogie.

Sleepin' Boy Guy wakes up and compares dreams with his older brother, confident that he's had the best dream in the history of dreaming. I can't really argue with it, but hold out some skepticism as one would think his dream could've been even better had it incorporated a clown on fire.

Click here to download the commercial! (.WMV)

Posted by Matt on 11/08/2004. E-mail me!



Discussion Thread: 95 comments

First post! :-)

Chestnuts roasted by Yzziefrog @ 11/08/2004 3:20 PM

Nice. I’m totally sold!

Chestnuts roasted by Slacker @ 11/08/2004 3:29 PM

Nicely done.
Gold star!

Chestnuts roasted by Discharger @ 11/08/2004 3:30 PM

Wow, great ad. I was too young at the time to be cognizant (big word of the day) of how much Nintendo systems and games cost, so that’s cheaper than I thought. I forked over 70 bucks at Toys R Us for Perfect Dark when it came out. The blow was slightly softened by the fact I had a crush on the cashier there.

Chocolate Bald Bull… Hmmm. We’ve had gummy snacks shaped like Nintendo characters, now we deserve chocolates shaped like Nintendo characters! They probably have them in Japan. Lucky bastards.

Chestnuts roasted by marioshoku @ 11/08/2004 3:30 PM

Ahh, the original NES was like liquid crack, or at least what I imagine crack to be like…. Like every other 9-year-old in the US, I had to have one. But my parents weren’t about to spoil me- NOOOOOOOO. I had to "earn" it. They made a deal with me that if I earned half by doing chores (read: indentured servitude), they would front the other half. They said it would help me build good character or some crap like that. It took me friggin’ 8 months to get $45 bucks while my neighbor, Sherri, got one FOR FREE under the Christmas tree INCLUDING Zelda and Rad Racer…. that bitch. To this day, my parents claim I appreciated my NES much more than Sherri because I had to work for it- yeah right ;)

Chestnuts roasted by Jillybeann @ 11/08/2004 3:49 PM

And to think, one of my earliest game purchases was POPEYE. I chose it over ZELDA!! WTF????

Chestnuts roasted by Jillybeann @ 11/08/2004 3:50 PM

I was never lucky enough to own an NES. I was told I was lucky enough to get Atari, and that after spending so much money on games for that system, there was no way my parents were going to fork over more money just to start all over. Sigh… I wasn’t even offered the Dutch system of earning half. Of course, getting my own VCR was a big day. Must have been about 1987 or so. Best birthday present ever.

Chestnuts roasted by trajeal @ 11/08/2004 4:07 PM

i’m the lucky possessor of a completely illegal burned disc for the sega dreamcast that has all (read every single, ameri, euro, asia) nintendo game on it.

It’s been sweet, really nice, and cool, respectively (not to mention completely awesome and bitchin’) but this mini article blog deal can’t help to remind me that it doesn’t make me long for the old days of renting mario 2 and playing till my thumbs bled any less powerful.

sometimes having everything at your fingertips still doesn’t help nostalgia.

Chestnuts roasted by spooky @ 11/08/2004 4:12 PM

How I sometimes miss my Original Nintendo.

…especially the Power Pad…which I cheated with by using my fists insted of my feet.

Then again, everyone I asked who had the Power Pad did that too.

…hey, small request…anyone have any good pictures of the Re-Designed NES that they released on the dying days of the NES? You know, the one that looked like a bastardized version of the SNES?

Chestnuts roasted by Chris Waters @ 11/08/2004 4:16 PM

The top-loading NES? Just search eBay using that term.

Chestnuts roasted by Matt @ 11/08/2004 4:18 PM

Ah…didn’t think of that.

THanks Matt…

…WHOO! I think that’s the first time a post of mine was replied to by Matt! I’m-a so happy!

Chestnuts roasted by Chris Waters @ 11/08/2004 4:24 PM

Interesting fact: While King Slender is based on Ric Flair, the Amazon is actually based on Abdulla the Butcher. If you look close at his noogie move, you can even see him stabbing his opponent with a fork.

I’ve always been bitter about Nintendo’s neglect of the Punch-Out series from the last decade. Seriously, a Punch-Out game for Gamecube could possibly cure cancer. If John Kerry made a campaign promise that if he won, he’d force Nintendo to make a new Punch-Out, he would have won. Bush probably would have promised something lame, like a sequel to Pit Fighter. And I’m still disappointed that none of the Smash Brothers games have Bald Bull or Super Macho Man.

As for those two kids comparing dreams? Feh. I’ve heard better. A friend of mine once dreamt that he was the Green Lantern and he had to stop late actor Peter Lorre from strangling children in a daycare center. Now THAT is a dream.

Chestnuts roasted by Gavok @ 11/08/2004 4:28 PM

I own an NES and its cool. I got it recently so I don’t have that many games but I do own zelda gold and FF1 which I am proud of. Oh yeah also Metroid

Chestnuts roasted by klavorkian scarf water @ 11/08/2004 4:42 PM

By the time I got an 8-bit nintendo snes was already out and super mario 3 was already like 3 years old. It was cool for awhile but then I gave it to my friend for his birthday because I got tired of trying to blow on it to make it work and then so did he so we took turns throwing it as high as we could in the air. In fornt of his house. Maybe you do appreciate things less when they just handed to you.

Chestnuts roasted by Pat @ 11/08/2004 4:47 PM

I’m still playing my NES. And buying the NES carts for my GBA. Well, not the ones that I have on e-Reader cards. Except ExciteBike, now I can create and save my custom tracks. Meanthewhiles, I am waiting with anticipation for the Atari Flashback, 25 really old school games in one console. Party time, fun time, yeah yeah yeah!

Chestnuts roasted by kingklash @ 11/08/2004 5:05 PM

I totally remember this commercial, but I don’t remember the NES portion of it, which is odd because that thing was my passion (and still is in some ways).

I didn’t initially get an NES until Christmas of ’88. I’m prtetty sure this was due to the fact that the NES just didn’t hit my small town in the mountains of California (my family lives in Sacramento now, but we were in the foothills at the time). My town was chock full of farm folks and the like, and I doubt the latest in technology would hit there right off the bat. The reason why I think this is true is because nobody in my first-grade class had recewived and NES until that Christmas. Dude, virtually every guy in my class got NES that year. It was awesome, because from that day forward, that was all us boys talked about (until my family, myself included, moved to Sacramento in the middle of that year, where I just talked about NES with every boy there as well.

Y’know, it could’ve just been that my parents were too cheap to buy it for me right off the bat. I’m not sure as to what the real cause for my late entry in the world of NES was. But I can tell you that once I received it, I forgot about all action figures and even watched less cartoons thatn I used to, because all I wanted was to buy and play NES games.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 11/08/2004 5:51 PM

I got mine for the hell of it back in 1988… my nextdoor neighbor got his first, which made me bitch for one until we went to KB Toys, paid $200 and spent probably seven hours hooking it up until we realized hitting the shit out of the system made it work. Happy times.

The next two years were spent on Mario, Metroid and Zelda, in that order.

Chestnuts roasted by Rein @ 11/08/2004 6:07 PM

I got mine in 1988 too…because I had to get my tonsils out and my parents finally figured they better cough up the dough for it. As I got out of the outpatient hospital, coughing up blood and shit, my mom diligently went to Toys R Us and picked up the system along with MLB. I would just alternate between hacking and hitting home runs, good times…good times…

Made me mad though because while I had to endure surgery for my NES, my cousin Matt got it like three years BEFORE and already had amassed like 60 games.

I would spend the night at his house and he was anal about the damn thing, so I had to wake up three hours before he did (not a problem, because he never stirred until around 11 a.m. or so) just to play the freaking thing.

Semper Fi,
Erik Majorwitz

Chestnuts roasted by EMajorwitz @ 11/08/2004 6:15 PM

That commercial brought back bittersweet memories. Does Toys’R'Us even have huge fancy commercials anymore? It seems like the toy store has almost died out in the past few years. They were always a good source of Christmas cheer.

Chestnuts roasted by Evan @ 11/08/2004 6:17 PM

Supposedly the koopas are named after iconic punk legends, Wendy O’ Koopa (with a sledge hammer no less) after Wendy o’ Williams and Iggy Koopa after Iggy Pop. I can’t remember anymore just cause I haven’t played it in a while. Not to say that’s it locked away in my parent’s basement.

Chestnuts roasted by shugga @ 11/08/2004 6:22 PM

Evan,
TRU is slowly phasing out toys and going with the more lucrative BABY’S R US stores. Both KB toys and TRU are losing money to Wal-Mart’s evil empire and the overall shift in the toy market (and by shift I mean when kids jump from 3 to 13). Sad but true….

Chestnuts roasted by manimal789 @ 11/08/2004 6:34 PM

Evan-Y’know sumthin’, I’m kind of wondering about that myself. I eman, I don’t think the toy store is dead. Hell, one of the Toys ‘R’ Us locations in Sacramento is actually being removed form its ghetto and a new one is going in at the suburb where my family lives (needless to say, I’m stoked, because that’ll be a Christmas-shopping haven). But still, do not remember seeing any commercials lately…no…wait a minute…there are those TRU commercials with Geoffrey prank calling other toy stores or something like that.

It’s basically an attempt to say "We’re better than all the other toy stores, and we want them to know it." I’d definitely say they have a better selection of the latest toys than any toy store I know of, but places like Kay-Bee typically have better prices. So there is a trade-off.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 11/08/2004 6:45 PM

Oh my God!
Where can I buy one of these things?!? I’d leave my Pong in a second if I could get my hands on this "dream" machine!
Thanks Matt!

Chestnuts roasted by Croww @ 11/08/2004 6:46 PM

Croww-eBay is your best bet, but I’d try stores that sell used games first. Used record stores and even some video game stores are known for selling NES games and sometimes they’ll actually have an NES for sale.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 11/08/2004 6:57 PM

Back on the issue of my reception of the NES, there is something kind of funny about how I came to receive it.

It was about a month before that Christmas hit, and my younger brother was always quite the snoopy one. And whenever my brother actually found something, he’d always have to come and tell me about it, and I’d always have to go and see for myself, because he had been known to tell the tallest tales sometimes (he once told me he had all the NES games hidden somewhere, but he wouldn’t let me play them, and I believed him, thus resulting in my fantasy of finding such a treasure). But to my surprise, in our closet, there was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen: It was an NES with a Power Pad and everything (and yes, I actually RAN on my Power Pad).

Once my Mom learned of our discovery (she could tell by the way we were dancing in front of the closet, and got us to confess our sin), she had us convinced that it was nothing more than an empty box (later on, I learned that that was the typical parental explanation for any gift of mine that I found beforehand). Disappointed, I still hoped for that NES that Christmas.

Sure enough, I got it. And after setting it up, I noticed how my Dad was particularly good at Super Mario Bros. Years later, I learned that weeks before that Christmas, my Dad would wait for my brother and I to go to bed, just so that he could bust out the NES and play it himself.

Obviously, the only one in our household who didn’t really want the NES was my Mom. Her excuse for making the purchase was that it would exercise my hands, thus improving my handwriting skills, which were horrid. Interestingly enough, it did just that.

Chestnuts roasted by Nate @ 11/08/2004 7:03 PM

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