Early evening on Saturday, many anime and video game fans alike would gather for the viewing of “Ahh! Video Game Cartoons!” which proved to be a more laid back, fun panel where the four presenters would select two cartoons to watch while following up each episode with some quirky games. Candy was generously thrown to the crowd as some had more “colorful” commentary towards the clips in question, causing the crowd to laugh out in loud praise. Even to those that may not have spoken much outside of the panel, one could not help but feel their inner “troll” come out at the sight of the comical representation of video games in cartoon form.
The first episode shown was of the “Sonic the Hedgehog” television series that aired for two seasons on ABC from September 1993 until December 1994. Following the episode, one of the presenters arose up and selected a handful of people from the audience for a small game where the contestants would be presented with video game related questions. In order to “ring in” for an answer, the contestant had to perform a video game maneuver before the rest (for example, a Falcon Punch in the form of a punch motion was acceptable). When the presenter put on his shades, you knew the game was on (he looked much like the character known as “Muscles Glasses” from an internet series called “Epic Meal Time.” My inner “troll” felt the urge to come out and shout up on that, but I held back.) As the game passed on, many of the contestants would successfully answer the questions and given candy to keep score. A female contestant would prevail over all the rest and pick a wrapped up Gamecube game as her prize. The fun was finding out what she had picked and either is disappointed or satisfied with the choice (but with the humor of the presenters, the games were laughable choices.)
The next episode was an excerpt from “The Super Mario Bros. Super Show”, more specifically an episode within the series itself from “The Legend of Zelda”. The episode would follow the misadventures of Link having to clean the castle for Princess Zelda since, well, what else was he going to do with her not being in Ganon’s captivity? Soon a competition was made in the audience over how many times the main antagonist would utter the famous line “Well excuuuuuse me Princess!” in which four times were counted throughout the course of the 10 minute episode.
To end the panel, two more games were played. The first game was more of an improvisation segment where select contestants had to choose a reaction to a scenario (for example, how Tails might react to being drowned by Sonic for a millionth time.) The second game was also of the improvisation genre where two people were paired together, given two random characters and a scenario in which they were put in. They were given roughly 30 seconds to prepare, then they had to go for it! The winners of that competition had been the unlikely pair at the end who had Wario and Zelda as their choices and given a scenario that one contestant at first deemed “made no sense.” In the end, that very same contestant stole the show by stealing most of the cookies on the presenter table and throwing his hand into the air saying “I am Wario! Imma gonna win!” with some various other Wario lines before going to sit back in his seat.
“Ahh! Video Game Cartoons!” might have presented some laughable cartoon segments; but in the end proved fun just by hearing the audience get verbal with all aspects of the show. It was a fun escape from the convention while it lasted.
