As Bugs' 67th birthday quickly approaches, I thought it'd be a good time to bring up this video game that was released to tie-in with Bugs' 50th birthday in 1990. Warner Bros. made a HUGE deal out of Bugs' 50th that year, there were literally hundreds of tie-ins and the characters and cartoons were everywhere promoting the event.
The Bugs Bunny Birthday Blowout was released by Kemco for the Nintendo Entertainment System and is one of the NES games I have fond memories of wasting hours of my childhood attempting to defeat. It was a fun (and frustrating!) game that was very reminiscent of Super Mario Bros. 2. The plot has Bugs on his way to his 50th anniversary party, but his fellow Looney Tunes stars are all jealous and attempt to kill him. It's not just Elmer, Taz, Daffy and Sam trying to kill Bugs either, but also Foghorn Leghorn, Sylvester and Junior, Pepe Le Pew, and even Tweety (even though an angry Porky is on the box, I honestly don't recall him being in the game... but keep in mind that I am relying on foggy seventeen year old memories here).
The ending of the game was incredibly lame. I doubt anyone will mind if I spoil it. After reaching his birthday party, Bugs finds all the Looney Tunes characters there to greet him. The very same "friends" who just spent the entire game trying to murder you and now wishing you a Happy Birthday and saying there were just fooling around.
More Screen Shots can be found here.
This brings back memories...
5 comments:
With "friends" like those, who needs enimies (well someone had to say it)?
The Porky part that you have mentioned was dropped out at the final release, the unused scene with Porky is still in the code though.
At least this was a proper Bugs Bunny unlike Crazy Castle which is some Roger Rabbit/Mickey Mouse game in Japan.
Thanks for clearing up the Porky mystery. Very interesting! Is there a way to see the "lost" Porky scene?
And did it show an angry Porky trying to kill Bugs?
In 1990 there were still many young adults who'd grown up on the classic-era WB comics, where Porky was portrayed as Bugs' best friend. Theory: Maybe WB approvals execs had no problem with almost every other LT character trying to kill Bugs, but did object to Bugs' closest buddy being in on it with them.h
Sorry for being so late, but here's the link to the lost Porky scene.
http://i65.photobucket.com/albums/h209/ClydePlumber/unusedporky.png
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