Alex Kidd
During the Great Video Game Depression of the 1980's, Sega created Alex Kidd as its first mascot, known at the time as “Teddy Boy”. With a super hero that could change into teddy bear form on command, Sega's success was virtually guaranteed. “Teddy Boy” also spelled the end of the decade-long gaming depression with its upbeat Jpop tunes and psychedelic dancing bears.
Alex Kidd in Mario World[edit | edit source]
Over time “Teddy Boy” slowly evolved into “Alex Kidd”, mainly due to concerns that “Teddy Boy” had become a symbol of gay marriage. The now revised “Alex Kidd” had a much lower homosexuality level due to his tight red jumpsuit and huge fist.
His first game, known outside of Japan as “Alex Kidd in Mario World”, was released in 1986 and featured Alex fighting to save the land of Galaxian from Steve Buscemi by eating hamburgers and playing rock-paper-scissors. “Alex Kidd in Mario World” to this day remains the only game that makes you start from scratch because the pirate with a freaking hand for a head chose rock the one goddamn time you chose scissors.
After the success of “Alex Kidd in Mario World”, Shigeru Miyamoto of Nintendo went back in time to November 5th 1955, with the help of Michael J Fox and Christopher Lloyd, and trademarked the term “Mario World”. Since Nintendo had bought the rights to time travel, Sega was forced into the difficult position of recalling all copies of their flagship title, including those that were built into the Sega Master System II (which proved to be a more difficult task than first thought).
Luckily for Sega, Nintendo was yet to patent the idea of releasing obscene amounts of spin-offs. In 1987 Sega struck back at Nintendo by announcing their plans to release a slew of Alex Kidd games with no resemblance to the original and no sense of continuity.
Sequels and Spin-Offs[edit | edit source]
Alex Kidd: BMX Patience Trial[edit | edit source]
Exploiting the fact that Alex was a fictional character, Sega forced him to sign a contract promising a further five games.
The first of the five games was “Alex Kidd: BMX Patience Trial”, a near-impossible game released in 1987 where the aim was to play for more than a minute without switching off the console in disgust.
“BMX Patience Trial” gained notoriety as the cause of a child suicide epidemic in Japan and subsequently was not distributed overseas.
The disappointing sales of the game was a strong indicator that Alex Kidd fans would only buy games that were of an exceptional standard. Despite this, Sega's CEO, Jeff Goldblum, publicly labelled Sega fans "...morons that would buy my shit if it was released in cartridge format." Sega fans were less concerned about the insult than they were excited about the possibility of converting a turd into a functional game cartridge.
Alex Kidd: Quest to Play More Games Brought to You by the Bodacious Dudes at Sega[edit | edit source]
With Alex having conquered Steve Buscemi and bike riding, the obvious next direction for the Alex Kidd series was an epic quest to an arcade to play Sega games. A bold experiment in the burgeoning genre of shameless self-promotion, "Quest to Play More Games Brought to You by the Bodacious Dudes at Sega" sucked the player into a world of mediocre gameplay and trite storylines.
However, after complaints that Alex Kidd had strayed too far from its platforming roots, Sega decided to get back at their anal retentive fans by releasing a platform game that only Satan himself could have created.
Alex Kidd: The Lost Sanity[edit | edit source]
The next entry in the Alex Kidd series was a landmark achievement in batshit loco game design. Released in 1989, “Alex Kidd: The Lost Sanity” featured Alex collecting miracle balls by dodging blue skulls shot out of a punk rocker’s ass and jumping over machines that automatically tried to poke you. In a move of undoubtable genius, Sega doubled the length of the game by making you play through it twice. The complete insanity of the game made it enormously popular amongst pot smokers, schizophrenics and people who think psychics are for real.
Alex Kidd: The Something Castle..?[edit | edit source]
Alex Kidd’s fifth game is rumoured to have been a Sega Genesis/Mega Drive game, but Sega remains suspiciously tight-lipped when questioned about it. Many historians debate its very existence since nobody fucking remembers it. It is argued by philosophers that we can never truly prove the existence of anything, to which most people respond by telling the philosophers to get a job. While highly disputed, it is theorised to be of a small, side-burned child playing rock, paper, scissors (or 'Janken') with old men and gorillas in his search for ricecakes--however this seems far too unlikely to possibly be true.
Alex Kidd in Shinobi Parody[edit | edit source]
The final game that Alex Kidd appeared in was a Sega Master System game called “Alex Kidd in Shinobi Parody”, which surprisingly was a parody of Sega’s Shinobi series. Before its release in 1990, Sega officially changed the meaning of the word “parody” to “inferior imitation” in order to avoid potential lawsuits. When it became apparent that the game didn’t suck like most Alex Kidd games, Sega quietly changed the meaning back. All dictionaries printed from September 1989 to February 1990 are now collector’s items. Alex kid enchanted castle.
The Future of Alex Kidd[edit | edit source]
Many people think that, with the prestigious history that the Alex Kidd series has, Sega must have something in the works for modern consoles. The good news is that even though Nintendo now owns the “Obscene Amounts of Spin-Offs” patent, Sega owns the “Apocalyptic Amounts of Spin-Offs” patent. This not only allows them to do something similar to what Nintendo is doing with the Mario franchise, it also allows them to do it so much that civilization will crumble and all human life will be obliterated.