The TV show I am reviewing today is so stupid that I don’t really require my brain to write about it. If you remember the old NES Legend of Zelda games, then you probably, and unfortunately, remember that ever-so-hideous cartoon that meandered about shortly thereafter in 1989. Although, I have to say that claiming that this cartoon was based upon the eponymous video games is like saying that this cartoon was based on even an ounce of coherent thought. Time for Ten Questions!
1.) How in the name of all that is holy can anyone call this wretched pile of festering entrails “The Legend of Zelda” and not be classified as brain-damaged?
This cartoon bears no similarity to anything in the Legend of Zelda video game series that didn’t have the CD-i label on it, because if it did, then we have all been misled over the years. Link is apparently not a silent, young Hylian boy who grows up to become the world’s greatest hero. No, he’s actually a vociferous idiot who lives in Hyrule Castle and spends most of his days trying to get a kiss from Princess Zelda. What an eye-opener. Speaking of Zelda, she is a stuck-up ditz who spends her time forcing Link to do menial tasks around the castle and is generally just a waste of space and oxygen. (Her nose is also bigger than her ears. Just felt I should throw that out there.) Dumb as a brick and just as interesting, she is a stereotypical blonde if ever there was one. More on her later.
And of course, you can’t have a cheesy, poorly-acted action cartoon without an over-the-top villain who talks to himself entirely too loudly. In this series, the perpetual Legend of Zelda villain, Ganon, is a warthog-like creature who teleports all over the place and laughs indiscriminately at everything. This Ganon meanders around as only a hideously misrepresented video game villain could. One thing he does is disguise himself and disrupt a magicians’ contest in order to steal the Triforce of Wisdom. Wow. I know I’m hooked. You know what the real Ganondorf from the real Zelda games would have done in the same situation? He would walk right up to the castle and blast the gate away with a snap of his fingers, saunter into the grounds and eviscerate everyone in there and take the Triforce. And then he’d chuckle at the smoldering pile of death that he left there. Now, of course, they couldn’t very well do that in a children’s cartoon, but to see Ganon displayed like this is aggravating as hell. There isn’t much more to this mercifully short-lived series other than Spryte, the little fairy that follows Link around and flirts with him at every turn. Spryte’s only redeeming value is that she makes all kinds of sexual innuendos towards Link and I admit I chuckle at some of them since she is literally only five inches tall.
2.) Where art thou, voice acting lessons?
Oh, my, where do I begin here? I suppose I should preface this by saying that not even Sir John Gielgud could have pulled off a decent performance in this series because the scripts were so godawful. Also, Len Carlson, who voiced what was supposed to be Ganon, didn’t do a bad job. Still, that doesn’t mean that I am going to let all the other wretched voice acting get off scot-free. Jonathan Potts, who voiced Link, was outright nauseating to listen as he portrayed the pretty boy, skirt-chasing “hero”. Although, given that he took part in Jason X, maybe this series was just a precursor. Zelda got it even worse because she sounded like she was voiced by a porn star. I mean that in every sense of the sentiment. Her voice starts and stops at bizarre times in the middle of sentences and she puts the inflections on the wrong words, not unlike everybody in the horrid Double Dragon movie. But the other aspect of this little theory of mine is even better. There are some absolutely hysterical moments involving Zelda saying things that you would expect a woman in a porno to utter. Example? Zelda is hosting that amateur magician’s contest (don’t ask me why) that I mentioned earlier and after some old guy causes a tomato to grow from a seed to a full-blown fruit, she says this:
“Ooh! It’s so big!!”
The inflection is every bit as unintentionally funny as it sounds. Looks like Spryte isn’t the only naughty-minded character here.
3.) Was this animation inspired by a Charles Dickens novel?
Upon first glance of one of the episodes in this series, you will see some pretty well drawn backgrounds. I would even argue that the backdrops and miscellany used in this series were better than most other cartoons that were broadcasted at the time. However, when you get to the people and creatures that actually move, then you can recoil in horror. The fight scenes look like wounded Rock ‘Em-Sock ‘Em Robots fending off a herd of lobotomized Ronin Warriors. Link runs around pulling seemingly the entire inventory of a Final Fantasy item shop from his satchel while shooting baddies with his sword’s magic pink disintegrator beams. It is every bit as dumb as it sounds and looks. If that weren’t enough, you can observe the many torches and fireballs that look like waves of tomato soup spraying around. As would be expected, the lip-synching is even worse. There are several instances where characters will say whole sentences and their mouths are completely shut the entire time. I know animation wasn’t exactly at its pinnacle at this time, but come on. Great backgrounds, horrific animation–a tale of two cities.
4.) Plots? Don’t you mean plot?
It was difficult to distinguish between any of the thirteen total episodes of this series because every plot was exactly the same. Ganon and his minions steal the Triforce of Wisdom (or they kidnap Zelda) thanks to Link’s and/or Zelda’s ineptitude and they have to get it (or her) back. And they always do roughly three minutes later. And in between, Link zaps some things with his magical (and extremely short) sword. Yay for originality.
5.) Shouldn’t the title of this series have been “The Legend of Some Stupid, Unappreciative Bimbo Masquerading as a Princess”?
I cannot believe I am about to say this, but…Princess Zelda is an idiot. Link might be dim-witted in this abject disaster of a cartoon, but Zelda takes the imbecile ball and sprints away with it into the next solar system. She acts as if Link, who dense and annoying as he may be is still the guy who has saved their kingdom countless times, is her personal butler, or perhaps more appropriately, court jester. It never ceased to amaze me how Link managed to save her life several times, and she acted as if he never did anything. He’d save her from some hulking goon and she would still treat him like a peasant. Personally, I wonder why he even bothered to save her since she was such an ungrateful twit here. Why the bloody hell was Princess Zelda, of all people, portrayed so ridiculously? Were the creators of this cartoon ingesting moth balls before the creation of each episode?
6.) Could someone explain to me how you have these magical items called “Triforce”, and yet only two of them are ever seen?
Having a set of items with the prefix “tri-” should indicate that there are three articles in said gathering. The only two pieces of the Triforce that are shown in this show are Power and Wisdom. The Triforce of Courage, which is the one that Link is forever, uh, linked to, is never even mentioned in this abortion of a cartoon, much less seen. In hindsight, maybe they only kept the word “Triforce” because changing it to “Biforce” would cause even more problems that this ghastly cartoon didn’t need.
7.) Is there a more annoying catchphrase in animation history than Link’s?
Link, as I stated earlier, spends most of his time trying to get a kiss from Zelda and he never succeeds in getting one (or getting any, depending on which way you look at it). Every time Zelda gets mad at him for whatever reason, he would blurt out:
“Well, excuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess!”
This line has become infamous, perhaps even cult-classic, in video game circles for its cheesiness and dreadfulness, but really, the phrase itself is the entire show (and the CD-i games, for that matter) in a nutshell. It represents everything the real video game Link and Zelda aren’t, and when Link says it, he is always reacting to Zelda treating him like garbage. Request: can we give this series and the three CD-i games based off of it the E.T.: The Extraterrestrial video game treatment and bury them in a New Mexico landfill never to be seen again?
8.) Not that I particularly mind them, but how did all of the sex jokes make it past the censors?
Spryte is the repository for so many sexual innuendos, it’s insane. Her costume design was basically a pink Tinkerbelle skirt, only shorter. She watches Link take a bath and even as Link yells at her to get out, she says that she always likes how Link looks–particularly “at the moment”. The animation also gives us several upskirt shots since Spryte’s skirt is so outrageously short. The funny thing is there is at least one instance that was what I like to call “animating yourself into a corner”. Ganon flicks Spryte into a wall and she lands in such a way that there was no way they could draw her without her crotch showing. Given that I couldn’t stray my eyes away from the, um, focal point, I looked and it appeared that Spryte was going commando. However, I simply couldn’t tell given the poor animation. Bottom line is that I just can’t believe the censors let some of this stuff slide. But hey, I’m not going to complain…
9.) Why exactly did I spend real American currency to relive the memories of this putrid cartoon?
If you people only knew how much I yearn to get laughs out of you.
10.) If you ask a stupid question, should it even warrant an answer?
During one episode, Link and Zelda decide that the best way to catch up to Ganon, who of course has just made off yet again with the Triforce of Wisdom, is to launch themselves into the air in a very Looney Tunes-like way. While soaring merrily through the air, they spot Ganon on the ground and Zelda actually asks Link, “How are we going to get down?” Oh, I don’t know, Z; maybe a little thing called “gravity”? (Remember, Zelda is a total simpleton.) Then, to top it off, they crash to the ground completely unharmed. Isaac Newton would have cried if he ever saw this cartoon; never mind the countless thousands of Legend of Zelda fans who wept after watching this nonsense.
Grade: F- You’ll have to excuuuuuuuuuuuse me for not grading it even lower.
