Ken Griffey Jr. is returning to my hometown Seattle Mariners. I’m excited! I have a treat for folks tomorrow, but in the meantime, I present to you, what was, in my opinion, the best looking baseball video game in 1994.
Welcome Back Junior!
Sports
NBA on NBC (1990-2002)
Animation and sports. I don’t think folks realize the importance of one on the other, especially in the television broadcast world. But let’s be real, many times the intro animations set-up the game. And a great set-up can be the difference from a good game and a great game.
In my humble opinion, the hands down greatest animated intro was the NBA on NBC from 1990 – 2002. Check out out their intro to the 1998 NBA Finals:
From the highlighting of the NBC logo, to the sliding NBA logo, all the way to brushed aluminum background, the animation for this sequence was beautifully done (I wish I knew who the designers and animators were). And to this day, no intro from the other networks (NBA on ESPN, NBA on TNT, MLB on FOX, NFL on FOX, NFL on CBS, NFL on NBC, etc…) has given me that WOW factor.
It isn’t all about the animation though (blasphemy, this is an animation blog..), what really makes the NBA on NBC’s intro shine is the sum of all the parts: the Bob Costas voiceover, the montage of previous games’ (heavily filtered) highlight clips, and of course the best network sports theme ever, “Roundball Rock” and it was composed by John Tesh of all people. The best example of the complete intro was game 6 of the 1993 NBA Finals between the Chicago Bulls and Phoenix Suns. Check it out:
Alright, the real reason I’m reminiscing is because football season is officially over. The Mariners don’t play an actual game until April (Spring Training does not count and by all accounts the Mariners are going to suck this year). And the Seattle Supersonics are no longer here (no comment), so there is no NBA for Seattle…
But we do have this:
Once again, greatest animated sports intro…EVER!
PS: Enough time has passed, we can officially add Delonte West and Danny Fortson to the list of obscure Seattle Sonic players…
EDIT 2/11/09: BOO on youtube user TRJ22487, who has disabled the embed feature on the Bulls vs. Suns, and Bulls vs. Sonics intro videos. It’s all good though, just double click on the videos to get directly to the youtube feed.
EDIT 2/13/09: THANK YOU BILL SIMMONS! Thanks to the sports guy, Bill Simmons, from ESPN.com, for introducing me to this clip of John Tesh performing “Roundball Rock” LIVE! The set-up is classic, John Tesh humming the theme on his answering machine, and it ends with some sick violin vs. guitar action. YOU READ RIGHT!
Set the VCR: Here Comes The Ambulance! (Madden 92)
This new segment in the blog goes over the moments in cartoon history that have to be recorded and seen over and over. Since I am old school and remember the VCR days (when setting the VCR took a whole day’s work), I am calling this segment “Set the VCR.”
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There is still time in 2009 to talk football. Now folks now-a-days are spoiled with the current “Madden NFL” series. The player models are looking more realistic with every passing year. The old school football game to go to will ALWAYS be Tecmo Bowl, but Madden 92 was the first to really bring the realism (and humor) of football to my eyes.
Background
Before Madden, Video Game football was not too realistic. Bo Jackson could potentially zig zag his way to score on every play in Tecmo, and there was always one play where no matter what, you could score (cough..flea flicker). I mean Tecmo only had like 4 plays! You could just mash buttons and play decently.
Playing Madden 92 for the first time was actually like football in that you had to know what the fuck you were doing. When I first played Madden I hated it because everything seemed so complicated (look at Madden now though…you need a degree to play that game). As I kept playing and getting used to the game, I started seeing how realistic this game was compared to Tecmo.
And then the “Set the VCR” moment came that totally made me fall in love with the game…
Set the VCR
I was playing as the Seahawks (obviously) against the (then LA) Raiders. My QB, Dan McGwire (aka QB #10) dropped back looking for a deep pass to Brian Blades (aka WR#89). Suddenly Howie Long from the Raiders (aka DE #75) came off the edge and totally blasted my QB. The game told me QB #10 was injured. Then something shocking and at the same time hilarious happened…
An ambulance came from nowhere and ran over 6 more players!!!
Don’t believe me, watch the ambulance montage in this clip:
The Impact
Ok so after that, I wanted to see someone get injured on every play! Not only was it the first time I saw a video game ambulance drive onto the field, the programmers and animators saw it fit that they add a little more realism and run over other players that was in the ambulance’s way (bravo, now that is art!).
To me, this was a new path for video game sports. Madden 92 obviously started a franchise that is booming today. It even helped start a franchise based on absurd & hilarious Video game violence (NFL BLitz). I don’t think its a stretch to say that Madden 92 helped pioneer the sports video games of 2009. However, they took out the ambulance around 1994 (bad move), and to this day I wish it would make a return. I know it won’t because the NFL (No Fun League) has Darth Vader Force Choke on violence in any NFL License video game.
But for know, I’ll Set the VCR one more time…
HERE COMES THE AMBULANCE!!!
PS: Inspired by Chad Cocelmo’s The Memory Card on the Destructoid Blog.
Animated Super Bowl Ads 2009
That was a surprise…It turned out to be an entertaining game. Too bad I HATE the Steelers. Oh and guess what…I HATE the Cardinals too. But congrats to Omar Epps (aka Coach Mike Tomlin) for winning the Super Bowl (at least I like that guy).
Anyway, this is a blog on animation and cartoons and the like, so let me go over the animated ads that stood out to me. There was plenty of animation to go around, so only a few make the cut (and NO, the horrible “3D” Sobe lizards did not make the cut).
Coke Classic Avatar
Let’s be real, we live in an online world and everyone and their mom has some kind of avatar. When we meet folks, we’re just meeting their avatar. So good job Coke on being literal…
Coke Heist
WOW, two Coke commercials (plus I enjoyed the Mean Joe Greene spoof). This one was just special. I don’t know what it is…maybe I just like the heist thing, but maybe its because I thought the insects were beautifully animated. But yeah, this one’s pretty good.
GE Scarecrow
My initial thought…”eh” … but then my guy DJ Daps1 pointed out that the scarecrow in the commercial was some top tier animation. Looking back, that scarecrow is pretty detailed, so I have to concur. This one is for you Daps.
Alright let’s stop it right there, but if anyone wants to know my favorite commercials were the 1 second ones. The Miller one were the dude Screams “HIGH LIFE!!!” and the Ivar’s one that just said “Ivars.”
Final quote of the night from ?uest Love’s Twitter “Yo, You got the juice now Q” (Ask me if you don’t get the reference…)
Art of the Cartoon 