I’m sure we all remember this advert from 1993, featuring Rik Mayall and a particular game for the Nintendo.
It aired in the run up to Christmas, alongside this second one, which probably hasn’t stuck in our heads nearly as much.
Nintendo were so pleased with Rik that they comissioned some more adverts, but we’ll get to those.
In the meantime, Sega fell foul of the Independent Television Commission, when they featured an impersonation of Rik in their own rival campaign. From the Daily Mirror, on the 10th December 1993:
In the new year, after all the unsold stock had been shifted in the sales, the Newcastle Evening Chronicle (31st January) asked whether these kind of celebrity endorsements actually work …
Nintendo obviously felt pleased enough with the campaign, because they extended it, come Spring, and it even made the news, such as here, in the Huddersfield Daily Examiner, on the 1st of March.
Here’s that Kirby one …
And I don’t know if they changed their plans for the Zelda one, because this is the one that seems to have aired instead …
More followed, like this one for Street Fighter …
And this one, for Starwing.
