I've acquired 31 episodes of "The Power Team", the rare Acclaim NES cartoon from 1990

[StillGaming]

I managed to get 33 episodes of Video Power, where host 'Johnny Arcade' reviews video games and gives out strategies at the beginning and end of each episode. The meat of each episode, however, is dedicated to a cartoon about a group known as "The Power Team", a group of licensed characters from NES games that battle Mr. Big from NARC and other various baddies.

Some episodes didn't have the cartoon. However, I can confirm that, of The Power Team, I have episodes 1-9, 11-20, and 22-33. That's 31 episodes of cornball action starring a tomato, a basketball player, Fabio, a narcotics cop, and BIGFOOT the Monster Truck (http://i.imgur.com/eA6ds.jpg). I wish I could make a team like that up.

I've heard rumors that 55 episodes were produced of this cartoon. However, Video Power had only 65 episodes in its entire run, and those that know about the show also know that in Season 2, the show had a drastic format change, going to a 'game show' format with no cartoons. My theory is that Season One had 33 episodes (and 33 Power Teams), and Season Two was 32 episodes. The final part of that theory is a shocking conclusion that the final 22 episodes produced were never broadcast.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, as I actually never got to watch Season One as a child. They syndicated only Season Two where I used to live around Jacksonville, FL, but on one single occasion I think they showed an episode of season one, introducing me to The Power Team. I thought back then, "This crap sucks! It's just a cheap, lame Captain N ripoff!" Yeah, well, I think today it's a show that's so bad that it's fun. Most importantly, it's a piece of classic video game history that's incredibly rare.

I know people have been looking for this cartoon for a while. It was long thought lost and many thought it simply didn't exist. I'll try to make them readily available in some fashion sometime in April because these do need to be digitally preserved and viewed by anyone that's been wanting to see it as well as other curious gamers, especially after being forgotten for over two decades. I'd do it this month, but I have a certain ISP that has pathetic bandwidth limitations.

In the meantime, here's an episode I uploaded to YouTube. I also have Episode 1 and 11 up, located on channel StillGaming2 (http://www.youtube.com/user/StillGaming2/videos).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPhQsx2Uaw

[Edmond Dantes]

Oh God, I remember watching this show.

[TonyTheTiger]

More than just a Captain N ripoff, it was like the D-List Captain N ripoff. Of course I watched it. How could I not?

[Collector_Gaming]

forget the show... How about those classic commercials in the example posted here! Man i feel like i am 6 years old all over again!

[understatement]

Why oh why did I ever go for that engineering degree when accordion repair technician is in such high demand? LOL

[BomberHead]

Yeah. I was addicted to this show as a kid. Watched every moment of it. If i remember correctly. there was a 2nd show that was related to this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oygIaaHKHhQ

100% of both of these shows however was to advertise to us soft brained children.

if you somehow are able to host these videos i would be more than happy to mirror them or seed.

[Parodius Duh!]

now that the boards back.....do you have these on DVD-R and can trade copies? they are not .avi files?

I have TONS of rare cartoons, literally anything you could possibly want. Also lots of rare videogame toons and programs not on official dvd (or vhs even), pretty much everything related to videogames ever broadcast.....but not this.....


Id love to have copies of these episodes you have! pm me if you want to see my trade list, or if I could even buy copies from you....

[JSoup]

I had completely forgotten this cartoon, but I'm sure I've got most of the episodes recorded somewhere.

[rbudrick]

I heard these were lost to the ether! I'd love to watch these.
Tell me, my good man, how could I get copies of these from you? Old commercials included?! Awesome!

-Rob

[Mayhem]

We never got that here (although we did get Captain N). Having watched that... maybe just as well :p

[Kiddo]

As I've been trying to grab some digital archives of these kinds of shows for a long time, knowing that most of the episodes of Power Team are available in some form sounds like great news!

Please let me know of any updates!

In the meantime, keeping to the subject of Captain N clones, let me link an old thread about the Bug-tte Honey anime (www.digitpress.com/forum/showthread.php?149651-Bug-tte-Honey). It's pretty much Hudson's (God rest your soul) anime equivalent to a take on the Captain N concept of a video game protagonist crossover starring everyday kids, and is probably one of the only ones of this kind to have had it's own Famicom game adaptation (although it's not necessarily a good game, mind...).

[Carnby]

Thanks for uploading these! You should share these on Neogaf.

[theMot]

Why oh why did I ever go for that engineering degree when accordion repair technician is in such high demand? LOL

I wonder how many people signed up to that! ROFLMAO

[Dangerboy]

Wow, even in the video game cartoon the token black get left out in the rain. Literally.

[swlovinist]

I remember watching this back in the day. Thank you for sharing.

[BomberHead]

I remember seeing an episode once when i was a kid where the winner got to run through the maze and went straight for the neo geo. i tried looking and couldnt find it. but yeah, that kid knew what the fuck was up! XD

[megasdkirby]

I you can manage to get the complete season 2, that would be fantastic. Ive been searching for them for quite some time.

[TonyTheTiger]

I just love cartoons. It's the only place where a drug cop, a barbarian, a basketball player (in uniform), and a big talking tomato could offer help to a guy in the rain and elicit a completely ordinary response.

[vintagegamecrazy]

You sir are awesome, thanks for sharing, please upload more to youtube!

[Parodius Duh!]

Hit me up for trading!!!!!!! anybody! Heres the shows I have:

Pac Man the animated series (complete)
Donkey Kong and Donkey Kong Junior (complete)
Saturday Supercade (Only 2 hour long episodes in circulation)
Pac Preview Party starring Dick Clark with original commercials (Very rare special aired before the premiere of the pac man cartoon)
Christmas Comes to Pac Land from original premiere broadcast date With original commercials
Gamesmaster (British Video game based gameshow, complete)
Video Games Vol.2 (Featuring Night Trap the movie, rare commercials, japanese promos for unreleased games, etc.)
StarCade (Complete)
Battletoads animated pilot
Earthworm jim (complete)
Tetris: From Russia with love rare documentary
Salamander Anime (RARE anime based on the Salamander/Gradius series)

I have more Videogame related programs but Im to lazy to sort through thousands of dvds. On top of this gaming stuff I also have just about any animated program yopu could possibly think of (something missing from your childhood and not officially on dvd? hit me up!), Rare Sitcoms, Entire broadcasts with the original commercials intact (TGIF, USA cartoon express, Commander USA, Saturday morning cartoon blocks), General weird programming, Rare Anime, Rare Muppet stuff, Foreign versions of sesame street w/ different muppets, Saturday morning preview specials, Unreleased TV pilots, Unreleased films, rare cult films...........I have thousands of programs and Im always looking to add more stuff to my collection, so if any of you guys are into this stuff and want to trade, PLEASE hit me up!!!!!!

NOTE: the programs I offer are in the public domain, or otherwise unobtainable and are for trade only! no rips of commercial dvd releases or avi files!

[Kiddo]

Gamesmaster (British Video game based gameshow, complete)
Video Games Vol.2 (Featuring Night Trap the movie, rare commercials, japanese promos for unreleased games, etc.)
StarCade (Complete)
Tetris: From Russia with love rare documentary
Salamander Anime (RARE anime based on the Salamander/Gradius series)


These sound of theoretical interest to me. Well, so does the Supercade stuff but I'm really hoping WB Archive gets to releasing that already.

[Parodius Duh!]

These sound of theoretical interest to me. Well, so does the Supercade stuff but I'm really hoping WB Archive gets to releasing that already.

PM me.....and dont hold your breath on Supercade, its NEVER happening. Too much licensing garbage it wont be worth it to them. Plus each episode is an hour long so it would end up being like a 12 disc boxset.

I have Every episode of Donkey Kong and DK Junior from Supercade. Thought to be lost until some dude a few years ago found every episode on film reels at a flea market and had them transferred, pretty much the best quality that will ever be available and the only complete portion of Supercade.



....and at StillGaming....are you StillHere? or did you come make this one post to make us drool over the thought of possibly getting these episodes from you?

[Parodius Duh!]

to the top.....Come back StillGaming!

[TheRedEye]

You have the non-cartoon segments as well, right? I'd be REALLY interested in the parts where Johnny Arcade goes to CES, iF you have those. Please tell me you do...

[Shicky256]

Wait. Isn't this that show where the people stuck NES carts to themselves with velcro?

[TonyTheTiger]

PM me.....and dont hold your breath on Supercade, its NEVER happening. Too much licensing garbage it wont be worth it to them.

You never know. There were tons of old cartoons that I would have assumed were lost to memory and backwater fansites from 1998 yet a bunch have made their way to DVD (I love Shout! Factory), including ones I would have guessed were totally improbable like Captain N.

[Ryaan1234]

I managed to get 33 episodes of Video Power, where host 'Johnny Arcade' reviews video games and gives out strategies at the beginning and end of each episode. The meat of each episode, however, is dedicated to a cartoon about a group known as "The Power Team", a group of licensed characters from NES games that battle Mr. Big from NARC and other various baddies.

Some episodes didn't have the cartoon. However, I can confirm that, of The Power Team, I have episodes 1-9, 11-20, and 22-33. That's 31 episodes of cornball action starring a tomato, a basketball player, Fabio, a narcotics cop, and BIGFOOT the Monster Truck (http://i.imgur.com/eA6ds.jpg). I wish I could make a team like that up.

I've heard rumors that 55 episodes were produced of this cartoon. However, Video Power had only 65 episodes in its entire run, and those that know about the show also know that in Season 2, the show had a drastic format change, going to a 'game show' format with no cartoons. My theory is that Season One had 33 episodes (and 33 Power Teams), and Season Two was 32 episodes. The final part of that theory is a shocking conclusion that the final 22 episodes produced were never broadcast.

Of course, I could be completely wrong, as I actually never got to watch Season One as a child. They syndicated only Season Two where I used to live around Jacksonville, FL, but on one single occasion I think they showed an episode of season one, introducing me to The Power Team. I thought back then, "This crap sucks! It's just a cheap, lame Captain N ripoff!" Yeah, well, I think today it's a show that's so bad that it's fun. Most importantly, it's a piece of classic video game history that's incredibly rare.

I know people have been looking for this cartoon for a while. It was long thought lost and many thought it simply didn't exist. I'll try to make them readily available in some fashion sometime in April because these do need to be digitally preserved and viewed by anyone that's been wanting to see it as well as other curious gamers, especially after being forgotten for over two decades. I'd do it this month, but I have a certain ISP that has pathetic bandwidth limitations.

In the meantime, here's an episode I uploaded to YouTube. I also have Episode 1 and 11 up, located on channel StillGaming2 (http://www.youtube.com/user/StillGaming2/videos).

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NfPhQsx2Uaw
Is that you Lee? I love your show. I hope you make some more "Still Gaming" episodes at some point.

(btw, I saw Dena's most recent review of Catwoman and thought it was pretty good.)

[StillGaming]

All 33 episodes are now publicly available. I don't think I'm necessarily allowed to link to where it is, but it is definitely on a major public distribution site.

Yeah, it's Lee. I announced in my previous video, a review of XBLA title Arkedo Swap, that I had serious nerve damage but that it was going to be under control, but what happened afterwards was a huge kick to the balls. My insurance denied my 13th and final nerve block that I was scheduled to have a few days after that video came out. It took almost two months for them to approve it, else it would've cost $6500. I finally got a radiofrequency nerve block in February, and am still in the process of recovering. Some unforeseen side-effects from years back returned last week that may or may not be related to the nerve damage, but some medication has it mostly under control and I should hopefully be able to resume full production this month. I'll try to make a VLOG explaining my long absence soon. I really wish I could've done it sooner, but to be honest, everything just went to total hell almost 30 full months ago and I'm only just now starting to get back to normal.

Thanks for the support on that Catwoman review! Part 2 should hopefully be coming in a few weeks.

[Parodius Duh!]

I dont know how to use torrents and that crap.....do you have hardcopy dvd-rs you could trade? as previously mentioned I have a shit ton of programming, rare cartoons, gaming related stuff, etc......over 800 individual series to choose from, all of which have never been released to dvd or vhs even....please, please pm me!

[StillGaming]

I do have the 10 DVD set that can be copied and mailed out if I absolutely have to, and would be willing to do trades for them if I see something I need. I'm only willing to do trades once or twice maximum. To do more, I'll make exceptions for memorabilia from the video game Psychonauts or some deal involving that Netherworld All-Stars Poster that had Disgaea characters on it. I know there's some rare anime and cartoons out there that aren't readily available via torrent or whatever that I'd also likely be interested in. I won't be selling the DVDs. I've already had to do a lot of tedious work getting this stuff online and don't really want to do much more with it.

[Genjackson]

Yeah. I was addicted to this show as a kid. Watched every moment of it. If i remember correctly. there was a 2nd show that was related to this one.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oygIaaHKHhQ

100% of both of these shows however was to advertise to us soft brained children.

if you somehow are able to host these videos i would be more than happy to mirror them or seed.

They used a Miracle Piano in that intro. That makes me happy.

[snkryo]

Thanks op for bringing back some memories. :)