My Cheetahmen II Story....Stupid Me!!! (kinda long)

[ScottK]

I thought I would let you all know my Cheetahmen II story.

By 1993 or 1994 I had a huge collection of about 250 NES games. 90% of everything I bought back then, I bought brand new. Then I discovered video rental stores that were starting to liquidate their stock. One chain store in particular (Box Office Video...now known as Movie Gallery) started liquidating their NES stock. They were selling every game they had for $2.88 each. I was in heaven. I bought all the games that were worth over $10 at the time and kept going back to the store to see what new stuff they had put in the clearance bins. One day I was there and I glanced over at an end cap that had brand new NES games on it. One game stood out above all others because I had never heard of it before. It was Cheetahmen II and they had 3 Brand New copies of it for sale for the $2.88 price. I bought all 3 copies of the game thinking that my buddies might want a copy of it. I went home and opened the game. First thing I noticed is I thought that I had come across more Action 52 carts as all the Cheetahmen II games have the Action 52 label on the front of the cartridege. They had a generic gold sticker across the back that said Cheetahmen 2. I then played the game and did remember playing the original one on an Action 52 cart and remembered how the first one (and now 2nd one) sucked. I tucked all the games away for a few years.

By 1997 I was working at Toys R Us. and they started a program where you could trade in your games and get TRU credit (back then it was called Geoffrey Dollars). I was looking at the trade in values and noticed that Cheetahmen II was only worth $5, but Action 52 was worth $20 in trade-in credit. So I had an idea. I went home and grabbed the 3 copies I had of Cheetahmen II and took them with me to work one day. I told my fellow employees that they were the $20 Action 52 carts and they believed me due to the artwork. I was all happy because I got $60 in credit for only like $9.

Fastforward to 2005 and now I could kick myself in the ass for trading them all in. Not only did it turn out that Cheetahmen II was in very limited release, but it just kills me to know that I had 3 sealed copies of it at one time. Could you imagine how much a sealed copy would be worth nowadays?

Well I am done ranting at the present time. Just wanted everyone to hear my story on the game. For me I usually never really know the true value of something untill it it too late.

[Nesmaster]

great story, but sucks for you. thanks for sharing!

[Qixmaster]

I never thought cheetahmen II was ever released to the public? Wasn't it all bought out and then sold off to collectors or whatnot? Now i don't know the story, but i would like to know for certain. Anyways, that sucks man. I'd kill for a copy of cheetahmen II right now.

And while we are at it, did you open all three of the games? I know that most people keep this POS sealed, but since you seemed to play it did you notice any variations of the carts? Any info would be great :D

-Josh

[adaml]

I would tell you my story about Cheetahmen II, but you would openly weep. Let's just say I could have had pretty much every available copy of the game. A couple people, including Mike Sanders, know the details.

I do have a queston concerning Toys R Us buying back the games. After reading the book Game Over I was under the impression that major retail outlets like Toys R Us were strong-armed by Nintendo of America into not dealing with any unlicensed company. All Tengen games came off the shelves immediately (this was probably more from the Tetris debacle). Would TRU really have purchased unlicensed NES games back from employees/customers in 1997? This seems kind of strange.

[Half Cab Leroy]

I never thought cheetahmen II was ever released to the public? Wasn't it all bought out and then sold off to collectors or whatnot?
That's what I thought.

[fergojisan]

Mike Etler had a lot of these in the mid to late 90s. He was selling them for $10 I think, but I passed, because it sucked. :angry: :frustrated: I'm not sure if I'm confusing things, but I thought he said they put them on QVC or something like that? Mike, you out there? :D

[Zoe F]

I don't want to sound like I'm necessarily calling you a liar, but as far as I've ever known, no one even knew the game existed until the 1500 were found in 1997... and those were believed to be the only ones in existence.

I simply don't understand how a rental store in Indiana would have had three copies of the game just sitting around... I second AdamL's finding this strange.

[ScottK]

I don't know how the video store got the games, but the games really were there on an end cap. It might have been closer to 1995 because my friend was with me and I remember me buying a mario kart that day so that we could play it on my SNES Xband. I initially opened one to play and then opened up the other 2 when I sold them all to TRU. I kept the boxes and instructions (not really sure if it came with instructions, but I'm pretty sure it did as I would probably notice if it wasn't included. I know that video stores shrinkwrap their used items for sale, but I could tell that these games had not been opened. All 3 cartridges were identical. They were in fact identical to the Action 52 Carts. The carts were clear, had the Action 52 label on the front and a gold Cheetahmen II sticker on the back. I just assumed that nobody wanted to buy the crappy Action 52 games, so they decided to use the game shells from what inventory was stil stock piled.

As for Toys R Us not dealing with unlicensed publishers...I can see them having a contract to not buy from unlicensed companies as they weren't dealing with those companies. In '97 the NES was long gone at TRU as the hot systems were the Playstation, Saturn and N64. I don't think there were any unlicensed companies around at the time. TRU bought used games from their customers for geoffrey money. They put the games into huge bins and eventually sent them to headquarters and hq would sell them to FuncoLand or another similar place where they had a contract with. Both the Acton 52 and Cheetahmen II were on their buy-in list.

I'm sorry that people have doubts about my story. I would't lie about something like this. I have other stories that some may find hard to believe, but they really did happen to me. I'm just sad that I don't have any of the copies in my hand right now. Especially a sealed one.

I hope there is someone else out there who saw or had one in the mid 90's.

[adaml]

Mike Etler had a lot of these in the mid to late 90s. He was selling them for $10 I think, but I passed, because it sucked. :angry: :frustrated: I'm not sure if I'm confusing things, but I thought he said they put them on QVC or something like that? Mike, you out there? :D

I remember giving the guy Mike Etler's and Neil Gordon's email addresses so he could unload all his Cheetahmen II stock. I coulda had the whole stinkin' pile :)

I don't know if this is proof, but here is the very newsgroup message I read all those years ago: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video.nintendo/browse_thread/thread/f02c127e361aae8e/1e5394fb378db78e?q=cheetaman&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Dcheetaman%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#1e5394fb378db78e

If I wouldn't have been so poor at the time and splurged the $1500 I would probably have a much easier time supporting my wife and twins right now :)

[Qixmaster]

Mike Etler had a lot of these in the mid to late 90s. He was selling them for $10 I think, but I passed, because it sucked. :angry: :frustrated: I'm not sure if I'm confusing things, but I thought he said they put them on QVC or something like that? Mike, you out there? :D

I remember giving the guy Mike Etler's and Neil Gordon's email addresses so he could unload all his Cheetahmen II stock. I coulda had the whole stinkin' pile :)

I don't know if this is proof, but here is the very newsgroup message I read all those years ago: http://groups-beta.google.com/group/rec.games.video.nintendo/browse_thread/thread/f02c127e361aae8e/1e5394fb378db78e?q=cheetaman&_done=%2Fgroups%3Fq%3Dcheetaman%26&_doneTitle=Back+to+Search&&d#1e5394fb378db78e

If I wouldn't have been so poor at the time and splurged the $1500 I would probably have a much easier time supporting my wife and twins right now :)

WHOA! I would have shat my pants if i would have read that. I most definately would have bought them.

Anyways.... is it possible that Active (since very little is known about them) could have gotten some out in the wild before this batch of 1500 were sold off. Maybe Mike Etler, Portnoyd or TRE could tell us something about this since they seem to know their shizzle when it comes to odd stuff like this.

[ScottK]

you know, after doing some heavy thinking on the subject it could very well have been in 96...before i got my N64, but I know that it was before '97 as I had the games for over a year before I parted with them. I never knew the rarity of the item until just recently, which prompted me to write my above story.

The D.P. search says they were sold to collectors and sellers in '96. I wish that we could pinpoint an exact month if not a date. If there was a retail price of $24.95 then there should be more than the 1500 lot mentioned. If they weren't sold in retail stores, then perhaps some rental stores were able to get ahold of a few, just like the Panesian games.

If you think this story is hard to believe, then just imagine what I thought when I was able to score 2 loose Tengen Tetris' games in the $2.88 sale a few days earlier than this find. Sadly though, they never had any of the x-rated games in their stores as I would of loved to have grabbed them as well.

[NESaholic]

Damn what a story, you had 3 and passed them all up for $60,it was mega better that you saved just one,for yourself.
I just recently bought a complete one for $215 sealed will go for more.