Whatever happened to 'Ask Dan'?

[Famidrive-16]

Back in 97/98, there was this section on Nintendo's site called 'Ask Dan'. Every other week or so, Dan would answer all these weird e-mails that were pretty funny to read, like the one where the guy asks a question about an RPG, but doesn't state the name of it. Last I heard of Dan, he was translating the N64 Zelda games.

I haven't been to Nintendo's site in ages, soooo, I'm not too sure whatever became of him. I remember that he started to update less and less around 99 or so, but that's it.

Anybody know where that guy dissapeared off to? Still works at Nintendo? Quit? Works at a mining coal? I'm perplexed.

[Ed Oscuro]

Works at a mining coal?
:hmm:

Best post ever.

Hmm, remember the last name? Might have it in a NP issue somewhere...though that column wasn't running in 1997 in NP.

[joshnickerson]

Ah, I remember those. They were pretty damn hilarious at times. Dan Owsen actually appeared on that DK64 /Jet Force Gemini promo tape, obscured by shadows, pimping his column. Ironically, it was after that went out he stopped doing it *L*.

As far as I know, he's still working at Nintendo, doing text for games. I think he was mentioned in a recent Nintendo Power in a "NP's Swag" article.

[Famidrive-16]

Dan Owsen

THAT was the full name. I forgot what it was, kept thinking it was 'Dan swanson' or 'Dan preston'...

[Niku-Sama]

pea tear griffon

[Aussie2B]

Dan Owsen lost his mind. Seriously. Okay, here's the story of what I know about Dan Owsen and my personal experience with him.

Dan Owsen goes WAY back with Nintendo of America. Long before his "Ask Dan" column online, he was an editor of Nintendo Power, and heavily involved in the US localizations of Nintendo's titles (just look in the credits; you'll see his name in almost all the classics). He went to Japan frequently and worked face-to-face with Miyamoto, as best as I know. He even did that little bit of English voice acting you hear when you start up Super Metroid. Once Nintendo went online, he was responsible for a lot of the online content. He was the main honcho behind the BBS, and he'd even talk directly with the users (including me; that's how I know all this). However, being one of those old bulletin board systems, its security wasn't great, there was a lot of potential for users to abuse it, and, of course, there were plenty of dickheads and retards. Dan simply couldn't handle it. o_O He had a frickin' nervous breakdown or something, and instantly destroyed the entire system, without so much as a warning. For years, there was simply a page in its place saying that the board was "temporarily" down or some such, but it never reappeared. In recent years, the site ENTIRELY changed, and over time, the decision was made to create a new board. However, the new forums are in no way like the old BBS, but I have heard that Dan is running it. I can't say whether or not he still works for the magazine since my subscription ran out years ago, but I'm sure someone else can check on it.

Oh, and my favorite Dan moment of them all is his appearance in the Donkey Kong Country promo video, where he looks like the complete shmuck that he is. :P

[Jorpho]

Wow. I can believe the erasure of the BBS, but was a nervous breakdown really involved?

I'm sure a lot of his old columns are up on http://www.archive.org somewhere, but I have a Zip file handy containing most of them if anyone's interested. There's much to be said for the old Internet mailbag era.

[Aussie2B]

Well, it is a bit of exaggeration and speculation on my part. :P From my contact with him, it appeared he just couldn't handle things. The state of the BBS wasn't really THAT bad, surely no worse that the kind of stuff that goes on at GameFAQs, but for some reason he would flip out over everything, so instead of fixing problems in a mature, rational manner, he just *poof* made it go away.

Oh, and since my bro-in-law got a free subscription to Nintendo Power, and I was able to check the staff and Dan Owsen STILL works for the magazine. I was amazed to see a few other names I recognized from way back in the Howard Phillips days.

[Jorpho]

Here's that archive:
http://www.savefile.com/files/7851752

[Zing]

He even did that little bit of English voice acting you hear when you start up Super Metroid.

So he was the one responsible for the most horrible and homosexual sounding voiceover in a SNES game that I have ever heard?

[Bratwurst]

So he was the one responsible for the most horrible and homosexual sounding voiceover in a SNES game that I have ever heard?

I always thought that was a woman with bad audio compression.