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Questionable Nintendo Products: Mario's Cradle-Robbing Picnic Plates

Growing up, I did my fair share of whining for whatever toy showed up on television. Needless to say, '80s commercials were all about Nintendo and ill-begotten offshoots of Nintendo's games and characters.

I imagine we Canadians are going to have to "share" our fresh water with the US as the world becomes a more desperate place, but the US has already shared their commercials with us, so I guess it's only fair. Though regulations on dirty American television have since become more strict in Canadaland, when I was growing up the lax rules meant we got a lot of ads for products that never made their way up here. So my mom had the perfect excuse for not buying me every little thing: "This is an American station. That toy is only in America."

Do you think she was just trying to shut me up?

One thing I do know for sure is that the Nintendo Cereal System never made its way up here, at least not in generous amounts. No snot-flavoured bits of Mario and Link at my breakfast table, alas, but I was still tormented by knowledge of the cereal's existence. What I didn't know until yesterday is that there was a sequel to the Nintendo Cereal System, based on Super Mario Bros 2 and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. The blog post, "Errant Nintendo Licensing," actually made me aware of a few batshit Nintendo products that I've never laid eyes on.

about the blogger

John Constantine, our superhero, was raised by birds and then attended Penn State University. He is currently working on a novel about a fictional city that exists only in his mind. John has an astonishingly extensive knowledge of Scientology. Ultimately he would like to learn how to effectively use his brain. He continues to keep Wu-Tang's secret to himself.

Derrick Sanskrit is a self-professed geek in a variety of fields including typography, graphic design, comic books, music and cartoons. As a professional hipster graphic designer, his recent clients have included Nerve, Pitchfork and MoCCA, among others.

Amber Ahlborn - artist, writer, gamer and DigiPen survivor, she maintains a day job as a graphic artist. By night Amber moonlights as a professional Metroid Fanatic and keeps a metal suit in the closet just in case. Has lived in the state of Washington and insists that it really doesn't rain as much as everyone says it does.

Nadia Oxford is a housekeeping robot who was refurbished into a warrior when the world's need for justice was great. Now that the galaxy is at peace (give or take a conflict here or there), she works as a freelance writer for various sites and magazines. Based in Toronto, Nadia prizes the certificate from the Ministry of Health declaring her tick and rabies-free.

Bob Mackey is a grad student, writer, and cyborg, who uses the powerful girl-repelling nanomachines mad science grafted onto his body to allocate time towards interests of the nerd persuasion. He believes that complaining about things on the Internet is akin to the fine art of wine tasting, but with more spitting into buckets.

Joe Keiser has a programming degree from Johns Hopkins University, a tiny apartment in Brooklyn, and a fake toy guitar built in the hollowed-out shell of a real guitar. He writes about games and technology for a variety of outlets. One day he will stop doing this. The day after that, police will find his body under a collapsed pile of (formerly neatly alphabetized) collector's edition tchotchkes.

Cole Stryker is an American freelance writer living in York, England, where he resides with his archeologist wife. He writes for a travel company by day and argues about pop culture on the internet by night. Find him writing regularly here and here.

Peter Smith is like the lead character of Irwin Shaw's The 80-Yard Run, except less athletic. He considers himself very lucky to have this job. But it's a little premature to take "jack-off of all trades" off his resume. Besides writing, travelling, and painting houses, Pete plays guitar in a rock trio called The Aye-Ayes. He calls them a 'power pop' band, but they generally sound more like Motorhead on a drinking binge.