That's because Sony had not idea what Nintendo wanted, there's the idea Nintendo read Sony intentions post spc-700 fiasco and just cancelled the project as giving specs was gifting them a console
Dear Pesky Partners... - A Nintendo-Philips Timeline
- Thread starter SubparLario
- Start date
Ah, crap. Should've done a better job cross checking the dates. My mistake, I'll have to downgrade the processor to a V70, which actually works quite well since Sega was already using it for their System Multi 32 arcade board. This does mean that Virtua Fighter won't be possible on the Sega CD, though. Virtua Racing, on the other hand, is a maybe, but it would have to be stripped down a bit. I'll edit Chapter 15 immediately. Thank you for catching this mistake!
I'm gonna love this; I really enjoyed "Player Two Start" and I'm gonna enjoy this as well. Keep it up!!
(I hope that was allowed; this is my first post and I couldn't find a welcome topic for newcomers...)
(I hope that was allowed; this is my first post and I couldn't find a welcome topic for newcomers...)
Chapter 16: Philips, Ports, and Porter (Late 1991 Part 3)
Philips, Ports, and Porter (Late 1991 Part 3)
[We’re in a dimly lit hotel room when a tentacle inputs a phone number and grasps the phone. It then cuts to a woman working at the hotel’s reception desk, who picks up the phone.]
Woman: “Hello, what can I do for you?”
[Cut back to hotel room.]
Monster, in a seductive female voice: “Yes, room service? I’d like to order today’s special. Bring it to room 114, and make sure to send your CUTEST bellboy!”
Receptionist: “Alright, I’ll send it right away!”
[She then hangs up the phone, and we cut to a nervous bellboy who’s pushing a cart with food on it. He gets to room 114, and knocks on the door.]
Monster, from inside: “Ooh, yes, finally! I’m quite famished…” [She then opens the door, revealing her to be an octopus-like creature.] “...and you look like the perfect snack!” [The monster licks her lips.]
Bellboy: “AAAAAAAAH!” [As he screams, the camera zooms in on the bellboy from the top.]
Narrator: In this hotel, the clientele is anything BUT normal.
[The monster is now on her bed, and is seen burping up the bellboy’s hat, having eaten him.]
Narrator: Hotel Fever. Only for Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
[A variant of the Philips Interactive Media logo jingle plays, where instead of a CD it’s a cartridge being inserted on top of a box. This would be used for all of Philips’s base SNES releases, and the OTL 1991-95 logo would be used for SNES-CD releases.] - a TV commercial for Hotel Fever.
All About Hotel Fever
Platform: SNES
Developer: Philips Interactive Media
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: November 8th, 1991 (NA); April 11th, 1992 (EU)
Hotel Fever is an arcadey puzzle game developed by Philips Interactive Media, and TTL’s equivalent to Hotel Mario. As a cartridge title, it doesn’t feature any of the FMV animated cutscenes or voice acting from the OTL game. Conceptualized by Stephen Radosh, the game was originally pitched to Shigeru Miyamoto as a Mario title once Super Mario World wrapped up development. However, Miyamoto believed that Radosh’s idea would work better as its own thing, and so the Mario elements were dropped. You play as Porter, an anxiety-ridden bellboy who signs up for a job at the Münster Hotel, not knowing that it’s really the Monster Hotel and that its patrons are out to get him. In two-player mode, player 1 wears red, while player 2 wears blue. There is a “story mode” like in Hotel Mario, but there’s also an endless mode with randomized level layouts. The removed Mario connection also affected the gameplay: Porter can’t jump on enemies in Hotel Fever, but he does have a melee attack, so he isn’t completely defenseless[1].
The main gameplay loop is the same as in Hotel Mario; players must close all of the doors in a level, while enemies are coming out of open doors and reopening closed ones. However, thanks to the SNES’s superior hardware compared to the CD-i, additional complexity was added to the game that had to be left out in OTL. Every 5 levels in endless mode, you get to play a bonus round where you must grab 10 coins strewn about the stage while under a time limit (similar to the bonus rounds from Mario Bros.). The gameplay is faster, and some levels have luggage carts that Porter can ride on to barrel through enemies and reach the other side of a floor quickly. Water spills are slippery not just to Porter, but also the monsters in the game. A fuzzy, electrified creature will head straight for elevators and cause one of them to go temporarily out of order, preventing Porter and other enemies from reaching certain floors for a short period of time. Stairwells have been added, which can’t go out of order like elevators, but they can only take up/down a floor at the same horizontal position (elevators can take you basically anywhere.)
Hotel Fever is Philips’s big holiday 1991 release, and has a much better reception than our timeline’s Hotel Mario. Reviewers enjoy the hectic gameplay and high replayability thanks to the endless mode, but there are some complaints about the difficulty in later stages, as sometimes the random layouts can be quite brutal. Overall, it received high 8’s from critics, and is a big success for Philips, selling over 2 million copies across the SNES’s lifespan. It does the best in Europe, where it was a launch title for the system. In the modern day, it’s remembered both for its addictive gameplay and goofy atmosphere. A sequel for the SNES-CD would be released in 1993.
All About Dark Castle
Platform: SNES
Developer: Silicon Beach Software, Inc.
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: October 18th, 1991 (NA)
Dark Castle is a port of the Macintosh adventure game to the SNES. The controls are nowhere near as bad as the OTL CD-i port’s, thanks to the SNES controller having more buttons and being made more intuitive (throwing the rock, for example, simply requires you to hold the D-pad in the direction you want to throw it.) There’s proper music, and it isn’t just a looping section of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor like in EA’s Genesis/Mega Drive port. It does still suffer from dropping the player into the game without any instructions on what to do, so while there are some flaws, it’s a FAR better port than what was available on the Genesis at the time.
All About Defender of the Crown
Platform: SNES
Developer: Master Designer Software, Inc.
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: December 13th, 1991 (NA)
Defender of the Crown is a port of the Amiga strategy game to SNES. As a cartridge title, it doesn’t have any of the voice acting from OTL’s CD-i port. However, out of all the ports of Defender of the Crown available for home consoles and computers at the time, the SNES version is the most accurate to the original Amiga release, being able to replicate the Amiga version’s graphics almost perfectly. It even outshines the original in the audio department thanks to the SNES’s superior sound chip compared to the Amiga. Defender of the Crown did a great job showing just how capable the SNES really was, performing at the same level or sometimes even better than some home computers of the time.
~~~
The success of Earthbound upon its Western release caused Nintendo to pause and do a double take about what games they did - or didn’t - bring stateside. By all accounts, they thought Mother would’ve bombed in North America and Europe, but Philips was able to show them that with clever marketing, RPGs could succeed in the West. Perhaps there were other games in their backlog that they could bring over and have a successful release after all. Philips was also interested in bringing over some of Nintendo’s Japanese-only releases, as it would give them more experience with game development.
Stephen Radosh began looking through Nintendo’s library of games to see what could work best. The first one that caught his eye was a little game from 1984 called Devil World. It had actually seen a European release in 1987, but never a North American one. It was a maze game, kinda like Pac-Man, and was designed by Nintendo all-stars Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. But as you might expect from a game named Devil World, there’s a lot of religious imagery in the game, something that Nintendo of America wanted no part of at the time. So that one was a no-go.
The next game that really piqued his interest, however, was one entitled Nazo no Murasame Jō; translated into English, it means “The Mysterious Murasame Castle.” Released in 1986 for the Famicom Disk System and developed by the same team who made The Legend of Zelda, you play as Takamaru, a samurai who must defeat the villainous Murasame, who has taken over the four neighboring castles while remaining at his own. The game played like a more linear version of Zelda, with plenty of secrets that lead to dead ends as you made your approach towards the castles or inside of them. There’s even a score display! But Murasame was also hard - damn hard, but the save feature and unlimited continues made it more forgiving.
Nintendo had originally decided against releasing the game internationally due to it being “too Japanese,” but since 1986, ninjas and samurai had seen a massive rise in popularity outside of Japan thanks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and, once 1993 rolled around, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.) Surely the game could work well overseas now, right? However, by this point in time, the NES/Famicom was starting to begin its decline, and Philips wanted to focus their efforts solely on the SNES(-CD), so localizing a 6 year-old NES game was out of the question. Instead, it would be better if they made a part-remake, part-sequel to the FDS game for the Super Nintendo[2]; that way, they could introduce the franchise to international players, while also giving Japanese fans something new to play.
And so, development began on Return to Murasame Castle, released internationally as simply The Mysterious Murasame Castle.
Footnotes:
[1] Matter of fact, in OTL, Hotel Mario didn’t even have any jumping at first. However, the daughter of a developer, named Hollie, was playtesting Hotel Mario and thought it was weird how you couldn’t jump in a Mario game. Her contribution led to her getting a spot in the credits as “Play Consultant,” and an easter egg: with the CD-i’s clock set to February 17th, the “HERE WE GO” message displayed when starting a level will be replaced with “ITS HOLLIES BIRTHDAY”.
[2] Basically, they take the Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem approach, where the first half is the original game and the second half is a brand-new story taking place after it.
Next time, we've got a fantasy game double-feature, as we'll take a look at both Final Fantasy IV and A Link to the Past. Until then!
[We’re in a dimly lit hotel room when a tentacle inputs a phone number and grasps the phone. It then cuts to a woman working at the hotel’s reception desk, who picks up the phone.]
Woman: “Hello, what can I do for you?”
[Cut back to hotel room.]
Monster, in a seductive female voice: “Yes, room service? I’d like to order today’s special. Bring it to room 114, and make sure to send your CUTEST bellboy!”
Receptionist: “Alright, I’ll send it right away!”
[She then hangs up the phone, and we cut to a nervous bellboy who’s pushing a cart with food on it. He gets to room 114, and knocks on the door.]
Monster, from inside: “Ooh, yes, finally! I’m quite famished…” [She then opens the door, revealing her to be an octopus-like creature.] “...and you look like the perfect snack!” [The monster licks her lips.]
Bellboy: “AAAAAAAAH!” [As he screams, the camera zooms in on the bellboy from the top.]
Narrator: In this hotel, the clientele is anything BUT normal.
[The monster is now on her bed, and is seen burping up the bellboy’s hat, having eaten him.]
Narrator: Hotel Fever. Only for Super Nintendo Entertainment System.
[A variant of the Philips Interactive Media logo jingle plays, where instead of a CD it’s a cartridge being inserted on top of a box. This would be used for all of Philips’s base SNES releases, and the OTL 1991-95 logo would be used for SNES-CD releases.] - a TV commercial for Hotel Fever.
All About Hotel Fever
Platform: SNES
Developer: Philips Interactive Media
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: November 8th, 1991 (NA); April 11th, 1992 (EU)
Hotel Fever is an arcadey puzzle game developed by Philips Interactive Media, and TTL’s equivalent to Hotel Mario. As a cartridge title, it doesn’t feature any of the FMV animated cutscenes or voice acting from the OTL game. Conceptualized by Stephen Radosh, the game was originally pitched to Shigeru Miyamoto as a Mario title once Super Mario World wrapped up development. However, Miyamoto believed that Radosh’s idea would work better as its own thing, and so the Mario elements were dropped. You play as Porter, an anxiety-ridden bellboy who signs up for a job at the Münster Hotel, not knowing that it’s really the Monster Hotel and that its patrons are out to get him. In two-player mode, player 1 wears red, while player 2 wears blue. There is a “story mode” like in Hotel Mario, but there’s also an endless mode with randomized level layouts. The removed Mario connection also affected the gameplay: Porter can’t jump on enemies in Hotel Fever, but he does have a melee attack, so he isn’t completely defenseless[1].
The main gameplay loop is the same as in Hotel Mario; players must close all of the doors in a level, while enemies are coming out of open doors and reopening closed ones. However, thanks to the SNES’s superior hardware compared to the CD-i, additional complexity was added to the game that had to be left out in OTL. Every 5 levels in endless mode, you get to play a bonus round where you must grab 10 coins strewn about the stage while under a time limit (similar to the bonus rounds from Mario Bros.). The gameplay is faster, and some levels have luggage carts that Porter can ride on to barrel through enemies and reach the other side of a floor quickly. Water spills are slippery not just to Porter, but also the monsters in the game. A fuzzy, electrified creature will head straight for elevators and cause one of them to go temporarily out of order, preventing Porter and other enemies from reaching certain floors for a short period of time. Stairwells have been added, which can’t go out of order like elevators, but they can only take up/down a floor at the same horizontal position (elevators can take you basically anywhere.)
Hotel Fever is Philips’s big holiday 1991 release, and has a much better reception than our timeline’s Hotel Mario. Reviewers enjoy the hectic gameplay and high replayability thanks to the endless mode, but there are some complaints about the difficulty in later stages, as sometimes the random layouts can be quite brutal. Overall, it received high 8’s from critics, and is a big success for Philips, selling over 2 million copies across the SNES’s lifespan. It does the best in Europe, where it was a launch title for the system. In the modern day, it’s remembered both for its addictive gameplay and goofy atmosphere. A sequel for the SNES-CD would be released in 1993.
All About Dark Castle
Platform: SNES
Developer: Silicon Beach Software, Inc.
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: October 18th, 1991 (NA)
Dark Castle is a port of the Macintosh adventure game to the SNES. The controls are nowhere near as bad as the OTL CD-i port’s, thanks to the SNES controller having more buttons and being made more intuitive (throwing the rock, for example, simply requires you to hold the D-pad in the direction you want to throw it.) There’s proper music, and it isn’t just a looping section of Bach's Toccata and Fugue in D Minor like in EA’s Genesis/Mega Drive port. It does still suffer from dropping the player into the game without any instructions on what to do, so while there are some flaws, it’s a FAR better port than what was available on the Genesis at the time.
All About Defender of the Crown
Platform: SNES
Developer: Master Designer Software, Inc.
Publisher: Philips Interactive Media
Released: December 13th, 1991 (NA)
Defender of the Crown is a port of the Amiga strategy game to SNES. As a cartridge title, it doesn’t have any of the voice acting from OTL’s CD-i port. However, out of all the ports of Defender of the Crown available for home consoles and computers at the time, the SNES version is the most accurate to the original Amiga release, being able to replicate the Amiga version’s graphics almost perfectly. It even outshines the original in the audio department thanks to the SNES’s superior sound chip compared to the Amiga. Defender of the Crown did a great job showing just how capable the SNES really was, performing at the same level or sometimes even better than some home computers of the time.
~~~
The success of Earthbound upon its Western release caused Nintendo to pause and do a double take about what games they did - or didn’t - bring stateside. By all accounts, they thought Mother would’ve bombed in North America and Europe, but Philips was able to show them that with clever marketing, RPGs could succeed in the West. Perhaps there were other games in their backlog that they could bring over and have a successful release after all. Philips was also interested in bringing over some of Nintendo’s Japanese-only releases, as it would give them more experience with game development.
Stephen Radosh began looking through Nintendo’s library of games to see what could work best. The first one that caught his eye was a little game from 1984 called Devil World. It had actually seen a European release in 1987, but never a North American one. It was a maze game, kinda like Pac-Man, and was designed by Nintendo all-stars Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka. But as you might expect from a game named Devil World, there’s a lot of religious imagery in the game, something that Nintendo of America wanted no part of at the time. So that one was a no-go.
The next game that really piqued his interest, however, was one entitled Nazo no Murasame Jō; translated into English, it means “The Mysterious Murasame Castle.” Released in 1986 for the Famicom Disk System and developed by the same team who made The Legend of Zelda, you play as Takamaru, a samurai who must defeat the villainous Murasame, who has taken over the four neighboring castles while remaining at his own. The game played like a more linear version of Zelda, with plenty of secrets that lead to dead ends as you made your approach towards the castles or inside of them. There’s even a score display! But Murasame was also hard - damn hard, but the save feature and unlimited continues made it more forgiving.
Nintendo had originally decided against releasing the game internationally due to it being “too Japanese,” but since 1986, ninjas and samurai had seen a massive rise in popularity outside of Japan thanks to the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles (and, once 1993 rolled around, Mighty Morphin’ Power Rangers.) Surely the game could work well overseas now, right? However, by this point in time, the NES/Famicom was starting to begin its decline, and Philips wanted to focus their efforts solely on the SNES(-CD), so localizing a 6 year-old NES game was out of the question. Instead, it would be better if they made a part-remake, part-sequel to the FDS game for the Super Nintendo[2]; that way, they could introduce the franchise to international players, while also giving Japanese fans something new to play.
And so, development began on Return to Murasame Castle, released internationally as simply The Mysterious Murasame Castle.
Footnotes:
[1] Matter of fact, in OTL, Hotel Mario didn’t even have any jumping at first. However, the daughter of a developer, named Hollie, was playtesting Hotel Mario and thought it was weird how you couldn’t jump in a Mario game. Her contribution led to her getting a spot in the credits as “Play Consultant,” and an easter egg: with the CD-i’s clock set to February 17th, the “HERE WE GO” message displayed when starting a level will be replaced with “ITS HOLLIES BIRTHDAY”.
[2] Basically, they take the Fire Emblem: Mystery of the Emblem approach, where the first half is the original game and the second half is a brand-new story taking place after it.
Next time, we've got a fantasy game double-feature, as we'll take a look at both Final Fantasy IV and A Link to the Past. Until then!
Talk About the door door sequel we never got OTL, that must be a great start for phillips, to see what videogames are about(and enix wondering why they never remade Door Door,
)That's a great Idea, bringing the first part internationally and the sequel to expand, plus give an extra meaning to the super version of the game
Great update buddy
I think Hotel Mario is a game with a great foundation that was limited by the console it was on. Sure, people always joke about the cheesy, crusty cutscenes, but the actual gameplay is pretty decent, if a bit slow. Same thing applies to Link: The Faces of Evil and Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon; those two were limited by not just the CD-i's bad hardware (it lacked a dedicated GPU/PPU, meaning that 15 MHz 68k had to do almost all of the graphics heavy-lifting), but also the awkward CD-i controllers/remote. There are fan-made remasters of the Zelda duo to PC that add in some quality of life changes, and you know what? They're not half bad! Good, even! The guy who made them is now going on to make a spiritual successor to Faces of Evil/Wand of Gamelon called Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore, and it's supposed to come out next month. It's even got some of the voice actors from those two games and the background artist!Talk About the door door sequel we never got OTL, that must be a great start for phillips, to see what videogames are about(and enix wondering why they never remade Door Door,
I genuinely think that the Nintendo CD-i games could've been good, even great games, but they were unfortunately locked to a badly designed system, and part of this timeline is exploring the idea of "What if Nintendo's CD-i games had been good?" My ideas for Zelda especially are something that I'm really excited to share, as I think you'll all really enjoy them. I'll actually talk a little bit about the direction the series takes after A Link to the Past in the next update, kinda like how I briefly brought up Super Mario Vortex when I talked about Super Mario World.
As i commented it, the game feels like a spiritual sequel of door door, but different(to not get in troubles with Enix) but in general as you mentioned, could have been half decent in real hardware
Shaped like itself, that looks like lady sia as fuck...and Lady sia was inspired by zelda,
OTL Phillips blew up a goldmine trying to look for fool's gold, Delivering the system at time(1992, summer 1993 at lastest) they would have earned a contract like IBM used to have with Nintendo. So far waiting to see what you will do
Chapter 17: Crystal Collecting Games (Early 1992 Part 1)
Crystal Collecting Games (Early 1992 Part 1)
“Help me… Please, help me… I am a prisoner in the dungeon of the castle.” - Princess Zelda, telepathically communicating with Link at the beginning of A Link to the Past
“You spoony bard!” - Tellah’s insult to Edward upon his daughter Anna’s death in Final Fantasy IV
All About The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Platform: SNES
Also Known As: Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (Japan)[1]
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: November 21, 1991 (JP); April 13, 1992 (NA); September 24, 1992 (EU)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the Zelda franchise, and a “prequel” to the first two games. Just like in our timeline, it expands on the top-down gameplay of Zelda I, with many more secrets, items, and quality of life improvements. It introduces elements that would become Zelda staples, such as the Master Sword, Zelda’s Lullaby, Kakariko Village, elemental dungeons, and switching between worlds. Much like TTL’s Super Mario World, the changes to A Link to the Past are moreso small additions and minor alterations to the overworld caused by butterflies. However, there is one fairly major alteration to the game’s plot: rather than there being seven total sages (six maidens + Zelda), there are eight sages in total (seven maidens + Zelda). Beating Turtle Rock has you freeing the 7th maiden, rather than Zelda like in OTL. Ganon’s Tower is a maiden dungeon, and after defeating Agahnim for a second time, Ganon flies off in his bat form, Princess Zelda is freed, and a door at the top of the boss fight room opens. This new room features an octagonal pattern on the ground, with the 7 maidens plus Princess Zelda standing on each of the corners. The maidens and Zelda will then use their magic to open a portal to the Pyramid of Power in the center of the octagon, and the final confrontation with Ganon can now begin.[2]
Here is a sizable (though not all-encompassing) list of the other differences between the game IOTL and ITTL:
The woodcutter NPC, as found in the Nintendo Gigaleak.
One of the aforementioned cannon soldiers. Image sourced from The Cutting Room Floor.
There’s one other change outside of the game itself, though: A Link to the Past received a McDonald’s Happy Meal toy promotion in June 1992. The four toys included are a Spin-Attack Link, Spitting Octorok, Wriggling Moldorm, and Slicing Stalfos Knight. Nintendo reached this deal before Warner Bros. was able to make one for Batman Returns in our timeline, and so they settled for a Happy Meal promotion in September 1992 for Batman: The Animated Series. Since the parent backlash towards the Batman Returns Happy Meal toys was the straw that broke the camel’s back and made Warner Bros. kick Tim Burton to the curb for future Batman films, the lack of the promotion in this timeline means that there's a bit less controversy surrounding the film, and Tim Burton is able to properly produce Batman Continues.[3]
Just like in OTL, A Link to the Past is received incredibly well, scoring the very first 39/40 score in the magazine Famitsu. It’s considered a classic, and one of the best base Super Nintendo games. It is also the beginning of the “Three Worlds Saga,” and would be immediately followed up by two games: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, released for the Game Boy in 1993, and Zelda’s Quest, released for the SNES-CD in 1994[4]. The two can be considered “sister games,” as they take place at the same time and focus on Link and Zelda, respectively. The Three Worlds Saga would then be capped off with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, released in 1995 for SNES-CD and expanding even further on the top-down Zelda formula[5].
All About Final Fantasy IV
Platform: SNES
Also Known As: Final Fantasy II (NA); Final Fantasy (EU) [6]
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square (JP); SquareSoft (International)
Released: July 19, 1991 (JP); November 23, 1991 (NA); April 11th, 1992 (EU)
Final Fantasy IV is the fourth mainline game in the Final Fantasy series, and the first in the 16-bit generation. It’s notable for introducing the Active Time Battle (ATB) system to the franchise, and would give battles more action so that you’re not waiting for individual turns to play out. The game’s original Japanese release is more or less identical to OTL’s, with perhaps a few small changes here and there caused by butterflies. However, its localization process is quite different in this timeline…
Because Earthbound had made RPG’s more mainstream in the West, and it featured a fair bit of difficulty, Square found little reason to make a dumbed-down, easier version of Final Fantasy IV for Americans, and so the American Final Fantasy II features all of the spells, abilities, and items removed from OTL’s Final Fantasy II. However, certain balancing changes like item attributes and decreased spell costs from OTL still remain, as does the expanded training room and quality of life changes. The script, on the other hand, is largely the same as OTL, including a lot of the strange translation choices and mistakes. Square’s change in sentiment towards the American market also butterflies Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and Final Fantasy V ends up being localized as Final Fantasy III in 1993. Final Fantasy IV Easy Type is still released in Japan, as it is completely separate from the “simplified” Final Fantasy II and was made for younger Japanese players.
Additionally, Final Fantasy IV is the first Final Fantasy game released in Europe, simply titled Final Fantasy, and was a launch title for the SNES over there. Square sought out Philips to assist in the translation process, leading to not just French, German, Spanish, and Dutch versions, but also a “UK English” translation that is a bit more faithful to the Japanese script. In-battle text boxes were made larger to fit two lines, much like the OTL J2E fan retranslation, and some nuance was kept. Some item names were corrected, like how the “Sand Ruby” is correctly named the “Sand Pearl” in the Philips translation. The infamous “spoony bard” line, however, WAS kept for the UK English translation, owing to the fact that “spoony” is an, albeit antiquated, British slang word. The UK English script would become the basis for all future releases of Final Fantasy IV in English, rather than the US English script.
Final Fantasy IV is received just as well as it was in our timeline, and sells more copies thanks to RPG’s growing international popularity and a European release. The additional financial success leads to Square setting up a proper European localization team, with some help from Philips. The numbering discrepancies will, of course, come to haunt Square, and are even more confusing ITTL thanks to there being 3 different names for Final Fantasy IV. To fill in the gap in their release schedule caused by Final Fantasy Mystic Quest being butterflied, Square decides to localize their other RPG named Romancing SaGa, which is retitled Mystic SaGa internationally upon its release in late 1992.
Footnotes:
[1] Same as in OTL. Translated into English, it’s The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods. I think you can see why the name was changed for the West… Oh yeah, and that even extends to our timeline’s A Link Between Worlds, which is called Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce 2 in Japanese.
[2] This is based on early plot drafts for the game found in the Gigaleak. Expect this change to the number of sages to influence future Zelda games, as well…
[3] More on Batman Continues once we get to 1995. Additionally, Tim Burton not getting thrown out by Warner Bros. was a suggestion from my step-dad Jeff, so shout outs to him!
[4] TTL’s Faces of Evil/Wand of Gamelon.
[5] Despite sharing a name with the OTL 3DS game, I can assure you that TTL’s ALBW has very little to do with it. It’s just a name that fits very well with what I want to do with this era of Zelda.
[6] Just like in OTL, releases of Final Fantasy IV on future consoles will use the Japanese numbering worldwide.
“Help me… Please, help me… I am a prisoner in the dungeon of the castle.” - Princess Zelda, telepathically communicating with Link at the beginning of A Link to the Past
“You spoony bard!” - Tellah’s insult to Edward upon his daughter Anna’s death in Final Fantasy IV
All About The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past
Platform: SNES
Also Known As: Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce (Japan)[1]
Developer: Nintendo
Publisher: Nintendo
Released: November 21, 1991 (JP); April 13, 1992 (NA); September 24, 1992 (EU)
The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past is the third game in the Zelda franchise, and a “prequel” to the first two games. Just like in our timeline, it expands on the top-down gameplay of Zelda I, with many more secrets, items, and quality of life improvements. It introduces elements that would become Zelda staples, such as the Master Sword, Zelda’s Lullaby, Kakariko Village, elemental dungeons, and switching between worlds. Much like TTL’s Super Mario World, the changes to A Link to the Past are moreso small additions and minor alterations to the overworld caused by butterflies. However, there is one fairly major alteration to the game’s plot: rather than there being seven total sages (six maidens + Zelda), there are eight sages in total (seven maidens + Zelda). Beating Turtle Rock has you freeing the 7th maiden, rather than Zelda like in OTL. Ganon’s Tower is a maiden dungeon, and after defeating Agahnim for a second time, Ganon flies off in his bat form, Princess Zelda is freed, and a door at the top of the boss fight room opens. This new room features an octagonal pattern on the ground, with the 7 maidens plus Princess Zelda standing on each of the corners. The maidens and Zelda will then use their magic to open a portal to the Pyramid of Power in the center of the octagon, and the final confrontation with Ganon can now begin.[2]
Here is a sizable (though not all-encompassing) list of the other differences between the game IOTL and ITTL:
- The Lantern item has an additional use aside from lighting up torches and giving you a cone of vision in dark areas: it can burn down bushes and grass in the overworld, much like the Red/Blue Candles could in Zelda I. However, the fire will spread to nearby bushes and/or grass, almost like starting a wildfire. This isn’t required by the game at any point, but it is a great way to clear out a bunch of bushes or grass fairly quickly.
- The Book of Mudora has an additional use aside from reading ancient text: it can be used to freeze enemies present on your current screen for a limited amount of time, much like the Stopwatch from Zelda I. In the Japanese version, Link is shown praying while reading the book, followed by a wavy screen effect, while in the International releases Link looks more like he’s casting a spell than praying. This does deplete the magic meter a fair bit, so definitely keep an eye on it.
- Due to the changes with the Book of Mudora, the Ether Medallion has seen a buff, and is capable of killing additional enemies (while still only being able to freeze some.)
- A woodcutter NPC has been added to the northwest corner of Kakariko. Normally, he just says some flavor text while cutting his log of wood, but after defeating Agahnim for the first time, he has run out of wood to cut and remarks on how he hasn’t heard from the lumberjack twins in a while. This is meant to serve as a hint to go over to the lumberjacks’ house and charge into the tree they were cutting with the Pegasus Boots. Upon falling down the hole, you’ll find the twins, and they’ll thank Link for rescuing them by giving him a Heart Piece. Leaving the area will then show the two of them cutting a different tree, and the woodcutter goes back to cutting logs.
- A few cannon soldiers will appear on the way to defeat Agahnim for the first time. These were left unused yet fully functional in the OTL game.
- As in OTL, this is seemingly the first game that Nintendo of Europe localized. It does, however, receive a Spanish translation in addition to the OTL French and German translations.
The woodcutter NPC, as found in the Nintendo Gigaleak.
One of the aforementioned cannon soldiers. Image sourced from The Cutting Room Floor.
Just like in OTL, A Link to the Past is received incredibly well, scoring the very first 39/40 score in the magazine Famitsu. It’s considered a classic, and one of the best base Super Nintendo games. It is also the beginning of the “Three Worlds Saga,” and would be immediately followed up by two games: The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening, released for the Game Boy in 1993, and Zelda’s Quest, released for the SNES-CD in 1994[4]. The two can be considered “sister games,” as they take place at the same time and focus on Link and Zelda, respectively. The Three Worlds Saga would then be capped off with The Legend of Zelda: A Link Between Worlds, released in 1995 for SNES-CD and expanding even further on the top-down Zelda formula[5].
All About Final Fantasy IV
Platform: SNES
Also Known As: Final Fantasy II (NA); Final Fantasy (EU) [6]
Developer: Square
Publisher: Square (JP); SquareSoft (International)
Released: July 19, 1991 (JP); November 23, 1991 (NA); April 11th, 1992 (EU)
Final Fantasy IV is the fourth mainline game in the Final Fantasy series, and the first in the 16-bit generation. It’s notable for introducing the Active Time Battle (ATB) system to the franchise, and would give battles more action so that you’re not waiting for individual turns to play out. The game’s original Japanese release is more or less identical to OTL’s, with perhaps a few small changes here and there caused by butterflies. However, its localization process is quite different in this timeline…
Because Earthbound had made RPG’s more mainstream in the West, and it featured a fair bit of difficulty, Square found little reason to make a dumbed-down, easier version of Final Fantasy IV for Americans, and so the American Final Fantasy II features all of the spells, abilities, and items removed from OTL’s Final Fantasy II. However, certain balancing changes like item attributes and decreased spell costs from OTL still remain, as does the expanded training room and quality of life changes. The script, on the other hand, is largely the same as OTL, including a lot of the strange translation choices and mistakes. Square’s change in sentiment towards the American market also butterflies Final Fantasy Mystic Quest, and Final Fantasy V ends up being localized as Final Fantasy III in 1993. Final Fantasy IV Easy Type is still released in Japan, as it is completely separate from the “simplified” Final Fantasy II and was made for younger Japanese players.
Additionally, Final Fantasy IV is the first Final Fantasy game released in Europe, simply titled Final Fantasy, and was a launch title for the SNES over there. Square sought out Philips to assist in the translation process, leading to not just French, German, Spanish, and Dutch versions, but also a “UK English” translation that is a bit more faithful to the Japanese script. In-battle text boxes were made larger to fit two lines, much like the OTL J2E fan retranslation, and some nuance was kept. Some item names were corrected, like how the “Sand Ruby” is correctly named the “Sand Pearl” in the Philips translation. The infamous “spoony bard” line, however, WAS kept for the UK English translation, owing to the fact that “spoony” is an, albeit antiquated, British slang word. The UK English script would become the basis for all future releases of Final Fantasy IV in English, rather than the US English script.
Final Fantasy IV is received just as well as it was in our timeline, and sells more copies thanks to RPG’s growing international popularity and a European release. The additional financial success leads to Square setting up a proper European localization team, with some help from Philips. The numbering discrepancies will, of course, come to haunt Square, and are even more confusing ITTL thanks to there being 3 different names for Final Fantasy IV. To fill in the gap in their release schedule caused by Final Fantasy Mystic Quest being butterflied, Square decides to localize their other RPG named Romancing SaGa, which is retitled Mystic SaGa internationally upon its release in late 1992.
Footnotes:
[1] Same as in OTL. Translated into English, it’s The Legend of Zelda: Triforce of the Gods. I think you can see why the name was changed for the West… Oh yeah, and that even extends to our timeline’s A Link Between Worlds, which is called Zelda no Densetsu: Kamigami no Triforce 2 in Japanese.
[2] This is based on early plot drafts for the game found in the Gigaleak. Expect this change to the number of sages to influence future Zelda games, as well…
[3] More on Batman Continues once we get to 1995. Additionally, Tim Burton not getting thrown out by Warner Bros. was a suggestion from my step-dad Jeff, so shout outs to him!
[4] TTL’s Faces of Evil/Wand of Gamelon.
[5] Despite sharing a name with the OTL 3DS game, I can assure you that TTL’s ALBW has very little to do with it. It’s just a name that fits very well with what I want to do with this era of Zelda.
[6] Just like in OTL, releases of Final Fantasy IV on future consoles will use the Japanese numbering worldwide.
Make sure to tune in next time, for we'll be doing a recap of TV in 1991 and 1992. Same pesky time, same pesky channel. Until then!
As OOT took a lot of influences from ALTTP, ITTL Zelda 3D might keep the eight sages or do something inspired by it...
The fact that SNES-CD got two Zelda titles is big and the franchise will be in a far different place before the first 3D TITLE TOO, the franchise is already heading into a very different direction
Nice and that changes a lot of things for DC now.
It is nice to see the influence of a bigger European Company in the videogame market, especially with the European languages localization
Amazin update buddy, so many butterflies in a single one
I wonder how this changes the movie industry in general, now that the Soccer Moms aren't up in arms over Batman Returns ITTL...
Here's a interesting post that I dug up for you to take into consideration, @SubparLario.
With there being less infighting between the multiple branches of Sega ITTL and more actual communication, maybe Sega of America actually listens to the Japanese branch's requests for the way they draw Sonic on box art and promotional material?
With there being less infighting between the multiple branches of Sega ITTL and more actual communication, maybe Sega of America actually listens to the Japanese branch's requests for the way they draw Sonic on box art and promotional material?
Chapter 18: TV in 1990-1992
(It's finally here! I do apologize for this update taking so long. My father has been dealing with some health issues and that's taken up some of my time. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things writing this timeline now!)
TV in 1990-1992
“Preteens love animals... You can turn that interest into an awareness of problems in the world today.” - Jim Henson, in an interview with People magazine about his upcoming TV series The Environmental Show.
Jim Henson in a promotional image for The Environmental Show, 1990.
“I was really reluctant at first to star in Young Indy. I had started my career in sitcoms and was trying really hard to bust out of the chains of television acting. But when George told me that the series would be different to other TV shows, and would later lead to a movie, I decided that I might as well continue doing television work for just a bit longer.” - River Phoenix, in a 2005[1] interview about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. His role as a younger version of Indiana Jones caused Young Indy to receive higher viewership numbers than in our timeline.
All About The Environmental Show
Network: Disney Channel
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: November 1990
The Environmental Show is an educational program airing on the Disney Channel, and the first show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company. It’s almost like an earlier version of Jim Henson’s Animal Show from our timeline; set in a TV station, anchor Ponce D. Lion and his iguana co-host Netty would interview various Muppet versions of animals, who would teach viewers facts about them and show videos of their real-life equivalents. Also showing up at points during the show's run are the frogs Milton and Ruth from The Song of The Cloud Forest, as well as Bobo the Bear debuting here rather than on Muppets Tonight. The show does decently well in terms of ratings and popularity, lasting up until 1996.
All About Muppet High
Network: ABC
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: April 26th, 1991[2]
Muppet High is the second show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company, and the first Muppet show to air on ABC, rather than NBC. It depicts the main Muppet cast as students of a 1950’s high school; Kermit is a motorcycle-driving greaser, Miss Piggy is fashionable girl that wears a poodle skirt, Fozzie is a soda jerk, Gonzo is a stereotypical nerd, Rowlf is a jock who plays for the school’s football team, Animal plays the guitar in a rock and roll band, Scooter[3] is a brainy Student Council officer, and Rizzo is a major troublemaker at the school. Of course, a school isn’t complete without staff members: Dr. Honeydew and Beaker, naturally, teach science, Sam Eagle is a strict history teacher, Bobo the Bear is a bumbling English teacher, Swedish Chef is a culinary teacher as well as a “lunch lady,” Clifford is a music teacher, Link Hogthrob teaches gym class, and Beauregard is still a janitor (Statler and Waldorf make cameos in the series.) To round things out, Frank Oz plays the school’s principal, and Jim Henson plays the rarely-seen district superintendent.
PVC figures based on Muppet High, released in 1991 and 1992.
The show itself is somewhat reminiscent of Happy Days or Archie Comics with its 1950’s atmosphere, mixed with other high school sitcoms of the day like Saved By The Bell or Degrassi, even outright parodying aspects of those other shows at times. It’s still got that Muppets charm everyone knows and loves, so it’s no surprise that it does really well upon its first airing. It also doesn’t suffer quite the same time slot shuffling that Dinosaurs dealt with in our timeline, and ends after 4 seasons in 1995 (each season being a different year at the school.) It’s remembered quite fondly to this day, and it seems that the Disney-Henson partnership is off to a great start. It’s also the last Muppet production with Richard Hunt as a puppeteer, following his death in 1992.
Sesame Street Breaks New Ground With Episode Focusing On Divorce
Sesame Street has been a fixture of PBS ever since the service launched in 1969, with Muppet characters like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch becoming instantly recognizable among children and parents alike. But arguably, Sesame Street is most well known for the fact that it doesn’t talk down to its viewers, treating serious topics that children might not understand with such grace, and that is most evident with a recent episode focusing on divorce.
Starting in early 1992, a new Muppet character named Danny and his single mother, Melissa, moved into a house on Sesame Street. Danny, a dark green, somewhat-reserved yet friendly 7 year-old, appeared in a number of episodes on his own, but in the latest episode, some of the other Muppets had wondered where Danny’s dad was. Danny then came out of his house, with his bag packed, and Big Bird was afraid that Danny was going to move away. This was just a big misunderstanding, though; Danny explained that he was just going to visit his dad over the weekend, and was waiting for him to pick him up. The Muppets ask why his dad doesn’t live with him and his mom, and soon after, Danny’s dad, who is named Paulie, shows up and starts to explain things to the rest of the cast.
Paulie and Melissa were, in fact, divorced. In a flashback scene, the two were shown hugging and loving each other, but over time, they started to grow more distant. Melissa and Paulie realized that the spark between them just wasn’t there anymore, and that they had differences they couldn’t easily solve. The two decided to file for divorce, as they wanted to protect Danny’s well being. As Melissa comes out to give her son a hug as he goes to spend time with his dad, Paulie sweetly says, “While Melissa and I might have our differences, there’s at least one thing we have in common: we both love our son Danny, and nothing will ever change that! Isn’t that right, sport?” Danny responds by saying, “Of course, Dad!” and they both go on their way as the episode ends.
It should be no surprise that an episode with such a serious and meaningful topic was written by the same person who wrote the episode concerning the death of Mr. Hooper, Norman Stiles. However, Stiles had a hard time trying to write an episode about divorce all by himself.
“[The Children’s Television Workshop] had been wanting to do an episode on divorce since ‘89, and I was chosen to write that script,” says Stiles. “The first script I wrote was about Mr. Snuffleupagus’s parents getting a divorce in real time. We filmed that script, did some test screenings, and found out that kids responded to it negatively. They thought that arguments automatically lead to divorce, even though we reassured them that’s not the case. There were also concerns among children that Snuffy and his sister Alice wouldn’t see their father again.”
Stiles nearly threw the idea in the trash after this revelation. “I really, really wanted to cover this topic. So I sent my script to Jim Henson, and asked him for ideas.” Jim Henson is the creator of both Sesame Street and The Muppets as a whole, and has acted as an advisor for the show in recent years. “Jim said that instead of arguments leading to divorce, it should stem from the parents losing that romantic connection they had. That, and to introduce a new character whose parents had already gone through a divorce in the past, which led to the creation of Danny. So, we had Danny show up in a few episodes before we did the big reveal, and the test screenings of that episode were far more positive.
“I’m really glad I got to cover a topic like this, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Jim’s aid,” remarked Stiles.
- An article from The New York Times, late 1992
Footnotes:
[1] Yes, you heard that year right! River Phoenix doesn’t die of a drug overdose in this timeline. You'll hear more about Young Indy later on, as other than River Phoenix's role, seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged. The rest, on the other hand... you'll see in due time.
[2] The premiere date of Dinosaurs in OTL. Don’t worry, we’ll still see Dinosaurs in one form or another ITTL, it’ll just be a bit later on.
[3] Scooter’s puppeteer is Richard Hunt for the first season, and David Rudman for the second season onward following Hunt’s death.
TV in 1990-1992
“Preteens love animals... You can turn that interest into an awareness of problems in the world today.” - Jim Henson, in an interview with People magazine about his upcoming TV series The Environmental Show.
Jim Henson in a promotional image for The Environmental Show, 1990.
“I was really reluctant at first to star in Young Indy. I had started my career in sitcoms and was trying really hard to bust out of the chains of television acting. But when George told me that the series would be different to other TV shows, and would later lead to a movie, I decided that I might as well continue doing television work for just a bit longer.” - River Phoenix, in a 2005[1] interview about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. His role as a younger version of Indiana Jones caused Young Indy to receive higher viewership numbers than in our timeline.
All About The Environmental Show
Network: Disney Channel
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: November 1990
The Environmental Show is an educational program airing on the Disney Channel, and the first show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company. It’s almost like an earlier version of Jim Henson’s Animal Show from our timeline; set in a TV station, anchor Ponce D. Lion and his iguana co-host Netty would interview various Muppet versions of animals, who would teach viewers facts about them and show videos of their real-life equivalents. Also showing up at points during the show's run are the frogs Milton and Ruth from The Song of The Cloud Forest, as well as Bobo the Bear debuting here rather than on Muppets Tonight. The show does decently well in terms of ratings and popularity, lasting up until 1996.
All About Muppet High
Network: ABC
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: April 26th, 1991[2]
Muppet High is the second show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company, and the first Muppet show to air on ABC, rather than NBC. It depicts the main Muppet cast as students of a 1950’s high school; Kermit is a motorcycle-driving greaser, Miss Piggy is fashionable girl that wears a poodle skirt, Fozzie is a soda jerk, Gonzo is a stereotypical nerd, Rowlf is a jock who plays for the school’s football team, Animal plays the guitar in a rock and roll band, Scooter[3] is a brainy Student Council officer, and Rizzo is a major troublemaker at the school. Of course, a school isn’t complete without staff members: Dr. Honeydew and Beaker, naturally, teach science, Sam Eagle is a strict history teacher, Bobo the Bear is a bumbling English teacher, Swedish Chef is a culinary teacher as well as a “lunch lady,” Clifford is a music teacher, Link Hogthrob teaches gym class, and Beauregard is still a janitor (Statler and Waldorf make cameos in the series.) To round things out, Frank Oz plays the school’s principal, and Jim Henson plays the rarely-seen district superintendent.
PVC figures based on Muppet High, released in 1991 and 1992.
The show itself is somewhat reminiscent of Happy Days or Archie Comics with its 1950’s atmosphere, mixed with other high school sitcoms of the day like Saved By The Bell or Degrassi, even outright parodying aspects of those other shows at times. It’s still got that Muppets charm everyone knows and loves, so it’s no surprise that it does really well upon its first airing. It also doesn’t suffer quite the same time slot shuffling that Dinosaurs dealt with in our timeline, and ends after 4 seasons in 1995 (each season being a different year at the school.) It’s remembered quite fondly to this day, and it seems that the Disney-Henson partnership is off to a great start. It’s also the last Muppet production with Richard Hunt as a puppeteer, following his death in 1992.
Sesame Street Breaks New Ground With Episode Focusing On Divorce
Sesame Street has been a fixture of PBS ever since the service launched in 1969, with Muppet characters like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch becoming instantly recognizable among children and parents alike. But arguably, Sesame Street is most well known for the fact that it doesn’t talk down to its viewers, treating serious topics that children might not understand with such grace, and that is most evident with a recent episode focusing on divorce.
Starting in early 1992, a new Muppet character named Danny and his single mother, Melissa, moved into a house on Sesame Street. Danny, a dark green, somewhat-reserved yet friendly 7 year-old, appeared in a number of episodes on his own, but in the latest episode, some of the other Muppets had wondered where Danny’s dad was. Danny then came out of his house, with his bag packed, and Big Bird was afraid that Danny was going to move away. This was just a big misunderstanding, though; Danny explained that he was just going to visit his dad over the weekend, and was waiting for him to pick him up. The Muppets ask why his dad doesn’t live with him and his mom, and soon after, Danny’s dad, who is named Paulie, shows up and starts to explain things to the rest of the cast.
Paulie and Melissa were, in fact, divorced. In a flashback scene, the two were shown hugging and loving each other, but over time, they started to grow more distant. Melissa and Paulie realized that the spark between them just wasn’t there anymore, and that they had differences they couldn’t easily solve. The two decided to file for divorce, as they wanted to protect Danny’s well being. As Melissa comes out to give her son a hug as he goes to spend time with his dad, Paulie sweetly says, “While Melissa and I might have our differences, there’s at least one thing we have in common: we both love our son Danny, and nothing will ever change that! Isn’t that right, sport?” Danny responds by saying, “Of course, Dad!” and they both go on their way as the episode ends.
It should be no surprise that an episode with such a serious and meaningful topic was written by the same person who wrote the episode concerning the death of Mr. Hooper, Norman Stiles. However, Stiles had a hard time trying to write an episode about divorce all by himself.
“[The Children’s Television Workshop] had been wanting to do an episode on divorce since ‘89, and I was chosen to write that script,” says Stiles. “The first script I wrote was about Mr. Snuffleupagus’s parents getting a divorce in real time. We filmed that script, did some test screenings, and found out that kids responded to it negatively. They thought that arguments automatically lead to divorce, even though we reassured them that’s not the case. There were also concerns among children that Snuffy and his sister Alice wouldn’t see their father again.”
Stiles nearly threw the idea in the trash after this revelation. “I really, really wanted to cover this topic. So I sent my script to Jim Henson, and asked him for ideas.” Jim Henson is the creator of both Sesame Street and The Muppets as a whole, and has acted as an advisor for the show in recent years. “Jim said that instead of arguments leading to divorce, it should stem from the parents losing that romantic connection they had. That, and to introduce a new character whose parents had already gone through a divorce in the past, which led to the creation of Danny. So, we had Danny show up in a few episodes before we did the big reveal, and the test screenings of that episode were far more positive.
“I’m really glad I got to cover a topic like this, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Jim’s aid,” remarked Stiles.
- An article from The New York Times, late 1992
Footnotes:
[1] Yes, you heard that year right! River Phoenix doesn’t die of a drug overdose in this timeline. You'll hear more about Young Indy later on, as other than River Phoenix's role, seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged. The rest, on the other hand... you'll see in due time.
[2] The premiere date of Dinosaurs in OTL. Don’t worry, we’ll still see Dinosaurs in one form or another ITTL, it’ll just be a bit later on.
[3] Scooter’s puppeteer is Richard Hunt for the first season, and David Rudman for the second season onward following Hunt’s death.
Next time, we're off to Summer CES 1992, where Sega and Nintendo will show off their fancy new CD add-ons. I hope to see you then!
Nice post, anyways as we get closer to the Sega Mega-CD’s North American release, I can’t wait to see what TTL’s Sonic 2 will be like, and if Tails still gets created ITTL.
So that was accelerated from otl? How much? As the muppets and other show were popular that should have been good money
Sonic 2 will be interesting here. Expect it to be one of the games Sega shows off at CES in the next update. It will answer some of your questions before I cover the game in full detail when the Mega CD launches in North America.
Considering those figures also released in OTL, I feel like Muppet High was scrapped fairly late in its development, and the Dinosaurs project was pushed forward instead. Perhaps they felt it wasn't viable without Henson? I'm not entirely sure.
I wouldn't say that they aren't up in arms. Really, they're just less up in arms about it. Catwoman's suggestive outfit and the Penguin bite scene still exist, after all. But Burton getting to do another Batman film will definitely have some effects on the movie industry. Batman Continues is quite a different beast compared to Batman Forever...
I mean the purchase, I did wondered why was cancelled when seems it was very finished... maybe dinosaur won ?
Probably just Jim's death that caused the deal to be canceled (for the time being, at least.) Disney and The Jim Henson Company did work very closely with each other even before they were actually bought out in OTL, so perhaps it was just a formality by then. I think I heard that the rights to Sesame Street also played a role in the negotiations.
IIRC Sesame Street are like a self-sustained foundation(even if they overblew money at times, seriously did they need a condo in manhattan?) to be non-profit, that's why Jim told anyone that was never to be sold...that ended up happening, as Children television workshop become his own entity. So that would still happen OTL
iirc Jim was flip-flopping about selling or no...his dead didn't allow a final answer, maybe Disney offered the money and full creative freedom upfront and that sweetened the deal?
That's nice. Will we see the Nicktoons and the launch of Cartoon Network pop up tho?(It's finally here! I do apologize for this update taking so long. My father has been dealing with some health issues and that's taken up some of my time. Hopefully, I can get back into the swing of things writing this timeline now!)
TV in 1990-1992
“Preteens love animals... You can turn that interest into an awareness of problems in the world today.” - Jim Henson, in an interview with People magazine about his upcoming TV series The Environmental Show.
View attachment 893273
Jim Henson in a promotional image for The Environmental Show, 1990.
“I was really reluctant at first to star in Young Indy. I had started my career in sitcoms and was trying really hard to bust out of the chains of television acting. But when George told me that the series would be different to other TV shows, and would later lead to a movie, I decided that I might as well continue doing television work for just a bit longer.” - River Phoenix, in a 2005[1] interview about The Young Indiana Jones Chronicles. His role as a younger version of Indiana Jones caused Young Indy to receive higher viewership numbers than in our timeline.
All About The Environmental Show
Network: Disney Channel
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: November 1990
The Environmental Show is an educational program airing on the Disney Channel, and the first show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company. It’s almost like an earlier version of Jim Henson’s Animal Show from our timeline; set in a TV station, anchor Ponce D. Lion and his iguana co-host Netty would interview various Muppet versions of animals, who would teach viewers facts about them and show videos of their real-life equivalents. Also showing up at points during the show's run are the frogs Milton and Ruth from The Song of The Cloud Forest, as well as Bobo the Bear debuting here rather than on Muppets Tonight. The show does decently well in terms of ratings and popularity, lasting up until 1996.
All About Muppet High
Network: ABC
Production Company: Disney/The Jim Henson Company
First Episode Aired: April 26th, 1991[2]
Muppet High is the second show to come out of Disney’s purchase of the Jim Henson Company, and the first Muppet show to air on ABC, rather than NBC. It depicts the main Muppet cast as students of a 1950’s high school; Kermit is a motorcycle-driving greaser, Miss Piggy is fashionable girl that wears a poodle skirt, Fozzie is a soda jerk, Gonzo is a stereotypical nerd, Rowlf is a jock who plays for the school’s football team, Animal plays the guitar in a rock and roll band, Scooter[3] is a brainy Student Council officer, and Rizzo is a major troublemaker at the school. Of course, a school isn’t complete without staff members: Dr. Honeydew and Beaker, naturally, teach science, Sam Eagle is a strict history teacher, Bobo the Bear is a bumbling English teacher, Swedish Chef is a culinary teacher as well as a “lunch lady,” Clifford is a music teacher, Link Hogthrob teaches gym class, and Beauregard is still a janitor (Statler and Waldorf make cameos in the series.) To round things out, Frank Oz plays the school’s principal, and Jim Henson plays the rarely-seen district superintendent.
View attachment 893274
PVC figures based on Muppet High, released in 1991 and 1992.
The show itself is somewhat reminiscent of Happy Days or Archie Comics with its 1950’s atmosphere, mixed with other high school sitcoms of the day like Saved By The Bell or Degrassi, even outright parodying aspects of those other shows at times. It’s still got that Muppets charm everyone knows and loves, so it’s no surprise that it does really well upon its first airing. It also doesn’t suffer quite the same time slot shuffling that Dinosaurs dealt with in our timeline, and ends after 4 seasons in 1995 (each season being a different year at the school.) It’s remembered quite fondly to this day, and it seems that the Disney-Henson partnership is off to a great start. It’s also the last Muppet production with Richard Hunt as a puppeteer, following his death in 1992.
Sesame Street Breaks New Ground With Episode Focusing On Divorce
Sesame Street has been a fixture of PBS ever since the service launched in 1969, with Muppet characters like Big Bird, Cookie Monster, and Oscar the Grouch becoming instantly recognizable among children and parents alike. But arguably, Sesame Street is most well known for the fact that it doesn’t talk down to its viewers, treating serious topics that children might not understand with such grace, and that is most evident with a recent episode focusing on divorce.
Starting in early 1992, a new Muppet character named Danny and his single mother, Melissa, moved into a house on Sesame Street. Danny, a dark green, somewhat-reserved yet friendly 7 year-old, appeared in a number of episodes on his own, but in the latest episode, some of the other Muppets had wondered where Danny’s dad was. Danny then came out of his house, with his bag packed, and Big Bird was afraid that Danny was going to move away. This was just a big misunderstanding, though; Danny explained that he was just going to visit his dad over the weekend, and was waiting for him to pick him up. The Muppets ask why his dad doesn’t live with him and his mom, and soon after, Danny’s dad, who is named Paulie, shows up and starts to explain things to the rest of the cast.
Paulie and Melissa were, in fact, divorced. In a flashback scene, the two were shown hugging and loving each other, but over time, they started to grow more distant. Melissa and Paulie realized that the spark between them just wasn’t there anymore, and that they had differences they couldn’t easily solve. The two decided to file for divorce, as they wanted to protect Danny’s well being. As Melissa comes out to give her son a hug as he goes to spend time with his dad, Paulie sweetly says, “While Melissa and I might have our differences, there’s at least one thing we have in common: we both love our son Danny, and nothing will ever change that! Isn’t that right, sport?” Danny responds by saying, “Of course, Dad!” and they both go on their way as the episode ends.
It should be no surprise that an episode with such a serious and meaningful topic was written by the same person who wrote the episode concerning the death of Mr. Hooper, Norman Stiles. However, Stiles had a hard time trying to write an episode about divorce all by himself.
“[The Children’s Television Workshop] had been wanting to do an episode on divorce since ‘89, and I was chosen to write that script,” says Stiles. “The first script I wrote was about Mr. Snuffleupagus’s parents getting a divorce in real time. We filmed that script, did some test screenings, and found out that kids responded to it negatively. They thought that arguments automatically lead to divorce, even though we reassured them that’s not the case. There were also concerns among children that Snuffy and his sister Alice wouldn’t see their father again.”
Stiles nearly threw the idea in the trash after this revelation. “I really, really wanted to cover this topic. So I sent my script to Jim Henson, and asked him for ideas.” Jim Henson is the creator of both Sesame Street and The Muppets as a whole, and has acted as an advisor for the show in recent years. “Jim said that instead of arguments leading to divorce, it should stem from the parents losing that romantic connection they had. That, and to introduce a new character whose parents had already gone through a divorce in the past, which led to the creation of Danny. So, we had Danny show up in a few episodes before we did the big reveal, and the test screenings of that episode were far more positive.
“I’m really glad I got to cover a topic like this, but I wouldn’t have been able to do it without Jim’s aid,” remarked Stiles.
- An article from The New York Times, late 1992
Footnotes:
[1] Yes, you heard that year right! River Phoenix doesn’t die of a drug overdose in this timeline. You'll hear more about Young Indy later on, as other than River Phoenix's role, seasons 1 and 2 are largely unchanged. The rest, on the other hand... you'll see in due time.
[2] The premiere date of Dinosaurs in OTL. Don’t worry, we’ll still see Dinosaurs in one form or another ITTL, it’ll just be a bit later on.
[3] Scooter’s puppeteer is Richard Hunt for the first season, and David Rudman for the second season onward following Hunt’s death.
Next time, we're off to Summer CES 1992, where Sega and Nintendo will show off their fancy new CD add-ons. I hope to see you then!