Creepy Commercials Countdown: Little Nemo: The Dream Master!

The Creepy Commercials Countdown!
October 26th, 2012: “Little Nemo: The Dream Master!” (1990)

Hey, a Nintendo game. How novel. Or at least retro. It’s some five letter word thing.

Little Nemo: The Dream Master debuted in 1990, and was based on the Japanese film, Little Nemo: Adventures in Slumberland. But since that movie wasn’t released in the States until 1992, Capcom couldn’t rely on its fans to make the game a hit. (At least, not here!)

In a way, that worked out for the best, because a game like The Dream Master seemed so much cooler when it was apropos of nothing. (Its plot involved Nemo, a small boy, navigating through his own psychotic dreams, filled with monster trees and flying alligators. Awesome, and much more interesting if you believed that it was a video game plot exclusively.)

I don’t know, maybe I have it wrong. Maybe Little Nemo was something in the States by 1990. But let’s assume I’m right, because getting to the bottom of this sounds like it could take, man, ten or fifteen minutes.

Evidence of my correctness was the game’s TV commercial, which makes absolutely no mention of Nemo’s other exploits, and virtually lies about its storyline. According to the commercial, Dream Master’s bizarre levels were fueled not by Nemo’s dreams, but ours.

A top secret team in a top secret van quietly roams the streets, using wacky equipment to swipe nightmares from a bunch of twisting, turning preteens. And now you understand why I’m classifying this as a “Halloween” commercial. Shit’s twisted!

The game’s Wikipedia entry sadly lacks a “Reception” section, so I was robbed of the chance of rewording its content to make it sound like I have any idea if the game was any good. For the record, I do proofread before publishing, and I’m well aware that the previous sentence should not be here.

For whatever it’s worth, it looks pretty good.

I’ll just judge it by the two most prominent clips seen during the commercial. In the first, a little boy rides a dinosaur in front of a bombed library. In the second, Satan and the Statue of Liberty had a baby, and that baby fucking amazing. I cannot imagine elements like these belonging to a game that was all bad.

Guess it’s time to fire up the old emulator.

Do they still make those? Does it still take forever to figure out how to change the keyboard controls?

Actually, pass. Little Nemo: The Dream Master could not possibly live up to what I’m imagining. (In summary: Best game ever.)