1990: “Our comic readers have only heard of one video game ever, but we need to stretch this to look like an entire newspaper page.”
I think it’s a nested joke, where that one game totally dominates the kid’s free time, with the clueless parents thinking that’s the only relevant game in existence.
Also, at the time every game was “the Nintendo” to parents, and still was for a couple decades after. Mario had an enormous impact.
I didn’t understand that as a kid and I still don’t understand it. Why would you take so little interest in what your kids like? I don’t even have kids and I still know who Mr Beast is. I can’t imagine having people I love, living in my house, who are into this stuff and not knowing all about it. The only way this kind of parental apathy can possibly make sense to me is if those parents just don’t love their kids. It doesn’t make sense to me.
Video games are pretty new. Most parents of those kids perfectly related tp their kids watching TV and movies. They could bond over Star Wars and have no concept of ‘gaming’ and remain completely ignorant beyond them Mario Twins and the Pokemans.
If experiencing the world through fresh eyes isn’t one of the main points of having a kid, what are we even doing as a species? How can you not be infected by a little one’s curiosity about a changing world and learn along with them? I’m childfree and I still understand that much. How can someone choose to have kids and not want to share their kid’s eagerness to learn?
To be honest it is extremely wonderful and infectious.
It is also exhausting.
And relentless.
There is no amount of exhaustion that could persuade me not to learn the name of my loved one’s favourite toy for years on end.
This aged well
You actually could work as a Nintendo expert, even back then. Nintendo had a help line for people who got stuck in games, and you could call it and talk to somebody.
Now, did it pay well? Almost certainly not.
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