The hype surrounding Nintendo’s The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is great. And we too have wondered in our podcast: why isn’t there a Zelda series or movie if the game is so good? Well, there was one in the late 1980s, and golly, it was weird.
The Legend of Zelda is a magical franchise from Nintendo. And on paper, you could make a cool series out of it, too. So did these producers and actors in 1986, with complete idiocy as a result.
Would you watch a The Legend of Zelda series from Nintendo?
The Legend of Zelda series came out in a year when Nintendo invested in making TV shows of characters people were in love with. For example, Zelda came out at the same time as The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! Fun fact: that also featured the excellent Captain N series.
So in 1986, some studio bosses were sitting on their hands. Especially since the game The Adventure of Link was such a huge success for Nintendo. Then there just had to be money to be made. The series was published by Ion Television, developed by producer Bob Forward and had one season with thirteen episodes, in 1989. And goodness gracious, what an insane thing to do.
Link is going to do what?!
The Legend of Zelda follows the adventures of Link and Zelda as they defend Hyrule and the Triforce of Wisdom from the evil plans of Ganon. Pretty recognizable for the well-known Nintendo game, but the rest was far from that.
Link (played by Jonathan Potts), for example, had long brown hair and brown eyes. And he looked nothing like the somewhat reclusive character we knew from the game. In it, he didn’t (and still doesn’t) say a word. That’s how different it was in the series.
Potts version was an irritating charmer who constantly tried to dabble with Zelda (played by Cyndy Preston). Granted, then, she was a strong character who helped Link with his adventures often enough. And then when Link wanted a kiss, his catchphrase was “well excuuuuse me princess” if he didn’t get one. By the way, the entire series can just be watched back on YouTube.
Good ideas but poor execution of The Legend of Zelda
It wasn’t as if the creators didn’t want to tell a wonderful adventure. For example, a teenager (Eve Forward) wrote one of the episodes of The Legend of Zelda. She got her inspiration from playing D&D. And according to Bob Forward (Eve’s brother, that is), making the series was largely fun for all the writers. They also indicated that Nintendo always gave them complete freedom.
Nintendo did weird things
It wasn’t the first time Nintendo started doing crazy projects, by the way. Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon, a bizarre The Legend of Zelda game for the CD-i, put players in absurd situations with clunky controls, laughable animations and strange dialogue. Despite its reputation as one of the worst Zelda games, it achieved cult status and is often cited as a curiosity in the series.
An sich, though, it is intriguing that Nintendo continues to dabble with projects like this. The Super Mario Bros. Movie was delightful entertainment. At least it scored immensely well in cinemas.
And so after playing The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, as well as classics like Link to the Past and Ocarina of Time, a question remains: would it be possible to make a good Zelda movie or series. Mmm, interesting.
