Each Monday, I look forward to dragging home from work, plopping into my favorite chair and switching on the Nintendo Channel to check out the week’s new promo videos. The routine’s not done until I’ve watched the latest installment of NINTENDO WEEK, the company’s magazine-style Nintendo news show.
And, each week, there they are: Allison and Gary, the show’s super-upbeat hosts with another truckload of corny skits, low-budget special effects and twisted-but-not-too-twisted-for-kids humor. In Allison and Gary’s world, every single Nintendo product is fantastic and worthy of high praise. Every developer’s a genius. Great games rain from the skies.
Confession time: I really like these two. They’re perfect for the show. I don’t know if they’re the Nintendo fanatics they pretend to be, but they’re convincing in their roles and undeniably easy-going and likable. Sure, the two Warioware D.I.Y. games they designed sucked, but I can’t think of any other TV hosts who could design a game at all (maybe Adam Sessler). I can honestly say their jokes haven’t made me laugh once, but they have made me smile a lot. They’re doing the best they can with a limited budget and a script that’s 99% PR fluff.
I worry about Nintendo Week’s future; The weekly installments used to run anywhere from 15 minutes to a half hour. Lately (with the exception of the recent Metroid episode), they’ve been hovering around the five minute mark. Uh-Oh. I hope it’ll gain more content as the holidays near. I don’t want this weekly dose of happy Nintendo enthusiasm to vanish.
Do you watch Nintendo Week?