Awesome Possum: Tengen's Failed Mascot | Gaming Historian

anyone who has ever ventured into video game collecting or is familiar with the sega genesis library has certainly come across the game awesome possum kicks dr meschino's butt the title alone is enough to give anyone pause maybe even a chuckle on the surface it's just another platformer tengan's poor attempt to mimic the success of nintendo super mario or sega's sonic the hedgehog but behind every game there's a story an awesome possum story is an interesting one it was made to teach kids about saving the environment at a time when people struggled with the reality of a new threat global warming and awesome possum wasn't alone there were books movies tv shows and comics all made for the purpose of bringing awareness to the problem and years after its release awesome possum still made headlines thanks to a ridiculous lawsuit let's learn more about a game with a fun name awesome possum i'm awesome in 1988 a new term took center stage around the world the greenhouse effect also known as global warming carbon dioxide and other gases from human industrial activity were building up in the atmosphere trapping heat near the ground and making the planet warmer on june 23 1988 nasa scientist james hansen testified before congress that global warming was a serious issue that shouldn't be taken lightly previously scientists including hanson had a wait-and-see approach when discussing the effects of human activity on the climate but now hansen was certain human activity was contributing to climate change and he had evidence to back up his claims 1988 was the warmest the planet had ever been at any time since they began measuring its temperature at the time the united states was the biggest source of carbon dioxide there was a severe drought in the midwestern states the worst since the dust bowl of the 1930s politicians around the world were now paying attention and looking for ways to tackle the problem global warming became the hot topic of not only policy makers but the media in 1990 pbs aired race to save the planet a 10-part series hosted by meryl streep that hoped to convince people to take action because we're conducting a giant experiment on the only atmosphere we've got media mogul ted turner stated preservation of the environment is a problem in which everybody needs to become involved in 1990 he premiered a new edutainment cartoon captain planet aimed at teaching children about environmentalism in the comics industry there was zen intergalactic ninja an alien warrior who must save the earth from destruction and even the video game industry got involved thanks to an idea from a newly hired programmer at tengen named richard seborn [Music] with us in the studio now are richard seaborne and jeff fluffords both seabourn had been making games since high school he started out as a freelance game developer creating several rpgs for the personal computer including tower of mira glenn and escaped from hell but by 1992 seaborn felt that games were becoming too big for one person to complete wanting to join a team he applied at atari games and got the job atari games was a company formed from the ashes of atari by the late 80s the north american video game industry was back from the dead led by nintendo and their hot new console the nintendo entertainment system atari games wanted to get involved and became an official third-party licensee under the name tengen but after a falling out with nintendo over licensing terms tengen released the very first unlicensed games and sued nintendo for anti-trust violations and unfair competition atari games and tengen would ultimately lose the lawsuit but the company embraced their anti-nintendo role employees walked around the office in pirate hats or hard hats with circle slash nintendo symbols on the front the company cut a licensing deal with sega nintendo's rival and began releasing games on the sega genesis check this out brand new 16-bit super nintendo by 1992 sega and nintendo were officially at war for the video game market and the battles were being waged by mascots sega had sonic the hedgehog a fast blue hedgehog with an attitude nintendo had super mario an italian plumber on a mission to save the mushroom kingdom mascots were a huge marketing tool in 1990 according to q ratings super mario was more popular than mickey mouse other companies tried to replicate the success with their own mascot there was bonk from hudsonsoft from gremlin graphics rocky rodent from irem arrow the acrobat from sunsoft and bubsy from accolade so in 1992 tengen set out to make their own mascot an environmental game would hopefully differentiate themselves from the crowd and several employees at the company were passionate about saving the planet many ideas were considered including graphic the warthog an almost carbon copy of sonic the hedgehog but the winner was richard seaborne's idea for an unlikely animal hero opossum possums are are truly amazing creatures they're the only marsupial found here in north america and they're almost prehistoric they've been around for eons you say playing possum that's the possum's main defense is playing possum when frightened what they'll do is they'll fall over and act dead they actually do faint and they can feign up 20 minutes at a time they'll start to salivate and they have a terrible smelling fluid that comes out of them that makes them smell dead they don't hang from their tails naturally that's kind of an old wives tale but climbing wise they can grab hold of the branch next to them to steady them to get across tree branches and all that so their tail is so very very important to them they actually help people they uh clean up the things we don't want to think about they carry in they clean up the stuff we're on the roads we don't want to see they eat insects they're just amazing little creatures that really help the environment they're wonderful to have around so possum would make a good superhero oh definitely so and they'd look in the cape too yeah richard seabourn's hero possum concept wasn't new back in 1984 while he was in high school seabourn was assigned to write a story for his speech and debate class after watching the movie godzilla he wondered what it would be like if an ordinary animal was given extraordinary abilities but which animal seaborn found his answer when he saw possums frequenting his backyard he wrote a story entitled awesome possum international environmental investigator in the story awesome possum had exaggerated powers fighting skills and could talk his way out of sticky situations he also donned a lab coat as his disguise now eight years later seabourn pitched his awesome possum character as the star of tengen's new game about the environment management approved and seabourn was given a team and put in charge of making the game his team was composed primarily of artists including jules marino who had previously worked on projects such as he-man fat albert and cool world the first design of awesome possum was a north american possum but the character wasn't exactly cute and looked too vicious so the team made a slight change instead of using a north american possum they changed it to the more cute and less threatening looking ringtail possum we have the virginia opossum it actually uh everyone calls them possums but it's the uh the virginia opossum and in uh australia they have possums beginning with a pee they would climb trees they'd eat about the same foods that type of thing they fill the same niche in different areas the cute heroic possum would be the vessel to teach players about the environment players could collect recyclables throughout levels to earn one-ups in between stages players had to answer questions about the environment a right answer awarded 10 000 points the manual explained how kids could help save the planet it also included lists of books and organizations to learn more about environmentalism but while education was important the developers also wanted the game to be fun inspired by other mascot games seabourn and his team created a platforming game players took control of awesome possum who traveled through rainforests sea caverns and the arctic circle to track down dr meschino who was destroying the environment with his robot minions gameplay was clearly inspired by sonic the hedgehog awesome possum jumped on enemies to defeat them and got power-ups to run faster levels contained many ramps to show off his speed when the player went idle awesome possum got impatient unlike sonic awesome possum had the ability to play possum when hit and become temporarily invincible as it was awesome possum was just another platformer to help make the game stand out richard seabourn implemented digitized speech into the game thanks to some clever compression tricks seabourn and his team were able to fill the massive 16 megabit cartridge with speech awesome possum was very talkative perhaps to a fault there was however an option to mute him when it came time to find voice talent tengen aimed high they reached out to robin williams williams one of the most popular comedians in hollywood had just finished voice work in the movie fern gully an animated film about animals and fairies protecting a rainforest from deforestation a video game about a similar topic might have appealed to him but ultimately his agent said he was not interested instead voices were provided by wally fields laura ahmat and most notably douglas lawrence who would go on to voice filbert in rocco's modern life and plankton in spongebob squarepants before its release the game's working title was awesome possum saves the environment but the marketing team at atari games didn't like it they were convinced consumers would not understand it was a normal game without identifying a clear enemy to defeat so the official title became awesome possum kicks dr meschino's butt although seabourn wasn't a fan of the new title the decision was out of his hands atari games sought to make awesome possum a trans media experience appealing to a wide demographic included in the manual was a full-color comic book explaining awesome possum's origins and his quest to defeat dr meschino atari games also partnered with the world wildlife fund to help promote the game press kits for awesome possum contained a rainforest crunch bar a sticker and a christmas card featuring awesome possum in november of 1993 tengen released awesome possum for the sega genesis in north america it later came out in japan europe would never get a release reviewers were not kind to the game uk magazine mega machine called it a horrible little platform game so drab dull and lacking in inspiration it must cry itself to sleep at night even sega visions sega's own magazine wasn't thrilled with the game while we found the challenge to be worthy of most gamers we thought the game could have been a little more fun however there were a few exceptions electronic games magazine had high praise writer bill kunkle called it the most straight ahead kinetic experience on the genesis since the original sonic the hedgehog the game would later win best sound in electronic games state of the art genesis feature according to seabourn sales of the game exceeded expectations there are no hard numbers available but seaborn said he received bonuses based on the sales he admitted that awesome possum could have used more polish the game suffered from terrible slowdown and could have used the help of experienced platformer level designers but overall he was happy with the results given the challenges of the era although not everyone was thrilled with awesome possum one man took things a step further with a lawsuit on february 1st 1996 atari games and their new parent company time warner interactive learned that they were being sued by an art teacher from clark summit pennsylvania the reason copyright infringement the plaintiff paul roginski accused atari games of stealing his children's book idea he claimed that in january of 1993 he began working on a children's story about a possum that saved a forest from loggers entitled awesome possum two months later in march he applied for a copyright which was granted in may of 1993.

roginski then started mailing copies of his manuscript to different companies including walt disney houghton mifflin and advocacy press meanwhile he discovered awesome possum kicks dr meschino's butt so roginsky sued claiming that atari games had stolen his idea he demanded fifty thousand dollars time warner interactive was in no mood for a frivolous lawsuit they had plenty of evidence that richard seabourn had come up with the idea for awesome possum well before paul roginski on january 2nd 1997 they filed a motion for summary judgment on april 30th both parties presented oral arguments in front of judge thomas vanasky in the u.

s district court for the middle district of pennsylvania atari games had a solid defense richard seabourn officially pitched awesome possum in july of 1992 many months before paul roginski wrote his book not only that but seaborne's possum idea dated back to 1984 when he wrote his story in high school so instead of going after the video game paul roginski took issue with the comic book included in the manual he claimed the story was too similar to his own and that atari games must have gotten a copy of his book the timelines added up atari games didn't officially name the game awesome possum until may 13 1993 by that time roginsky's manuscript was in the hands of publishers and the copyright office judge thomas vanasky had to determine if atari games had access to roginsky's work and if the works were substantially similar in both cases he found nothing there was simply no evidence that atari games had access to rogenski's work roginsky theorized that in a rush to complete the game atari games had gone to the library of congress to find stories about possums and found his manuscript but again there was no evidence in fact roginski couldn't even prove his manuscript was at the library of congress but the final dagger was when judge vanasky found that the two awesome possum stories were not substantially similar on june 23 1997 judge vanasky granted the motion for summary judgment in favor of time warner interactive and atari games paul roginski never got his book published today global warming now more commonly referred to as climate change continues to be a hotly debated topic awesome possum however is not it's more remembered for its humorous title than anything else a forgotten platformer of the 16-bit era that tried to mimic the success of sonic and mario believe it or not awesome possum wasn't the only game released in 1993 that starred opossum there was also rocket knight adventures a platformer from developer konami it's considered one of the best games on the genesis although awesome possum couldn't measure up it was if anything an ambitious game in a time when global warming was still a relatively new topic awesome possum was one of the first video games to tackle the subject richard seabourn the game's creator hopes at the very least that the game had some influence on people's views about the environment who knows perhaps a leading climate scientist began their career path by playing a video game about opossum [Music] funding for gaming historian is provided in part by supporters on patreon thank you [Music] [Music] [Music] uh [Music] so [Music] [Music] my [Music] you [Music].