After pointing out yesterday that Sinterklaas likes the Game Boy, I feel I need to make it up to Sega. It wasn’t that difficult to come up with a counterargument that’s also part of the Flemish canon. In F.C. De Kampioenen (“The Champions”), a long running Flemish sitcom about misunderstandings and misadventures of a lowly ranked football team, Pascale De Backer—the ex-wife of the ex-trainer of the club that runs the café that is not of René1—has been pictured playing the Game Gear:
Pascale playing Sonic on the Game Gear. Copyright VRT 2001.
Pascale is playing the mobile version of Sonic in season 12, episode 2 called Stoelendans (dancin…
After pointing out yesterday that Sinterklaas likes the Game Boy, I feel I need to make it up to Sega. It wasn’t that difficult to come up with a counterargument that’s also part of the Flemish canon. In F.C. De Kampioenen (“The Champions”), a long running Flemish sitcom about misunderstandings and misadventures of a lowly ranked football team, Pascale De Backer—the ex-wife of the ex-trainer of the club that runs the café that is not of René1—has been pictured playing the Game Gear:
Pascale playing Sonic on the Game Gear. Copyright VRT 2001.
Pascale is playing the mobile version of Sonic in season 12, episode 2 called Stoelendans (dancing chairs I guess?). For exactly ten seconds, we hear the iconic theme song of Sonic playing and the ploing jumping sound as she presses the buttons, before throwing the thing aside and calling her daughter. She’s alone that evening and having a hard time adjusting after her daughter and son-in-law just moved out. Bieke, her daughter, is fed up with Pascale constant checking up on her.
This is different from Sinterklaas playing the Game Boy for a few key reasons. First, Sinterklaas is having fun, while Pascale is just seeking a distraction and doesn’t know what to do with herself. Second, Sinterklaas, being the saint of the children, is an authority when it comes to toys, while Pascale is just a lonely café owner. Yet De Kampioenen, with more than twenty seasons, is one of the most watched Flemish TV shows of all time, and loved by virtually everyone—even the ones who saw the unfortunate downfall after season eight or so.
The strangest part of this very short Game Gear appearance is that episode 2 of season 12 originally aired in 2001—the launch year of the Game Boy Advance. The GBA got to us Europeans in the late summer of 2001, and season 2 aired the 15th December 2001. Why didn’t they have Pascale play Mario Advance?
At first, I couldn’t trace the exact episode in which the above scene takes place. Being the handheld game nerd that I am, I remembered the Game Gear scene, but I misremembered the period. I went looking for it in seasons five, six, and seven because my mind reconstructed the scene as a time period correct one, when the Game Gear was in full motion. Considered it ever was in motion at all. Dang it, I did it again, sorry Sega.
Perhaps the crew asked Danni Heylen who portrayed Pascale to bring a handheld device. “We’re gonna do a scene in which you’re lonely and bored, bring an electronic device to play on the couch so our viewers can place the feeling”. If she brought a Game Boy—any Game Boy would do here—she certainly wouldn’t be bored. Ah dang it, again!?
The Game Gear was discontinued in 1997, only six years after its initial release. Four years later, it pops up in F.C. De Kampioenen. It turns out to be next to impossible to find local historical sales data to see when the popularity of the Game Gear dipped into obscureness here in Belgium. I do remember Sega being stronger than initially suspected: we had a Mega Drive instead of a SNES and a buddy did own the Game Gear. Me and my sisters didn’t: we went the Game Boy—and later, Color—route.
The suspected reasons for that? A couple:
- The overabundance of Game Boy games available back then (on school playgrounds, during vacation trips, in shops, …)
- The GB’s 4 batteries lasted for 20 hours. The GG’s 6 batteries for nearly 4.
- The GG initially sold for
$150—that’s almost€295nowadays. The GB? The Pocket revision released in 1996 started at$70. That’s less than half the price! - Who are you going to Link Cable Play Tetris and Mortal Kombat with if you were the poor soul with rich parents that got you a Game Gear for Christmas?
Yes, it’s got colours, but that’s basically it. Technically, the Game Gear was essentially a shrunken down Sega Master System, which was impressive considering the Game Boy couldn’t even emulate the NES until the 1998 Color revision came by. So why does Pascale like hers so much? The still image I captured might evoke “liking” but the scene in motion does not do a very good job at convincing potential buyers. For that, we’ll need Sinterklaas.
Mijn Gedacht.
For the international reader enticed by this piece of excellent writing, here’s one of my favourite episodes of the TV show called Doping available on YouTube. ↩︎