Has it really been 75 episodes already? Man, I’ve been getting these reviews out at a pretty good pace! Anyway, this time we take a look at an Angry Video Game Nerd episode which had quite a bit of hype and promotion around it back in 2009 – Bugs Bunny’s Crazy Castle! Where the past few episodes had been pretty straightforward and less crude than normal (honestly, something I somewhat prefer at times) this episode goes back to some of the early days of the series, most importantly being effectively a sequel to the “Bugs Bunny’s Birthday Blowout” episode.
After an older style opening and a Loony Tunes intro screen we get to our favorite Nerd trying to pick an NES game to play. This is when our old friend Bugs Bunny, played by Mike Matei just walks into the Nerd room and tosses the Crazy Castle game at him. After a small fight, the Nerd eventually relents and plays the game.
The game itself is a straightforward puzzle platformer. It’s nothing special, not terrible, but not that great either. I know I would have hated it as a kid. This is where things go crazy — more fighting, the first of many scatalogical references to come, and another Crazy Castle game?
Yep. Crazy Castle 2 on Game Boy. After a bit of the old Loony Tunes style reverse psychology, the Nerd plays the game like a sucker. It’s basically the same game, but on Game Boy. It has differences, which the Nerd covers, but otherwise it’s nothing special either.
The fighting gets more intense, with Bugs eventually throwing the Nerd onto “The couch,” breaking it. This forces Kyle Justin, who you may recall is living behind the couch, to have to look for a new place to live. After Bugs does his business on the Nerd (yeah, this is one of those kinds of episodes) another game gets tossed over and, of course, the Nerd plays it.
Crazy Castle 3 on Game Boy Color. Again, same old same old with a few changes. There isn’t much too special to say.
Back to more fighting, with a funny exchange between Kyle and the Nerd regarding the couch (which the Nerd correctly refers to as a Futon), ending with James getting blown up in typical cartoon style and then getting tossed.. yep… another game, Crazy Castle 4 on Game Boy Color. It’s exactly what you would expect, the same game but slightly improved and changed.
Move on to the next fight. The Nerd tries to choke Bugs with his own carrot, Bugs drops an anvil on the Nerd, the Nerd takes Kyle’s guitar and tries to hit Bugs with it, and at the end all 3 get into a punching match. The Nerd finally gets control of the fight, knocking Bugs out for a short time before we get… yep.. another Crazy Castle game – Crazy Castle 5 on GameBoy Advance.
This time, however, the central character is Woody Woodpecker and not Bugs Bunny. Huh, quite a random change. This leads to the Nerd going through a monologue on just how the two characters are connected.
This is interrupted by Bugs coming in for the kill. By now the Nerd Room is a mess, and Bugs is out for blood — yeah, he’s trying to kill the Nerd. Still, our favorite angry game dork takes control, ripping Bugs’s head off only to uncover the truth — it’s actually been Woody Woodpecker this whole time. He pulls out a bomb in another attempt to finally kill the Nerd, and at this point the Nerd doesn’t care — he’s going to take Woody down with him. With one last explosion we find Woody, the Nerd, and a demon much like the one from the Mario 3 episode stuck in what’s basically Hell. With that the episode ends.
Final Rating: 4.0/5
Honestly, when this episode was new, I didn’t like it that much. It was funny, sure, and the fighting was some of the best “stupid for the sake of it” stuff I had seen from the nerd, or on YouTube, in a good long while, but it was light on game material and was really more of an excuse for James to break out the Bugs Bunny costume again and do some “fun” shots.
Still, looking at it in retrospect I can see why he wanted to do this when he did, I think, and I didn’t complain about the Halloween episode, which did the same, so, I can’t fully complain here. The games were more of a means to an end to tell the story and have an excuse to film the insanity in this video.