How is this the first time we've talked about Nintendo World Champion Thor Aacherlund? You would have thought with all the advertisements we've poured over Thor would have come up before now, but it turns out this is his very first appearance on Defunct Games. In case you are unfamiliar with Thor, this is the kid that won that Nintendo Would Championships tour Big N did back in the early 1990s. He raced faster in Rad Racer, scored higher in Tetris and beat the first level in Super Mario Bros. faster than anybody else ... and now he's advertising Camerica's wares in a series of bad advertisements.

I'll give the guy credit, there were a lot of people in a number of cities looking for that crown, but this skinny little nerd is the one that walked away with the gold. And wouldn't you know, thanks to these advertisements we now have more than one reason to have this kid. "Go for gold" he says, suggesting that you buy games from Camerica, a company that was not an official license of Nintendo. Can't Nintendo revote your trophy or something? This seems strangely akin to that time Vanessa Williams posed nude and was shunned by the Miss America Pageant.

The classic gamer will probably notice that this commercial advertises Micro-Machines, one of the best party games ever made. But notice how that's the only game you've ever heard of. The Fantastic Adventure of Dizzy? Sounds like the subtitle to a Conker sequel. The Ultimate Stuntman, I suppose it couldn't be worse than that PS2 Stuntman game. Oh, and Big Nose the Caveman? Look, this was the early 1990s, video gaming wasn't that old and not all of the cool names were taken. There's just no excuse for a name like Big Nose. And you know what? There's no excuse for putting the same picture of Thor Aackerlund in your adverts and using different quotes he probably didn't say. "Setting a new standard in game play"?? How stoned was this kid when he won that golden cartridge?

FROM: Bad Advertising and DynaGirl