I discovered completely by accident this truly bizarre Hyundai product. What I am about to present to you is the Hyundai Comboy (현대컴보이), which looks suprisingly similar to the Nintendo Entertainment System. Now the very existance of this item raises some questions for me. First off this thing is clearly labeled as a Hyundai product, yet all the games are clearly Nintendo games. So was this some sort of actual business arrangement or was Hyundai totally ripping off Nintendo’s shit? If you have any information regarding the Hyundai Comboy please let me know as these kind of things keep me awake at night.
This commercial features an oddly shaped cartoon Mario showing a family that really likes the color white how much fun they can have with a Comboy. Bonus points for the tune.
In this commerical a young boy’s depression is cured by a cartoon Mario and the arrival of a Hyundai Comboy. The commercial also alerts us to the existance of a Mini-Comboy (aka Gameboy).
A man is a costume ghoul of some sorts appears and tries to ruin a boy and girl’s Comboy based fun by chasing them through games like Super Mario Bros. 2 and The Legend of Zelda. Luckily there’s a cartoon Mario running about!
If you only watch one of these commercials, this is the one to see as it is clearly the most off the wall. Costume Koreans dance about and sing the virtues of a video game system.
I especially like the pseudo-rap theme song of the last one.
Comment by Ailinn — December 3, 2006 @ 0:19 am
I also like that said pseudo-rap references the Ninja Turtles and Megaman III.
Comment by Wyatt — December 3, 2006 @ 9:20 am
wow, those commercials are surreal. the last one is a japanese commercial overdubbed in korean.
hyundai was nintendo-licensed for a while, so the 컴보이 and the 슈퍼 컴보이 were all that korea knew of nintendo products. koreans generally don’t know what “nintendo” is or means. i can’t really get the story straight, but there was some sort of law in korea until about 1997 prohibiting the importation of japanese cultural products. console gaming is practically nonexistent in korea to this day due to that law. i believe that is also why nintendo chose to go through hyundai to get into the korean market. nothing they tried in korea ever really worked, though. the previous president of nintendo (until about 2001, i think), hiroshi yamauchi, apparently didn’t care about korea at all. now the new president, satoru iwata, is trying to get things going again by starting a true korean subsidiary of nintendo. but it’s a terrible uphill battle against the pc culture and piracy, and i don’t predict they will have much immediate success.
for more, here’s a decent article:
http://www.4colorrebellion.com/archives/2006/09/06/playing-nintendo-v24-korea-needs-a-reggie-lution/
Comment by dr — December 3, 2006 @ 9:42 am
Dr,
The article is fantastic, and your explaination makes sense. I knew of the law prohibiting the importation of Japanese culture, which I believe was still in effect up until 2003…or perhaps that was just for Japanese television programs. Anyhow you say that the last one is a dubbed Japanese commercial. Do you have a link to that I could check out?
Comment by Wyatt — December 3, 2006 @ 10:08 am
wyatt,
i guess i was mistaken about the mario commercial… the one i was thinking of was a hilarious zelda commercial that is very similar in style:
http://youtube.com/watch?v=fKSZE-3grPg
it could still be japanese in origin… i can’t imagine nintendo staging and filming a mario-themed thriller-esque danceoff in korea! that’s a party i’d like to be invited to.
^^
Comment by dr — December 3, 2006 @ 12:54 pm