Duck Hunt Dog's Dynasty: How Nintendo's MIA Mascot Climbed to the Top of the Smash Bros. Heap
The most surprising addition to Smash Bros. takes the form of a character who's become synonymous with failure over the past 30 years.
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The lead-up to 2008's Super Smash Bros. Brawl had fans of Nintendo's fighting mashup in the grip of excitement. Every handful of days, its official website would release a slow drip of information to the world, detailing new characters, stages, and remixed music tracks from the upcoming game--a great strategy for a series that essentially acts as a gargantuan pinata full of Nintendo references.
Flash-forward to present day: After the recent, massive leak of the new installment's entire roster, six short years ago seems like a much more innocent time.
We may have been violently spoiled, but, to be fair, Nintendo already revealed some of the most notable newcomers months ago: Mega Man, Pac-Man, Little Mac, and Animal Crossing's boy and girl Villager duo. The newest Smash Bros. doesn't carry the appeal of megastars making their debuts--like Brawl's Sonic the Hedgehog and Solid Snake--but one completely unexpected addition quickly became the most-talked-about new fighter of this upcoming sequel: that nondescript mutt who actively taunted our poor aim throughout the '80s, Duck Hunt Dog.
Now, if you're hovering around the age of 30, you most likely know this character from the Nintendo Entertainment System pack-in cartridge, which includes Super Mario Bros. and Duck Hunt on a single, rectangular slab of plastic. Though Duck Hunt's super-simplistic shooting gallery could only serve as a brief distraction from the surprising depth of Mario's legendary 8-bit platformer, its infamous mascot became a cultural touchstone for a generation. If you can recall the syrupy sweet taste of Ecto Cooler, Duck Hunt Dog's grinning face should be synonymous with failure.
Credit Duck Hunt Dog's lasting popularity to the sheer amount of people who played his game (easily into the tens of millions), and you'd be partially correct. But this character wouldn't be nearly as memorable without the distinct personality you just didn't get from the vacant stares and empty smiles of video game characters at the time. Nintendo used this four-legged mascot to layer a cartoony veneer over the act of shooting cute, innocent animals out of the sky, which gave the onscreen violence a playful, Looney Tunes quality.
And while video games regularly praised and scolded players based on their performance before 1984, Duck Hunt evaluated by means of a character rather than simple on-screen text. Duck Hunt would have worked just as well with "GOOD JOB!" branded on the screen instead of an excited dog holding up your bounty, but the presence of this furry mascot shows Nintendo wanted their games to be fun as well as functional. From the giant, expressive fighters in Punch-Out to the "boing" of Mario's jumps, Nintendo's early titles did their best to feel like playable cartoons.
Though the game establishes him as your helpful canine companion, it's clear Duck Hunt Dog likes to play both sides--which may explain his reputation as one of gaming's biggest jerks. It also doesn't help that shooting Duck Hunt Dog--one of the most natural reactions to his sneering face--yields absolutely no results, as Nintendo made this judgmental character completely invincible--firing at him doesn't even trigger a reaction. But the arcade version of the game, titled Vs. Duck Hunt, shows a slightly edgier Nintendo tapping into their more sadistic side.
I'm guessing Nintendo received plenty of feedback from players of the original Famicom version, because this arcade port actually allows you to shoot the dog in an exclusive bonus round. Sure, you're punished for doing so, but seeing him wrapped in bandages provides plenty of catharsis for all the times he brazenly taunted someone firing a gun in his direction. Even the marquee art for Vs. advertises the fact that Duck Hunt Dog's days are numbered, as he flees in abject terror from incoming bullets.
As with some of Nintendo's earlier video games, Duck Hunt receives its inspiration from one of their toys: In this case, the electromechanical Kôsenjû (or "light ray gun") Duck Hunt. Crafted by Game Boy creator Gunpei Yokoi's division, this 1976 projector-based game features the same basic premise as the NES classic, but without any of the frills. It's true that mid-'70s technology probably didn't have the capability of delivering more than your basic point-and-shoot experience, but without Duck Hunt Dog, the game seems stark and eerie. I'm sure you could incorporate a real-life dog into the setup, but thanks to a demonstration video by the blog Before Mario, Kôsenjû Duck Hunt looks way more appropriate for cats. To the average feline brain, those darting, white duck silhouettes must hold the appeal of a million laser pointers.
Seeing this one-shot character return after 30 years stands as an exciting enough proposition, but the new Smash Bros. ups the stakes by revealing a fact about Duck Hunt Dog we probably could have guessed all along: He was against us the entire time. This character's union with the one of the titular Duck Hunt ducks (a duo the game awkwardly refers to as "Duck Hunt") nearly feels like an apology for making us shoot so many of those little guys out of the air decades ago. The passing of time has given us a gentler Nintendo, and now that guns have exited the picture, duck and dog can become friends as nature probably never intended. It's strange, but for those who played Duck Hunt back in the day, this pairing exists as a heartwarming reunion that started with a contentious relationship followed by too many years of silence. Consider it my generation's Jerry Lewis and Dean Martin reconciliation, except with fewer Frank Sinatra numbers.
If you've been playing Smash Bros. since the series' debut, genuine surprise doesn't come as often as it once did. But Duck Hunt Dog makes for one of the most interesting additions to date--if only because Nintendo is finally acknowledging a character they never intended to be timeless. And now that such an obscure figure can fight alongside Mario, Link, and other all-stars, anything seems possible in Smash Bros.--meaning you can now offer up the most outlandish predictions while still retaining a sense of plausibility. I'm calling it right now: Mike Jones from StarTropics for Smash Bros. 5, which will tie directly into his series' gritty, 4DS reboot. As you now know, crazier things have happened.