Nintendo 64 ad: Jingle Bells

Posted 24 Jul 2014 by Squid, last modified 13 Sep 2016

Now this is a fun little Nintendo 64 ad – a Christmas ad with a cover of Jingle bells.

Now, what the hell am I supposed to make of this? I guess that the most appropriate thing that I can do is just give a transcript of it first, before I actually get into the nitty gritty of it.

Nintendo 64 ad transcript:

Teenagers (Singing):
Jingle Bells, Santa smells,
Christmas really stunk.
I got nothing that I wanted
my gifts were all just junk!

Boxes full of clothes
CDs no one knows
When I wanted something for
My Nintendo 64!

Zelda’s great, Turok 2
South park would be fun.
How about Rogue Squadron?
That game should be mine!

Narrator:
Make up for a lame Christmas, get the hits you missed on N64.

Teenagers (Singing):
Mom and dad,
I’m so sad
Lala- (fades off)

Description

Even after typing that out, I’m still at a loss for words, but let’s begin with the obvious. This Nintendo 64 ad starts with the teenagers singing about how what they got for Christmas was terrible and how their gifts were. They they say that they would rather have had received some N64 games and proceed by listing Zelda, Turok, South Park and Rogue Squadron. Now, what this ad does right is that the teenagers want some pretty good games. South Park is a moist turd, but it was at its peak in popularity as a raunchy/controversial TV show, so I guess I can excuse this game being included. The ad ends with the teens continuing to sing off-key into the distance.

Analysis

Now, I love this ad because of how bad they sing. But after having another look at it, it makes sense – the teenagers are upset so their singing is terrible. The crappy gifts they got make them angry so they sing like if they were kids that were forced to go carolling or something.

You can then notice that they become happier once they start talking about the N64, which perfectly shows the flow of emotions that the ad is trying to convey.

Trivia

While they’re showing footage of the games, there’s a spinning N64 logo in the corner.
The ‘boxes full of clothes’ are shown to hold a jumper with teddy bears on it and green bunny slippers.
The ‘CDs no one knows’ are too blurry to make out, but the one on the left is a CD with a harp on it, and the one on the right says ‘TUBA’. I can assume that they’re all classical music or something.
There is a watermark at the end which advertises ‘megacosm.com’, a now defunct website. The positioning of it implies that that’s the person who uploaded the video.