By the Great Worm Spirit!

[vovat]

In case you haven't figured it out yet, this evening I'll be talking about Earthworm Jim. This was definitely one of the more bizarrely creative games to come out of the nineties. As you probably already know, it's about an earthworm with a super suit and a ray gun, who fights his way through a universe of falling cows, flame-throwing snowmen, and other equally crazy things. Jim's enemies include a villainous crow, a purely evil cat, and a mad scientist with a monkey grafted to his head. There were a few sequels to it, but the only one I saw was the immediate follow-up for the Super Nintendo, called simply Earthworm Jim 2. I think this one might have been easier, or at least it was for my brother. One part I particularly remember was a quiz show with nonsensical answers. I believe the correct answer to "What color is Jim's red gun?" was "green."

Like several other video games, especially in the nineties, Earthworm Jim was made into a Saturday morning cartoon series. This was one of the better game-based cartoons I can remember, with the same sort of humor as in the games. Plots I can remember include an evil spell accidentally being printed in a pop-up book of animals, Bob the Goldfish invading the town on Earth with the largest aquarium because he figures it's the major population center, and Jim having to go back in time to stop a deadly fish from devouring the Great Worm Spirit. They managed to incorporate some mundane observational humor as well, like Psy-Crow being deemed too nice to be a gym teacher, Professor Monkey-for-a-Head being credited as the inventor of the pay toilet, and Peter Puppy repeatedly being tricked into eating haggis. I wonder if the series will ever be released on DVD, because I wouldn't mind seeing it again.