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Famously, in 1994, Super Nintendo released a Home Improvement video game. It was called Home Improvement: Power Tool Pursuit! and it is remembered for a couple reasons. One, there was no instruction booklet because “real men don’t need instructions.” Two, it had little to do with the sitcom about the Taylors centered on home improvement show host Tim “The Toolman” Taylor.
That got us thinking, though. Could other ‘90s sitcoms have been turned into video games? If so, how would they have worked? Here are five ‘90s sitcoms and how we’d craft a video game out of them.
1. Seinfeld
First, obviously, you’d have to be able to play as all four main characters from Seinfeld. The show is set in New York, and the quartet is always up to stuff that they find exasperating and complicated. There could be an overarching goal but each of them has to do different things to get to the end point. Jerry could, for example, need to get to a standup set, and he has to navigate the streets of New York, or maybe have to go through a maze of streets while avoiding Newman or Bania. One of the George levels should be like Frogger.
2. Wings
Wings is fairly easy to imagine as a video game, because it is set at an airport. Thus, you could turn it into a flying game. Hey, that’s more interesting than going through the airport doing tasks, right? Flying games are common, and Wings could have had an addition to that world.
3. Murphy Brown
Murphy is a newscaster, and the show is about a news program. As such, the game could be about trying to track down a big story. It could be akin to a Where in the World is Carmen Sandiego? wherein in each level you have to use knowledge to collect clues to where you need to head next. It being a Murphy Brown game, there would be a lot of cultural references being passed off as jokes.
4. 3rd Rock from the Sun
It’s a show about aliens, and that paves the way for a video game nicely. The only trick is that the aliens on 3rd Rock are masquerading as humans and trying to live “normal” lives. Dick Solomon’s work as a professor at a small college is not necessarily video game worthy. However, there could maybe be some sort of alien hunter after them. We’d get a full tour of Rutherford, Ohio in the process.
5. Frasier
We have a zag for a Frasier game. It should be focused on Eddie. Eddie gets lost in Seattle, forgotten by Frasier or Niles perhaps, and has to make his way back home. He’d have to overcome all sorts of side-scrolling obstacles. There could be fun little stop-ins at places like Café Nervosa. Man, now we’re bummed none of these games exist.
