Publisher: Bandai. Year: 1989. Sidekick: Gilligan. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System.

Oh Say Can You Sea?

Gilligan's Island actually places the control of Skipper at your fingertips. Relegated to the sidekick position, the computer-guided Gilligan's main skill is his investigative reporting, the fifth-degree interrogation in which he repeatedly demands that you take a look at this. You don't know what this is, and you never will, but since Gilligian sees it on every screen, it's probably a manifestation of some gnarly schizophrenia. It keeps 'em laughing.

TIP: Logical answers to the game's puzzles, such as just leaving Gilligan behind so he can't fall in holes, do not work.

Other than that, his skills are occasionally getting stuck behind background scenery and not bothering to run away from boars. Boss.

"Kick ass, looks like Gilligan just fell down a hole. And since I don't have enough time to gather him and find Ms. Howell's ring, it looks like I have to start the level over."

Publisher: Wisdom Tree. Year: 1991. Sidekick: Baby Moses. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System.

He Won't Drown in His Sorrows, but He Will in the Water.

You ever have your teacher threaten to throw your video games away? Well, this totally un-cool Egyptian Pharaoh is threatening to throw all the Hebrew babies away. Total bummer! That's why you're Moses' bodacious babe of a mommy and it also (kinda) explains why you're gorilla pressing an infant over your head (it doesn't explain, however, why Moses is wearing a cloth diaper). You're planning on leaving him afloat on a makeshift boat of bulrushes coated in some bitchin' pitch-in'.

FUN FACT: In the time that it takes to complete a level in Bible Adventures: Baby Moses, several hundred other Hebrew babies would have been slaughtered.

In Bible Adventures, Baby Moses can't do much. He can't even turn in another direction. He needs your help. It's just too bad that he usually end up being kidnapped by some pagan bird or impaled by an Egyptian's spear.

She's pretty fast, and unfortunately, she accelerates with the same button that is used to throw Baby Moses. Expect major and frequent unintentional whippage of Moses into the Nile River.

TIP: Avoid the enemies.

Publisher: Acclaim. Year: 1988. Sidekick: Co. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System

Where to Co?

In Rambo, you'll spend a lot of your time wandering around aimlessly, which is why discovering Co is such a rocking revelation. She knows how to find the camp. The joke is on you, though. Co is as massively confused as you are, which is awful considering that she is the game and even she can't figure herself out.

FUN FACT: If your camp were here, you think you would have found it by now.

Sometimes she paces from right to left. Then, much to your delight, she'll drift on another path. This may lead you to think this is the correct way. But then you find out that her change of direction is just her now pacing from left to right.

Publisher: Jaleco. Year: 1990. Sidekick: Jeff. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System.

Phoning It In.

Dave wrote a pretty comprehensive list of his buds' skills when deciding which of his friends to haul along in his quest to save his best gal, Sandy. Michael can develop film. Wendy can write. And Jeff can fix a phone. Awesome. Too bad Syd and Razor can only play a piano. Oh snap. Looks like there's a music-adoring tentacle in the house who can only be befriended by giving him a copy of you playing the piano.

FUN FACT: Tentacles stands at attention when Razor enters rooms.

To be honest, had I been attempting to save my girlfriend from an evil doctor, I would have thought that knowing how to fix a phone would be exponentially more useful than knowing how to play the piano, too. That's a wacky case of I-told-you-so, Dave. But that doesn't explain why he invited Jeff and Bernard, when Bernard can not only fix the phone but just about everything else, too.

TIP: Don't pick Jeff.

Publisher: Nintendo. Year: 1987. Sidekick: Jerome "Doc" Louis. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System

He Has a Puncher's Chance of Making Sense.

In between rounds in Mike Tyson's Punch Out!!, Little Mac's iconic trainer, Doc Louis, offers support by repeating such inspirational phrases like "Hang in there, Mac!" and "Yes, you can!" If you need any evidence beyond his perennially opened, bug-eyed peepers that Louis' continually optimistic rhetoric is a product of untreated concussions, his hint "Join the Nintendo Fun Club Today!" should be.

TIP: When "Doc" Louis tells you to join a two-decades-old, defunct video game magazine, it's always better to just hit your opponent instead.

Publisher: American Video Entertainment. Year: 1992. Sidekick: The Entire NO! Gang. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System.

They're Hard to Bear.

Wally Bear enlists a pack of his favorite animal buddies to help spread the word of rejecting the temptations of illegal narcotics and gang life. It's just too bad that his resources only permitted him to align himself with the likes of Toby Turtle, who adds "being recruited by a rodent-orientated street gang" and "taking pills for the rodent-orientated street gang's initiation" to the list of the crime-fighting abilities that the NO! Gang possesses.

"Where did Priscilla Poodle go? Wally Bear thinks that you should get your own fucking radio back next time."

Publisher: Data East. Year: 1991. Sidekick: Mac. Console: Nintendo Entertainment System.

Why She Calls You an Average Joe and Him a Big Mac.

Joe and Mac are best friends. They'd probably be each other's best (cave) man at their weddings! However, while both dudes appear in the Super Nintendo/Sega Genesis versions of the game, Mac takes a vacation in NES port, even while receiving credit in its title.

TIP: Don't bother waiting for Mac to help you with this boss. Also, don't bother calling Mac at 3:00 AM when you're drunk and stranded outside of some bar. He says he's on his way. He says he's driving there now. But he says a lot of things. He once said that he didn't find your girlfriend attractive.

Mac is a complete jerk. It's not enough that he leaves you to battle dinosaurs on your own. He leaves you behind and forgets about your birthday. Then he bothers to ask you for twenty dollars when you accidentally bump into him at Arby's. You know what? I'll kill that Tyrannosaurs Rex. I'll do it. All by myself. That way you don't have to be interrupted when you're sleeping with my girlfriend that you don't find attractive.

FUN FACT: She loves you now, but she won't when she finds out that you work at Kenny's Shoes.

— The Son of a Bit,
Jonathan Plombon

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