What happened with Bart vs the Space Mutants?

It’s hard to explain to young people just how much of a phenomenon The Simpsons was back in the 80s. These days, (newfangled) adult cartoons are everywhere (consarn it)! Naughty cartoons like Southpark, Archer, Family Guy and Rick and Morty are all rife with adult references and raunchy humor.

But back in 1988, cartoons were made for children and seldom bothered to entertain adults, even in the subliminal. American cartoons, anyway. Meanwhile in Japan…

While The Simpsons wasn’t nearly as raunchy as newer adult animation, it was pretty edgy for the time. And besides, The Simpsons wasn’t true “adult animation” for late-night viewing. It was a straight-up sitcom made for prime-time, baby! It was good and successful without relying on sex or scandal to retain viewers.

Even Bart’s occasional “damn” was usually swiftly punished by Homer. See? They’re teaching kids about the consequences of swearing!

The show’s focus on family and their unfiltered take on contemporary family life was a big part of the show’s success. Homer and Marge were just as important to the show as Bart and Lisa. And they all had their own conflicts that were extremely relatable to American families.

Combined with the crazy and unique animation style, and gazillions of American families (mine included) were charmed to make The Simpsons part of their evening routine.

My fellow olds out there will already know, but back in the 80s and 90s, every major show and movie was an easy cash-grab for video game publishers, no matter how they had to struggle to shoehorn the characters into a video game. And The Simpsons–Bart in particular–had that wacky factor that really lent itself to video game adventures. So a The Simpsons video game was a forgone conclusion. It was going to happen eventually.

Today, there are at least 27 Simpsons titles on just about any platform you can think of. But in the spring of 1991, there was just two: one in arcades, The Simpsons 4-player beat-em-up (total classic) and Bart vs. the Space Mutants for the Nintendo Entertainment System.

Space Mutants was developed by Imagineering: a veritable content mill of cash-grabby video games. They put out an alarming 10 video games in 1991, including TS:BVTSM, (you like that acronym? Yeah you do.)

Ten commercial video game releases is a lot by pretty much any metric. And every single one of the games Imagineering put out that year–even Flight of the Intruder–was a licensed adaptation of something. (AKA “Cash Grab”.)

Grabbin’ that Cash!

Predictably, The Simpsons: Bart vs the Space Mutants suffers from a severe case of Cash Grab Fever. While it’s at least playable, the whole thing feels severely rushed and unpolished.

I feel certain that the suits at Acclaim were jumping up and down on the backs of the game’s developers going, “Is it ready? Hurry up! Come on, finish it already! It’s just a kids’ game, what do those little twerps know!? Come on! I need a new yacht!!”

I can just see the old farts at Acclaim tenting their fingers as they anticipate the fortune Space Mutants was about to make, brooding over printed-out spreadsheets that told them how well they could fleece children but had absolutely zero data on what makes a game good or bad.

Ready or not, the due date came. The long-laboring devs give a final push and schplrrcht! Out plopped a slimy and very premature video game.

Video game nerds were right to be angry

We could debate whether Space Mutants is fun or not. Certainly the Angry Video Game Nerd wasn’t happy with it, and while I don’t take all his opinions seriously, he was pretty spot-on with this one.

The story feels really random and while it’s not completely out of line with the show, the titular space mutants are certainly not canon.

The story is tied to the cult classic movie They Live, with Bart’s space mutants walking among us, impersonating humans and only visible when Bart puts on his X-ray specs.

To conquer Earth, the aliens must fuel their alien doomsday machine with “purple-colored objects.” No, seriously. Playing as Bart, your goal is to eliminate or hide enough purple things to satisfy the game’s quota and move on to a boss battle with Nelson. Then Bart goes to the mall.

Sounds like a pretty great 90s afternoon, not gonna lie.

This is an adventure game disguised as a platformer. I’m reminded a bit of A Boy and His Blob, except while Blob seems more like an art experiment left intentionally cryptic, Space Mutants is just half baked.

Prior to researching this article, I had completed level 1 only once in 30+ years of casually attempting this “children’s” game. That’s not a great record for me or the game. As such, there is plenty of childhood resentment for this game. And unlike the misunderstood TMNT dam level, TS:BVTSM actually deserves it.

For the purpose of this post, I revisited Space Mutants and went through the trouble of looking up a few walkthroughs. Once you get used to the controls, it’s still impossibly cryptic to figure out how to finish level 1, but I eventually did. I got pictures, too!

It’s worth noting that I survived level 2 for probably 30 seconds before I fell in wet concrete and got game-overed all the way back to the beginning of level 1.

So I quit. Obviously.

How were kids supposed to enjoy this game!?

Still, there are some (very few) fans who maintain that jeepers this is a swell game, and have great memories with it. Which is fine! Nostalgia doesn’t care how “good” something is. If it brings back good memories, then a thing is good. Period.

My own opinion is that Space Mutants is deeply flawed, but still pretty fun. It’s a relic and, like Excitebike, probably belongs in a museum. Besides, it’s very inexpensive compared to other games out there and you probably won’t finish it in one sitting. That’s value haha!

Bottom line, though, is that this game isn’t a totally lost cause. I enjoyed my time with it and will probably sit down and attempt level 2 again. By the time I turned it off, I was able to zip through the first stage. It’s that kind of game. But it was most definitely removed from the oven before it had time to finish baking.

What happened?

I wonder if The Simpsons arcade game’s massive success is part of the reason Space Mutants was rushed out so quickly.

The arcade game came out in March, Space Mutants in late April. Execs at Acclaim would have been watching the arcade game’s release closely and bore witness to the truly awesome and still-unparalleled awesomeness of that original arcade beat-em-up. Watching the revenue generated by that arcade cabinet, I’m sure they were foaming at the mouth.

Keep in mind that neither Imagineering nor Acclaim had anything to do with that arcade game. Both the development and publishing success of the arcade cabinet was the result of the absolute masterminds of game dev over at Konami. Imagineering had nothing on them.

To me, the juxtaposition between the Simpsons arcade game and Space Mutants perfectly illustrates the difference between a quality video game and a cash grab. That arcade game has been universally loved and respected since it first showed up in arcades. It has been re-released several times across different platforms, including Arcade 1Up. You can’t really say that about Bart vs the Space Mutants.

BVTSM was clearly rushed by a company that was more concerned about getting their cups under the Simpsons money fountain before the spigot ran dry. And boy howdy did they ever! They managed to churn out two more Simpsons video games before Christmas that same year, and another two the following year. #NotAContentMill #NothingToSeeHere #MrBurnsImpression

Imagineering would hit their peak in 1992, releasing a total of 11 titles across all 3 Nintendo platforms in that year alone. That’s about one game release per month for an entire year. And while they were a pretty big company, and video games were a lot smaller back then, I’m not sure any company could produce that many video games with any expectation of quality. But like Her Highness said, if money is all you love, then that’s what you’ll receive.

And to be honest, I don’t remember hating this game as a child. I was befuddled, sure. Bewildered, yeah. Flabbergasted? A bit. But I still kind of liked it. And if I’m being even honester? I kinda still do.

Thanks for reading. If you want a copy of this then, hey what do you know! I’ve got one right here!