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View Full Version : The History of Teddy Boy!



HawkClay
07-17-2010, 03:56 AM
Alright, so this wasn't something I ever researched until tonight, even though I have played the arcade game Teddy Boy Blues before. Tonight, when I got home from work, I had the desire to play The Ninja on Master System. I kind of cheated with save states because I only beat the river level like twice growing up, and I still always LOVED the game! Yeah, turns out when you beat the game, if you didn't find all the green scrolls, you're sent back to the beginning of the game to get them! Ugh! Enter GameFAQs and YouTube! :p

Actually, that doesn't have a lot to do with this story, I just felt like telling everyone how BAD @$$ The Ninja is on Master System! :cool:

Anyway, so I was watching videos for a full play through of The Ninja, when I decided to watch others for some of my other favorite Master System games! I started with Kung-Fu Kid, then decided to watch My Hero, because it was one that I never had when I was a kid, and I don't remember playing it much when I acquired it later in life (I now remember why :p ). However, in watching My Hero, I noticed that they used the EXACT same frog enemies that they have in Alex Kidd in Miracle World (goes to show you I never made it to the second level of My Hero :p )! That was really cool to see, and then I remembered about those little red bouncy mustached guys that were in Alex Kidd were also in Teddy Boy... So THAT'S why I decided to go watch a video of Teddy Boy! :)

Now, I DID love me some Teddy Boy! I wanted that game SO BAD when I was a kid, but I didn't get it until college... but I still enjoyed it greatly! I remember "coming across" the arcade game Teddy Boy Blues, and I played that too, but I didn't really catch something interesting about it as it just didn't "click" with me!

SO... Someone said in the comment about how due to licensing restrictions, they couldn't use the same music from the arcade game... Hmmm... I wondered why, so I wet and looked up videos of the arcade game. I came across this video.

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Now, as mentioned, I had played the arcade before, but nothing seemed out of the ordinary to me when I did. The title screen actually reminded me of the sound test in Quartet for Master System (if anyone ever did that where Mary from Quartet is conducting a band of Alex Kidd, Teddy Boy and Pit Pot while Opa-Opa flies across the screen... Hmmm... Can't find a screen shot... Beside the point). Anyway, so the point is, seems like not only has Sega done something similar, and it even included Teddy Boy so it seems fitting. (It's cool how Teddy Boy, Alex Kidd, Quartet, Fantasy Zone and Space Harrier all tie together... actually, more than that, but again, beside the point :p )! SO ANYWAY, since someone said something about the copyright issues, I actually took notice of the name at the bottom of the screen this time! HA! And THAT isn't just the game creators name or something! It's the name of the girl singing on the title screen! Not only that, but...

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Turns out, she did a song called "Teddy Boy Blues" and the whole game is based on that song! I had no idea! Of course the arcade game has a digitized version of that song looping over and over, and the singer can be seen in the bonus levels as well! So that's also why they changed the name of the game to just Teddy Boy when it came over here!

I'm sure Frog already knew all of this, but for anyone else like me who maybe just never looked into the history of Teddy Boy before, I found all of this extremely fascinating! All because I had to play some old Sega Master System Ninja action tonight! :cool:

And for good measure, here's the video of the Sega Master System Teddy Boy. (The guy who uploaded it also has some cool Space Harrier tributes worth checking out too BTW ;) )

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ShinobiWan1
07-17-2010, 04:00 AM
Thanks for posting this Hawk, so good to see some good Sega stories like this. I don't have time to fully read and watch, but I will tomorrow!

Bruhaha69
07-17-2010, 11:24 AM
That's cool to know. No offense to the song it was based on, but I prefer the music we got on the SMS version. Teddy Boy was one of my favorite card games.

ShinobiWan1
07-17-2010, 11:59 AM
Great read, I love those moments of discovery about Sega origins!

Haha, yeah that saxophone really stands out in the song, blaring a bit too much for my taste :p

Frogacuda
07-21-2010, 09:32 AM
I'm sure Frog already knew all of this

Haha, I actually did. I like the arcade version of Teddy Boy. The bonus levels are cool. And it has a Flicky cameo. The SMS music is a bit better, but everything else is better in the arcade.

Teddy Boy is part of a narrow string of games with some similar elements that were all from the same programmer, starting with Flicky, then Teddy Boy, and finally Fantasy Zone. Notice all of them had looping levels.

ShinobiWan1
07-26-2010, 05:51 PM
Just wanted to show my love for Teddy Boy

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v47/shinobiwan1/DSC03462.jpg

Bruhaha69
07-26-2010, 07:51 PM
Ahhh.....I miss my stolen SMS games