Nightmare on Mother Brain's Street
Episode 8
Based on: Wizards and Warriors

We begin this story watching Mother Brain ask her magic mirror the “who’s the fairest of them all” question. The mirror tells her “Princess Lana’s the cutest chick, you’re so ugly you make me sick.” Naturally having her own reflection insult her makes her a bit ticked. She asks Eggplant Wizard to make her an apple. So Eggplant Wizard turns HER into an apple. She threatens him and he turns her into a slice of apple pie (Has anyone ever stopped and thought about how powerful Eggplant Wizard really is?) before turning her back and giving her an apple. She then tells Wily to make a sleeping potion.

At the Palace of Power, Kevin makes his "Captain N Special" for Lana. It’s a pizza recipe he learned from his Uncle Lenny in New York. The N stands for nuts, nectarines, nachos, and something else that Kevin doesn‘t get the chance to mention. Lana has never even heard of pizza before and is looking forward to it, but Duke steals the pizza and runs off with it. While Kevin’s chasing him down, there’s a knock at the door. Lana goes to check it and sees Eggplant Wizard dressed as a heavily robbed beggar. In a cute little detail, the eggplant on his staff is dressed the same way. He offers to sell Lana an apple for 25 cents. She says she’s having pizza for lunch. She looks over to see Duke eating the pizza, so she buys an apple. When she bites into it, she falls asleep and a warp zones opens underneath her.

A hologram of Mother Brain appears telling Kevin that this is like in the fairy tale. A beautiful princess is put to sleep and the handsome prince has to go wake her. Mother Brain also says that Lana is being held in castle Ironspire and if she’s not woke by midnight she‘ll sleep forever.

In a hallway of the palace, Simon is adding a portrait to a collection of the royal family‘s portraits. He claims it’s somebody they forgot and one of the most important people of all: himself. Megaman tells him he’s hung it crooked and in an attempt to fix it, Simon accidentally falls off his stool and the portrait crashes down on his head. He makes a joke about getting framed.

Kevin runs out to tell the other members what happened. Megaman points out that the castle Ironspire is on Excalibur, the land of Wizards and Warriors. Nice touch with the game title. Kevin admits that it’s a tough world. Simon points out that according to fairy tale rules, he’s the most handsome so he’ll have to be the one to wake up the Princess with a kiss. Kevin says he doesn’t have time to argue and that he needs all the help he can get, then he tells Megaman and Kid Icarus to stay behind and guard the Palace. Ooookay. Make up your mind here, Kev. Kevin calls Duke (who now has the hiccups and looks a little sick from eating the whole pizza) and they along with Simon (who’s head is still stuck in the painting) warp to Excalibur.

They arrive on a high platform in Excalibur. Kevin pulls the painting off Simon. He says it’s been a while since he played that game but thinks he knows the way. He picks up Duke and uses his Power Pad to flip from one platform to another until he’s on the ground. Simon starts climbing down, mumbling how he can climb just as good as any kid with a Power Pad. Alright. Simon just said he was good at something. You should know what happens now. He looses his grip and begins to tumble. When he hits the ground, he lands face first in a mud puddle. He looks up at Kevin and says “if you’re a good boy, I may teach you that trick some day.”

A bit later, Kevin and Duke are jumping across a swamp from rock to rock. Simon swings across on his whip. He takes a moment to tell Captain N that he’s going on ahead without him and getting to the princess first. Then he says when he gets there, he’ll give the princess a great big kiss. As he says this, a werewolf jumps down. Simon is so caught up in what he’s saying; he grabs the werewolf and kisses it. Naturally he freaks when he figures out what he just did. Kevin runs over to see what‘s going on and finds Simon is tied by his feet and hung upside down from his whip.

Kevin blasts the werewolf and it drops a diamond as it disappears. He says that it was just another illusion, probably created by the wizard Malkil. Simon thinks it’s odd. It DID kiss like a real werewolf. I’m sure we don’t what to know the details behind that. Kevin tells Simon that he’ll have to get all the money he can get to bribe the guards at Castle Ironspire. Simon decides that if he’s going to get to the princess first, he’ll have to make sure Kevin is "unavoidably detained."

We switch scenes to finally see the Wizard Malkil. He’s a short troll-like man who’s been watching Simon and Kevin in his crystal ball. He decides that he’s not going to have any real problems manipulating Simon’s feeble mind and sends a frog to Simon and Kevin.

If any scene in this episode is classic, it’s this one. As the frog hops out in front of them, Simon tells Kevin to stand back. He says he’ll take care of this “deadly beast.” He then pulls a golf club out of his backpack. Right as he’s about to swing, Kevin stops him. Kevin says, "Don’t you think that’s the wrong weapon for the job?” Simon agrees then pulls out a bazooka. Kevin’s response is “get real, Simon.” then he pushes him out of the way. Duke sniffs the frog and it disappears in a cloud of smoke, leaving behind a key.

Kevin picks up the key saying that it must be one of the keys that lead to the next level. There’s something weird about it, though. Simon grabs the key and pushes Kevin away. A doorway appears and opens behind Kevin as he stumbles. The door apparently leads to a huge pit and Kevin is only able to save himself by grabbing a branch. Simon walks over to where Kevin is hanging on for his life and tells him that rescuing princesses is a man’s job. Duke growls at him, but Simon tells Duke to shut up and walks away. Kevin then yells that it’s a trap. There are no green keys on Excalibur.

Simon walks along until he finds a run down stone shack with a green door. Simon puts his key in the lock and it energizes and opens. He laughs to himself. “A green door, a green key. Only a mental dwarf wouldn’t be able to figure out this is the door to the next level.” He walks inside and calls out to see if anyone is home. “Only us mental dwarfs,” is the response he gets. A slime creature about Megaman’s height jumps out of the floor and gives five, leaving slime all over Simon's hands. The dwarf then introduces himself as Slimy. More dwarfs join him. There’s Snakey, who jumps down onto Simon’s shoulder and licks him with a forked tongue. Smokey appears in a cloud of smoke and then runs circles around Simon, causing a smoke cloud to appear and make him choke. Boney comes out of the dark and he’s just a skeleton. Toothy, whose mouth is about the size of the rest of his body runs out and bites Simon. Stingy, who’s part bee, comes out and stings Simon. And last is Tiny, who crashes though the wall. He’s even bigger than Simon and picks him up by the neck. The dwarves declare Simon to be lunch.

Back at the Palace, Kid Icarus and Megaman are watching a view screen when suddenly Eggplant Wizard comes on as a news reporter. He says that there’s a special bulletin. The Palace of Power is under attack. Kid Icarus exclaims that it’s not, but Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo then jump out of the TV using Wily’s newest invention, the TV warp Zone remote control. King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard beat the two N-Team members and give them apples, which open warp zones underneath them, much like it did with Princess Lana. Eggplant Wizard then pulls out his banana phone and calls Mother Brain to tell her “mission accomplished.”

Back on Excalibur, giant spiders approach Kevin. Unable to reach his Power Pad without loosing his grip, he thinks back to what he would do if he were playing Wizards and Warriors back home. Then he decides that back home, he’d probably lose. Kevin does a gymnast flip on the branch he’s holding on to up to a huge spider web. From there Duke is able to help him out. He takes a minute to catch his breath and a projection of Princess Lana appears before him, asking for help. As soon as it faded away, he hears Simon Belmont yelling for help. No rest for the Game Master, people.

Kevin runs to the dwarves’ hut where they’ve got Simon tied up and ready to eat. Kevin busts in and draws his Zapper. He gives them a warning. They in turn give him a warning. They’re the Magnificent Seven…Warp Dwarves. Cowboy hats and six shooters appear on all of them. The dwarves surround Kevin. Kevin uses his Power Pad to dodge their shots and they end up shooting each other. After a few dwarves are gone, Kevin goes over to Simon and tells him “Simon, don’t just sit there like a Thanksgiving turkey. Give me a hand.” To which Simon replies he’d love too, but he’s tied up at the moment. Kevin zaps him free. Simon wastes no time in getting between two of the dwarves. They get ready to zap him, but he whips the rafters and pulls himself out of their way. They end up zapping each other. The last dwarf, Slimy, gets the drop on Kevin. Kevin gives Duke a clue though and Duke runs up and licks him into nothingness. Each defeated dwarf leaves behind a pile of gold and jewels for the N-Team members.

“After a long and treacherous journey, Captain N and Simon reach the sinister Castle Ironspire,” according to the narrator. The castle guard lets them through after they give out a rather large bribe. Inside, Kevin says that there isn’t much time left and they run up the staircase. Eventually they reach Lana. It’s almost midnight so Kevin quickly kisses her. Nothing happens. Simon laughs at him then tries himself. Simon brushes his hair and then kisses her. Even Duke tries kicking her. Nothing works.

At midnight, Mother Brain appears to them in a projection. She says that she lied about the kiss. A projection of Malkil then appears. He informs them that Lana is being held in the Nightmare Zone which is a world of …well, I’m sure you can figure it out. Mother Brain adds the price of failure is never waking up. A basket of apples appears before them. They each take a bite and are transported to the Nightmare Zone.

In the Nightmare Zone, Kevin finds Lana standing with her back to him. She yells at him to stay away. When she turns to face him, her face resembles Mother Brain’s. She says that she’s turned into a monster and is too horrible to look at. Kevin assures her that it’s just a dream and she turns back to normal.

They run though a glowing door. Kevin looks around and recognizes the room as his bedroom. In case you’re curious what he has in his room, there’s a Yale pendent on the wall, a Star Trek poster, and clothes tossed all over the place. Kevin’s excited to be home. Just like in the opening, we heard Kevin’s mom’s voice telling him to clean up his room. He grabs some clothes off the floor and goes to put them in his closet. As soon as he opens the door, the entire contents of the closet collapse on him. Soon the contents of the room start attacking him, Lana, and Duke. Kevin starts to zap his junk away and it turns into a huge monster made of the various stuff in his room. Kevin, Lana, and Duke run.

Simon finds himself on stage as a member of the Mr. Videoland Universe contest. His jacket, shirt, scarf, and gloves magically strip away and he starts posing. He’s actually enjoying himself posing and flexing for the crowd. Then his muscles turn into flab, his teeth fall out, he breaks out in pimples and his hair falls out. The crowd starts laughing at him. He takes off running and trips over Megaman and Kid Icarus. Megaman dreamed that Iceman gave him a “mega-dose of his freeze ray.” He’s covered in ice and shivering. Kid Icarus dreamed his bow attacked him and he’s now got arrows sticking out of him.

Kevin and Lana then show up. They say they’ve checked everywhere but there’s no warp zone out. They come up with an idea thanks to Simon’s odd choice of phrasing things. Since they came to this world by falling asleep, maybe they can go back by going to sleep again. Kevin points out there’s always the chance that they might end up in a worse world, though. They decided to risk it and go to sleep. Simon even pulls a teddy bear out of his backpack.

Back at the Palace of Power, Mother Brain, Dr. Wily, King Hippo, Eggplant Wizard, and Malkil are celebrating the victory. Malkil is even sitting in Lana’s throne. There’s a ring at the door and Eggplant Wizard goes to answer it. A short man in beggars’ robes says he says come with a gift for the new rulers of Videoland. He comes in with a cart full of apples. The N-Team jump out of their hiding spot in the apples.

Kid Icarus launches an apple into King Hippo’s mouth. He falls asleep and collapses on top of Dr. Wily. Lana throws an apple into Malkil’s mouth. Kevin juggles some apples while standing in front of Mother Brain. He throws the apples against Mother Brain’s glass. She laughs at him, but apparently her chamber isn’t leak proof since the apple juice seeps in. With them all asleep, a warp zone opens and sucks them inside.

Lana tells Kevin that all Videoland owes him yet another debt of gratitude. Kevin tells Lana how disappointed he was that he didn’t get to wake her with a kiss. Lana says she’s glad. She’d much rather be awake for it and then kisses him. Simon complains that he deserves a kiss too. Duke jumps up into his arms and starts licking him in the face. Everybody laughs.

All in all, this was a decent episode. The problem I had with it was quite simple. It just seemed ugly. Ugly villains, ugly world, heroes get turned ugly. Still, Malkil was a pretty neat villain. It’s actually interesting see how Simon’s treatment of Kevin has changed in the series. In later episodes Simon does warm up to him, but in this one, he’s jealous. He insults him, and even tires to get him out of the way.

Featuring:
Kevin Keene/Captain N
Princess Lana
Mother Brain
Duke
Eggplant Wizard
King Hippo
Dr. Wily
Simon Belmont
Malkil
Megaman
Kid Icarus
The seven deadly warp dwarves