Cheetahmen

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Each Cheetahman's foot is as large as the body of an average human

The Cheetahmen were intended to be the flagship characters for Active Enterprises, a small manufacturer of unlicensed Nintendo Entertainment System cartridges. Based on the then-popular Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Cheetahmen were three humanoid cheetahs, each wielding a different weapon and/or skill.

The backstory of the Cheetahmen was given in a 12-page comic book included with Action 52, Active's only released NES game. Mad scientist Dr. Morbis kills a mother cheetah while on safari in Africa, then takes her three cubs for his genetic research. Subjected to his experiments, the cubs grow into half-cheetah, half-human creatures. Once they learn of Morbis's evil plans, they turn on him, and he in turn creates an army of half-animal humans (known as "Sub-Species") to stop the Cheetahmen once and for all.

Apollo, Hercules and Aries yelling a catchphrase.

The NES version of the game had an intro sequence that told a story as well, where a boy called the Action Gamemaster is at home playing a video game when a robotic arm reaches through the screen and pulls him into the game. He meets the Cheetahmen, who then run off. The Gamemaster does not appear in the rest of the game, although the manual summary implies that he transforms into the Cheetahmen one after another.

The introduction to The Cheetahmen

The three Cheetahmen were as follows:

Hercules, named for the Hercules the Greek god, son of Zeus and a mortal woman. He is by nature a pacifist, but will fight with deadly force when the situation demands it. He doesn't use a weapon, but has great physical strength.
Aries, named for the astrological sign Aries that is believed to dictate impulsive behavior (as the group's combat expert he was probably intended to be named after Ares). Aries learned martial arts from movies shown to him by Dr. Morbis. He wields two wooden clubs.
Apollo, named for Apollo, the Greek god. He is the leader of the Cheetahmen, and was the first to question Dr. Morbis's intentions. Like his namesake, Apollo is an archer and a scholar versed in many fields. He uses a crossbow.

The Cheetahmen's enemies included:

Dr. Morbis, an evil geneticist. His ultimate goals are never made clear.
Cygore, Dr. Morbis' assistant with a robotic arm. Sketches of him showed a number of weapon attachments, including a hammer and buzzsaw.
White Rhino
Scavenger, a Sub-Species based on a vulture.
Hyena
Man-Ape (or Ape-Man), allegedly the most powerful of Dr. Morbis' Sub-Species.

The Cheetahmen game for the Genesis Action 52 cartridge

The Cheetahmen was the "featured" game on the Action 52 multicart, and there were grandiose plans for a line of merchandise including action figures, t-shirts, a comic book series and even a television cartoon based on the characters. (An advertisement for Cheetahmen action figures, displaying prototype sketches, was included in the aforementioned comic book.) These plans quickly fell through, however, when bad word-of-mouth and scathing reviews of the game began mounting up in earnest. A sequel, Cheetahmen 2, was finished but never released.

Among NES fans, the two Cheetahmen games are renowned for being among the all-time worst games ever made for that system. Cheetahmen 2 in particular is buggy, incomplete, and widely regarded as virtually unplayable.

[edit] Spoofs

There are some media files poking fun of Cheetahmen.

Birth of Evil

This short film mostly consists of a poorly dubbed scene from the 2002 movie Time Changer. The movie does not say who provided the new voices, it only listed the actors portraying the original characters.

Summary: How exactly did Action 52 and the Cheetahmen come about? They are so unplayable, so bizarre, that one wonders if it was just one old insane guy in a barn cranking out games. This short film explores that possibility.

Download Birth of Evil