Move over, you boringly gray, strangely difficult to find, baby-sized Super Nintendo: A more delightful version of the classic console is here to hit you in the gut with a one-two punch of nostalgia.
Concentrating two ’90s entertainment mainstays into an intravenous hit of narcotized memory manipulation, YouTube’s zoki64 has made an SNES that lovingly embraces a memorable gag from The Simpsons as design inspiration.
Enjoy the camera panning over the glossy custom paint job that has turned an average SNES into a precisely detailed, very elaborate realization of a minor Ralph Wiggum joke. Don’t forget to marvel not just at the talent of the hands that crafted the Super Nintendo Chalmers, but also at the potency of what it represents. The Simpsons-themed SNES isn’t just funny. It’s also a shorthand reference to hours spent in front of the CRT, blended into a visual gag that takes only half a second to register. If major corporations learn to fully harness the potential that this kind of nostalgia bomb represents, our pop culture future could be full of the sort of weaponized memory marketing that makes Ready Player One look benign.
On the other hand, maybe we could also just enjoy, for now, a few fond memories of “steamed hams” and NBA Jam competitions. It’s almost the holidays, after all, and boy this SNES paint job is a fun and familiar little joke.