Nintendo Wii Fanboy

We're not referring to hamburgers, although they were no doubt involved with the transformation of Punch-Out!!'s diminutive protagonist from lithe, tiny athlete to pseudo-Cartman. Captain Rainbow is very quickly revealing itself as more than a top-down, adventure-based take on the same Japanese superhero tropes explored in Viewtiful Joe: it's a haven for lost Nintendo characters.

The first video introduces Little Mac and his unfortunate weight gain. Little Mac then tells the story of Birdo, who seeks popularity with the boys (Yes, Birdo, or as she used to be known, Catherine, is female. Yes, we read the Super Mario Bros. 2 manual.) In the second, Nick (who becomes Captain Rainbow) trains Mac back to prime littleness, with narration from Nazo no Murasame-jou's Takamaru (who will probably be the subject of the next video).

We didn't embed the videos because it's in your best interest to go see them on YouTube, where the clever uploader, 23Makoto23, has used YouTube comments to create subtitles (here is the original Captain Rainbow video subtitled).

We can't help but love Little Mac, the quintessential underdog. If seeing him on your virtual console isn't enough, though, how about seeing him around your neck in the winter? You may have also noticed that this scarf has Mike Tyson's big mug on it, so you won't have to settle for Mr. Dream.

Realistically, we know you won't buy this -- after all, the scarf is a whopping $175 on Etsy. Still, we admire the craftsmanship that went into Beatboxtaun's crocheting, and we hope you do, too. We only wish we had such skills ourselves, so that we didn't have to drool over these kinds of things on Etsy all the time.

In our opinion, this definitely beats out the Punch-Out mat for the best craft featuring Little Mac (that we know of).

[Via Technabob]

Oh man, why couldn't he have been a playable character?

We guess we can't be too upset, considering he still made his way into the game. This is something we've been dying for since the first game on the N64.

Little Mac has two different attacks, his swift jabs and his special move, the uppercut. In fact, now our thoughts are drifting toward a resurrection for the franchise on the Wii.