How About That Thing?

Yip, there was actually a superhero out there at one point by the name of Boogerman. And he had his very own Sega Genesis game in 1994. I wish I was making this up, but here we are.

FUN FACT: I actually wrote about this video game back in 2006 for a completely different website. Sadly, that article was on one of my older PCs that got formatted, and possibly recycled over the years, and the website I was running back around 2006-2011 no longer exists. Though upon retrospect, maybe that’s not such a bad thing. On top of white text on a sky-blue background not being a particularly wise design decision for color schemes, the reader base for that website was significantly smaller than this one appears to be by comparison. So maybe it’s for the better I start from scratch.

Also, it seems like every time I revisit this Genesis game, I always remember why I ended up as obsessed with it as I did.

My initial fascination with this game is another example of how the more you tell someone no, the more they end up wanting it. In my case, I saw it on the shelves of the local video store (back when those were a thing), and mom insisted that it was too gross to rent. She told me no, so naturally, it became the only thing I wanted to play for weeks at a time. Then I figured out what Mortal Kombat was, and suddenly, it was okay to rent the game with the disgusting superhero who flicks boogers, belches, and farts on the bad guys. If only because it was better than dudes ripping each others’ spines out through their anal cavities, anyway.

So I finally got to rent the damn game. And believe it or not, it’s surprisingly well made. The graphics are fun and cartoony, the gameplay is polished and without complication beyond your own incompetence… The voice overs are a bit staticky, but that was pretty commonplace for the Genesis, as I recall. But despite the static, the voiceover work is well done.

Even now, a good thirty years after its initial release, it’s astonishing how well made this game is. If nothing else, it’s a lot better than a game calling itself Boogerman deserves to be.

Everything about this game feels like a Saturday morning cartoon. The animations, the character designs… Hell, even the bosses you encounter on act 5 of each level feel unique. I haven’t played the game in decades, nor have I looked at any videos prior to the writing of this article, but I still remember how all of these boss battles go.

This is Hickboy. He’s the boss of the first level, The Flatulant Swamp. He and his faithful chicken companion, Bock, don’t take kindly to gassy, booger-flicking losers like you wandering around their swamp, and they’re going to take it out on you.

His attacks occur in a loop. He always throws Bock like a boomerang, declaring: “Get ’em, Bock, GET ‘EM!”. When Bock comes back, he uses Bock as an egg gun, popping off a few eggs like cannon shots. Then, he charges at you full speed, hoping to bash you good with Bock as his club.

The good news is he never deviates from this pattern. The bad news is that it’s here where my only grievance with this game comes into play. Specifically, the bosses in this game are what modern day gamers apparently call “bullet sponges”. I guess he and the others would technically be booger sponges… But all the same, it takes a ridiculous amount of hits to take him, as well as the other bosses out. I seriously tried to count at one point, and lost count somewhere around ten. I wouldn’t be surprised if using Boogerman’s supercharged belch and supercharged fart attacks do more damage than his booger flick… But in my experience, it’s just easier to use the booger flick.

This is Revolta. She’s the boss you encounter in The Pits: a level that appears to be one giant arm pit. If I remember the booklet correctly, she is in love with Boogerman, and will do anything to get his attention. Unfortunately, in typical fashion for this game’s demographic, Boogerman isn’t interested in the slightest.

Revolta’s attacks aren’t in a loop like Hickboy. Sometimes, she’ll belch out a raincloud. Sometimes she’ll blow you a kiss. Other times, she’ll hop on her broom and charge you. It’s not impossible to figure her out, but her attacks feel a lot more random.

Here, we have Fly Boy. He’s the boss of Boogerville… Which, upon retrospect, confuses me. I know he’s the main baddy of the game, but I kind of figured Boogermeister would be the boss here. Along with wanted posters of Boogerman all over the place, there are also campaign posters featuring Boogermeister everywhere. Instead, you get this guy.

I don’t know why, but I remember this guy actually being the hardest boss in the game. Probably because you have to jump in order to hit him, and you run the risk of slamming into him when he flies to the other side of the arena. Also, because he’s a fly, he’ll try to barf on you.

This is Deoder Ant. He’s the boss of level 4, which is actually a lot different from the rest of the game. Each level is four acts long. Level 4, on the other hand, is technically two smaller levels that alternate between acts. Act 1 and act 3 are Mucus Mountain, and act 2, act 4, and the boss fight take place in The Nasal Caverns. It’s a weird choice, but ultimately, it’s pretty harmless.

Where as Fly Boy was the hardest boss, I remember having a much easier time with this guy. Due in large part to the fact that when he tunnels underground and causes a rock shower, he also causes health and ammunition for your bbelch and fart powers as well as your boogers. Not that you’ll ever be in short supply of either to begin with, but still, it’s weird how this level decides to take it easy on you after three boss fights. Really, you’d think something like this would be the first level boss. Or at least the second.

Last, but not least, there’s the villain of the game: the dreaded Boogermeister. I didn’t think of it as a kid, but as an adult, I wonder if his name is supposed to be a pun on that Burgermeister character from those stop-motion movies? You know, the one who was a complete and total bastard to everybody, but disappeared from the rest of the movie completely to the point where even the narrator commented on how everybody just sort of forgot he existed. Great writing there, guys.

Anyway, Boogermeister is basically the evil Boogerman. Instead of using his incredibly gross powers for good like Boogerman, he decided to use them for evil like John Kricfalusi. He belches, he farts, he tries to jump on your head, and he orders minions to “GET ‘EM!” in a voice that reminds me of Henchman 21 from The Venture Brothers.

When you beat Boogermeister, he makes a get away, promising that he’ll be back in one of the worst schwarzeneger impressions I’ve heard in my life. And once he’s defeated, the day is saved.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, I memorized ALL of that. Space in my brain is dedicated to preserving that information. Space that could contain information that’s actually USEFUL, like… Oh, I don’t know, how to refinance a mortgage while accounting for escrow without my wife looking over my shoulder.

In this case, it’s especially astounding, because Boogerman never really did anything with his fifteen minutes of fame after his only game.

At absolute most, he made an appearance on Clay Fighter 63 1/3.

Funny thing is I didn’t even know he was in that game until decades later. I did know there were hidden characters (kind of hard to assume anything else when you see question marks on the select screen), but I just didn’t know they’d put Boogerman in there as a sort of rival to Earthworm Jim.

Which reminds me: I should probably talk about Earthworm Jim on here sometime. But we’re getting off track.

Aside from being a guest character in a fighting game a good decade and change before Mortal Kombat made guest characters cool, that was pretty much it for the guy. I heard tale decades after the Wii faded into the shadows that his video game was available in the Wii Shop, but despite having a Wii, I never bought it. Or anything else from the Wii Shop, because when you have a vision impairment, and your only way of navigating is by pointing and clicking a remote against a bleach-white background, you’re better off sticking with the Xbox360 or PlayStation3.

The creators of Boogerman took to Kickstarter in 2013 to get funds for a brand new Boogerman project. As memory serves, they were aiming for $300,000, and made… $40,000. Which, as you can guess, meant the project never got off the ground. Hell, I’m not even sure what the project was supposed to be anymore. My memory insists it was going to be an HD remake like Earthworm Jim ended up getting. Unfortunately, life ended up imitating art, and Boogerman found himself coming up a bit short once again against his apparent bitter rival.

And that’s pretty much it. Boogerman had his fifteen minutes of fame, did screw all with it, and faded into obscurity forever.

I personally feel like they should’ve tried the reboot project here and now instead of 2013. While the 2010s were the beginning of rebootmania, the 2020s is the decade of nostalgia and comfort. Nobody wants anything new, nobody wants to be challenged, and the only thing we seem to get anymore are sequels to movies from the 1980s and 1990s. Assuming, of course, we aren’t talking about Marvel, in which case the only other thing saturating the market worse than pointless nostalgia grabs are superhero properties. Which is why I think Boogerman might have had a chance here in 2024.

Even if you’re a gross, silly, ultimately pointless superhero like Boogerman, now is a perfect time to be a superhero. Maybe crossing over with the likes of The Justice League or The Avengers is a bit overly ambitious, but I think being a superhero in 2024 might have worked out for the guy. Just do yourself a favor, and please don’t allow Zack Snyder anywhere near your movie adaptations.