Parents called Nintendo to complain because they mistook Animal Crossing’s Gyroids for phalluses
When you’re a family friendly company like Nintendo you open yourself to all sorts of scrutiny, sometimes justified and sometimes horribly misinformed. Today’s story gives us an example of the latter.
The August 2004 edition of Electronic Gaming Monthly featuring former Nintendo Counselor Rick Sandbom has been rediscovered. In this interview Sandbom tells a pretty amusing story of calls the Nintendo hotline received at the time of Animal Crossing’s release on GameCube in the states.
If you’ve never played the original Animal Crossing the game heavily encourages you to save before turning the game off, lest you incur Mr. Resetti’s wrath. To do this, players need to speak to the friendly gyroid placed outside your house and therein lies the problem. Concerned parents saw their kids playing this cute and cuddly animal game and were shocked when they confused the gyroids for something more…adult, naturally they would call Nintendo to complain. The complaints became so frequent that an official response was even prepared for how to deal with these calls.
“We got a lot of angry calls about Animal Crossing. A skin-colored hydrant in the game caused a stir with parents, who thought it looked like a wiggling penis. Our database even had a special page on dealing with the call. I waited every day to take this call, but it was always routed to hotline veterans.”
Unfortunately, we get no hint as to what Nintendo’s official response to these complaints were, one has to wonder if maybe they divulged the true inspiration behind the enigmatic decorations.
The true origins of Gyroids come from Japanese haniwa statues, they are even outright called haniwa in the Japanese version of the games. They were clay figures made to honor the dead in historic Japan with the belief that they would hold and protect the souls of those who have passed.
… Honestly, I don’t think parents would have been satisfied with that explanation. Maybe it would have been easier to convince them that the Gyroids are just friendly fire hydrants and not spirits from beyond. All I can say for sure is, I hope these parents never saw their kids play Shin Megami Tensei!
About jmaldonado
A recently graduated creative writer hoping to work his way into the greater gaming sphere.
