Zelda Cd I — Title logo from Link: The Faces of Evil showing yellow LINK text.

Zelda Cd I

1993Video remix / catchphraseclassic

Published March 24, 2026

Also known as: CD-i Zelda · Zelda CDi

Zelda CD-i refers to the internet memes built around three The Legend of Zelda games released for the Philips CD-i console in the 1990s, especially the wildly animated cutscenes from *Link: The Faces of Evil* and *Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon*. Starting around 2006, the games' campy voice acting, erratic animation, and quotable dialogue became foundational material for the YouTube Poop video remix community1. Lines like "Mah boy" and characters like shopkeeper Morshu circulate as memes decades later, and the games' unlikely legacy inspired *Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore*, a 2024 indie spiritual successor3.

nintendo memes youtube poop memes catchphrase memes so bad its good memes delayed virality memes

Overview

The memes come from three Zelda games published by Philips Interactive Media for their CD-i multimedia player. *Link: The Faces of Evil* and *Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon*, both developed by Animation Magic, came out in 19934. A third title, *Zelda's Adventure*, was made by a separate studio and released later1. None are considered part of the Zelda canon4.

What made these games legendary in meme culture is the full-motion video cutscenes. Animation Magic, a Russian-American studio, produced animation that went completely over the top1. Characters twitch and contort with bizarre energy. Link, normally a silent protagonist in the Zelda series, talks nonstop. King Harkinian gets extreme, grotesque close-ups. The voice acting ranges from wooden to unhinged. In the opening of *Faces of Evil*, Link stretches his arms while his eyeballs rotate a full 360 degrees: "Gee, it sure is boring around here." King Harkinian zooms in far too close to reply: "My boy, this peace is what all true warriors strive for!"1.

The gameplay is side-scrolling action loosely modeled on *Zelda II: The Adventure of Link*4. Players buy lamp oil, rope, and bombs from a shopkeeper named Morshu, who became a viral meme character decades later despite having only two speaking lines in the entire game1.

Origin & Background

Platform
Philips CD-i (source games), YouTube (meme spread via YouTube Poop)
Creator
Unknown
Date
1993 (games), ~2006 (memes)

The CD-i Zelda games exist because of a chain of broken business deals. In the late 1980s, Nintendo and Sony partnered to build a CD-ROM add-on for the Super Nintendo. Nintendo pulled out of that arrangement and briefly worked with Philips instead1. When the Philips collaboration also fell through, the licensing agreement gave Philips the rights to publish a limited number of games using Nintendo characters, with Nintendo taking almost no part in actual development1.

Animation Magic, the Russian-American studio behind both side-scrolling titles, worked under tight budgets and time constraints2. The CD-i was never designed as a dedicated game console, and the hardware limitations showed in the final products1. Under these conditions, the animators swung for the fences on the cutscenes. As one journalist put it, the animators "were so excited to bring these scenes to life that they overdid everything, resulting in a twitchy, cartoonish take on some of the most beloved characters in gaming history"1.

The games were widely panned for their quality and dialogue4. In later years, criticism grew even harsher. Series director Eiji Aonuma stated the games "do not fit in the 'Zelda' franchise," and they were excluded from the official *Hyrule Historia* guidebook5. Nowadays the games are mainly known for how they're used in meme videos4.

How It Spread

The cutscenes sat in obscurity for over a decade. Few people owned a CD-i, and emulation was primitive1. The games were known only as curiosities among Zelda obsessives.

YouTube Poop era (~2006-2012)

YouTube made the cutscenes widely accessible for the first time. Around 2006, the CD-i Zelda scenes became go-to source material for YouTube Poop, a grassroots video remix style where creators chopped and rearranged clips into absurdist, often nonsensical edits1. The community, numbering in the dozens at its height, would splice syllables together to make characters say new things, apply visual distortions, and build entirely new narratives from the footage.

Seth "Dopply" Fulkerson, who would later create *Arzette*, first saw the cutscenes in 2007 when a friend showed them to him1. Italian animator Pennaz found them through YouTube the same year and credits the CD-i community with launching his career: "We could definitely say the Zelda CD-I games made me a YouTube animator. They were a beautiful mistake"1. A YouTube Pooper named Whelt described the games' unique appeal: "It's almost unbelievable that they exist, considering the locked-down approach Nintendo takes to their properties in the modern day"1.

Individual quotes became catchphrases across gaming forums. "Mah boy," "Squadala, we're off," and Morshu's "Lamp oil, rope, bombs? You want it?" entered the broader meme vocabulary4. Morshu, despite having only two lines in the original game, saw major standalone popularity in the late 2010s and early 2020s1.

Fan projects and revival (2015-2024)

In 2015, Dopply and friends joked about which Zelda games deserved the HD remaster treatment. Dopply half-seriously suggested the CD-i titles2. The joke turned real. He initially considered remastering *Hotel Mario* but switched to the Zelda games after finding high-quality rips of their art assets online1. Four years of stop-and-start development followed, with the 2020 COVID lockdown pushing him to the finish line2. He released the fan remasters briefly before pulling them offline for obvious legal reasons2.

In 2021, Nintendo of America's official Twitter account surprised fans with a poll asking "Can you wait to bomb some Dodongos?", a direct reference to a *Wand of Gamelon* quote4. This was a rare acknowledgment from Nintendo of the CD-i games' existence, and fans flooded the replies with memes4.

Dopply's remaster experience evolved into *Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore*, an original spiritual successor announced in January 2021 and published by Limited Run Games2. He brought in Rob Dunlavey, one of the original 1993 CD-i background painters, to create the world map and level art3. Digital Foundry contributors Audi Sorlie and John Linneman joined as producers2. The game faithfully recreated the CD-i visual style while fixing the gameplay, with animators given creative freedom within strict color palette, frame rate, and resolution constraints2. *Arzette* released in early 2024 to positive reception3.

How to Use This Meme

Zelda CD-i memes typically take one of these forms:

1

Direct clip sharing: Posting cutscene clips as standalone comedy. The "Mah boy" exchange and Morshu's sales pitch are popular picks.

2

YouTube Poop remixes: Cutting and rearranging cutscene audio and video into absurdist new narratives. Sentence mixing, where syllables are spliced to create new dialogue, is the signature technique.

3

Reaction images: Screenshots of characters' exaggerated expressions, especially King Harkinian's extreme close-up and Morshu's hand gestures, used in comment threads and chats.

4

Quote drops: Using CD-i lines in gaming discussions. "My boy," "Squadala, we're off," and "I can't wait to bomb some Dodongos" are common choices.

5

Morshu edits: The shopkeeper's gestures and pitch get applied to other characters or contexts, forming their own meme subgenre.

Cultural Impact

The Zelda CD-i cutscenes played a foundational role in YouTube Poop, one of the earliest internet video remix movements. While YouTube Poop pulled from many sources, including *Hotel Mario* and *I.M. Meen* (also Animation Magic titles), the Zelda scenes were among the movement's signature material1.

The memes turned creative hobbyists into professionals. Pennaz worked his way from CD-i remix maker to full-time animator1. Dopply went from YouTube Poop fan to published game developer with original CD-i artists and Digital Foundry staff on his team2. In September 2020, over 200 animators poured their skills into a collaborative reanimation of 21 minutes of *Faces of Evil* and *Wand of Gamelon* cutscenes, turning a community joke into genuine collaborative art6.

Nintendo's 2021 Twitter reference to *Wand of Gamelon* was treated as a significant event, given the company's decades of distance from these games4. *Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore* took things further: a meme inspiring a legitimate commercial game. "I actually find a lot of genuine potential in those original games that some people think are bad," Dopply told Nintendo Life. "They're definitely really flawed. But I do love the linear/non-linear mix of how levels are laid out"3.

Fun Facts

Dopply watched the CD-i cutscenes "hundreds if not thousands of times" during his remaster work and says he still isn't sick of them1.

Rob Dunlavey, one of the original painters from the 1993 games, returned over 30 years later to create art for *Arzette*3.

Dopply initially wanted to remaster *Hotel Mario* rather than the Zelda CD-i games, but switched after finding high-quality rips of the Zelda art assets online1.

Morshu's entire role in *Faces of Evil* consists of exactly two lines of dialogue, making his outsized meme fame wildly disproportionate to his screen time1.

*Zelda: The Wand of Gamelon* put Princess Zelda in the starring role as the playable character who rescues Link, reversing the series' usual formula4.

Derivatives & Variations

Morshu standalone meme:

The shopkeeper's "Lamp oil, rope, bombs?" pitch and hand gestures spawned their own edits and image macros, with a major popularity spike in the late 2010s[1].

King Harkinian / "Mah Boy" edits:

The King's grotesque close-up and catchphrase became an independent reaction meme used outside the broader CD-i context[1].

YouTube Poop genre influence:

The sentence-mixing and absurdist editing techniques refined on CD-i material shaped the wider YouTube Poop movement and early internet remix culture[1].

Fan Remasters (2020):

Dopply rebuilt both *Faces of Evil* and *Wand of Gamelon* in GameMaker with quality-of-life improvements, released briefly before being taken down[2].

Arzette: The Jewel of Faramore (2024):

A commercial indie platformer published by Limited Run Games, built as a spiritual successor with involvement from original CD-i artist Rob Dunlavey[3].

Frequently Asked Questions