Former Nintendo Marketers Think SNL’s Ocarina of Time vs. GTA 6 Sketch Would Have Gone Over Well
Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang saw the side-by-side billing as a compliment, though they thought Nintendo might have disliked jokes casting Link as a nerd.
Saturday Night Live’s Ocarina of Time vs. GTA 6 sketch may have cast Link as the less exciting contender, but former Nintendo of America marketing leads Kit Ellis and Krysta Yang think the company probably would have reacted positively. In their view, putting Ocarina of Time beside GTA 6 treated the Nintendo game as a heavyweight, even if some of the jokes at Link’s expense were less flattering.
The sketch sets up a November showdown between costumed versions of Link and GTA 6’s Jason. GTA’s action, cars, and sex appeal face off against Ocarina’s puzzles and Link’s green outfit. The crowd’s loud response to Zelda gives the joke an awkward twist, making the matchup feel less one-sided than its setup intended.
Ellis, Nintendo of America’s former director of social media marketing and original content, and Yang, its former senior manager of creator relations and original content, discussed the sketch in a video. They felt its framing worked in Nintendo’s favor by presenting Ocarina of Time as a major game on equal footing with GTA 6. The references to Zelda’s puzzles also struck them as a fair description of the series. They thought the newer sketch could give Nintendo useful promotion without a paid campaign.
Not every gag would have pleased Nintendo. Ellis thought the company might dislike the implication that Link was for nerds, while Yang pointed to jokes about Zelda’s art style and a moment when a fairy in a bottle falls apart and dies.
The pair contrasted the sketch with SNL’s 2021 Wario bit. Elon Musk hosted the show on May 8, 2021, appearing in Wario’s yellow-and-purple outfit in a courtroom sketch about Mario’s death in a kart crash. Wario was the antagonist in Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins.
Ellis called the Wario sketch out of left field because it had no clear connection to a Nintendo product. Yang recalled that some of its material entered territory that made people at Nintendo uncomfortable, and said it was poorly received while she and Ellis still worked there. The sketch also included drug and sexual jokes about the characters.
What did you make of the crowd backing Zelda in a sketch built around GTA 6’s swagger? For more on the pop-culture moments that put games in the spotlight, follow us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.
Source: GamesRadar+
