When NEC released the Turbo Express back in early 1990s it had a lot of things going for it. The color display was gorgeous, putting forth graphics that no other portable on the market could even come close to matching. It played all the TurboGrafx-16 games (minus the CD titles), giving it an amazing library right from the get-go. And its technology was light years ahead of anything Nintendo was putting out at the time. So why was it that only a few die hard gamers actually bought this amazing portable? Perhaps it had something to do with ad campaign.

I can think of a lot of great places to picture taking your Turbo Express - up a mountain, on a boat, on a roller coaster, in space - but a Port-O-Potty does not make the short list. Heck, it doesn't even make the extremely long list. I would rather take my Turbo Express to a ritual suicide than even think about one of those Honey Buckets. Anybody that has come within even a mile or two of a portable toilet knows how terrible they can smell.

Even more perplexing his the strange pro-Honey Bucket message this advertisement seems to be sending. It states in large text that "some of the most enjoyable things in life are portable," yet the picture is of one of the least enjoyable locations of all time. They might as well have put a picture of an Iraqi torture prison or Michael Jackson's Neverland Ranch in the advertising, the Port-O-Potty just isn't a good way to represent your overpriced portable game system. It makes you wonder if the Turbo Express stinks as much as one of those Honey Buckets.

FROM: The Case of the Bad Advertising