Imagine entering a contest you didn't want to win. Not one that you had no chance of winning, but rather a contest where the prizes were so lame you prayed that someone else would get them. Thanks to the Software Toolworks Out of this World Sweepstakes you don't have to imagine such a contest, you're about to witness one of those contests that will make your skin crawl and your hair fall out.

When you hear the name Out of this World Sweepstakes you probably think of the Delphine Software game Out of this World, the thrilling 2D adventure game that was released around the same time as this contest. But despite the name this contest has nothing to do with the game that would go on to inspire Flashback. Instead this has more to do with Mario than anything ... well, kind of. Part of this commercial was to advertise Mario's Time Machine and Mario is Missing, two "educational" Mario (and Luigi) adventures that found their way on the Super NES. The only problem is that these are by far the two worst Mario games on the console, which is bad news for this terrible advertisement.

But then, this isn't a commercial for those Mario-esque games either; the prizes have as much to do with Mario as they do Out of this World. The grand prize was a Cynergy MPC computer, which could play the two Mario games in question ... but for some odd reason the Mario games weren't given away with the PC. Other prizes include bikes, rollerblades, and watches ... none of which have anything to do with Nintendo's mustachioed plumbers. Compared to some of the other adverts we've looked at in this episode this Out of this World Sweepstakes commercial seems awfully week, but I can't help but include it because I laugh out loud every time I see how small the "hey kids!" attention grabber is.

FROM: Saved By the Bad Advertising