Chicago Bulls use adorable classic Pokemon parody to announce schedule
NBA.com, The Pokemon CompanyThe NBA’s Chicago Bulls revealed its schedule for the 2023-24 season in a unique way that pays homage to the Game Boy era of Pokemon games.
With basketball season starting in two months, NBA teams are announcing their schedules – and the Chicago Bulls found an unconventional and epic way to do this using Pokemon.
Rather than simply posting the dates, the Bulls released a four-and-a-half-minute video that shows their mascot, Benny the Bull, as the player of a game that clearly resembles the Generation I games.
Chicago Bulls’ announcement is a hilarious and detailed throwback to retro Pokemon
The video shows Benny, with an appropriate Game Boy-era sprite, riding a bike through a city that looks straight out of the Kanto region and entering the United Center, the Bulls’ home arena.
There, the Chicago Bulls’ mascot engages in Pokemon-like “battles” with coaches that involve “fighting” players like Victor Wembanyama of the San Antonio Spurs (who is depicted as way too tall to fit on the screen) and LeBron James of the Los Angeles Lakers.
The video goes on to show the full schedule – still in the game-accurate font – and live-action footage of Benny the Bull playing a Game Boy on the roof of the United Center. It ends with a shot of the Chicago skyline and the words “To Be Continued,” hinting at a similar video to come in the future.
This unusual method for an announcement like this is sure to delight Pokemon fans, especially those with fond memories of the original games. The art style and chip-tune music are pretty accurate to the Game Boy-era games, as are the super compressed and distorted “cries” each player makes as they enter the battle.
The Chicago Bulls’ video is a silly concept, but one that’s well executed. With The Pokemon Company discussing its own release schedule, perhaps it will announce its own plans using a similar method.
