YMMV / The Legend of Zelda (1989)

• Awesome Music: The sound effects in the cartoon were all taken from the original Zelda game, while the music consists of orchestral remakes of various songs from the game, including the iconic "Overworld" theme.
• Base-Breaking Character: The show's incarnation of Zelda. On one hand, she's recurrently more competent than the games' incarnation at the time, proving to be just as competent as, if not more competent than Link, and doesn't take anybody's nonsense, but on the other, her attitude can come off as ungrateful, demanding, dismissive and, at points, even overly harsh towards Link, and she still has enough Damsel in Distress moments to be viewed as an Ungrateful Bitch by some because of this.
• Engaging Chevrons: Ganon often provides an almost-constant running narrative about his thoughts and Evil Plans. Link also sometimes engages in this; for example, the very first episode, "The Ringer," opens with him complaining to his mirror reflection about how life in Hyrule is boring compared to his previous life outside the castle.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: For a cartoon from the 80s whose writers had to come up with most of the elements on their own thanks to having only two NES games to work from, it sure ended up featuring a lot of elements that would be prevalent in later games. It's to the point that some fans legitimately wonder if the games' producers watched the show themselves for inspiration.
  • Ganon's disguise in "The Ringer" resembles his Agahnim persona from A Link to the Past.
  • The episode "Fairies in the Spring" has Link and Zelda dealing with monsters made from water. Guess what Link ends up fighting in Ocarina of Time's Water Temple?
  • The main plot of "The Missing Link" has Link turned into a ghost, with Zelda having to protect him and the two sending out on a journey to return him to normal. The reverse of this scenario forms the basis of Spirit Tracks.
  • Zelda's Adaptation Dye-Job to blond became the series' standard for the character starting with A Link to the Past, as do her skills as an archer from The Wind Waker onward.
  • In the beginning of "Sing for the Unicorn", King Harkinian takes a nightly stroll along his castle, exclaiming "Nothing better after a good meal." Later on, when Link is trying to swing into Zelda's bedroom after the King gives him some flowers for help, he says "Good luck, my boy!" before pushing him off.
  • "Doppelganger" featured a mirror that created an Evil Doppelgänger of Zelda. The Dark Mirror from Four Swords Adventures functions similarly, except with Link, and A Link Between Worlds featured a literal mirror version of Zelda via Hilda. The concept would also come back in The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, only with far less chance of Ganon's minions messing it up.
  • Link has a habit of twirling his sword with one hand both here and to a lesser extent in the Captain N: The Game Master episodes he and Zelda appeared in. Link would get in the habit of doing this in the games starting with Twilight Princess.
  • Some scene transitions to Ganon's throne room started with a shot of a smoking volcano such as this one that represented Death Mountain, long before it became the token fire/volcano dungeon in Ocarina of Time and subsequent games.
  • Link shield-surfing became possible in Breath of the Wild. Furthermore, the cartoon's premise, in which Link serves as Zelda's personal bodyguard at a time when Hyrule is relatively at peace, resembles the pre-Calamity backstory of the two characters in Breath of the Wild.
  • The Octorok appearing in the village in The White Knight episode comes very close to one of the early concepts for Guardians from Breath of the Wild, which were based on the idea that Octoroks seemed huge in the original The Legend of Zelda. The show's version of the creatures even fire blue balls of light instead of rocks, similar to the lasers of Guardians.
  • Zelda's characterization as a Tomboy Princess would slowly bleed into the games, with the Zeldas from Ocarina of Time becoming more and more active in the plot. In particular, Breath of the Wild's incarnation of the character bears a striking resemblance to this one, with her main outfit also being a rather tomboyish riding pant suit that shows off her Hartman Hips instead of her usual Princess Classic dresses. While less generally abrasive, she is also initially rather cold towards her own incarnation of Link, but is later being revealed to have fallen in love with him all the same. In at least one flashback, it's easy to imagine their conversation ending with a "Well EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUSE me, Princesss!" if he did speak.
  • One scene has Link toss a bomb, then launch himself off the explosion while riding his shield. This combines two speedrunning tactics from Breath of the Wild, the windbomb and bullet time bounce. Even better, Tears of the Kingdom actually canonizes this as a legitimate gameplay mechanic, allowing you to fuse a bomb to the front of your shield and then safely Rocket Jump with it.
  • Arguably, while still depicted as a largely kind and humble person, Link's characterization in Breath of the Wild also has more similarities to his cartoon counterpart than ever before. This is due to him losing his memories and much of the decorum he usually would have around other people; plenty of his dialogue prompts are sassy, sarcastic or even downright rude at times. He can flirt with multiple npcs, and his shirtless idle animations even feature him flexing and showing off.
  • Older VHS and DVD releases of the show would include an episode of Sonic Underground, years before Sonic and Link appeared together in Super Smash Bros. Brawl and beyond. Even funnier, Sonic even got to wander around Hyrule in free updates for the Wii U version of Sonic Lost World.
• Ho Yay: Link gets a kiss from the king in one episode.
• Jerks Are Worse Than Villains: Ganon is depicted as a much more comical character compared to the more serious and threatening Ganondorf of later years, but he still wants use the Triforce to take over Hyrule and has few qualms with how he does so. Despite this, some detractors of the show prefer him over Link and Zelda due to finding their personalities too jerkish, rude, and generally unlikable.
• Memetic Mutation: "Well EXCUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUUSE me, Princess!" It's even a trope on this very site!
• Narm: Ganon teaches boxing.
• Narm Charm: It has its moments. Whether it be the animation, writing, or the way the lines were delivered, there's usually at least one scene that still considered enjoyable despite its Narm.
  • Ganon riding an elegant Winged Unicorn while laughing manically? Hilarious. Using it to kidnap the King of Hyrule? That's definitely not someone Link has to save everyday. It gets surprisingly intense when Ganon puts the King in a room with a glowing, slowly expanding hole in the floor that will kill the King once it reaches him while he's cowering against the wall.
  • In "Kiss'N Tell," Link is transformed into a frog person. Jonathan Potts had to do a very raspy and nasally voice for Frog!Link that sounds rather ridiculous. The occasional frog sounds between sentences make it even sillier. Despite that, his performance is surprisingly emotive while putting on the frog voice. You can feel his sorrow when he realizes what he's become.
    Link: (tearing up) No! That's not me! Tell me it's not true, Zelda.
    Zelda: (also tearing up) Sorry...
    Link: I'll never be able to face anyone again. (ribbit) I'm a monster!
    Zelda: I've seen worse... Hey, you still have me. I'll always be your friend.
    (Zelda hugs Link)
    Link: (still crying) Thank you, Zelda...
• Nightmare Fuel: As campy and corny as this show is, you gotta admit that the way Ganon speaks is kinda... creepy for a kid's cartoon. The Creepy High-Pitched Voice that he normally uses is unnerving enough, but in the rare moments where his pitch lowers... that's another thing entirely.
• Parody Displacement: Link's catchphrase was written as an homage to an old Steve Martin bit from his stand-up comedy days. However, the young age of the show's target audience combined with Martin's move away from the public eye to avoid people interpreting everything he says as a joke means that most people nowadays associate "well ex-CUUUUUUUSE ME!" with the show rather than the comedian.
• Relationship Writing Fumble: The writers clearly intend for Link and Zelda to have romantic feelings for each other. The problem is that the two come off more as hormonal teenagers whose interest is more based on lust and the fact that there are few other options. Even the voice actors can't seem to make the two even liking each other as friends believable, most of their dialogue consists of rude comments or mockery.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Link is Professor Lowe.
  • Spryte is Kootie Pie Koopa, Nazz, and Rarity.
  • Ganon is General Klump, Buzz, and if you go back before this series, the Green Goblin.
  • King Harkinian is Fritz Brenner, Nelson, Maximus IQ and Uatu the Watcher.
• The Scrappy: Spryte isn't exactly well-liked by all fans, with her repeated interference with Link's attempts to kiss Zelda, and seeming to not serve much purpose in the show other than to have an unrequited crush on him and interrupt his relationship with Zelda. She's also considered rather annoying in general. Her extremely high-pitched and cutesy voice probably don't help. Some fans, however, think her at least a little bit cute and sexy.
• So Bad, It's Good: The show has been the butt of numerous jokes for its poor animation, portrayals of Link and Zelda that have often been deemed out-of-character by fans of the franchise, and especially its campy and "really rad" dialogue and other writing.
• Values Dissonance: In the 80's, it was not uncommon for young men to be motivated solely by a pretty girl, and much of Link's attitude and actions with Zelda, mostly based on him motivated solely to get a kiss from her, reflects this writing trend. In the 21st century, however, much of Link's behavior towards Zelda (such as ogling and cat-calling her in "The Ringer", or remarking that she swings his sword like a girl in "The Missing Link") would be considered mysoginist, sexist, or (in some cases) sexual harassment.
• Vindicated by History: Though the show does have its detractors (especially from fans of the games), the series is considered one of the best game-to-show adaptations for its time, citing the impressive action sequences and expansions to the lore of the first two games. In addition, as the "Hilarious in Hindsight" entries would tell you, it had a lot of elements that would be seen in future games in the franchise. As for the character portrayals (Link in particular), it's easy to forget that at the time, there was no real standard set when it came to stories in the franchise. Link was just a collection of pixels shaped and coloured into a person, and that was all they had to work with. Neither A Link to the Past or Ocarina of Time even existed yet; all the story-based elements were All There in the Manual, and even then it was still mostly fairly simple. As a major example of this trope, James Rolfe himself remembers the show quite fondly.

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