Back in the days when Mario was still a carpenter, there was another plumber on the gaming scene by the name of Frisky Tom. Published by Japanese company Nichibutsu in 1981, Frisky Tom was a maze like puzzler where the player played the titular Frisky Tom, desperately trying to get water from a tank, through a series of pipes and into the shower below. Keeping Tom from his duties are a series of multicolored mice who steal pipe parts,plant bombs in the water tank and generally cause a nuisance.

The cast of cleverly named mice included Pyro Mouse, Molar Mouse, Mean Mouse, Megaton Mouse and Klepto Mouse. mean Mouse was a tough customer and if you ran into him, you lost a life. Megaton Mouse would place a bomb in the tank and then Pyro Mouse would come along to light the fuse. The bomb could be diffused by having Tom fall past it. The levels were completed when all the water was successfully redirected to the shower and points were assigned based on the amount of water remaining. If you did really well, you were treated to an animation of a busty blonde in the shower between levels. The original Japanese version of the game featured a naked woman in the shower while in the American version she was wearing a bikini. The game was eventually ported to the Atari 5200, the Super Famicom and the Gameboy.

The art for this flyer is fantastic and contains some pretty funny elements. The copyrighted mouse images are hilarious considering that I doubt anyone was going to be coming along to steal those terribly original creations. Also noteable is Frisky Tom himself with bowler hat pulled firmly over his eyes. Is this out of respect for the gal in the tub? More than likely, it saved the animators from actually having to animate a face for the poor devil. And what is up with that mouse diving in to the tub? I have a hard time telling whether he's excited by the prospect of what's under those bubbles or trying to hold back from vomiting in the lady's lap. On the right, you can also catch a shot of the lady in question in her between level shower. Apparently the game wasn't very popular, but I get the idea that if they had left the girl naked, they would have sold a lot more machines. Flynn De Marco