“Gotta catch ’em all!” This simple but effective catchphrase has long been associated with Pokemon, the popular video game franchise that focuses on collecting an ever-growing number of colorful and powerful creatures. However, a new article posted this week revealed that Nintendo originally had a different phrase in mind.
The Huffington Post recently published an oral history of the making of the original Pokemon anime theme song, which remains burned into the memory of any child who grew up in the 1990s. While explaining how the song came together, co-creator John Siegler revealed that the lyrics went through several drafts because Nintendo kept changing the hook line. At one point, Siegler stated he even wrote a song using the phrase “Catch ’em if you can,” because that’s what Nintendo wanted the Pokemon catchphrase to be.
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Siegler also revealed that he and his bandmates had no idea what Pokemon was about when they wrote the song, which is why the theme song is all about generic concepts like friendship, love, and loyalty. Siegler admitted that to him and his bandmates, Pokemon was “just another weirdo cartoon.”
Of course, that weirdo cartoon turned into a cash cow for Siegler, as he got paid everytime the Pokemon TV show aired….which at one point was six days a week. And he earned every penny, considering that millions of people still know all the words to one of his most famous songs.
You can check out the full interview here, which reveals a lot about one of the unheralded parts of the early Pokemon phenomenon.
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