Crazy Castle

History

Kemco began the franchise after licensing the rights to produce a Famicom Disk System game based on the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. When planning a release outside Japan, an NES game based on the same film already existed, developed by Rare and published by LJN. Licensing issues in Western markets, including Capcom's ownership of rights to release Disney-based video games outside Japan at the time, also played a role. To release the game outside Japan, Kemco bought rights to Warner Bros.' Looney Tunes franchise for Looney Tunes-based games. After the film's promotion in Japan ended, Kemco lost the rights to produce games based on the film there but gained rights to produce Disney-based ones, as Who Framed Roger Rabbit was produced by Touchstone Pictures, a Disney-owned studio. Kemco later produced Mickey Mouse versions in the Crazy Castle series, releasing most exclusively in Japan, while continuing Looney Tunes versions outside Japan; some entries were based on other licenses such as ITE's Hugo media franchise, Jim Davis's Garfield comic strip, and The Real Ghostbusters animated series. Before the worldwide release of Bugs Bunny: Crazy Castle 3, Kemco released the Japan-exclusive compilation Bugs Bunny Collection, a re-release of Mickey Mouse I and II with the Bugs Bunny sprite set and minor updates including Super Game Boy support. Subsequent games were original titles released across all territories. The fifth entry starred Woody Woodpecker instead of Bugs Bunny, as Kemco lost its Warner Bros. license and switched to exclusive rights for Universal Studios properties, due to their release of the Nintendo GameCube title Universal Studios Theme Parks Adventure, in which Woody was a main character.