This isn't a graphics error. If you're standing near a grenade or an exploding peach on your way to church, you get blown the hell into rectangle chunks. On the left: chef in a neon belt. He's not running to get help. He's leaving satisfied. Now that the little boy has exploded, his work is done.
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Sunday Funday was a game based on getting to Sunday School on time. I wish I was kidding. You were a little boy on a skateboard fighting your way through a city to learn about the Lord. Normally, you can expect some divine protection when you're trying to get to church; God likes to keep people safe if they're on their way to throw their hands up and sing songs about Him. Not in this game. In fact, you get so little help from God that old women are trying to kill you, and moles come up from the sewer to throw dynamite at you. I don't know about everyone else, but if I was on my way to church and animals were popping out of manholes and trying to kill me with explosives, I'd take that as a sign. Someone seriously doesn't want me at that church.
Between levels of games this bad, it's important to give the player inspiration to keep them from taking out the cartridge. To keep playing this game, you might need a blowjob. It doesn't give you one. Instead, your inspiration comes from your Sunday School Teacher popping up between levels and bitching at you. Then she gives you helpful hints on what kind of everyday things are going to try to kill you on the next block. She basically rewords, "Church is good! Hurry! And look out for plumbers!" ten different ways throughout the game.
To get out of church as a kid, I used to make up stories about how gangs of bullies attacked me or how evil plumbers beat the shit out of me on the way. It never worked. My parents grounded me, my Sunday School grades were so bad I couldn't get into Sunday College, and God gave me the plague. But after Sunday Funday came out, I had actual cartridge-documented proof that backed up every story I ever told. I pointed at the screen and said, "See? This is what happens on the way to Sunday School, mom. It's like a freaking warzone, bitch."
From left to right: You, beast lady, peach, banana. The banana makes you slip, the peach explodes, and the old lady will try to kill you. This is unusual since in most neighborhoods around churches, the mass murdering ladies try not to eat children in broad daylight. It's because when someone looks out the window and sees a lady with a 4 foot face pull a kid off his skateboard and kick the crap out of him, there's a number they can call to report it.
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This is important to know: Sunday Funday was retooled from a game that came out four years earlier called Menace Beach (by Color Dreams). Aside from a few graphics changes, the games are exactly the same. They just changed some of the enemies to fit the new church-theme. Like the ninjas, common in Menace Beach, but rare to see outside a church, became little boys with no pants on. Which sounds a lot more like my church at least. Please note that both games have flying clowns that try to kill you by dropping water balloons -- it's a universal theme that works in any game.
Another change is that in Menace Beach, instead of the bitch Sunday School teacher popping up between levels, you got to see pictures of your kidnapped girlfriend chained to a wall with progressively fewer clothes as the game went on. (for more NES sex, see Alex's ass in River City Ransom) Her kidnapper didn't strip her naked right at the start. He only tore off a shirt sleeve every couple hours. And he was going to continue to slightly undress her until either her ransom was met or a kid with a mullet showed up on a rad-to-the-max skateboard. It's possible he was mailing chunks of her clothes to you with letters reading, "See this chunk of skirt, kid? $20 by midnight or I start sending you the belt.
When America showed their good taste by not buying Menace Beach or any other Color Dreams games, Color Dreams found God. They renamed themselves Wisdom Tree, changed the name of Menace Beach to Sunday Funday, made the changes mentioned above on their lunch break, and re-released the thing in 1994, a few years after the last of the Nintendos were forgotten in the bottom of dusty closets. It wasn't a bad plan. Regular people avoided Menace Beach because they hate crap, but Christians... those people love crap. And if their Nintendo's weren't in the storage unit under a stack of emergency Bibles, they would have bought the hell out of Sunday Funday.
What's really scary is that Sunday Funday sales destroyed the Menace Beach sales proving that Garbage with Jesus sells better than Garbage with Tits. It's something to keep in mind next time you suck at making something but still want people to buy it.
 
Above left: Menace Beach final boss, Demon Dan.
Above right: Sunday Funday final boss, bear.
Sunday Funday wasn't just a playable skateboard embodyment of man's quest for enlightenment. It also had two bonus games included with it. One of them was called Fish Fall, and your job was to catch falling fish with a big hand and throw them into a flying basket. If you like the electronic tests your eye doctor gives you, you might like it. Sort of like pong, only with a religious theme -- fish.*
*Jesus was known for making lots of fish and wine. Which makes a tuna sandwich a religious-themed lunch. And every time you get hammered on red wine and wake up feeling like someone's been hitting your forehead with a hammer all night, that's partying for Jesus.
"Okay, I'll get there soon, bit--what? Did you just say something about plumbers trying to stop me from getting to church? Lady, if you have knowledge of a plumber kidnapping conspiracy, maybe you should call the authorities instead of giving me imaginary lectures."
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The other "game" included with Sunday Funday was a karaoke song by a band called 4Him. Guess what kind of music they make.
The song making you into a karaoke star is called The Ride, and it's about the roller coaster ride of life we all ride and how "IT'S GOOD TO KNOW WE'RE NOT ALONE ON THIS BIG SCREAM MACHINE." Okay, this may have been implied before in previous articles about other games, but I mean it this time: this is the worst thing you can put in your Nintendo. You'd be better off stuffing a jelly sandwich in the front, or a hand grenade, or maybe after playing The Ride, your own severed ears. Christian music is harmful enough without it being synthesized with Nintendo beeps. I've heard music better from dump trucks backing up. (see actual The Ride lyrics at the bottom of the page. WARNING: both inspirational and motivational)
When you were a toddler and drew a picture of your mom with 17 fingers, green hair, and a body that looked like a melted turd, she loved it. It was a terrible drawing in every way possible, but she loved it and called it cute because you were three. This game is as bad as a 17-fingered drawing, only the people who made it are not three. God is going to stop thinking this retarded shit is cute really fast, guys. I know you just made Him up to keep us from mixing pork with milk, and there's not much that mythology can really do to us, but just in case, let's stop trying to piss Jesus off with bad Nintendo games and music. I'd hate to get swept away in a raging river of blood and hear that it was because I lived too close to the designers of Sunday Funday when God's fury descended upon them.
Fun: 0
Most people would probably rather play a game based on History class, or even more fun, go to actual History class. Of course, it would have been really unsettling if someone took a game about Sunday School and somehow made it fun. That kind of insane genius would get some kind of Nobel Nintendo Prize.
Graphics: 3
Jesus, next time someone makes a video game about learning about You, maybe You should send some talent down their way.
Sunday School Grade: F-
If this was school, they'd automatically fail since all they did was change the name on one of their old assignments and hand it in again. The fact that the assignment they're recycling miserably failed the first time might be insulting enough to get them expelled.
Improvement: -4
Before the designers' marketers found God, the game wasn't quite as bad. Sure, Menace Beach was a piece of shit, but Sunday Funday was a piece of shit that someone put in your mouth. For example, Sunday Funday came included with a 4Him karaoke song. Menace Beach was superior than Sunday Funday because it did not come included with a 4Him karaoke song. I've compared some of the two games' other main points to help illustrate how Jesus made a bad game even worse.
Inspiration:
Menace Beach: The Amazing Melting Clothes. As you go through, she calls you every G-rated name she can think of. Geek and Dog Breath are pretty insulting, but I'd expect more of a potty mouth from a naked chick chained to a wall.
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Sunday Funday: Idiot Advice from a lady with pumpkin-sized hair. As you go through, she helps you by telling you that turning on lights makes it not dark and advises you against riding your skateboard into the bottomless lake. Thanks, bitch.
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Winner: Menace Beach. In Sunday Funday, you might fight all the way to church to get a chance to punch the bitchy Bible School instructor, but after the first level, you realize that turning off the Nintendo is a faster way to get her to shut up. And as abusurdly boring and frustrating as the games are, you'll beat Menace Beach just to see how much of your girlfriend's clothes actually come off. SPOILER: In the total half a day she was kidnapped, her clothes completely rotted into a bikini. Yes, according to the game they "rotted" off. I've been wearing clothes for 24 years now, and I've never owned anything that decomposed in a day. Either her skin grows moths or her clothes were made of chocolate and Demon Dan left her out in the sun.
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Enemies:
Menace Beach
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Sunday Funday
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(far left) sumo giant, disco guy, ninja.
(near left) fat lady from dinner party, plumber, kid in underwear.
Winner: Menace Beach. The Menace Beach enemies aren't what you'd call inspired, but at least they're occupations that are known to fight. Sumo wrestlers and ninjas attack people for a living. And everyone wants to hit people in white leisure suits. In Sunday Funday, all the enemies are other pedestrians who on their way to the grocery store, decided you needed to die for some reason. Some guy snapped and screamed, "A little boy is headed towards the church! We've got to stop him! Call the kids in hot pants! Call the plumbers union! Call your deformed aunt! And tell her to wear her pearls! We'll show this kid that no one visits a church in our town."
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Ending:
Menace Beach
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Sunday Funday
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Winner: Sunday Funday. The Menace Beach ending is one of the biggest let-downs you can get from a game. In the girlfriend sequences, you can almost see a nipple after every level past 8. So when you rescue your bikini girlfriend from hell, you expect something specific. Action. You expect hot, beach menacing action. Instead you get two [fully dressed] kids sharing a milkshake for 3 or 4 minutes. It's not a totally uneventful 3 or 4 minutes, though. There are several hearts that float up from their heads. Finally, at the end of the exciting show, a devil pops out of a manhole, and a skateboard rolls by with no one on it. I'm sure it has some kind of deep meaning besides "You Saw Our Game. We Suck at Making Movies Too." The sequence almost drags on longer than the game itself, so the fact that the girl's clothes haven't decomposed in the ice cream shop... remains a mystery. They should have at least rotted away to a tube top and panties. To turn your disapointment to hate, the game arrogantly asks you if you want to view the movie again. Sorry, Menace Beach. I've got more exciting things to do. There's a chunk of cheese I've been meaning to watch grow mold, and I think I see a puddle drying up. By the way, instead of "View Movie Again," the game words it, "REPLAY SCREEN." Yeah, I know, they're idiots.
In Sunday Funday, the winner of the Ending competition, when you finally make it to church, notice that it's either less than 8 feet wide, or the lady that's been giving you advice is King Kong with his hair shaved off. It looks like a little wood shed that someone painted crucifixes on. You start to realize that this probably isn't a denominational church. You've been skateboarding your way to a cult meeting in a wood shed. No wonder so many flying clowns were trying to kill you with water balloons. Sunday is a fun day when you spend it at church!
Transition into Madness Gaming Download: Menace Beach & Sunday Funday roms
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