"Earthworm Jim" — the one with the worm in a super-suit — was that weekend cartridge you swore you’d return on Monday. A slick side‑scrolling platformer on the Sega Genesis/Mega Drive where a hapless nobody becomes a superhero, snapping foes with his own tail like a whip. Cartoon‑quality animation, bonkers humor, blaster shootouts and a barrage of gags — that’s why it’s still beloved. Shiny Entertainment, led by David Perry with artist Doug TenNapel, didn’t just craft a tough action game; they built a playable cartoon that springs to life under your thumbs.

Every stage is surreal: cows get launched into the sky, goofy wormholes take you the wrong way, Psy‑Crow is on the hunt, and you rocket through tunnels, grab hooks, and literally turn Jim into a whip. Tommy Tallarico’s soundtrack — part adrenaline, part caricatured swing — still pounds in your head when you think of bosses, secret rooms, and those pixel‑perfect jumps. Call him whatever you like — it’s concentrated ’90s attitude and the reason we fired up the console. On a Sega Mega Drive cart it looked like a living cartoon, and one feeling remains: “Groovy!” — and off you go. How this festival of madness came to be is in our making‑of; releases, facts, and quirky details are also rounded up on Wikipedia.

Earthworm Jim plays like a jittery dance where every jump is a joke and every bullet lands like a punchline. The beat is tight, cocky: one second you corkscrew through the air, spinning a goofy little helicopter out of your own head, the next you snap that whip-tail to snag a ledge and sling into a fresh arc. On the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Earthworm Jim cranks the tempo like a DJ; this run-and-gun platformer either pins you to the screen in a hail of fire or makes you line up a pixel-perfect leap. The tension doesn’t smother—it tickles and pushes—until you slide into flow, fingers finding buttons on instinct and the screen answering with a cartoony thwack and a shower of sparks. The soundtrack keeps you honest, like a conductor tapping the baton, and you hold the groove—the pure ’90s vibe where the CRT hums and the grin won’t quit.

Every stage is a new gag: asteroid sprint-offs, bungee “on chewing gum,” flooded tunnels with oxygen bleeding away, and that sudden “launch the cow,” like canned applause from offstage. Bosses feel like stand-up acts—you learn their rhythm, watch the openings, and clap back with attitude. It rewards twitch reflexes, an eye for arcs, timing—and that swagger when your thumb moves before the thought. This 16-bit classic loves flipping the rules mid-show: just as you settle in—bam—new mechanic, new cadence, a fresh trial for muscle memory. You’re not just a dirt-dwelling worm in power armor, you’re the headliner in a super-suit, Earthworm Jim holding the room; secrets lurk on lip edges and odd little nooks, and the beats, tricks, and pacing are collected here — gameplay without spoilers.