The Cheetahmen are to Active Enterprises as Mario is to Nintendo. Active had this idea that their Cheetahmen game would sell really well. They were so confident of this that they even planned Cheetahmen action figures, dolls, comic books, and TV shows all of which were canned before they made shelves. Crummy games and high prices lead to low sales of Active's games.

You would have never guessed that Active Enterprises went out, just look at their stand at the Consumer Electronic Show 1994. Maybe if their games were done as nicely as this display, Active would still be here today. Calling all Cheetahmen. Aries! Apollo! Hercules! Where are you when I need you most?

Active Enterprises did have neato game cases. Clear cases are neat. I don't know why. They just are. Active put Action 52 (NES) and Cheetahmen II both in clear cases. Here this cheapness comes through again. For the Cheetahmen carts, Active took ACtion 52 carts and slapped gold labels reading "Cheetahmen II" on them. Some Cheetahmen II carts don't even have these labels. Whats going on with that?

Sometimes I wish that I could go down to my basement and produce Nintendo games for fun...and money. Everytime I get an idea like that, I think about Active and I quickly lose the thoughts. I surely don't want to turn into "The Next" Active Enterprises.

Thanks Michael Lay for letting me use the Active Enterprises stand pic. I was going to link to his site, but it seems as if it is down right now. If it gets back up, I'll gladly link to it. I also must thank TSR for the box pics.