Yeah Yeah Beebiss I (lost NES game; existence unconfirmed; late 1980s)

Scan from magazine mentioning the mysterious game.

Status: Existence Unconfirmed

Yeah Yeah Beebiss I (rarely known as Yeah Beebies 1) is a potentially non-existent video game that was first mentioned in the June 1989 listing for mail-order video game service, Play It Again, in an issue of Video Games & Computer Entertainment.^[1]^[2]

Mentions

The game was found again in subsequent advertisements from Play It Again in July, August, and September.^[3]

Additionally, in October, a nearly identical advertisement was placed by another mail-order video game service, Funco. These also had a listing for the game, shortened to Yeah Beebiss I. Though, despite the shortening, Yeah Beebiss I was still wrongly alphabetized between Wrestlemania and Xenophobe as it had been in Play It Again. Listings continued until January 1990.

Nothing further surfaced about Beebiss after this time and, as such, it's unknown if the game was simply a bad translation, a placeholder, or even a game at all.

Theories

Copyright Trap

It's alleged that the game was fabricated as a copyright trap, intended to serve as evidence if another games service copied the list.

Placeholder

It's alleged due to its peculiar title that the game was fabricated in order to account for blank space in its respective section.

An Inside Joke

The name may have been an inside joke (a joke only understood by people with knowledge of the subject) by two companies. The theoretical joke is unknown, and it may never be learned considering the age and obscurity of the product.

Unlicensed Game

The game might in fact be an unlicensed game, most likely a gag name for Baby Boomer by Color Dreams. It could also be an entirely original game made by people working either of the 2 companies who put out these ads, & would've been bought through mail-order. However though, there doesn't seem to be any proof of them ever having any development studios, so either this isn't the case, or they outsourced the game to another studio, likely another company who makes unlicensed games like Sachen, Odyssey Software, Color Dreams, or Micro Genius.

Alleged Candidates

Rai Rai Kyonshis: Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken

A commonly-supported theory is that Yeah Yeah Beebiss I is the hastily localized name adaptation of the NES/Famicom platformer Rai Rai Kyonshis: Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken　(来来キョンシーズ・べビーキョンシーのあみだ大冒険), from Bandai's Family Trainer series. This specific title was based on 1980s horror-comedy Taiwanese film series Hello Dracula, starring a little Chinese vampire boy.^[4]

The "Rai Rai" (a Japanese sound meant to evoke traditional China) is reminiscent of the "Yeah Yeah" part of the title while the "Baby" in the title could have been rendered as "Beebiss". Rai Rai Kyonshis also happened to have been released in 1989.

In the end, however, it remained a Japan-exclusive title. It is worth noting, however, that the listing also contains Dragon Ninja, the Japanese version of Bad Dudes (Which, coincidentally, also appears in the listing). This means the list contained at least one import title, further supporting this theory. Both Dragon Ninja and Bad Dudes were also released in 1989.

Super Pitfall II

It has been speculated that Yeah Yeah Beebiss I's identity is Super Pitfall II, a cancelled sequel to Activision's 1986 NES platformer Super Pitfall that would have also served as a localized version of Sunsoft's Famicom title Atlantis no Nazo.

On January 29th, 2012, NintendoAge user Luigi_Master posted his hypothesis of the game's origin:

"I had this discussion with an IRL friend of mine about making a Famicom Kuso-ge, and I decided to "make" one that would've been localized as "Yeah Yeah Beebiss I", with the title being written in Japanese. So I looked up the Romaji for what I would assume would sound like "Bi Be Su" (?? ?), and plopped it into Google translate. It was translated as "The Bibe". I decided to look up what "Bibe" meant, but Dictionary.com thought I meant "Beebe", and behold.
Beebe was the surname of an American explorer and naturalist, and I decided to piece things together. The I probably was taken from the Roman Numeral II as a typo, and the fact Beebe was an explorer, maybe YYBI turned out to be Super Pitfall 2!?
It's crazy, I know, but truth is ALWAYS stranger than fiction!"

However, there has been no conclusive or concrete evidence to support this theory.

Contacting Funco and Play it Again Staff

On March 27th, 2021, a new thread on the Lost Media Wiki Forums.^[5] titled "Me Rambling Incoherently About Yeah Yeah Beebiss I" reignited the search for Yeah Yeah Beebiss I. Through this thread, a small team formed focused on contacting staff from Funco and Play it Again.

The first person contacted was Andy McNamara, who works at Game Informer and was a former employee of Funco. When contacted by Lost Media Wiki Forums user co, he stated that David Pomije, CEO of Funco, was the one to compile the mail-in order lists. Later on, the list was also complied with buyers. Andy also said that it was likely that the list was created by looking at games available on the market in the early days.

The second person contacted was Neil Levin, one of the founders of Play it Again. Lost Media Wiki Forums user stintergalactic was able to reach out to him through LinkedIn. After this, a phone call interview was scheduled between the two of them. Neil said that the person who ran the company would often put in fake listings to catch people copying Play it Again. This was a common business practice, according to Neil. Through this contact, the theory that Yeah Yeah Beebiss I was a copyright trap is strengthened.

Legacy

In February of 2022, Rigg'd Games released an independent video game called Yeah Yeah Beebiss II that has NES-style retro graphics and Chinese zombie protagonists. It presents itself as a sequel to the elusive Yeah Yeah Beebiss I, but it is obvious that it uses Rai Rai Kyonshi's - Baby Kyonshi no Amida Daibouken as an aesthetic influence, considering it is the most accepted "candidate" as a "true" identity for Yeah Yeah Beebiss I.