Penn Badgely, the American actor best known for his role as Dan Humphrey in the iconic teen drama series, Gossip Girlhas another major acting credit, but you won’t find it on his IMDB page – it’s a promotional video for the 1999 Pokémon Trading Card Game.
In an official video from Wizards of the Coast, the then distributor of Pokémon cards, a young Badgely as “Jimmy,” a patient but firm instructor who teaches a classroom full of parents how to play the Pokémon TCG. The half-hour video pokes fun at the parents – most of whom just want to trade the cards and aren’t all that interested in learning how to play the game. The video switches between instructional videos and little skits featuring Jimmy’s classroom. And luckily for us, you can watch it all on YouTube.
Badgely talked about his memories of playing the role on the radio show with Roman Kemp on the Capital Breakfast radio show.
“I think at least in America (the Pokémon Company) realized that nobody learned to play the game and they acted alone. That probably had something to do with, let’s face it, they wanted more money. We need people to play the game and not just trade cards. And so this was a workout video that was probably on VHS,” Badgely said in the interview.
Oddly, this isn’t Badgely’s only Nintendo connection. The actor also voiced roles in two Nintendo games, playing a generic child character in both Mario golf 64 And Mario Tennis 64. Now we can all add this Pokémon role to his list of surprise acting credits.
