In case you’ve forgotten (or somehow never heard about) the infamous Pokémon seizure phenomenon, here’s a quick summary:

On December 17, 1997, children in Japan sat down to watch the 38th episode of the Pokemon cartoon show. The episode was entitled “Computer Warrior Porygon” (Dennou Senshi Porigon).

In one segment the heroes are inside a computer when an antivirus program attempts to delete them by firing missiles. Pikachu, the lead Pokemon, jumps forward, and with a blast of yellow light detonates the missiles and saves the group. The resulting blue and red flashing colors that the explosion causes were at just the right speed to cause seizures in susceptible persons.

Synchronicity has brought my love of obnoxious abuse of JavaScript and my desire to pay tribute to this infamous incident together at last. Click the intimidating link below to experience it.

More About the Pokémon Seizure Incident

You can read CNN’s original article from 1997. The most amazing thing about this link, to me, has nothing to do with Pokémon — it’s that CNN still has these old pages archived with their original designs and even their advertisements intact! I’m not surprised that CNN would archive their content (although I’m pleased to see they have the integrity to do so), I’m just surprised that the archive includes the page design. Do they actually post articles as static pages? (I’m guessing more likely that it’s a more complicated database-driven system, but it’s still surprising to me that the old design and even the ads are still there. I mean, come on, Infoseek?)

Of course Wikipedia has an extensive article about this episode.

The incident was also famously parodied on an episode of The Simpsons.