Crazy About Corn

Crazy About Corn is an educational game designed for children aged 5–8, focusing on the significance of corn in early American history and its cultural, economic, and nutritional impact. The game features a variety of animated mini-games and corn-themed characters, including CORNcert for singing corn-related songs, CORN-centration for memory skills, CORNer Store for critical thinking, Frank-CORN-Stein’s Lab for word-building, and Library of CORNgress for pattern recognition. Additionally, it comes with a corn-themed activity book.

Crazy About Corn: A Kernel of Educational Innovation or Forgotten Agri-Ed Kitsch?

Introduction

In the fertile soil of late-’90s edutainment, Crazy About Corn (1999) stands as a bizarre yet earnest artifact—a CD-ROM designed to make children “absolutely glued to the computer” while learning about maize’s cultural, historical, and nutritional significance. Developed by New Mexico State University’s Cooperative Extension Service and published by Leading Object, this corn-centric title blends animated minigames, musical numbers, and a corn-themed activity book into a package that screams “Schoolhouse Rock! meets Field of Dreams.” This review argues that while Crazy About Corn is undeniably niche, it encapsulates a peculiar moment in educational gaming: a time when institutions leveraged CD-ROM technology to teach hyper-specific subjects with maximal whimsy.

---

Development History & Context

Studio & Vision
The game was developed by the Cooperative Extension Service, an outreach arm of New Mexico State University focused on agriculture and community education. Their goal was likely twofold: to promote agricultural literacy (a core mission of land-grant universities) and to capitalize on the mid-’90s CD-ROM edutainment boom, which saw titles like Oregon Trail II and Reader Rabbit dominate classrooms.

Technological Constraints
As a 1999 title, Crazy About Corn existed in the twilight of CD-ROM dominance, before internet-based learning tools eroded the format’s relevance. Its fixed/flip-screen visuals and point-and-select interface were standard for the era, prioritizing accessibility for young children over technical ambition. The inclusion of 15 original songs (playable on home stereos) reflects the CD-ROM’s dual role as multimedia vessel—a selling point at the time.

Gaming Landscape
The late ’90s saw a surge in “edutainment” aimed at elementary-school audiences, often blending rudimentary gameplay with curricular objectives. Crazy About Corn’s focus on a single crop, however, was unusual. Most competitors (JumpStart Adventures, Math Blaster) opted for broader themes, making this title a quirky outlier.

---

Narrative & Thematic Deep Dive

Plot & Characters
The game lacks a traditional narrative but centers on corn-themed personas like Cornelia (a humanoid corn cob), The Corn Monster, Super Corn, and The Corn Stalks (a singing quartet). These characters guide players through minigames while espousing corn trivia, creating a loose framework akin to a children’s TV show.

Themes
The game’s educational pillars are:
1. Historical: Corn’s role in Indigenous American and colonial societies.
2. Cultural: Its impact on cuisine, folklore, and industry.
3. Scientific: Basic botany (chromosomes, microscopes) and economics (corn’s modern value).

The song “What Matters Most of All” reinforces a moral about inner worth—a thinly veiled metaphor for corn’s undervalued societal contributions.

---

Gameplay Mechanics & Systems

Core Minigames
1. CORNcert: A karaoke-style sing-along with corn-themed tracks like “The Blue Corn Blues.”
2. CORN-centration: A memory-match game using colored corn kernels.
3. CORNer Store: A hidden-object game where players locate corn in a cluttered general store.
4. Frank-CORN-Stein’s Lab: A word-building activity using microscopic corn imagery.
5. Library of CORNgress: Pattern recognition via organizing corn-related books.

Progression & UI
The game employs a hub-world model, with characters guiding players to activities. The UI is minimalist, relying on large buttons and verbal cues to accommodate young players. While functional, the lack of save files or difficulty settings limits replayability.

Flaws
The gameplay is repetitive, and the educational content often feels didactic rather than exploratory. Activities like Frank-CORN-Stein’s Lab suffer from unclear objectives, relying more on rote repetition than organic discovery.

---

World-Building, Art & Sound

Visual Design
The art style is bright and cartoonish, with exaggerated characters (e.g., The Corn Monster’s goofy fangs) and pastoral backdrops. The aesthetic leans into agricultural kitsch, evoking a Midwestern county fair.

Sound Design
The original songs—a mix of folk, blues, and Broadway-esque showtunes—are the standout feature. Tracks like “Crazy About Corn” are infectiously campy, with lyrics like “We’re nuts about the nectar of the stalk!” The voice acting, however, is gratingly enthusiastic, akin to a local theater group’s children’s production.

Atmosphere
The game radiates small-town earnestness, positioning corn as both teacher and hero. It’s less a cohesive world than a collage of corn propaganda—imagine Pee-wee’s Playhouse sponsored by the Corn Refiners Association.

---

Reception & Legacy

Critical & Commercial Reception
Crazy About Corn flew under the radar commercially, but it earned the 1998 Golden ARC Award for “Best CD-ROM Teaching Tool” and an additional “Best of Show” for design. Its adoption by New Mexico schools suggests modest success in niche educational circles.

Evolution of Reputation
The game is now a cult oddity, remembered (if at all) for its absurd premise. It lacks the retro nostalgia of contemporaries like Pajama Sam but has resurfaced in online lists of “weirdest edutainment games.”

Industry Influence
While Crazy About Corn didn’t spark a wave of crop-based games, it exemplifies the late-’90s trend of hyper-specialized edutainment—titles like The Amazon Trail or Putt-Putt Saves the Zoo that used narrow themes to teach broader concepts. Its legacy lies in its unabashed specificity.

---

Conclusion

Crazy About Corn is neither a masterpiece nor a disaster, but a charmingly bizarre time capsule. Its blend of agricultural evangelism, musical zeal, and nutty persona design captures the era’s faith in CD-ROMs as vessels for learning. While its gameplay is forgettable, its earnestness is endearing—a reminder that edutainment’s golden age allowed for experiments this delightfully corny. For historians of educational media, it’s a kernel worth examining; for others, it remains a baffling footnote best enjoyed with a side of butter.

Final Verdict: A peculiar, pedagogically sound relic—less a game than a multimedia corn sermon. 🌽