The first episode of the Goodbye Galaxy series, Secret of the Oracle (Keen IV) was an immense hit, and
featured another young character who was playing the part of a the Dopefish in Keen IV, a large, green fish with buck teeth.
However, Mr. Dope E. Fish, in his role as the Dopefish, was discontent with playing such a small part in the game and yearned for higher status.
Refusing to appear in any further Keen titles, Dope E. Fish instead went looking for work in other computer games. It wasn't until many years later that he would achieve his dreams.
After making many unpaid and humiliating cameos in id Software and 3D Realms games (such as Whacky Wheels, Quake and Shadow Warrior), it all started to pay off for Mr. Fish.
With the 3D gaming world explosion in the mid-1990's, more and more 3D shooter addicts stumbled upon the hidden cameos of the Dopefish.
Before you could say "swim, swim, hungry" Dopefish's popularity had escalated to near mass hysteria, elevating him to cult status.
"Yes, well, I suppose one such as myself might be horrified to learn that after all my years at Varsity, my success has come from a completely different direction than one might expect, but I'm versatile; this is, after all, what I've alway's wanted.
Did you know, in Texas they have founded an actual church in my name? 'The Church of the Dopey Fish'! Splendid. It's just phenominal. Oh, but I'm not foolish enough to let it all go to my head, no-o!
I intend to continue utlising my fame to bring happiness and hope to others, especially those of us who are less fortunate than the majority."
"Hm? You want me to - No, no. No, I'm not going to - oh, for Pete's sake, all right then! Swim, swim, hungry! There, I said it. Are you happy? Blimey, people are so easy to please these days... simple-minded (mutter mutter mutter)..."
Meanwhile, with the June 1992 release of Keens V and VI, The Armageddon Machine and Aliens Ate My Babysitter respectively, young Billy Blaze, now 12 years old, was the number one poster child all across America and around the world.
Billy, and to a lesser degree, his nemesis Mortimer McMire, played by Terence Chalmers, were displayed on billboards, magazines and cereal boxes the world over.
It seemed that Commander Keen's success would never end. Billy Blaze and Robert Prince, composer of the Commander Keen soundtrack, produced a record of the songs from the Goodbye, Galaxy series.
Titled Eat Your Veggies, it gave Commander Keen fans a taste of their favourite computer game songs, but with lyrics.
Yet another series was planned for the next year: The Universe is Toast. However, due to development of other computer games such as Wolfenstein 3D and Duke Nukem II, this was put on hold.
Keen-mania began to fade like the dehydration of a dollop of Poison Slug slime.
"Oh yes, I remember telling young Billy when the Duke Nukem games were becoming just as successful as Keen, I said to him, I said, 'Billy darling, you just simply do not survive in the big, bad world of computer games if you don't reinvent yourself every one in a while.
Take me, for example. I started out fighting the sinister Doctor Proton, and after that it was aliens, and then mutants and different aliens, and so on. And I always got new weapons with every game. But as for you, Billy,' I said to him, 'silly Billy, you're always fighting to save the planet or the Galaxy or the Universe from Mortimer McMire. It's hardly entertaining after seven episodes, dear."
But Keen-mania did not fade quickly; Billy Blaze was still at the height of his fame as Commander Keen, and was still changing the world in big ways.
In 1991, after the fall of the Soviet Union, Billy met with the United Nations in a special conference on Russian-American relations and surprized everyone by pushing his own agenda, suggesting that pogo-stick racing be made an Olympic sport.
Sure enough, the men's 200 metres pogo-stick race was trialled as a one-off event at the 1992 Barcelona Olympics.
America's Robert Hammond came first in this event, followed by Igor Andreievich Oslov of Russia and Pierre Dubois of France.
Despite the smoothness and minimal accident content of the pogo-stick racing event, it has never been included as an Olympic sport since.
And Billy Blaze was about to learn that the metaphorical pogo stick race of the Commander Keen series had been axed as well.
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