Originally, the game was about a stunt man named Gecko X, who worked for a studio that was in financial trouble due to the main antagonist, Karl Chameleon. Each level would be themed around a Hollywood action movie genre, which would show stock footage of old Hollywood movies at the beginning and allow Gex to run around and do "stunts". The better the player did in the level, the more money the "Movie" made and therefore the better the studio did.

The idea was dropped because the developers found it hard to base a game around a real world theme while still making it believable and fun, compared to Mario and Sonic, which were based in fantasy settings and therefore nothing that appears in the game needed to be explained. The change in plot and setting to 'TV Land' allowed the developers to have this fantasy setting and some freedom to do whatever they wanted.