Super Mario Bros.: Reader Feedback

Mt. Dew Guysaid on September 10, 2011:

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Not my first experience with the game, but I felt I should share this– one time playing as far as I’d likely get, I went through world 3-3 and wound up accidentally getting the pulley platform before the flag very high, just shy of breaking off, in fact. I somehow made the jump up to it and leapt off its edge, holding A down the whole way, and flew right over the flagpole, missing it entirely. The game responded by flipping to a non-world with colouring and structures resembling the battlements on top of the first tier of the castle at the end of 3-3. I cannot recall the number of it, as it may’ve been coded as a hidden part of world 3-3, but I do remember there was no end to it that I found, or even a way out, I simply ran forward (perhaps around the battlements?) until the timer depleted. I can’t remember if it put me back at the start of 3-3 or moved on to 3-4 after I lost a life, but the weird bit is no one I know has ever corroborated the existence of the glitch, whereas I’ve had it happen to me a few times.
Anyway, thank you for awesome article, it was quite an enjoyable and informative read.

Davesaid on September 11, 2011:
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There are videos of it online. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=72KJaySsy9g for example.
- Davesaid on September 11, 2011:
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  Meh, there are better videos than that one I could have linked to instead, but it gets the job done.

Klonoa15said on September 10, 2011:

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I have played Super Mario Bros. hundreds of times, but I have never successfully beaten it. Once, just once, I decided I would play EVERY. SINGLE. STAGE. Anyhow, I made it to the final stage (this was on Mario All-Stars) with the fire flower and RIGHT before the final Bowser, I misjudged a jump and landed right in the lava. I didn’t have the heart to start it again. Mario will always hold my respect as the game that humbles me every time.

This article was awesome, by the way!

LBD "Nytetrayn"said on September 10, 2011:

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My first experience with Super Mario Bros. was when visiting my cousin and other family for… I think it was Thanksgiving in 1988. My mother had been trying to get me into the NES, and my cousin happened to have one.

I was a little intimidated by SMB at first, and would often play Duck Hunt as a result, but the characters and world of Super Mario Bros. drew me in. I read and re-read the instruction booklet while I was there, taking in the art and story (what there was), and reading about the enemies I had faced, and those I had yet to face.

I had been resistant at first, as stuff like the Atari 2600 and its version of Pac-Man were neat, but didn’t really do anything for me. But after seeing and playing the NES and Super Mario Bros., and reading through that booklet, I was hooked.

Sadly, neither my cousin nor my mother are with us any longer, but I’ll always have fond memories and a strong connection between them and the NES/SMB, which really changed my life, including meeting my wife (another gamer) and giving me my current career path (video game journalist).

I also still have a copy of the SMB/Duck Hunt booklet which I keep in a drawer next to my bed, and occasionally pull out and read. Still fun, even after all these years.

LBD "Nytetrayn"said on September 10, 2011:

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Oh, and my mistake for not mentioning it above– great article! It was fun to see what stuff had been changed for our consumption.

JulioMsaid on September 10, 2011:

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I had the original NES Action Set back in the 80′s but a friend wanted a NES of it’s own, so my father took my NES and gave it to him, but promised me to buy me a new one and a new game with it, so I ended with 2 mario game manuals and 2 light guns, one gray and one orange… the bought me Mario Bros 3 so I couldn’t complain…

One of my earlier memories was playing the game with my cousins, I was the one who could get throught all of the levels but always got killed by Bowser on 8-4, so when we reached that level I handed the controller to one of my cousins who was the better suited for running below Bowser…

Loved the game…

Dansaid on September 11, 2011:

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I first recall playing it at my grandmother’s house. I remember seeing it next to the two sequels and trying to figure out whether I should play them in chronological order or just skip to the third one. (Assuming it might be better.)

I adore these games, though. They really changed everything.

http://chozoboy.deviantart.com/

Nesskidsaid on September 11, 2011:

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Oh man the version of the original Super Mario Bros that was on all stars really pissed me off. The jumping was slightly different and in world 1-1 there are pirana plants that in the original you could jump over when the plant was out, however you did touch the top of them you didn’t get hurt. In All Stars when you jump these you get hurt and angry!

Rosssaid on September 11, 2011:

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The GBA version is an emulated version, but the minus world was removed and less of the game is visible at once (shorter sky) because of the ratio differences.

CodyStation3said on September 11, 2011:

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Great article! One thing I wanted to suggest for the American manual adding that “maybe” in parentheses when talking about the story could be because Luigi is capable of saving Princess Toadstool/Peach instead of Mario. It’s of course up to speculation, though.

Alsaid on September 11, 2011:

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Pffft, I may not remember my first time playing, but I do remember the castle theme used to scare the fecal matter out of me when I was a youngster. Really funny, seeing I’m the kid who fell asleep watching The Exorcist.

Awesome article, by the way! Even when I thought I knew many things already, I didn’t know about the Tennis trick! Go figure!

ToadTsaid on September 11, 2011:

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Peach’s name was actually used earlier than SM64, but only by accident. Yoshi’s Safari (A SNES Mario FPS) refered to her as “Princess Peach” in the intro cinematic.

Just a question, why didn’t you translate the SMB JP commercial? It makes the article feel incomplete, especially after the wonderfull analyzation of the names and manual.

Matosaid on September 11, 2011:
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Oh cool, I didn’t know that about Peach’s name. I’ve never played Yoshi’s Safari, guess you learn something new every day.

And good call on the commercial – I added it in at the very last minute, didn’t even think that people would want to know what it actually said. I’ll put up a subbed version soon.
- Matosaid on September 11, 2011:
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  Okay, I uploaded a translated version of the commercial, you can see it here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T9iGuePCobo

John H.said on September 12, 2011:

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One interesting thing about the game is that most of the enemies are perfectly predictable and fairly simple to defeat, or at least avoid, if you know how. Like, if you’re standing on the ground at the bottom of the screen Bloopers can’t hurt you (you have to be ducking if you’re big), and you can sometimes manipulate which direction they swim in using the control pad.

Except for the Hammer Bros. though. They are tough to beat even after all this time. That single Hammer Brother on the ground in the last castle is probably responsible for more deaths than the Bowser that follows him.

Andreasaid on September 12, 2011:

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I loved the series to death, although I’ve owned both the standalone and the Duckhunt version. My first experience was with Tetris and the Duckhunt version – at my cousin’s house. I remember it was a feat to get up to level 3-1 and then I had to head home. I then begged my mother for one and I promptly got one with Tetris as the add in. I ended up having to ask my parents again for it for Xmas. It was pretty funny – my cousins had ended up beating the entire game by the time I got it. (Yes, they rescued the Princess…I never did – even to this day!)

Dan Howardsaid on September 12, 2011:

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Wow! 25 years already?! (I feel like Miyamoto in some strange way by saying that.)

Mario is as much a part of my childhood as colorforms and the Ghosbusters are. It was the 80′s, and to know the 80′s was the know the difficulty and frustration of Mario.

Like all kids, I remember literally crapping myself with excitement when the big, space-themed graphic background box with those huge letters “NINTENDO ENTERTAINMENT SYSTEM” arrived home one evening from the Toys-R-Us. I remember thinking to myself, “Man! This is what it must’ve been like when people got their first tee-vees when they were first invented!” I remember distinctly the sound of the styrofoam packaging being pulled from the cardboard box, the plastic wrapping being stripped away, and the mysterious looking gray box found it’s new home next to our set in the living room.

It was amazing. We were like those chimps in the beginning of 2001, holding our hands against it in hopes of becoming enlightened by the strange boxes splendor..

Well okay, maybe not that weird or creepy, but we were definitely blown away with how strange and cool this thing was!

From the moment that endless blue sky first appeared on the television, we were hooked and we haven’t looked back ever since. I don’t remember Mario as in “playing it”, but I remember it by “living it”. I can’t really put it into clear words but for me Mario isn’t so much like a memory of watching a movie and going, “Yeah that was pretty good”. It’s more like recollecting a kid I would hang out with in elementary school or remembering the first time I rode a bike. I guess it showcases the kind of nerd I am but it’s a badge I wear with pride.

It was so weird to see a little Italian guy saving a princess, but it made me feel, as a kid, that if some guy from Brooklyn can step out into the world and make amazing things happen, what’s stopping me? My family spent countless hours, frustrating and grueling hours, trying to best that evil Bowser in hopes of finally seeing what the Princess truly looked like. We sighed at the end of every castle, sad to see that our efforts had come up short, but some how we pressed on, hoping that the next stage would finally be the end.

It wasn’t until years later, probably not even that long ago, that I dusted off my copy of Super Mario Bros., and actually saw the ending with my own eyes. I can’t recall why we never got around to finishing the game when I was younger, probably because we got sucked into some other game or it was time to hang up our hats and move on to Mario 2. Regardless, when playing the game again at the age of 23, I was filled with all of those memories finally having some sort of conclusion as I watched Mario approach the Princess in his 8-bit glory.

Mario is and always will be a dear and close memory for me. Regardless of how simple Mario seems, there’s some thing deeper there. I’m getting rather long winded and losing track here but.. I can’t help it. Mario just whisks you away like that, for me at least.

Its sheer brilliance has stood the tests of time for 25 years now and it’s still moving forward. I can’t wait to see what Mario will be doing 50 years from now.

Marysaid on September 12, 2011:

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My first experience with Super Mario Bros. was apparently at a playdate with one of my younger brother’s friends. I would have been in kindergarten at the time, and since the boys spent all their time playing without giving me a turn, it didn’t make a huge impression on me. Nonetheless, my brother and I decided that we NEEDED this system. We begged our mother for one for Christmas. My mother, being of a typical parental mindset, felt strongly that the video games would rot our brains and cause us to beat up on each other with reckless abandon. (The latter proved to be somewhat true) She said no and it seemed like on this, she would be immovable.
But on Christmas morning, there it was! It was really the last time I was ever truly surprised by a Christmas gift. We got it all set up and had just started playing, when a disaster occurred. I knocked over my mother’s Diet Coke all over the NES! I was horrified. It didn’t work anymore, and now my family was furious with me.
But somehow during the night, my father got it going again by constantly making the tray go up and down. I’m not entirely sure how that fixed it, but it did. And that NES still works today, some 20 years later.

Nessgeeksaid on September 12, 2011:

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My first encounter with Super Mario Bros… I don’t remember too much about it but I do remember being grown up around the time my brother owned a NES (which was given to him by a friend) and a SNES. I think it was the first thing I played back in those days.

I do remember somewhere later on in life, his NES stopped working and my mom threw away ALL our NES games (just imagine the frustration in that). My brother did own a copy of Mario All Stars which included that but I missed the original (which i got to play on an emulator when I was introduced to those). When I was 16, I decided to buy another NES for old time’s sake. I bought it at a used game store and got like 6 games and bought two more off of amazon.

So I got reintroduced to the super mario bros on the original console which was pretty refreshing to play. Thats my story.

Strawberry Tofusaid on September 13, 2011:

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This is all great and in-depth and just the right kind of ramble-y, if that makes sense at all.

Being a whippersnapper, my first memory of SMB was either on the Game Boy Color or some clone of the game my mom had on her PC. Everything was more or less the same (down to the limited palette), aside from a lack of obvious pixellated edges (the Goombas were somewhat rounder IIRC), shrill MIDI music, and this glitch we learned to take advantage of where we could make Mario stick to a wall when he was about to fall down a pit (it looked like he was hanging by his nose, hehe). I didn’t end up playing it on the original console until I was about 11, when the Gamecube was out and we found an NES in someone’s garage when we helped them moved out. They let me keep it, and I got Mario 1/Duck Hunt and… Romance of the Three Kingdoms. Hm.

Regardless, I still have fond memories. The castles in that game were the scariest thing in a video game to me when I was 7.

Zacksaid on September 13, 2011:

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My neighbors had five boys who always got everything they wanted. In late ’85 or early ’86 they got the Nintendo Entertainment System that came with R.O.B., Gyromite and Duck Hunt. They also got tons of games along with it. I clearly remember being six years old, and school just getting out for the summer in 1986. I went over to their house after dinner and they were playing Super Mario Bros. All five boys were glued to the TV watching Michael, the oldest, trying to get through level 3-1. I had an old Atari 2600 which I found in the garbage with tons of games (worked great too!), so I had never seen graphics that were so bright and colorful, music and sounds that felt so “right” for a game, movement that was so smooth, and such a diverse bunch of settings, enemies, and powerups. Powerups? They were barely heard of before this, and this game made powerups something we take for granted now!
Anyway, a few weeks later, Michael finally beat the game. We watched him every day, cheering him on, so this was like watching a TV show and finally seeing the finale! Soon after, they went on vacation, and let me borrow their NES and Super Mario Bros.!
I played it all day and all night. Finally, after 5 or 6 days, my mom and sister were watching me play. I got to world 8 through the use of the secret warp zone in level 4-2. I was fiery Mario from the start. I was so nervous and careful, as I had watched this game beaten once before and knew how difficult world 8 was. Amazingly, I got through all of world 8, shot Bowser with 5 fireballs, and saved Princess Toadstool without having ever gotten hit!
I was six years old, and to this day, it was the greatest video game achievement of my lifetime.

Dariensaid on September 13, 2011:

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In 1985, when I was in grade school, my best friend Mike got a Nintendo. I used to go over to his house a few times a week; we’d vary among solving math problems (what can I say? We were nerds!), playing board games, and playing Super Mario Bros. I was always Luigi, which is probably what started my fondness for the other brother that lasts to this day.

I think the farthest we ever got in the game without warping was 2-3 (we were five!). But I remember discovering the 1-2 warp zone, and thinking it was the greatest thing ever; that was probably the last day we ever saw any levels between 1-2 and 4-1.

I mean, 1985; this was back before the internet, before Nintendo Power (just barely), and certainly before there were any TV shows about video games. It amazes me to think that we managed to discover how to play this game without access to any of those resources. Somehow, we found the 1-2 warp zone. We found the 4-2 warp zone. We had a vague idea that world 5 had a warp zone somewhere, but I don’t think we ever found it. We knew how to continue. We even knew about the minus world, though I don’t believe we ever got the glitch to work! Good times.

Even after all these years, Super Mario Bros. takes me right back to 1985, sitting on the floor in Mike’s rec room, confident that, this time, we’ll save the Princess once and for all.

Kaitengirisaid on September 14, 2011:

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When I was a youngin’, my family was deeply involved with technology and the computer age. My dad was a computer programmer way back in the day when you had to push in punch cards and pull leavers. Naturally, we had an NES lying around the house.

I don’t actually remember much of this, until around when the Super Nintendo entered our household, but apparently, when I was really young, I LOVED watching people play the NES. I loved watching Mario. Not playing, just watching. It was to a point where whenever I got the chance, I would knock on my elder sister’s doors, and when they opened up, I would take them by the hand and lead them to the NES, sit them down, and forced them to play it for my adolescent amusement. It got to the point where I would apparently disguise myself, like changing my voice and getting a stepladder to make it seem like the knock was coming from my dad, just so I could get them out there to play Mario for me in my place!

One day, my mom told me as she recollected this story, I finally plopped down in front of the T.V., and started playing it myself. According to her, my game was flawless. I knew where all the secrets were, knew how to beat the levels, I had absorbed all of the knowledge like a little sponge. She was watching me, and I would jump up, and out of thin air, a life-up mushroom would appear. I knew all the warp zones, and I knew where to jump. I can safely say that I was one of the few kids who never got killed by the first Goomba on world 1-1.

And from there, I simply tore that game apart. In fact, one day when I was 16, I suddenly realized “You know, I’ve never actually SEEN worlds 3 through worlds 7!” I had to sit down, and avoid all of the warp zones, just to get the full experience. I wound up doing the same thing to Mario 3 and Mario world, now that I think about it.

So I guess the moral is to learn to do things right through observation, but to be sure to take the long way around every once in awhile. Maybe.

Franpasaid on September 16, 2011:

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I remember when we first got the NES game I used to be terribly afraid of Game Overs and would run out of the room if my brother was playing and was gonna die, or I’d cover my eyes or close my eyes and cover my ears lol. Was a great game and later we discovered if you put the cartridge in at an angle you could have the game act erratically and/or generate new level layouts (Due to corrupt game data being loaded). Was amazing how much level layouts could change with that trick from levels which involved 3 paths separated by breakable bricks, levels where the right half of the display would be wrong etc.

Was good times all those years ago, can’t reproduce a crooked cartridge with an emulator though sadly :/ and not many NES games seemed to work well with the crooked cartridge trick, most would glitch out in game breaking ways like constantly resetting or freezing up.

Sperensaid on September 17, 2011:

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I don’t really remember the first time I played Mario 1. I remember Mario 3, though. I remember that our TV wasn’t very good, so the roaming Hammer Bros. always looked like camels. We never had Mario 1 on NES, so I wouldn’t have played it until All-Stars.

I actually still haven’t beaten it. I think I’ve gotten up to World 8 on the GBC version.

Also, I noticed that in the All-Stars version of SMB’s story, “horsehair plants” is changed to “mushrooms”:

The Mushroom Kingdom was a
peaceful place, until the fateful
day that Bowser used his twisted
magic to invade it. Bowser turned
most of the Mushroom Kingdom’s
people into rocks, bricks, and
mushrooms. He even kidnapped
Princess Toadstool and held her
captive in his huge castle.

When the Mario Brothers, Mario
and Luigi, heard this, they knew
that they needed to do something.
They decided to battle Bowser
and his evil minions to save the
Princess. Can they do it?

I think I remember reading that as a kid and wondering if that meant the Toads used to be humans.

Andrew Gardikissaid on September 17, 2011:

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I really enjoyed this read!!!

I was late to the party in some ways. The first time I played Super Mario Bros was in 1993 (However, I was only 3 years of age). It’s been my favorite game ever since. I finally managed to beat the game in about 1997 or so when I actually decided to sit down and conquer it. I was stuck at level 8-2 for a while, trying to clear the long gap mid-way through the stage. Haha, I even remember having my mother try and beat the level, she couldn’t. The day I finally beat the game was very memorable, I’ll never forget it. As a little kid, it was quite an achievement. Super Mario Bros was one of the 1st games I beat on my own.

There’s a lot more to my story. It didn’t end there, not at all. Upon beating Super Mario Bros, I decided I wanted to explore the entire game. All 32 levels had secrets and I found them all. After this, I tried to find out what rumors I heard were true and which ones were false. To my surprise, almost every rumor I heard was true! For example, someone had told me it was possible to be both small and have fire power. I didn’t believe it, but I tested out exactly what I had heard and everything was true!!! This trend continued with all these other secrets in Super Mario Bros. I was absolutely amazed that all these secrets were true. Everything from the -1 glitch to going through walls, tranforming enemies into other enemies, jumping over the flagpole, SO MANY TRICKS! as a 9-10yr old, I loved it. After being disappointed by all the Pokemon rumors that turned out to be false, it was quite a surprise that all the Mario rumors were true.

After I had explored the game thoroughly, I got very good at the game and a story follows: http://www.freewebs.com/lamavideogame/index.htm

I could write a book about Super Mario Bros.

Matosaid on September 17, 2011:
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Holy crap that’s an awesome story! I gotta see how fast I can beat it now. I won’t get anywhere near your time, that’s for sure

steinmitzsaid on September 18, 2011:

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I don’t exactly recall my first experience, but it must have been in 1988, when we got our NES. I DO, however, remember the creativity that this game and its sequels inspired in my brother and I. We used to act out stories in the living room as kids, and inevitably we began making up our own Mario stories, only a few of which were permanently etched in my mind. At the risk of seeming self-important, I thought I’d share brief synopses of some of the “episodes” we made up:

1. Bowser, having recently taken over Dinosaur Land in Super Mario World, decides to make a deal with Mario’s other arch enemy, Wart- Bowser gives Dinosaur Land’s huge supply of sweet foods (donuts, chocolate, cookies, soda etc.) to Wart (who was described in some materials as having a sweet tooth, perhaps explaining why vegetables kill him), in exchange for Wart’s henchmen. I remember toward the end we had Bowser done in by Wart’s henchmen, who had become disgruntled with the Koopa Kids (the only specific detail I remember was Mouser becoming envious of Roy’s “cooler” shades). Most of the other details are fuzzy, but anyway…

2. We had a Koopa Kids origin story, where we imagined things in a little more realistic way. Basically, Bowser sends his underlings into the real world to gather human dna, which would then be spliced with koopa dna to create the seven koopa kids (I guess to somehow explain to ourselves the Koopalings’ diversity). We also had an alternate version where Bowser put regular koopa eggs into an incubation chamber filled with some kind of nerve gas, so that when they hatched they’d be especially corrupt and insane. I know at one time we made up an origin for Morton’s birth mark, too, where his head was seared by a stray invincibility star.

I remember we were especially fascinated by characters that were only vaguely associated with the Mario series, like Dr. Wright from Sim City, who we incorporated into stories as the Mushroom Kingdom’s resident inventor, building devices like the Air and Sea Pop.

Anyway, this is probably boring to most people, so I’ll just add my recollections of my first encounter with Mario as a character- The only game system we had before the NES was a Colecovision, and Donkey Kong was one of our games. At that time we used to refer to the player character(Mario, of course) as “The peaknuckle man”(not sure if I spelled that right), because we thought the music when Mario wielded his hammer sounded like someone repeatedly saying, “Peaknuckle, peaknuckle…”

Anyway, thank you for the fantastic analysis, and for letting me share this stuff. One other thing, though… I don’t know if anyone’s noticed this, but “Jugem” is referenced in SMB3 as the cloud you use to skip a stage. So I guess you’re actually using Lakitu’s cloud. Anyway, thank you so much.

Matosaid on September 18, 2011:
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Haha, that’s not boring at all, that’s really creative! I never heard of anyone else doing that either, pretty cool

steinmitzsaid on September 18, 2011:

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Sorry to post again, but I just realized in rereading the article that you already pointed out the thing about Jugem. I’ll have to read more carefully next time. Sorry.

Joshsaid on September 22, 2011:

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My first experience with Super Mario Bros was a few years after playing and beating Super Mario Bros 3. The thing is, I wasn’t even born when the original game came out since my era of video games was around the 90′s/mid 2000′s. I remember downloading the Virtual Console version and expecting to be blown away like I was with the SMB3. To be honest, I wasn’t. I didn’t realize when I got it how vastly different it would be to it’s sequel and almost instantly dropped playing it. It wouldn’t be until I found the gameboy port later that I truly appreciated this game. I find that even though the jumping physics aren’t as tight as the sequels or that the graphics aren’t as good that it’s still a good game and very noteworthy for the legacy it inspired.

TV's Mr. Neilsaid on October 7, 2011:

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Some of the English enemy names sound kind of archaic today. Did anyone ever really refer to the fish as Cheep-Cheeps? Did Podoboo really need a name? And what the heck is up with Lakitu? It’s kind of like the Like-Likes in Zelda. I wish some of these names would be retconned, because I feel silly saying them.

Even the Koopa Troopas. I usually just call them Koopas, because I can’t bring myself to say the word “troopa” out loud.

I remember the English manual for Super Mario Land being a real curiosity, given how none of the enemies in that game had localized names. Chibibos and Nokobons looked familiar enough, but they had really strange name. Later on, it became apparent what a Chibibo was.

Etymology: Chibi + Kuribo = Chibibo

And Nokobon was obvious just a derivative of Noko-Noko with a variation of “bomb” used for a suffix.

Curiously enough, the SML manual name Pakkun Flower to the carnivorous plants, which means that they are actually Parana Plants. In fact, this was finally corrected when they put it on 3DS.

Matosaid on October 7, 2011:
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I definitely agree a lot of the English names are wacky. I do remember calling them Cheep-Cheeps a lot though, and it seemed like most kids I knew called them it too. I wonder if there were regional things with these terms, like how some areas use “pop” and some use “soda” and others use other terms. Maybe some regions used some of these Mario terms and others didn’t.

Psykechansaid on October 8, 2011:

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I actually played Vs. Super Mario Bros. in mid 1985 before the NES was released stateside. It was the first arcade game that I ever played… and was completely different than the console games of the time that I was used to.

When my cousin got a NES later that year we ended up staying inside playing Mario instead of outside playing in the snow. He would later get many different games but when I got a chance to play it would usually be back to Mario. That game just had so much replayabilty.

I eventually got to the point where I could complete the game without dying or warping at which my cousin suggested that I continue playing now that the fast beetles were added… so I did, and made it through a second playthrough without warping or dying. With the neighborhood kids cheering me on I would go through the game another six times (eight in total) making the best marathon gaming session of the summer, perhaps even my childhood. There’s nothing like the gasps of kids when you’re trying to go through 6-3.

I’ve done it all in this game. Warp zones, minus world, little fire Mario, beat the game with my feet, etc. It’s just such a fantastic game!

kenisu3000said on October 15, 2011:

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NOTE: Good grief, I’ve written another novel. Sorry about that. I tend to do this when I get nostalgic, and there’s bound to be a number of spots I could have easily left out. You may want to put a turkey in the oven or something. Let the magic begin…

Off the top of my head, I don’t remember how I first learned about the existence of Nintendo and Super Mario Bros. (come to think of it, it probably wasn’t until after I started Kindergarten in 1987 and started kind of-sort of associating with other kids my age that I began to form a vague awareness of it), but I do remember that one day, sometime around when the NES was first released in the US, I was minding my own three-year old business when my mom busted out her Atari 2600 console. This was my very first exposure to video games, and it had me fully entranced. She had Pac-Man (which I later found out was a poor port from the arcade game, but you just can’t take that nostalgia away from me), Combat (which was something like five or six games in one), and Breakout, which was my absolute favorite for its brilliant colors and pleasing-to-the-ears beeps and bloops. Hours later, my mom put the set back away, but that event had left an impression on me that would last a lifetime. Video games suddenly carried a certain strange “mystique” in my mind, and I would begin to look forward to my mother’s ritual Bringing Out of the Atari the way I looked forward to Christmas and birthdays.

It also sparked a fascination with electronics in me – not with taking them apart so that I learned how they worked and grew up to be an engineer, mind you, but with simply using them and the solid feel of my fingers pressing nice, cold buttons. I still recall my excitement at receiving my first digital watch (or “diginull” watch, as I called them at age seven).

Building on that “mystique,” when the Super Nintendo first came out, I had the opportunity to play Super Mario World at a demo kiosk at the mall, and I was so excited about it, the moment I got home I started drawing pictures of what I had played, in much the same manner as Early Man depicted great tribal battles past on cave walls. I wanted to savor the memory to tide me over until my next encounter with an SNES kiosk. But I’m getting way ahead of myself here.

Well, a few years after my first experience with the Atari, I remember trying to ride a bicycle without training wheels. A friend of mine from school was there, and he promised me a go on his Game & Watch if I could simply make it down the driveway. Apparently I was aware of Nintendo by then, because I recall a sense of pure thrill at his promise and a do-or-die need during that part of my life to get my hands on a Game & Watch. I didn’t even know what they looked like – I had myself convinced they *looked* like watches but the LCD display doubled as a miniature game screen. Anyway, even with this tantalizing incentive from my friend, I still couldn’t manage that bike. To this day, I have never even touched a Game & Watch (though I now know what they looked like).

Shortly after this, my parents started seeing a marriage counselor, and during their appointments (which were held at his home), his teenage daughter watched me in the sitting-room downstairs and played games with me, and this occasionally included the family Nintendo system. I’m pretty sure this was my very first hands-on exposure to the NES. I remember playing something called “Millipede.” Well, one time this girl had to be somewhere, so she turned on Super Mario Bros. 3 (come to think of it, this would have to have been very soon after Mario 3 had been released Stateside) and left me to it. I found myself sitting in that dark den by myself, for something like an hour, completely stuck on the World 1 (Grassland) map screen because I had no idea how to operate the controller. So I just stared at the dancing bushes and their beady eyes as they swayed back and forth to the music… and speaking of the music, I still don’t know how I came out of an hour of that repetitive composition with my sanity intact. So that was the very first Mario game I ever touched, and due to my incompetence, I got a whole lot of nothing out of the experience.

Within a year, however, I became the proud owner of my own NES (and finally learned how to work the controller!). I had been to the dentist earlier that day, so that night when my mom and dad went to the store, my mom apparently decided to buy me the console as a reward for my bravery. My dad was less keen on the idea, but consented.

Back in those days, my mom was on the Nintendo almost as much as I was, and some of my greatest memories from SMB come from her time on the console. I still remember jumping out of my skin when she made a meaningless hop after that first series of pipes in 1-1 and that invisible block came out of nowhere. What had come out of that block had looked like a Super Mushroom, but it was green and instead of making Mario big, it gave off this high-pitched chime. I had no idea what the hell had just happened, and couldn’t figure out why Mom wasn’t bouncing off the walls along with me (maybe she had discovered it earlier on her own?).

And then there was the day she picked me up after school and informed me she had gotten past that horrible castle and that scary “dragon” we both had been frustrated with, only to find out that there was more to the game. I didn’t believe her at first. After all, the map in the instruction booklet only showed four areas, so that had to be all there was to it, right? But then the booklet was pretty weird anyway. The enemies had odd names (What the heck was a “Lakitu” and a “Podoboo”? But I suppose they turned out be localization successes, as those names did stick with me for all these years. Just a few months ago, a friend challenged me to guess what that lava fireball’s name was, and I was able to spit out “Podoboo” without missing a beat), and I totally misunderstood that bit about “Use the old ‘Domino Effect’ (ask your parents)” to mean I needed to ask my parents’ *permission*. I’m not sure if I ever did, but if so, it must have confused the heck out of whichever one I asked.

Anyway, one day my mom was on the phone with a friend, when she put her hand on the receiver and leaned in toward me while I was in 1-1 or 1-2 SMB, and told me to hop over the wall at the end of 1-2. It turned out her friend’s son knew about the Warp Zone, and I was flabbergasted to find out about this secret, resulting in my abusing the Warp Zone like none other. Finding out game strategies through friends and word-of-mouth… man, those were the days. It really brought out that mystique these games held for me.

Oddly enough, I don’t specifically remember the night I beat the game, other than that it was, well, night, and that in the days leading up to that, I had been slogging through 8-1 through 8-3 with my heart positively racing. World 8-1 was so difficult I was hoping beyond hope that it would turn out to be unlike the other worlds and be just a one-stager. No such luck.

And just when I thought all was said and done about SMB, I discovered some bizarre trick on my own. Actually, it’s most likely a glitch. Either way, it occurred in the 1-4 castle: right after the platform with the first Firearm, I jumped, but barely missed the landing, touching the bricks just below the edge with Mario’s toes. I was doomed, but for some reason I pressed the A-button again, and Mario recovered! He kicked off from the wall and hopped up onto the landing! This has happened probably only twice in my life, but I swear to you it’s there.

The game aside, I have memories of the merchandise that are just as fond as those of the actual game. There was a text-only strategy guide by Jeff Rovin called “How to Win at Super Mario Bros. Games” (http://www.amazon.com/How-Super-Mario-Bros-Games/dp/0312926561), and a series of “Choose Your Own Adventure”-style Nintendo books. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nintendo_Gamebooks) I adored these bits of surprisingly engaging literature (sure, I was an easy-to-please kid, but I know the nostalgia goggles aren’t failing me here; plus, I seem to remember the guy who wrote the strategy guide had a hilarious sense of humor).

The whole thing left an incredible legacy on me. Back then, every time a TV show or news media or even radio referenced SMB or Nintendo in any way, I would nearly pee my pants with glee (since I was the only game-crazy kid I knew*, “Mario” was this special, secret thing that was all mine, though I desperately wanted to share it with others, and hearing those big, important grown-ups come out of their big, important grown-up discussions to talk about stuff straight out of *my* territory meant a ton to me). There was an episode of Tiny Toon Adventures containing a short parody ad for “Super Pluckio Bros.” for the “Non-mind-o System,” and I remember thinking that short was just about the best thing in animation history. I even nearly flipped my lid when the word “goombah” was used in an episode of ALF, mistaking it for a reference to SMB.

*I kid you not. Just about every other kid in my elementary school were either completely blind to Nintendo or closet fans who just didn’t want to admit it, and I got made fun of a LOT for my Mario fan-craziness.

I guess I’d better wrap this monstrosity up.

I know there are still a lot of horrible people going around saying that video games are the trash of society, the realm of guys who’ve never had a girlfriend, and are making kids stupid; but growing up with a Mario fanaticism actually *helped* me to learn. Nintendo, and the Nintendo Adventure Books series, taught me to read every bit as much as (and sometimes more than) school did, and if it weren’t for that, my spelling and grammar would probably be atrocious. Plus, the games sparked a certain area of creativity in me that just can’t be imitated. I owe Super Mario Bros. so much.

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