9 ms·

It’s a-me: How Super Mario became a global cultural icon

117 points by brandur 10y ago

kellet 10y ago
Yip, yap, ya-hoo!
loudmax 10y ago
I remember watching some silly Hong Kong movie on TV one night when I was living in a hostel in Taiwan in the late 1990's. The people staying at the hostel were all fairly young and included Americans, Brazilians, French, Germans, Japanese, South Asians and whatnot. Most of us were chatting in whichever languages we happened to have in common, or halfway paying attention to the TV. I forget what the movie was about, but at one point there was a dream sequence or something and suddenly the actors are wearing overalls and hats with big fake mustaches and they start running around big green pipes and jumping on turtle shells. And suddenly the whole room started laughing because everyone understood the reference. Mario was a cultural touchstone we all had in common.
ebbv 10y ago
I lived through Mario taking over the world and it's really no mystery; the main line Mario games have been universally really solid. The one black sheep, Super Mario Sunshine, is still a solid game it just was too big of a change from Mario 64 for people to handle at the time. Particularly Super Mario Bros 1, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 really pushed games forward. Each one of them really opened up new possibilities in games that the rest of the industry was influenced by. The amazing thing is that Nintendo did that with the Zelda series as well, but this thread is about Mario.
- cableshaft 10y ago
  Super Mario Sunshine holds up pretty well. I still really enjoy going back to it today. Even more than Mario 64 (although that's still a great game too). The controls were a lot tighter than Super Mario Galaxy, I feel, because it didn't use any motion controls.
  - pryelluw 10y ago
    Im playing through SMG1 for the 1st time and the controls are a bit weaker than M64. Not bad, but there is a noticeable difference. Its still a fun game, but I fInd myself playing SMW more often. That one has perfect controls. Even on the Wii version.
- godzillabrennus 10y ago
  Super Mario Sunshine caused me to buy a GameCube and to sell it within two weeks. That was a really bad game. Super Mario Galaxy redeemed them. Biggest issue of the Wii U has been no solid open world 3D Mario title.
- gohrt 10y ago
  Don't forget Mario Kart, another long series of genre-defining games featuring the same characters.
- rhizome 10y ago
  The original Mario Bros. is probably another black sheep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.
faragon 10y ago
Super Mario games are way better than what they look at first glance, in my opinion. E.g. even the 16-bit SNES Super Mario World, with its modest looking by its time, has a huge amount of work below everything: the games are so good because there is way more than the first impression. Perfect game play, lots of secrets, pretty amount of freedom, etc. make you enjoy and love them over time. Pure genius, pretending being just simple video games.
- ebbv 10y ago
  How old were you in 1990? Because I was 12 and remember SMW's arrival very clearly. I had played video games enthusiastically for years. Super Mario World was not at all modest looking for its time. It was absolutely mind blowing. It was gorgeous and everything was so smooth, and the number of different animations Mario had, plus being able to ride Yoshi, it was a total revelation.
  - cpach 10y ago
    For the record, it was only in Japan that SMW was released in 1990.
    - ebbv 10y ago
      Yep, but we started seeing images of it over here then. And I was lucky enough to have a friend who had a Super Famicom w/the Japanese edition. Even without being able to understand any of the tutorial blocks it was still amazing. (I know it sounds like I'm making that up but it's true. I knew at the time how lucky I was to be playing it early.) After playing his Super Famicom I was a little disappointed with the SNES hardware's purple buttons instead of the rainbow buttons on the Super Famicom.
      - cpach 10y ago
        Wonderful video game anecdote! I’m from Sweden so we had the rainbow buttons just like in Japan. The purple ones look super weird :D I hadn’t even started in 1st grade in 1990. I think SMW showed up on my radar in 1993 or so. Still love that game!
Waterluvian 10y ago
There's a Mario 602 star race all day today on Twitch. Unfortunately I can't find the link on my phone but it should be easily discoverable.
- JonnieCache 10y ago
  https://www.twitch.tv/602race https://www.twitch.tv/602race info: http://bombch.us/giU http://bombch.us/giU (yes, speedrunners have their own, zelda themed url shortener.)
- deleted 10y ago
  [deleted]
franze 10y ago
Sadly there was a real-actors saturday morning TV super mario show in the early 90ies which forever spoiled the character for me. (Even worse then the blockbuster movie). The games are the best there is, but he never became cool - in my humble opinion.
- lostgame 10y ago
  That was Sonic's job. But look what happened to him in the long term. Maybe better not to be cool?
- gohrt 10y ago
  That show was fun, and for any of its faults, the SMB movie erased them in a transdimensional crater of awful
- jerf 10y ago
  Thanks to Netflix, my 8-year-old and 5-year-old think it's a good show. It's cheesy, but it's hard for me to get too, err, emotional about it when I compare it to the other things I watched at the same age. (I never did see that when it was out.) My wife was on the verge of putting the parental veto on it, but the kids moved on to other things. I didn't mind it so much, but the Netflix version has the Legend of Zelda stuff yanked out (presumably licensing issues), which probably helps out overall, as I gather that part of the show was legendarily (pun intended) annoying.
Keyframe 10y ago
If you can, try to get ahold of 'Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World' book by David Sheff. I got it eons ago as a freebie along with 'Arcade' magazine and proceeded to read it as I had nothing better to do at the time. It has to be one of the best game-oriented (industry) book I've read.
mysterydip 10y ago
Super Mario Bros supercharged my interest in appdev and eventually indie game making. My first computer was an IBM PCjr with various games on floppy, a cartridge BASIC, and a spiral-bound programming manual. Not sure how old I was, old enough to read, but as I was flipping through the manual one day, I noticed one of my brothers had scribbled words next to the colors in the section on drawing to the screen: brown had "block", cyan had "sky", etc. It was a mapping of Super Mario Bros tiles to BASIC colors. It was at that point that I realized I didn't just have to play games made by others. I could make my own! A couple decades later and I'm still making them. I like to think my skills have improved some since those days :)
chiph 10y ago
The nieces still play Super Mario Kart with their friends. It would be cool if Nintendo could release a smartphone version of this, with multi-player over Bluetooth.
akssri 10y ago
NES clones are still going strong in India :) Summers spent playing pirated games on 8-bit cartridges - what joy! SNES sadly was a rarity, even if it was much better (I'd personally rate SNES higher than Wii). Frankly, if there were nice touch interfaces for SNES emulators, I'd gladly pay $10. Carrying a bluetooth gamepad is definitely an alternative.

117 points by brandur 10y ago

Yip, yap, ya-hoo!

I remember watching some silly Hong Kong movie on TV one night when I was living in a hostel in Taiwan in the late 1990's. The people staying at the hostel were all fairly young and included Americans, Brazilians, French, Germans, Japanese, South Asians and whatnot. Most of us were chatting in whichever languages we happened to have in common, or halfway paying attention to the TV. I forget what the movie was about, but at one point there was a dream sequence or something and suddenly the actors are wearing overalls and hats with big fake mustaches and they start running around big green pipes and jumping on turtle shells. And suddenly the whole room started laughing because everyone understood the reference. Mario was a cultural touchstone we all had in common.

ebbv 10y ago

I lived through Mario taking over the world and it's really no mystery; the main line Mario games have been universally really solid. The one black sheep, Super Mario Sunshine, is still a solid game it just was too big of a change from Mario 64 for people to handle at the time. Particularly Super Mario Bros 1, Super Mario Bros 3, Super Mario World and Super Mario 64 really pushed games forward. Each one of them really opened up new possibilities in games that the rest of the industry was influenced by. The amazing thing is that Nintendo did that with the Zelda series as well, but this thread is about Mario.

cableshaft 10y ago
Super Mario Sunshine holds up pretty well. I still really enjoy going back to it today. Even more than Mario 64 (although that's still a great game too). The controls were a lot tighter than Super Mario Galaxy, I feel, because it didn't use any motion controls.
- pryelluw 10y ago
  Im playing through SMG1 for the 1st time and the controls are a bit weaker than M64. Not bad, but there is a noticeable difference. Its still a fun game, but I fInd myself playing SMW more often. That one has perfect controls. Even on the Wii version.
godzillabrennus 10y ago
Super Mario Sunshine caused me to buy a GameCube and to sell it within two weeks. That was a really bad game. Super Mario Galaxy redeemed them. Biggest issue of the Wii U has been no solid open world 3D Mario title.
gohrt 10y ago
Don't forget Mario Kart, another long series of genre-defining games featuring the same characters.
rhizome 10y ago
The original Mario Bros. is probably another black sheep. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mario_Bros.

faragon 10y ago

Super Mario games are way better than what they look at first glance, in my opinion. E.g. even the 16-bit SNES Super Mario World, with its modest looking by its time, has a huge amount of work below everything: the games are so good because there is way more than the first impression. Perfect game play, lots of secrets, pretty amount of freedom, etc. make you enjoy and love them over time. Pure genius, pretending being just simple video games.

ebbv 10y ago
How old were you in 1990? Because I was 12 and remember SMW's arrival very clearly. I had played video games enthusiastically for years. Super Mario World was not at all modest looking for its time. It was absolutely mind blowing. It was gorgeous and everything was so smooth, and the number of different animations Mario had, plus being able to ride Yoshi, it was a total revelation.
- cpach 10y ago
  For the record, it was only in Japan that SMW was released in 1990.
  - ebbv 10y ago
    Yep, but we started seeing images of it over here then. And I was lucky enough to have a friend who had a Super Famicom w/the Japanese edition. Even without being able to understand any of the tutorial blocks it was still amazing. (I know it sounds like I'm making that up but it's true. I knew at the time how lucky I was to be playing it early.) After playing his Super Famicom I was a little disappointed with the SNES hardware's purple buttons instead of the rainbow buttons on the Super Famicom.
    - cpach 10y ago
      Wonderful video game anecdote! I’m from Sweden so we had the rainbow buttons just like in Japan. The purple ones look super weird :D I hadn’t even started in 1st grade in 1990. I think SMW showed up on my radar in 1993 or so. Still love that game!

Waterluvian 10y ago

There's a Mario 602 star race all day today on Twitch. Unfortunately I can't find the link on my phone but it should be easily discoverable.

JonnieCache 10y ago
https://www.twitch.tv/602race https://www.twitch.tv/602race info: http://bombch.us/giU http://bombch.us/giU (yes, speedrunners have their own, zelda themed url shortener.)
deleted 10y ago
[deleted]

franze 10y ago

Sadly there was a real-actors saturday morning TV super mario show in the early 90ies which forever spoiled the character for me. (Even worse then the blockbuster movie). The games are the best there is, but he never became cool - in my humble opinion.

lostgame 10y ago
That was Sonic's job. But look what happened to him in the long term. Maybe better not to be cool?
gohrt 10y ago
That show was fun, and for any of its faults, the SMB movie erased them in a transdimensional crater of awful
jerf 10y ago
Thanks to Netflix, my 8-year-old and 5-year-old think it's a good show. It's cheesy, but it's hard for me to get too, err, emotional about it when I compare it to the other things I watched at the same age. (I never did see that when it was out.) My wife was on the verge of putting the parental veto on it, but the kids moved on to other things. I didn't mind it so much, but the Netflix version has the Legend of Zelda stuff yanked out (presumably licensing issues), which probably helps out overall, as I gather that part of the show was legendarily (pun intended) annoying.

Keyframe 10y ago

If you can, try to get ahold of 'Game Over: How Nintendo Conquered The World' book by David Sheff. I got it eons ago as a freebie along with 'Arcade' magazine and proceeded to read it as I had nothing better to do at the time. It has to be one of the best game-oriented (industry) book I've read.

mysterydip 10y ago

Super Mario Bros supercharged my interest in appdev and eventually indie game making. My first computer was an IBM PCjr with various games on floppy, a cartridge BASIC, and a spiral-bound programming manual. Not sure how old I was, old enough to read, but as I was flipping through the manual one day, I noticed one of my brothers had scribbled words next to the colors in the section on drawing to the screen: brown had "block", cyan had "sky", etc. It was a mapping of Super Mario Bros tiles to BASIC colors. It was at that point that I realized I didn't just have to play games made by others. I could make my own! A couple decades later and I'm still making them. I like to think my skills have improved some since those days :)

chiph 10y ago

The nieces still play Super Mario Kart with their friends. It would be cool if Nintendo could release a smartphone version of this, with multi-player over Bluetooth.

akssri 10y ago

NES clones are still going strong in India :) Summers spent playing pirated games on 8-bit cartridges - what joy! SNES sadly was a rarity, even if it was much better (I'd personally rate SNES higher than Wii). Frankly, if there were nice touch interfaces for SNES emulators, I'd gladly pay $10. Carrying a bluetooth gamepad is definitely an alternative.