As we gathered in this morning’s review of The Super Mario Bros. Movie, the movie is heavy on references to the entire Mario universe, but, using the New York setting, it also retains references to other Nintendo games and franchises. A tribute to the franchise, the games and franchises that found success on the NES and arcades in the ’80s, we’ve compiled them here.
Of course, we encourage you to read on after you’ve seen the movie (and let us know if we missed anything!), as we’ll inevitably head into spoiler territory…
Did you hunt down all those NES games in The Super Mario Bros. Movie?
- Donkey Kong, 1981. The young Miyamoto’s first job entrusted with saving Nintendo in the West, the job that started it all, had to be in the film, except for Mario and Donkey Kong themselves who shared most of the footage of their rivalry. In the movie, you can even see an arcade machine called Jumpman (like Pac-Man or the Walkman, before being baptized as Mario in honor of Mario Sigal). A reference to the game that led to Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. And the Donkey series itself doesn’t stop throughout the film, including Pauline or Red Beam stage appearances and the music Smash Bros plays while Mario and DK fight.
- check in! !, 1983. The pizzeria featured in several scenes in Brooklyn in the film is named after an innovative boxing game first released on arcades. It marks the debut of a certain Koji Kondo as a composer…
- baseball, 1983. Okay, this one’s a bit of a shock, but you can’t tell us that the merchandise and fonts on Mario and Luigi items don’t mention the NES games that made the console popular with American kids and their parents. Designed by Shigeru Miyamoto himself and showcased in New York with professional players, Baseball is one of the best sports successes in Nintendo history.
- balloon fight, 1984. Designed by Yoshio Sakamoto, programmed by Satoru Iwata, originally as an arcade game and later expanded to the NES. One of the balloon fighters was clearly visible from the Brooklyn night.
- Wrecking Crew, 1985. During the boom of Super Mario Bros, Miyamoto lent his character to different titles and campaigns. Here, Yoshio Sakamoto has them work as bricklayers for the villainous foreman Spike, whose casting first leaked the film years ago. In it, he plays the plumber, Mario and Luigi’s former boss, and pays homage to the NES and arcade games.
- Kid Icarus, 1986. A year later, guess who, Sakamoto-san was working on Pit’s first venture while creating something even more ambitious called Metroid. In the movie, Mario himself plays the game on his NES when he feels like a failure.
If we count all the references to his own games in Mario’s 40+ year history, it gives us another almost infinite list, but what do you think of these homages to what Nintendo started in homes and stores during that decade?
Here is an ad: