*EDIT: Yes it’s February 2011 and yes Mario was 25 back in 2010. This article was written and shelved to coincide with the Wii release of Mario All Stars but I guess it got neglected and lost in the rabble (kind of like the release of Mario All Stars). Besides, you can be never too late to watch 25 YouTube clips in a row!*
Throughout the year, Nintendo has been celebrating a whopping 25 years of everyone’s favourite tubby Italian plumber, capping off the celebrations with a Wii release of Super Mario All Stars: 25th Anniversary Edition. And what better way for us to celebrate Mario than to cast an eye on the YouTubes and take a look at how he has influenced us so over the years. In compiling this list of some of my favourite clips, I stuck to a strict rule of having only user-generated content (ie. only stuff that fans have created, not Nintendo themselves). To my dismay, this meant not being able to include any of Captain Lou Albano’s schtick from The Super Mario Bros. Super Show T_T
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Super Mario Bros. Theme Song by Zack Kim… On Two Guitars
You know those guitars that are, like, double-guitars? Well, this guys doesn’t need one of them. There’s plenty of musical interpretations of the famous 8 bit theme, but this is by far the most widely known and respected. 33 million views! Mama mia!
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Martin Leung (The Blindfolded Pianist) plays a Mario Medley
A masterful medley of Mario hits from Super Mario Bros. 1 and 3 and Super Mario World. Oh, and he does some of it blindfolded. Oh, and he also plays the atheltic theme from Super Mario World stupefyingly fast. Martin Leung is so good and gained such recognition from this video that he now tours with Video Games Live.
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Vadrum’s Super Mario Bros 2 Drum Medley
An insane drum medley featuring some of Koji Kondo’s finest work. Say what you will about Mario 2 but you have to admit that it’s soundtrack is undeniably catchy.
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Rainbow Road
“Mark Kump’s tear-jerking tribute to his beloved uncle Walter”… or so the video description says. This Tim and Eric-esque video is one of my own personal favourites on this list purely because of how weird it is. Send it to your friends! – It’s like a weirder replacement for Rick Rolling. You just got Rainbow Rolled!
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Dr. Mario Animated Theme Song – With Lyrics!
For a brief moment, Mario hung up his duds and cap, donned a stethoscope and cured everything – just as long as it’s a fever or the chills. This hilarious animation adds lyrics to another cracker in the Mario music library. I think we could have all done without seeing Warios arse though.
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It was all a dream/I used to read Nintendo Power Magazine
Who’d have thought that Biggie’s Hyponotize would mash up so well with that song from the World 1 map in Super Mario Bros 3, eh? Ah Biggie – If only you had wore a Bullet Bill-proof vest
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Queen’s Don’t Stop Me Now – Played entirely with Super Mario World SFX
Continuing the musical themes of this list – with a twist. You know those videos you see where you think “wow, that guy has a lot of time on his hands”. Ladies and gentlemen, I present to you one of the most impressive Super Mario World mods ever – A level that plays itself and through its sound effects, also plays Don’t Stop Me Now by Queen… all four band members parts. Equal parts impressive and insane.
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Super Mario World Mod is PURE EVIL
So yeah, speaking of insane, this Super Mario World mod is quite possibly the most batshit crazy level of any Mario game created. I’m almost positive that this isn’t being played by a real life human being. At least, I hope not!
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A Super Mario World mod that makes us all go ‘awwwww’
We go from insane mods to just plain lovely mods next wherein this geeky man proposes to his geeky girlfriend with the help of Super Mario himself. Nothing says romance more than spelling out Will You Marry Me in gold coins. Awwww.
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“This game is, uh, Japanese favourite games. Oh yeah”
Almost nine minutes of a drunk Japanese man speaking English whilst playing Super Mario Land is as good as it sounds. Listen closely as he regales us with tales of bad monsters biting his mothers pizza, “mirage stages” and good weapons. “Not fuck you. I’m fuck you”. I’ve lost count of the amount of times I’ve watched this.
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A Game Within a Game
Super Mario 64 was released on the good ol’ N64 way back in 1996. 14 years later, two Japanese guys invent a game within the game. The rule is this: activate a 1up mushroom and then try to collect all the red coins in the level before the mushroom catches up with you. Sounds easy but it ain’t. What makes this video particularly special is just how into it the two guys are. In fairness, if a green mushroom with an emotionless face was chasing after me, I’d scream too.
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Speed Running Mario 1 Deathmatch!
Speed runs for Mario aren’t anything new. In fact, it’s possible to complete the entire game (using warps, of course) in less than 6 minutes. The notion of a head-to-head speed run sounds fantastic but doing this in front of a crowd of geeks on a giant screen takes it to a whole new level.
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Super Mario 64 Completed in 6 Minutes
This one has to be seen to be believed. Utilising every glitch and trick in the game, this guy breezes through to the end of Mario 64 without a single star and without breaking a sweat. Poor Bowser never stood a chance.
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Mega64 Doing What They Do Best
Mega64 are renowned for their video game skits: Think of it as Trigger Happy TV except the unwilling participants have less of a clue about whats happening to them. The New Super Mario Bros one has an epic cameo at the end. Do check out their Beatles Rockband skit afterward.
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Bowsers Minions See How Illogical It All Is
College Humor have done some pretty great video game skits over the past few years. This one from a few years back perfectly sums up just how illogical the rules of the mushroom kingdom are. If Mario is so dangerous, why would Bowser impose so many rules on his minions?!
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Remi Galliard continues to piss off the French public
French trickster Remi Galliard dons the blue and red overalls, hops in a go-kart and speeds about at break-neck spped all in the effort of delighting/annoying as many people as possible.
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Welcome to Mario World – Where the ground is always made of bricks
I’ve been a huge fan of Awesome Video Games for a number of years now and their 90′s hyperactive kids tv inspired reviews all began here with their review of Super Mario Bros. Who’d have thought World 1-1 was THIS difficult?! “Not really for the faint of heart”.
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AVGN reviews The Wizard, Teams up with Christ to fight Satan
Oh and there’s a Mario Bros 3 review in there too! Yep, it’s the Angry Video Game Nerds review of the fantastically cheesey feature-length Nintendo advert, The Wizard starring Fred Savage and a young Jenny Lewis. But we all know that the real star of the movie was the world premiere footage from Super Mario Bros 3. The Nerd’s observations on the film and on Mario 3 itself are really great, mostly due to how he has to take an objective view of the game and nitpick what is considered one of the greatest in the history of gaming.
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Climbing up yo beanstalk, snatchin yo mushrooms up
Undeniably the best meme of 2010 gets the Mario Paint music composer treatment. Run and tell that, homeboy.
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Pixel Art IRL
Artist Vaughn Knights takes, by my estimation, 1 million Rubiks Cubes to create the image of the tubby plumber. Bear in mind that each of these Rubiks Cubes has to be solved in a specific pattern for each matrix of 3×3.
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Sackboy in the Mushroom Kingdom
Mario makes his Sony Playstation debut as World 1-1 of Mario Bros 3 remade entirely within Little Big Planet. Now do the rest of the game! (Sorely missing was a warp whistle of any kind).
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Super Black Mesa Bros
Following on from the previous game remake, we have another here wherein Half Life 2 takes the guise of Super Mario Bros for NES. This whole game within a game is getting a bit too Inceptiony. I guess this interpretation of the Mushroom Kingdom makes about as much sense as Xen from HL1.
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Super Mario Galaxy DS
In what is possibly one of the most elaborate video game hoaxes I’ve seen, behold a faked promo for a DS version of Mario Galaxy. I truly did believe this was something that existed when it hit net back in 2007. Here’s hoping the guy who put this together got the recognition he deserves. Reggie, if you’re doing a 3DS port, hire this guy.
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What is this I don’t
Aaaaand finally, I’m gonna wrap this up with some Mugen insanity: Mario and Luigi fight Ronald McDonald, outside a Burger King to the theme of ‘Scatman’ by Scatman John. Thank you and goodnight. Hambuhgah.
