Table Of ContentT M
he history of ario
1981-1991: The rise of an icon, from myths to reality
William Audureau
(with participation of Brian Ashcraft)
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e d i t i o n s
William Audureau
William Audureau is a journalist at oinet. He began working in 2002
for Nintendo Le Magazine Officiel, the French official Nintendo
MAGAZINE, AND CONTINUED WITH JeUX ViDEO MAGAZINE BETWEEN 2006 AND
2009. He later worked for SVMahd 01NET before writing for Score,
Chronicart Gamekult and Les Cahiers du Jeu Vid£o. On a side note, he is
ALSO THE FOUNDER AND LIFE PRESIDENT OF THE KlRBY KAWAl KlAN, A SECRET
sect of Kirby worshippers.
From the same author:
Les Cahiers du Jeu Video: Football Stories (Editorial Coordinator),
Chatillon, Editions Pix’n Love, 2009.
1001 Video Games You Must Play Before You Die (French translation),
Paris, Editions Flammarion, September 2011
Ralph Baer - MEmoires du pEre des jeux video (French translation),
Cergy, Editions Pix’n Love, 2012
Pong et la mondialisation - L’Histoire Economique des consoles de 1976A
1980, Cergy, Editions Pix’n Love, 2014
Sur les traces de Miyamoto : 1952-1986, de Sonobe A Hyrule, Cergy,
Editions Pix’n Love, 2014
Special thanks:
Steven Applebaum, Parker Bennett, Sebastien Bigay, Alexis Blanchet,
Christelle Carteron, Cyrille Deloro, Vincent Dufresne, Philippe
Fontaine, Pierre Fontaine, Pierre Gaultier, Florent Gorges, Jacques
Harbonn, Ryan Hoss, Bill Kunkel, Bill Kurtz, Charles Pivert,
Delphine Sabattier, Olivier Seguret, Kensuke Tanabe, Pierre Tel,
Julien Van de Steene, Xavier Yseux.
All rights resserved. Any reproduction in whole or in part on any medium or use of the information
contained herein is prohibited without the prior written consent of the rights holder. Any such
representation or reproduction by any means whatsoever would constitute counterfeiting prohibited
and penalised by Articles L. 335-2 and subsequent of the French intellectual property code. The
Editions Pix’n Love logo is a trademark of Editions Pix’n Love, registered in France and in other countries.
Editionspixnlove. com is a trademarl of Editions Pix’n Love, registered in France and in other countries, e
views and opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. The Editions Pix’n Love have m t e
necessary research to check all the information contained in this book.
Cover : Mario © Nintendo, Pac-Man © Namco, Mickey Mouse © Disney, Popeye
XI - The lost Suner Mario Bros. Protect 274
XII - Mario Madness, the Turning Point in the Series 288
Kill - The Monochrome Adventure 306
XIU - From Disneyland to Mario World 320
XV -1989 -1991: A Cultural Icon at the Ton 340
Epilogue - Hollywood and the Dinohattan Hell 360
I
Conclusion 394
Bibliography 402
Warp Zone-The Making Of 418
Foreword by Brian Ashcraft 008
Prologue - The Decline of the American Empire 014
I- The Popeye Project 034
II- The Birth of little Mario 060
III - Nintendo's First Golden Age 084
IV-Kong versus Kong 112
V - Mario, Luigi and Stanley: The New Guard 140
VI - Nintendo and the Crisis of 1982-1984 164
VII - The Birth of the Mario Aduenture Project 186
216
VIII - Super Mario in Wonderland
236
IX - lenigme du Minus World
252
X - You Will Be a Mascot, My Son
I am not alone. Some of my most vivid childhood memories were of
Mario. The first of which was Christmas in 1985, and Santa (well, my
parents) gave me a Nintendo Entertainment System. It came with the
greatest bundled tided ever: Super Mario Bros.
This wasn’t my first Mario encounter. I had played a bit of its
precursor, Mario Bros., in my local mall arcade and recognized Marios
earlier incarnation, Jumpman, from Donkey Kong. But this wasn’t Mario
Bros., and it certainly wasn’t Donkey Kong. It was a revelation. The way
Super Mario Bros, unfolded: one Goomba, then three, and followed
up by a Koopa Troopa. The logical way enemies and power-ups were
introduced were clear, easy to follow, and brilliant. It didn’t hurt that
the now iconic graphics looked fantastic even then and that the music
that stayed in your head forever.
Playing Super Mario Bros, was entering another world. There were
pipes you could skinny down, and secret warp zones to transport you
around the game. Just when I thought I had beaten it, I was thanked,
but told that, “Ourprincess is in another castle. ”1 had never experienced
anything like it. Nobody had.
I vaguely remember the hype for Super Mario Bros. 2—and by that,
I mean how hyped my grade school self was for the game. I do recall
how I was blown away by how you didn’t only yank vegetables out of
the ground, but you also chucked them at enemies. The mania around
Super Mario Bros. 3, however, was much more, reaching a fever pitch.
On Saturday mornings, I was glassy-eyed in front of the television,
watching the Mario cartoons, while a friend and I snuck in bags of
M&Ms into our local movie theater for 1989 flick The Wizard, marveling
at the first game footage of Super Mario Bros. 3. The following year, that
same friend and I even entered the Nintendo World Championships
when it rolled into my hometown of Dallas, Texas, hoping to dazzle
9
Foreword
was something we shared. He was one thing that made this big, huge
world seem smaller. This isn’t unique to my experience. Chances are no
matter where you live in this spinning blue globe, if you are under the
age of forty, you grew up on Mario. And thank goodness for that, right?
Like our generations Mickey Mouse, Mario has become the ultimate
cultural ambassador and the modern-day lingua franca, giving people
the world over shared experiences. Mario is truly universal.
I’m still in Japan and now in my mid-thirties with three kids of
my own. They play Mario games, wear Mario branded clothes, chew
Mario gum, and even use Mario shampoo. They cannot conceive of a
time before Mario. Neither will future generations.
For my parents, what separated them from their parents was
rock ‘n roll. Their moms and dads listened to Glenn Miller, and they
grew up on Elvis and Little Richard. More than anything, for me, video
games were the huge cultural divide between my parents and myself. At
the center of that divide was Mario. That isn’t to say older generations
didn’t fall in love with Mario and his games. They most certainly did.
The key difference is that as I grew and changed, so did Mario. His
history became intertwined with mine.
Writing a history of such an iconic character is a tremendous task-
-and one that William Audureau has so admirably done—covering
Mario before he was a glint in Miyamoto’s eye, right up to when the
character made its indelible mark on culture. So now, let’s look back on
Mario’s life, because we know he’s touched all of ours.
Brian Ashcraft
Senior Contributing Editor, Kotaku.com
May 2014 Osaka, Japan
11
The History of Mario
with our own amazing play. All I remember was a cluster of monitors,
pressure to grab as many coins in Super Mario Bros., and that I didn’t
make it pass the first round. Neither did my pal.
That February, when Super Mario Bros. 3 was released in the U.S.,
I borrowed the game from a neighbor kid, stayed up late, and even
left the game on pause while at school. It was Mario, sure, but once
again, there were new twists. You could dress up as a raccoon and
fly. It was everything promised and more. Mario didn’t let us down,
cementing the notion in my young brain that Mario was a truly a
mark of quality. I remember the somewhat sad feeling I had when I
returned it, wondering if there was some way I could get my parents
to buy the game before my birthday or Christmas—both of which were
months away.
As childhood marched on, there were more characters and consoles
that diverted my attention. The games were often hit and miss. I always
found myself coming back to Mario. There he was, consistent and
constant throughout my adolescent, dependable and always ready to
entertain and challenge, even as he branched out to various spin-off
tides and went 3D and even as I became a young adult.
In my early twenties, I found myself living in Osaka, Japan, a short
train ride away from Kyoto, home place of Nintendo, and half a world
away from my Texas birthplace. I made the inevitable pilgrimage to
Nintendo’s headquarters to stand outside the corporate gates. If there
was one way I could thank Mario for all the terrific games, I guess it was
starring slack-jack at the glistening white structure, wondering what
they were making inside.
Japan seemed different. There was the language, the food, and the
intricacies of the culture. People I met and befriended might have
grown up on different television shows and pop music, but Mario
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