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Draft:Cultural impact of the Mario franchise

  • Comment: Before this draft can be submitted, all sections must have at least one paragraph and at least one or two citations. SleepDeprivedGinger (talk) 10:35, 5 July 2024 (UTC)
"Avendia Super Mario Bros"[a], a street in Zaragoza, Spain named after the Super Mario Bros. video game.[1]

Since its inception with the Donkey Kong arcade game in 1981, Nintendo's Mario franchise has had a significant impact on popular culture. Spanning several video games, television series and theatrical films as well as many spin-offs and lines of merchandise, the Mario universe, its content and its characters, including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach and Bowser have all been engrained into popular culture in many different ways; the quote "Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!", spoken by Toad in Super Mario Bros., has become a popular and iconic phrase, being referenced several times in both subsequent Mario media.[2] The main theme from Super Mario Bros. titled the "Ground Theme"[3] is also incredibly popular, becoming one the most recognisable video game songs of all time, becoming the first song from a video game to be selected for preservation in the National Recording Registry by the U.S. Library of Congress.[4] The 2023 film adaptation, The Super Mario Bros. Movie, aside from breaking several box-office records, would become popular on social media via the song "Peaches" performed by Jack Black.[5]

Arts

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Impact on video games

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Donkey Kong, the first video game to feature Mario, is considered one of the first platformers to have an on-going story, and would help cement Nintendo as a household name in the video game industry.[6] Super Mario Bros., which featured horizontal scrolling and smoother methods of controlling Mario, would later become an archetype for the genre.

Fandom

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Fan restorations

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In 2021, the fan organization known as Super Mario Bros.: The Movie Archive restored an unreleased extended cut of the 1993 box office bomb Super Mario Bros.[7] Dubbed the "Morton Jankel Cut", it extends the film's runtime from 104 minutes to 125 minutes.[8]

Web series

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Main article: List of unofficial Mario media § Videos and series

Numerous web series featuring Mario characters and other elements have been created and hosted on websites such as Newgrounds and YouTube. One notable example is Super Mario Bros. Z, a sprite animated web series created by Mark Haynes and originally hosted on Newgrounds. The series was formerly animated using Adobe Flash and combined elements from the Mario franchise with that of Sonic the Hedgehog and Dragon Ball Z. Another example is SMG4, a machinima parody series created in 2011 by Luke Lerdwichagul and hosted on YouTube. The series features Mario characters alongside several original characters partaking in parodic and comedic scenarios.

Fan games

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Main article: List of unofficial Mario media § Video games

Several non-profit fan games have been produced by fans of the Mario series, with notable examples including browser games such as Super Mario Bros. Crossover and Super Mario War, as well as ROM hacks such as Kaizo Mario World.

Cosplay

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Nintendo cosplayers at the 2018 New York Comic Con, most of whom cosplaying Mario characters.

Video games

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While Mario is mainly a video game franchise, many achievements that took place in such games have been made by fans. For instance, in 2008, an annual charity fundraiser known as the Mario Marathon, in which members play through numerous Super Mario games, was created to raise money for Child's Play Charity.[9]

In 2016, a community project known as Team 0% was created to complete every user-created level[b] in the 2015 Wii U game Super Mario Maker and its 2019 Nintendo Switch sequel Super Mario Maker 2.[10] The project reached its first goal when every course in Super Mario Maker was completed on April 5, 2024, two days before the game's servers were permanantly closed alongside Nintendo Network.[11]

Other

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Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe donning Mario's cap at the 2016 Summer Olympics closing ceremony.[12]

Mario Day[c] is a national holiday celebrated annually on March 10.[13][14] Its name was originally coined by fans in 2014[15] in which fans would celebrate the day on social media using the hashtag "#Mar10".[16] Nintendo would respond to this the year after when they began to embrace the event by celebrating it themselves,[17] with the first official mentions of Mario Day being in a tweet from the X (formerly Twitter) accounts of both Nintendo of America and Nintendo UK.[18][19] as well as in a YouTube video titled "Celebrate Mar. 10 - Mario Day!" uploaded onto the official Nintendo of America YouTube channel on March 10, 2016.[17] Nintendo would continue to host events on each Mario Day, such as partnering with the Starlight Children's Foundation to provide new gowns for children to wear, resulting in over 2,000 donations.[20]

An AI phenomenon known as the "Waluigi effect", which is when a large language model such as a chatbot produces an often-hostile output opposite of its designed intent, was named after the Mario series character Waluigi.[21]

In 2024, 46-year-old Lincolnshire man Simon Killen competed in that year's London Marathon cosplaying as Mario and set a world record for being the fast runner dressed as a video game character.[22]

Notes

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  1. ^ English: "Super Mario Bros Avenue"
  2. ^ Referred to in-game as "courses".
  3. ^ Also known as Mar10 Day or National Mario Day.[13]

References

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  1. ^ "Spanish neighborhood unveils 'Super Mario' street". CNN. 8 November 2010. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  2. ^ Sullivan, Meghan. "Top 100 Unforgettable Video Game Moments: "The princess is in another castle."". IGN. Archived from the original on October 13, 2022. Retrieved February 10, 2024.
  3. ^ Masahiro Sakurai (January 23, 2008). "Super Mario Bros.: Ground Theme". Smash Bros. Dojo!!. Nintendo, HAL Laboratory, Inc. Retrieved September 12, 2010.
  4. ^ Cay O'Dell (2 August 2023). "From the National Recording Registry: "Super Mario" (1985)". Library of Congress. Retrieved 14 March 2024.
  5. ^ "How Jack Black Changed Super Mario Bros. Movie's "Peaches" Song For The Better". Screen Rant. 22 December 2023. Retrieved 15 March 2024.
  6. ^ "Gaming's most important evolutions". GamesRadar. October 8, 2010. p. 3. Archived from the original on March 19, 2012. Retrieved April 11, 2011.
  7. ^ Han, Karen (9 June 2021). "An Interview With the Man Who Spent Countless Hours Restoring the Super Mario Bros. Movie". Slate. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
  8. ^ Murphy, J. Kim (1 June 2021). "Super Mario Bros. Movie Fans Release Extended Cut With 20 Minutes of New Footage". IGN. Retrieved 15 July 2024.
  9. ^ "Mario Marathon Raises More than $10,000 [Updated]". Kotaku.com. 29 June 2008. Retrieved 17 January 2022.
  10. ^ Plant, Logan (2024-03-18). "Inside the Multi-Year Quest to Finish Every Single Mario Maker Level Before the Servers Close for Good". IGN. Archived from the original on 2024-03-19. Retrieved 2024-03-19.
  11. ^ Doolan, Liam (April 5, 2024). "Super Mario Maker Community Clears 'Trimming The Herbs' Just Days Before Wii U Online Shutdown". Nintendo Life. Archived from the original on April 6, 2024. Retrieved April 5, 2024.
  12. ^ "Why Japanese PM Shinzo Abe was dressed as Super Mario in Rio". The Guardian. August 22, 2016. Retrieved March 4, 2024.
  13. ^ a b "March 10th is MAR10 Day! | News | Nintendo". Nintendo. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  14. ^ "NATIONAL MARIO DAY - March 10 - National Day Calendar". National Day Calendar. 10 March 2023. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  15. ^ "Weirdness: 10th March is Mario Day, Apparently". Nintendo Life. Thomas Whitehead. 10 March 2014. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  16. ^ Arroyo, David (2023-03-10). "Mario Day: where does it come from and why is it celebrated on March 10?". Meristation. Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  17. ^ a b "Celebrate Mar. 10 - Mario Day!". YouTube. 9 March 2016. Retrieved 10 March 2023.
  18. ^ "Nintendo of America". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  19. ^ "NintendoUK". X (formerly Twitter). Retrieved 2023-12-02.
  20. ^ "Nintendo celebrates MAR10 Day by bringing smiles to people of all ages - Nintendo Official Site". Nintendo. Archived from the original on 2018-03-15. Retrieved 15 March 2023.
  21. ^ Bove, Tristan (May 27, 2023). "Will A.I. go rogue like Waluigi from Mario Bros., or become the personal assistant that Bill Gates says will make us all rich?". Fortune. Retrieved January 14, 2024.
  22. ^ "Lincolnshire man sets marathon record dressed as Mario". BBC. 22 April 2024. Retrieved 16 July 2024.
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