I've decided to head back to the roots of this blog. The main focus was to be on the video game industry and what I think, but I've gotten side tracked. Starting Monday, if something doesn't relate to video games somehow I won't be writting about it. Most of the time it can relate to real life somehow, which makes it funny. Today we will be disecting that of the Super Mario Brothers, plummers extrodinare.
The mario brothers we're actually part of a differen't game, Donkey Kong. He was trying to save a girl named Pauline from the evil barrel throwing ape now known as Donkey Kong, circa 1981. Oddly enough in the sequel to that game, Donkey Kong Jr., Mario was the bad guy. Now Donkey Kong is depicted as a "good guy", in games like the Mario Party series, and the Donkey Kong Country games. You may be asking what about Princess Peach?! Well Pauline didn't make the grade so they fed her to Bowser.
Speaking of Bowser, he is almost always playing the bad guy. In my favorite game of all time, Super Mario RPG : Legend of the Seven Stars, Bowser is a hero! He plays along side Mario, Peach, and two other characters that I hate and never play with. Check it out, its for SNES, so you can get an emulator for it to play it on your computer.
Really you don't need the history, but it adds to the flair. Princess Peach came along as Toadstool (I don't want to be Toad's stool), in the first Super Mario Brothers game for the original NES. If you haven't played it by now, then I am not talking to you for atleast five minutes. It wouldn't be until the Super Mario 64 game where "Peach" would be called by her Japanese name in America.
Luigi is his brother, and some say Princess Daisy, from Super Mario Land (sweet Gameboy game) is his match to Mario and Peach. Daisy hasn't really made it much in the latter games, but gets to play golf in the Mario Golf games. Sadly Mario gets a kiss from each and every girl he rescues in the game, Luigi doesn't get a thing.
The point? Who in their right mind depicts a pair of plummers as the best heroes of all time? What were they thinking when they made this game. Mario, now one of the most reconisable images for kids of all ages. I loved the TV show when I was younger, it still ranks up there with Inspector Gadget and Fraggle Rock. The sad thing is, it makes kids want to become plummers for a living.
When I worked in Hardware at the now late Chase-Pitkin, the Plumming boys always were heavy set and had mustache's to get pasta stuck in. Even my girlfriends father has a Mario stache. It's just wrong people! It's plain wrong!
No the video game world is more bent on killing instead of flicking fire balls and stomping enemies. Wearing frog suits and throwing hammers isn't "cool". Half dinosaur, half dragon enemies aren't "in". We need to keep in touch with our past though, cause it teaches us important things.
Like being a plummer isn't a "super" profession. Remind your kids, "Don't be a fool, stay in school...
...or be Mario for a living."
