Miyamoto’s original take on a Super Mario Bros. sequel. Now known as the Lost Levels , it’s considered by some to be his Finnegans Wake , his dissertation on form.
8 – MARIO’S SMASH
SUPER MARIO BROS. 3
C aptain” Lou Albano had a lot of gimmicks in his decades of professional wrestling. He’d been both heel (a bad guy) and face (a good guy). He was billed as a captain—Albano served in the army, but had never gotten three stars on his lapel. He played up his Italian heritage as part of the tag-team group the Sicilians. He wore often-unbuttoned Hawaiian-print shirts. Even when he wasn’t wrestling but merely “managing”—which allowed him to throw a punch or two but mostly keep out of harm’s way—he was one of the most popular stars of the squared circle.
Albano’s biggest trademark, though, might be his beard. It was a wily goatee, grown down and out over years, and it looked like a tiny patch of Gandalf mixed in with an extra large hank of tiki bar bouncer. He weaved rubber bands into the graying beard, and hooked more rubber bands to his earrings. Another rubber band was pierced into his cheek. He resembled an uncle who had rummaged through a junk drawer trying to be funny.
As wrestling got more mainstream in the eighties, Lou Albano seemed the personification of its fun. If Hulk Hogan and André the Giant were the strong men, Albano was the joker who stole the show. He showed up in a Cyndi Lauper video. And a Brian DePalma movie. And an episode of Miami Vice . He was game for anything, loved getting a reaction from a crowd, and was able to sell it to the back row. Like many wrestlers, his biggest fans were children.
Maybe this was because he was a dead ringer for Super Mario. He had a beefy thickness run to fat by years of good living. His hair and mustache were full and bushy. He certainly looked like a plumber from Brooklyn—he was from Westchester, close enough to get the Noo Yawk accent right. And at five feet ten, he’d allow a tall actor as Luigi to play Laurel to his Hardy.
The only thing wrong, in fact, was the beard. (Well, that and the rubber bands.) Mario didn’t have a beard. Ever canny in ways of promotion, Albano shaved it off on live television, in front of Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Soon he was outfitted in custom red overalls, a blue work shirt, and a big red cap. Veteran actor Danny Wells played Luigi. Together, they hosted the Super Mario Bros. Super Show !
The syndicated show mixed live-action and cartoons. Albano and Wells, in a basement set, had mild adventures that acted as bookends for each show. Guests would show up—one time it was Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson—with a problem for Mario and Luigi to solve. Sometimes they’d do double-duty as mustached women—Mariana and Luigiana. The show’s theme song doubled as dance instructions: “Do the Mario! Swing your arms from side to side. Come on it’s time to go. Do the Mario! Take one step and then again.” Between the bookends were Super Mario cartoons, which Albano and Wells voiced as well. The cartoon was light adventure with a lot of pop-culture parody. On Fridays, Mario and Luigi hosted a Legend of Zelda action cartoon. This setup allowed the show to run five days a week and yet only be halfanimated.
Also airing in the fall of 1989 was NBC’s Captain N: The Game Master . He wasn’t a real captain either, incidentally, but a teenage Nintendo fan who got sucked into a video game world. He met up with various Japanese-based third-party characters—Simon Belmont from Konami’s Castlevania , Capcom’s Mega Man , and Nintendo’s own Kid Icarus . Notably absent was, of course, Mario, which was like visiting Egypt and not seeing the pyramids.
Captain Lou’s bookended segments were dropped after a year, in favor of a bunch of “radical” teens called Club Mario. The cartoons in the middle remained. Eventually they all aired in one big loop in syndication. The following year, a new Mario cartoon with
8 – MARIO’S SMASH
SUPER MARIO BROS. 3
C aptain” Lou Albano had a lot of gimmicks in his decades of professional wrestling. He’d been both heel (a bad guy) and face (a good guy). He was billed as a captain—Albano served in the army, but had never gotten three stars on his lapel. He played up his Italian heritage as part of the tag-team group the Sicilians. He wore often-unbuttoned Hawaiian-print shirts. Even when he wasn’t wrestling but merely “managing”—which allowed him to throw a punch or two but mostly keep out of harm’s way—he was one of the most popular stars of the squared circle.
Albano’s biggest trademark, though, might be his beard. It was a wily goatee, grown down and out over years, and it looked like a tiny patch of Gandalf mixed in with an extra large hank of tiki bar bouncer. He weaved rubber bands into the graying beard, and hooked more rubber bands to his earrings. Another rubber band was pierced into his cheek. He resembled an uncle who had rummaged through a junk drawer trying to be funny.
As wrestling got more mainstream in the eighties, Lou Albano seemed the personification of its fun. If Hulk Hogan and André the Giant were the strong men, Albano was the joker who stole the show. He showed up in a Cyndi Lauper video. And a Brian DePalma movie. And an episode of Miami Vice . He was game for anything, loved getting a reaction from a crowd, and was able to sell it to the back row. Like many wrestlers, his biggest fans were children.
Maybe this was because he was a dead ringer for Super Mario. He had a beefy thickness run to fat by years of good living. His hair and mustache were full and bushy. He certainly looked like a plumber from Brooklyn—he was from Westchester, close enough to get the Noo Yawk accent right. And at five feet ten, he’d allow a tall actor as Luigi to play Laurel to his Hardy.
The only thing wrong, in fact, was the beard. (Well, that and the rubber bands.) Mario didn’t have a beard. Ever canny in ways of promotion, Albano shaved it off on live television, in front of Regis Philbin and Kathie Lee Gifford. Soon he was outfitted in custom red overalls, a blue work shirt, and a big red cap. Veteran actor Danny Wells played Luigi. Together, they hosted the Super Mario Bros. Super Show !
The syndicated show mixed live-action and cartoons. Albano and Wells, in a basement set, had mild adventures that acted as bookends for each show. Guests would show up—one time it was Ghostbuster Ernie Hudson—with a problem for Mario and Luigi to solve. Sometimes they’d do double-duty as mustached women—Mariana and Luigiana. The show’s theme song doubled as dance instructions: “Do the Mario! Swing your arms from side to side. Come on it’s time to go. Do the Mario! Take one step and then again.” Between the bookends were Super Mario cartoons, which Albano and Wells voiced as well. The cartoon was light adventure with a lot of pop-culture parody. On Fridays, Mario and Luigi hosted a Legend of Zelda action cartoon. This setup allowed the show to run five days a week and yet only be halfanimated.
Also airing in the fall of 1989 was NBC’s Captain N: The Game Master . He wasn’t a real captain either, incidentally, but a teenage Nintendo fan who got sucked into a video game world. He met up with various Japanese-based third-party characters—Simon Belmont from Konami’s Castlevania , Capcom’s Mega Man , and Nintendo’s own Kid Icarus . Notably absent was, of course, Mario, which was like visiting Egypt and not seeing the pyramids.
Captain Lou’s bookended segments were dropped after a year, in favor of a bunch of “radical” teens called Club Mario. The cartoons in the middle remained. Eventually they all aired in one big loop in syndication. The following year, a new Mario cartoon with
Similar Books
