I woke up extra early the morning of the day the photo was taken. My roommate was already gone. I knew that I had to get dressed pretty quickly for class. I opened up a picture of my model and threw on the tight, red woman's shirt I had procured from the Salvation Army. Making sure my sleeves were just right, and not inside out, I followed to get into the blue overalls and buttoned them up carefully. I kept glancing at the magazine picture of my model and kept looking in the mirror to make sure I had everything right. I pulled on my brown boots that I already owned and then applied the thick, black mustache using some uncomfortable costume tape. After putting on white gloves, I put on the red cap, which was still wet from the paint I applied late the previous night. I was ready for the day.
It was surprising to find that my neighbors in the hall who saw me walking down the hall thought the costume was great. Nearly everyone I bumped into on the way outside complimented me on how great the costume was. A girl whistled and said "I love you, Mario!" Another one laughed and hid her face in her books while she passed me. One of the guys, a big, imposing fellow with a fraternity T-shirt looked at me, laughed, nodded and said "Damn right, man." Even the security guards thought the costume was great. One of them even gave me a high-five, slapping my white-gloved hand hard, and mentioned how much their kids would enjoy seeing the costume. Even all that hardly prepared me for what happened outside.
As soon as I hit the light, the comments came by the handful. I felt as if everyone knew who I was. Some people called out "Mario!" Others asked me where Luigi was. To that, I shrugged, and smiled to myself knowing that with my roommate and I would be a hit with the college students going out later tonight to see what Halloween had dragged in. One man, an older fellow, told me that I was the character on all of his grandkid's videogames. My favorite comment of the morning came from a fellow student walking to class, who on seeing me, pointed to me and shouted out "I've played you!" I saw the same guy later on, and he told me to get back to the 'Mushroom Kingdom' and do my job. I assured him I would. Most of the comments were of the same order; smiles, laughs, quick quips about my costumed persona. I was surprised just how many people recognized, and enjoyed, the fact that I was dressed as Super Mario, a video game character who has been popular since the 1980s with a constant stream of video games and merchandise featuring him.
I should have expected this reaction from a college crowd my age, but it really took me by surprise. I had no idea that so many people would react to a costume made on a whim based on an old videogame character. "Game Over: Press How Nintendo Conquered the World" is David Sheff's look into how Nintendo, an old Japanese playing-card company whose named meant 'leave luck to heaven' turned into a multi-billion dollar powerhouse. At first, he briefly reviews Nintendo's history as a card producer and how playing cards eventually led to board games and toys. Once Nintendo realized videogames in America were big business, it wanted a piece of the pie. Suddenly, Sheff's book hits full speed and analyzes how the character of Mario, whom I was dressed as, was created by Shigeru Miyamoto and helped the company to become an international giant. In one year, Nintendo even earned more money than Apple, IBM, and Microsoft combined. Sheff ends his book by critically looking at Nintendo's current battles with other companies and even some anti-trust battles it has fought recently.
I soon found it was no coincidence that so many people my age recognized my costume. Starting in 1990, the Q-Ratings, "which indicate the popularity of politicians, movie stars, and other public figures based on controlled surveys, showed that…the Nintendo mascot, Super Mario, was more recognized by American children than Mickey Mouse" (Sheff 9). Mickey Mouse was a character that had been in America's consciousness since his popular rise in a series of animated film shorts in the first half of the 20th century. Mario was a character that by 1990 was a mere nine years old, and was Japanese-made. "Starting in 1990" means starting when I was only six years old, very impressionable, and already very much into videogames. Most of the people I ran into on the streets of New York and in my dorm were likely within a four-year age range of me, all children around the time that the Q-Ratings showed Mario to be more recognizable than Mickey Mouse. Little did I realize that Super Mario had such an impact on my generation.
In fact, the impact of Mario had been so large that there were three television cartoon shows featuring him, a record of music released, and a movie in which major actors vied for the role of Mario himself. "[Dustin Hoffman's] kids were Nintendo maniacs, and he said he was dying to play Mario, but…Nintendo wanted Danny Devito, who ultimately turned down the part of Mario…Although Tom Hanks had agreed to accept the role, Nintendo eventually went with Bob Hoskins" (Sheff 192-193). The role of Super Mario's nemesis, the reptilian King Koopa went to actor Dennis Hopper, and the role of his brother Luigi, who, my roommate was dressed as, was played by John Leguizamo. More than ten years ago, the Super Mario character was getting star treatment and attention. Speed ahead and many of the children who recognized Mario are in or out of college, and a new generation of gamers has risen. A simple wide mustached man in blue overalls, wearing a red shirt, and his famous red cap became a well known icon.
As Shigeru Miyamoto, the artist who created Mario and Luigi, said in an interview in "High Score: The Illustrated History of Electronic Games," a comprehensive, if unorganized, collection of videogame history, "I just made a vague set of characteristics for him as a middle-aged man with a strong sense of justice who is not handsome" (Demaria 238). In other words, Mario was an everyman, intended by Miyamoto to just be a "not handsome" guy who's out to fight for what's right, a very effective avatar for gamers young and old to swallow. He was a non-offensive game character who, while simple plumber, was at the same time a superhero.
"High Score" not only features Super Mario on the cover, but is also a thorough look at the history and culture of videogames, starting with pinball and showing how a small military computer demo soon turned into a multi-billion dollar industry. Despite its wide range, much of the book refers to Mario, bringing in occasional pictures of him in various forms, from flying to fighting to driving a car. As the illustrations depict him, he was a character created for variety, or as Miyamoto says "I wanted Mario to appear in many of the later games with a variety of different roles" (DeMaria 238). In fact, both Miyamoto's intentions for Mario and the book's constant portrayal of him show his importance in electronic entertainment, a face that sold millions upon millions of videogames to those who knew him.
However, I hadn't known all this on Halloween. As twilight came and my roommate and I ventured out on the streets of Manhattan, we received a response that was amazing. Walking down the streets, I saw people dressed as animals, robots, and angels. I saw fairies and aliens. I saw a lot of men dressed as women, and some women dressed as men. I saw a lion, a tin-man, a scarecrow, and a little girl all walking along, characters from "The Wizard of Oz." Even with all the diverse and amazing costumes, my roommate and I, in the guise of Luigi and Mario, received a large amount attention. The aforementioned "Wizard of Oz" characters stopped us for a photo, and we took one of them. And they were not the only ones to take photos. A group of Japanese tourists took at least ten pictures of us, and with us. Another woman, a mother with a little boy dressed in all black to look like a ninja, took our photo after her son kept pointing at us and shouting "Mario!" One man with a video camera quickly interviewed my roommate and I about how we made the costume and how the idea came to us.
However, towards the end of the night, perhaps most surprising of all was the reaction of those who did not know who my roommate and I were. Many older people, those who were approaching middle-age, simply did not recognize us. One older couple, who were likely in their seventies, commented on how we looked like "nice construction workers," and a young woman told us that being "generic plumbers is a cheesy idea." Some people simply did not recognize the costume, and for good reason. Mario was created "vague" and to mainly look like some average guy. Unlike many popular videogame and cartoon icons, Mario was not an animal nor did he have a colorful personality or flamboyant super powers. He was an average guy who in his first appearance in "Donkey Kong" had the simple ability to jump. Thus, Mario became a defining line for a demographic and in some ways, a generation. For fans, the blue-overalls, red shirt, red hat, and mustache make Mario easily recognizable, and nearly define a form of entertainment that many of the fans grew up with. For those who don't play videogames, nor connect to them through their children or parents, Mario looks like he was intended to look, like some average guy, a plumber to be exact. The simple pudgy face, the simple outfit, the everyman style which makes Mario so plain at a glance to those who do not know him makes him an icon to those who do. A difference between seeing and knowing so large, that it created a night I'll always remember.
