{"id":90609,"date":"2019-03-25T18:00:00","date_gmt":"2019-03-25T18:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/03\/random_if_you_remember_this_super_mario_game_show_you_have_a_better_memory_than_us"},"modified":"2019-03-25T18:00:00","modified_gmt":"2019-03-25T18:00:00","slug":"random-if-you-remember-this-super-mario-game-show-you-have-a-better-memory-than-us","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/2019\/03\/25\/random-if-you-remember-this-super-mario-game-show-you-have-a-better-memory-than-us\/","title":{"rendered":"Random: If You Remember This Super Mario Game Show, You Have A Better Memory Than Us"},"content":{"rendered":"<div class=\"media_block\"><a href=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/cdc2fd6cca1e4\/large.jpg\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/cdc2fd6cca1e4\/small.jpg\" class=\"media_thumbnail\"><\/a><\/div>\n<div><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/images.nintendolife.com\/news\/2019\/03\/random_if_you_remember_this_super_mario_game_show_you_have_a_better_memory_than_us\/large.jpg\" class=\"ff-og-image-inserted\"><\/div>\n<aside class=\"object object-youtube\">\n<div class=\"youtube\">[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GzBhAUdz_jk?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1&#038;w=900&#038;h=507]<\/div>\n<\/aside>\n<p>In the early days of the video game industry, there were quite a few abortive attempts to mix the medium of interactive entertainment with the more passive pastime of just sitting and watching telly. Shows like <strong>GamesMaster<\/strong> and <strong>Bad Influence<\/strong> in the UK would try and capitalise on the amazing popularity of video games, but in general, there haven&#8217;t been many successful shows which have stood the test of time.<\/p>\n<p>Which is why you probably <em>don&#8217;t<\/em> remember The Super Mario Challenge, which appeared in European TVs back in the very early &#8217;90s as part of The Children&#8217;s Channel. If you thought Bob Hoskins was a poor choice in the <strong>Super Mario Bros.<\/strong> movie, then you&#8217;re going to feel positively ill when you find out that American magician <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/John_Lenahan\">John Lenahan<\/a> (the first person in 85 years to be expelled from The Magic Circle, and the voice of the toaster in <strong>Red Dwarf<\/strong>, fact fans) was cast in the role of Mario \u2013 despite the fact that he&#8217;s as thin as a rake.<\/p>\n<p>As you can see from the footage above \u2013 lovingly archived by <a class=\"external\" href=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/channel\/UCJVdNvvuvOnthuWVQjYff2w\">Larry Bundy Jr<\/a> \u2013 the format isn&#8217;t a million miles away from GamesMaster, or the cult 1989 movie <strong>The Wizard<\/strong>. Two kids battle it out across a series of challenges set within the Super Mario game series. It&#8217;s all very cheap and nasty looking, but then again, most kids shows were in the very early &#8217;90s.<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s almost impossible to imagine Nintendo allowing this kind of thing to air today as the company is a lot more careful with its brands. But still, we&#8217;re glad that The Super Mario Challenge exists, if only because it means we now know a lot more about John Lenahan than we did when we woke up this morning.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>[youtube https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/watch?v=GzBhAUdz_jk?rel=0&amp;hd=1&amp;showinfo=0&amp;modestbranding=0&amp;autohide=1&#038;w=900&#038;h=507] In the early days of the video game industry, there were quite a few abortive attempts to mix the medium of interactive entertainment with the more passive pastime of just sitting and watching telly. Shows like GamesMaster and Bad Influence in the UK would try and capitalise on the amazing popularity of video [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[27],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-90609","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-nintendo-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90609","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=90609"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/90609\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=90609"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=90609"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sickgaming.net\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=90609"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}