I can't help but be reminded, when I look at today's picture, of a little piece of my childhood - a then-state-of-the-art piece of pop culture that sucked in so many kids like a vacuumous water pipe, and was as hard to avoid as a fireball thrown at a bouncing turtle.I am speaking of Super Mario Brothers, the Nintendo game that features two plumbers making their way through a world of drain pipes, flying turtles, and a variety of - you guessed it - mushrooms.
There were magic mushrooms that could make you grow twice your size. There were hidden mushrooms that could give you extra lives. There were creepy-crawly mushrooms that could end your life (the highly stompable goombas). And, after completing each of the first seven levels, there was a mushroom retainer (an official guard of Princess Toadstool) waiting with the message:
"Thank you Mario! But our princess is in another castle!"
I hated that message.
Of course, if you played your cards right, you never had to see that message before solving the game and rescuing the princess (thank you warp zones).
If at this point you are thinking, "man, this guy knows way too much about Super Mario Bros.," and, "he must have spent way too much time playing this as a kid," you are right about the latter. (Although my buddy Matt and I did discover how to get to the little-known negative (-1) world...let me know if you need a demonstration!)
As for the former, until twenty minutes ago I didn't even know what a "mushroom retainer" was, let alone that he was the one "speaking" that fateful message at the end of each level. I just thought it was a really short, less important princess (with a mushroom on her head).
Thank you, Wikipedia, for clearing all of that up for me.
And thank you, Super Mario Bros., for helping me become the well-rounded, thumbidextrous person that I am today!
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