Jason English
Bill O’Reilly on Super Mario in 1988
by Jason English - April 15, 2009 - 10:10 AM

The great Jimmy Traina from Sports Illustrated just linked to this 1988 Inside Edition segment on the newfangled Nintendo craze. I almost spit out my tea during the interview with the Game-Play Counselor.

Kids and fantasy.

« Previous Post   -   Next Post »
Click here to get a Risk-Free issue of mental_floss magazine
Comments (11)

  1. You know what would make that clip even better? If we got Sting to play us out.

    posted by Jonny on 4-15-2009 at 12:28 pm

  2. I was so jealous that my brother figured out how to do the “jump on turtle” thing to get free lives. Everytime I tried, the turtle got away.

    We spent a lot of hours parked in front of that thing, so much that my parents enforced “nintendo hours”
    We had to have our homework and chores done to earn an hour of nintendo time. weekends were a free for all, unless we fought about something nintendo related. Then we were “nintendo grounded.”

    I loved that thing.

    posted by holly on 4-15-2009 at 12:45 pm

  3. I would give a major appendage to get my hands on one of those big, black, 3-ring binders the “Game Counselors” were using for support questions.

    posted by SpaceMonkeyX on 4-15-2009 at 2:34 pm

  4. was i the only one who was close to having a panic attack watching that clip?? the kid was just passing up all the coins!!! GET THE COINS, KID!!! GET THE COINS!!!!

    sigh

    posted by audrey on 4-15-2009 at 7:05 pm

  5. My NES still works, every once and awhile I crack it out and play.

    I’m not surprised that Bill had trouble knowing how to use Lincoln Logs as a child and I have a sneaking suspicion that he still doesn’t have the capacity to use Lincoln Logs judging by his newscasts.

    posted by Jack on 4-15-2009 at 9:15 pm

  6. [...] video of a Nintendo-related news report from the late 80’s is awesome on so many levels.  First:  Bill O’Reilly was the host [...]

    posted by Shaktronics » Nintendo Circa 1988 on 8-5-2009 at 1:25 pm

  7. Audrey – definitely, he was missing all sorts of good stuff on the way!

    This is probably the only video game I ever played (except for a bit of Rad Racer and Ecko the Dolphin). Even though I wasn’t very good, my brother was just happy to have someone to play with.

    One last thing – those blocks always reminded me of Caramilk squares!

    posted by Ranger J on 8-26-2009 at 7:17 pm

  8. Just the sort of hard-hitting journalism I have come to expect from Bill.

    posted by me on 8-26-2009 at 8:34 pm

  9. How about Ron Leingang’s hair?! Wonder what he looks like now…?

    posted by Pam on 8-26-2009 at 8:41 pm

  10. What’s so funny about this video is that the Nintendo Executive didn’t know Mario’s last name *REALLY IS* Mario.

    Nintendo probably added his surname after this was filmed, but the official names of the characters are Mario Mario and Luigi Mario.

    - Jon

    posted by JonnyPaula on 8-26-2009 at 9:16 pm

  11. audrey I was doing the same thing, so don’t feel to bad.

    posted by Krystle on 8-27-2009 at 1:02 am

Comment

commenting policy