Inside Edition Special on Nintendo 1987

Inside Edition aired a special on Nintendo back in 1987. The video contains an overload of 80’s nostalgia. Inside Edition interviews people outside of a mall and asks them have they ever heard of Nintendo, to which most of them reply no. You get to see clips of kids playing Super Mario Bros. They show store displays of Nintendo merchandise and what games looked like. You meet Bill White who was a marketing executive for Nintendo. He gets asked the tough question; “Are their names Mario Mario and Luigi Mario?” To which he replies “Some questions just have no answers.”

After we meet Bill we get to see Nintendo Mission Control. Where game counselors take 1000’s of calls a day from players. The gameplay counselors, known as GPC’s, instruct players on how to navigate the game or level they are having trouble with. Get paid to play video games; sounds like a dream job, doesn’t it? One of the notable GPC’s in the interview is named Rob Leingang. In the video, they spell Rob’s first name incorrectly.

 

Rob explains how to defeat the infamous Hammer Bros. However, he reveals one of the best-kept secrets at the time, how to get over 100 lives on Super Mario Bros. These GPC’s were some of the smartest players of a generation who were just learning to play Nintendo. A lot of the early GPC’s went on to advance in other big-name brands and tech companies. Nintendo started a cultural revolution and brought the video game market back from the dark side after its crash in 1983. The Nintendo Fun Club President when asked, “Who are Mario and Luigi?”, simply states “They are all of us.”

The fun and adventure we got from Super Mario Bros and all the great titles of Nintendo resonate with an entire generation.

You can watch the video here.

[Original special was from Inside Edition. Photos and video are from Inside Edition]