The Saddest Super Mario Fan Art You Will Ever See

Hi.

It’s 2017, and one of the promises I made this new year was to write on my blog more often. It’s more for me than you, because it’s helpful for me to put thoughts into writing and better understand myself, but maybe it’s entertaining for you to gawk at my weird mental processes.

I’ve been going to a therapist for three years now, and more often than not, I end up talking about the way I was—how my childhood shaped the way I operate today. It may not surprise you to find out that I was an introverted kid, to the point that I didn’t have close friendships, and I think I tried to fill that void with TV and books and video games. Often, I’d get more attached to fictional worlds than I was to real ones. I’m still this way to an extent, but until I began talking to my therapist, I’d forgotten how deeply I sunk into all this stuff back in the day.

While I was home for Christmas, I had to clean out boxes of childhood stuff, and this included a lot of drawings I made. Here’s the one that made me want to go back in time and tell seven-year-old me that it was going to be okay.

If you can’t tell, it’s a masterpiece inspired by the first two Super Mario Bros. games. The 34-year-old me has some notes.

• The scale is all off. Why is the 1-up mushroom so much bigger than everything else?
• I’m fairly certain that’s Princess Toadstool at the bottom. Why she has a coin on her head and why she’s telling it to leave is beyond me. (I’ll ask my therapist about it.) But the fact that she’s in the foreground—or what would be the foreground, if I understood a damned thing about perspective—is probably telling of a bond that would last long into adulthood.
• I have no idea why there’s only one Mario brother, why he’s so much smaller than the rest of the characters and why he’s lacking a mustache. Maybe I didn’t like mustaches back then?
• To the right of Generic Hero Plumber, I appear to have drawn a potion from Super Mario Bros. 2 but have given it a face. Unsure why. Ditto on what would appear to be a hammer and a mushroom block below it.
• The question mark on the question mark box is backwards. What a fucking idiot I was.
• I have no idea what the mushroom-like thing in the top-left corner is supposed to be. Because it’s Mario, I’d assume it’s a mushroom, but I think I proved that I could more competently draw those elsewhere in this piece. Anyone?
• In the center of the piece, I seem to have drawn two Toads—a boy one on the right and girl one on the left, who has long hair and who seems to be taking off her mushroom hat in a vaguely seductive fashion. This is notable because my fanciful she-Toad preceded the introduction of ones in the games by years, though it may be that the Toads could maybe have been intended to be female in the first place.
• I *think* the small thing immediately below the maybe-mushroom in the top left corner is a female version of the pluckable, chuckable vegetables from Super Mario Bros. 2. And I *think* the thing immediately below it (her?) is a smiling version of the springboards from Super Mario Bros., with a face in the void between the top and bottom halves. Who can say for sure? Again, what an idiot I was.

So that’s the drawing. It’s not all that different from stuff other kids drew out of love of whatever thing they were into, but here’s the part that stung a little bit. There is a piece of lined paper taped to the bottom, and on it I’ve written something strange, albeit in lovely penmanship for a seven-year-old.

“Happy Birthday Drew! From all of us from Nintendo’s Mario 1 and 2!”

I made myself a fucking birthday card—from fictional entities that I cared about enough that I felt like I deserved to hear from them on my special day. On one hand, it’s cute, but on another, it’s weird. I was lonely, and so I gathered together the stuff that was familiar, which included a lot of smiling produce but also a lot of other stuff from the games that didn’t come with faces but which I gave faces anyway, possibly to make it look like more friends were happy to see me. This makes me a little sad.

So yeah, that’s a weird thing to process. But just as Super Mario Bros. begat Super Mario Bros. 2, there’s a sequel to this little anecdote.

Late last year, I finally made good on something I’d wanted to do for years: I drove to an arcade machine refurbishment studio in Glendale and put money down on a custom build—a repurposed frame that the people there can fit with a new CPU, new monitor and new control panel and load up with old video games. I’d known about this place for years, but it took me until November to go in and order the thing. I’m very excited, because I’ll get to play games I loved for years in the format they were intended to be enjoyed, but I’d be lying if I didn’t say that one of the best reasons I was excited by this whole project was that I could design my own art for the machine’s control panel and above-the-screen marquee.

Without hesitation, I knew what I wanted, and I made it.

On the top, it’s Super Mario Bros. 2—and the game that preceded it that isn’t Super Mario Bros.—and it’s all made from the original sprites, modified just a tad, for aesthetic purposes and because it’s mine so whatever. Do note that in this version, I still made the princess front and center. In fact, she’s leading the charge. When the machine is turned on, this will light up, and I’m more excited for this than I can tell you.

On the bottom, it’s a mosaic of all the items from Super Mario Bros. 2 and Doki Doki Panic, most of which I realize are smiling produce. Old habits die hard, but no, I didn’t draw little pixelated smiles onto the items that didn’t have them in the first place, but I still made a whole wallpaper of grinning vegetables to look back at me when I finally get to play at this thing.

Nearly three decades later, I’m still seeking refuge in the stuff that felt safe when I was a kid. I feel like that’s an important connection to make. And believe me, I realize that a private arcade paradise won’t necessarily be the thing that gets me out into the world and interacting face-to-face in the way I didn’t get enough of as a kid. But hey—this machine has controls for a player one and a player two. I intend to make use of both in 2017.

Here’s to typing it all out.

Still Doesn’t Fit

I made different choices that the rest of my family did. This is never more apparent than when I’m home for Christmas, because every goddamn impulse and instinct I have gets second-guessed. But it’s some family member who does this second-guessing; it’s me, projecting questions about why and how that I anticipate they’ll ask—or at least think about and then not mention, because they considering it for a second made them think better of asking.

Going home means not only the awkwardness of leaving your own house to stay in someone else’s, where the rules are different and the snack situation is just this baffling tragedy; it’s also the awkwardness of the fact that the old me still lives in my parents’ house. He kind of sucks. He spent years scurrying around trying to make other people happy in an effort to hide the fact that he wasn’t. Looking back on the old me, I can’t imagine where I found the energy.

The old me is tidily symbolized by a vintage ’90s Drew artifact I found in a storage bin, along with my high school graduation gown, some photo albums and the course catalogue I received before my freshman year of college.

It’s my letterman jacket.

Looking at it now, I can’t believe this is a thing I own. It’s not me. It wasn’t me then, and I knew that, but I ultimately said yes when I was told I would be receiving one as a present—in reward for athletic greatness that never really happened, I guess, and in a misguided to achieve some kind of status I wouldn’t otherwise have had. I remember being told it was an honor. It didn’t feel like one. A Neo-Geo would have been an honor, but I got this fucking jacket instead. I think I wore it once, felt like I was playing dress-up in someone else’s clothes and returned it to my locker before lunch. It didn’t work. I don’t think I thought it would work but the fact that I accepted it and tried it anyway just makes me realize how impossible it was for me to speak up for myself.

Now I don’t know what to do with it. My parents are moving out of the house I grew up in, and in a sense that’s good for me, because whatever bedroom I’ll be taking in the future won’t be haunted by the ghost of Old Drew. But for the life of me, I can’t figure out where to put this letterman jacket. In another storage bin? In my closet in Los Angeles as a stern reminder not to pretend I’m someone I’m not? In the garbage?

In one of those instances where the symbolism, should it be written this way in a novel, would be too on-the-nose, I would like to point out that sixteen years later, this fucking stupid jacket still doesn’t fit me. The sleeves are too long and too big—designed for a far more ripped human being, I guess—and I can’t even imagine how ridiculous this would have looked on my 150-pound frame back when I was a senior in high school.

It probably says a lot that I look at those sleeve cuffs enveloping my hands and have the reaction, “Hey, I’m wearing it like Party of Five-era Jennifer Love Hewitt.”

More Than a Smithers

In 1996, I didn’t know I was gay. But I knew something was up.

That year, The Simpsons aired the episode “Homer the Smithers,” in which Homer must fill in as Mr. Burns’ assistant while Mr. Smithers is on vacation. Whenever Smithers calls in to check on the situation, you see a quick peek at where he’s spending his away time, and in one scene in particular, Smithers mentions that “picture-taking isn’t allowed at this particular resort.” He’s in a dance club, and he hangs up the phone because there’s a line forming behind him.

It’s a conga line. And it’s all dudes.

Being twelve years old and generally clueless about the world, I didn’t know what to make of this scene. I can remember asking my mom what kind of vacation place wouldn’t allow photography, and she had no idea. I didn’t mention the conga line of men, because despite not having an inkling about myself, I felt like that wasn’t something I should be expressing curiosity about.

I also didn’t mention a later scene in which Smithers is towing a pyramid of male waterskiers, all of whom are wearing pink speedos.

I suppose I’m writing this for two reasons. First, when I did realize a few years later, I still didn’t know much about the world. This episode informed my idea of what gay men were like, at least to an extent, and I guess I figured one day I would be going to some weird beach resort where photography wasn’t allowed. I haven’t done that, at least not yet, and I don’t know when I learned that these types of vacations weren’t a requirement of being gay. (Going to Fire Island apparently is a requirement, but social media tells me that this trips are throughly documented with photos. In any case, Palm Springs is closer to Los Angeles.) When you don’t have access to information about what gay people actually do and when you sure as hell don’t talk to anyone about it, it’s strange how this little scraps of representation end up becoming all you have.

Watching this episode twenty years later—it just aired on Sunday as part of the FXX Thanksgiving marathon—I also realize that I never thought I would have gotten to the point I’m at now. I’m gay. Anyone who matters knows. And all that happened well before it happened for Smithers. Before high school, he was the only gay character I knew well, and at some point I guess I figured I’d end up like him: quietly and inconspicuously gay, never being outright with it, and somehow living a smaller life as a result. That didn’t happen. I didn’t ever think about it terms of me outpacing Smithers until now, but I’m glad it happened.

The other point is a harder one to put into words, but it has something to do with being a kid who’d grow up to be gay, not being consciously aware of those feelings and yet somehow going through life seeing things and occasionally saying “Oh, that.” I’m not sure what I thought my brain was doing, but it’s weird to be paying attention to something without understanding what the draw is, if that makes sense. It wasn’t always so obvious, either—although it certainly does explain childhood obsessions with princesses but also with barbarians—and sometimes I think I’d perceive something as being gay-coded without actually understanding what all that meant. Before the “Homer the Smithers” episode aired, I can remember being in a bookstore and seeing a magazine that had Waylon Smithers on the cover. It happened to be Genre, which I’d later learn was an LGBT publication. I didn’t know that at the time, but the cover read something like “Is Waylon Smithers one of us?” on a bright pink background. This happened at a point in my life where I’d buy anything with a Simpsons character on it, but something told me that no, I shouldn’t ask to buy this particular magazine.

I’ve no idea what chain of decisions led me to skip it—not even pick it off the shelf, if I remember correctly—but now I wish I had a copy. I’d frame it.

EDIT: Here, I found the cover in question. Looks like the auction is over, however.

Mushrooms

If you poked around my house, you might eventually find the back wall of the laundry room, spot this framed art and ask me, “Drew, why do you have a framed dish towel hanging in your house?” It’s a good question, I guess.

This dish towel belonged to a grandmother. I always liked it, even if mushrooms and toadstools seem like a weird graphic to be associated with something used for cleaning. Toward the end, when she moved out of the house she’d lived in for decades, I pocketed the towel, and I eventually framed it, just as a memento of her. And now that she’s gone, it means more. It’s been hanging in my home for years, and it’s currently in an out-of-the-way spot that I don't have much reason to notice often. But I noticed it today, just now, and I remembered that my grandmother was the only other person in the family who supported liberal politics. She also loved Hillary Clinton—which was weird, because she tended not to hold women in high esteem, generally—and it reminded me that when I vote for the only obvious choice for president this election, I’m doing it for myself and also for my grandmother, who would have been the first in line to cast a ballot for Hillary Clinton.

A Conversation With Thurman

What you may not know about my dog, Thurman, is that he is briefly capable of speech, and he uses these periods to better understand the world of humans. Here is a re-creation of my most recent conversation with Thurman.

I was walking through the dining room, where Thurman was lying so as to monitor all comings and goings in the house. As I moved by, I leaned down, pet him once on the head and said “boop.” Thurman’s reaction was immediate.

“Human, what is boop?” he asked me. I realized I wasn’t sure.

“Oh, I don’t know. It’s just something humans do to animals.” At the time I was trying to collect the garbage to take out, and I didn’t exactly want an interrogation.

That feeble explanation was clearly not enough for Thurman. “Would you boop another human?” he asked me.

“I might do it to a baby,” I said, thinking aloud before immediately clarifying: “A baby, by the way, is a human puppy. You’ve seen them on walks.”

“Ah, yes,” Thurman said. “Human, would you boop The Roommate?”

“No, Thurman. The Roommate would probably not like that.”

“Human, is boop an act of dominion or of benevolent condescension?”

“It’s neither, really,” I said after having thought about it for a few seconds. “It’s more of an act of affection.”

Thurman blinked once or twice and considered this. “May I boop you, human?”

“No, you may not.”

“Human, why can I not boop?”

“Well, for one thing, Thurman, I know you were digging in mud today, and your paws aren’t clean. For another I’m not sure you’d be able to reach the top of my head without me lying on the floor.”

“Human, must the boop land on the top of the skull?”

“No, Thurman. If you’ll remember I booped you on the nose a while back.”

Thurman looked down. “I do remember, human. I didn’t care for it. My nose is very sensitive, you know.”

I apologized for the slight, but Thurman had clearly already moved on. “Human, what is the origin of the boop? As a word, I mean, not as a demonstration of dominance?”

“Thurman, I just told you that I don’t think it’s necessarily about dominance. And I don’t know. I suppose it’s onomatopoeia.”

“But the act of booping produces no perceptible noise,” he persisted. “Surely the term has origins elsewhere.”

I had to admit he had a point. “You’re probably right, actually. So then no, I don’t know why we say ‘boop’ when we boop.”

“Human, perhaps it is better not to engage in ceremonies when you do not understand their histories,” Thurman continued. “Perhaps it is unwise, as you do not understand what implications and connotations to which your are tacitly endorsing.”

I sighed, then agreed that I would not boop him any longer.

“A underside rub would be preferable,” Thurman point out.

“Fine, yes, but please remember that we call it a belly rub. Underside rub sounds weird.”

“Human, my belly is ever so soft and warm.”

“I know, Thurman.”

“Human, when may I eat a cat?”

I turned around to begin once again my explanation of why he would not be allowed to eat a cat, but by the time I did, he had turned his full attention to licking mud out from between his toes. The moment of speech had passed. I wondered if there were any pattern to these moments. I wondered what he would ask about during his next.

Be Kind

I guess we can blame Stranger Things for this—well, what I’m talking about below plus a hundred thousand memes about Barb.

Back in July, I wrote here about how much I liked Stranger Things because it re-created a lot of the entertainment I liked so much when I was a kid, save for one key thing. The show’s reconstituted Spielbergian wonder looked too good. It was missing the TV static and VHS distortion that came with all that culture, at least for me way back when. See, I grew up beyond city limits, beyond where the cable TV cable could reach, and as a result, most of what I watched came to me hissing and fuzzy, but not in the cat way. As an experiment, I tried to add these elements back in, and for reasons I can’t explain, I kept doing it—for most of the summer, in fact. You might have noticed clips popping up here and there on my social media.

The result is what you see below, a project I’m just calling “Rewind.” It’s kind of a music mix, kind of a montage, kind of a string of music video-like things but punctuated with vintage commercials. I think I was trying to create a little pocket universe of culture from the ’80s and thereabouts. It never all quite existed this way, but it’s fun to pretend it did.

Or at least I thought so. Maybe you will think so too.

Yeah, I realize it’s two hours long. That was kind of the point, to make something that you could just lose yourself in—maybe keep on in the background and listen to and periodically check into and see something colorful and weirdly familiar, even if you’d ever actually seen it before. Or you could just pick a random point on the timeline and click and not know what nostalgic thing you’d end up seeing.

Again, I don't know why I felt compelled to make it, but I hope at the very least that you walk away with a song you like or some weird bit of pop culture that had somehow bypassed you before—maybe even see how some of the pairings of video chunks and old songs weren’t entirely random.

If nothing else, I hope the image of Grace Jones, eyes glowing with a demonic energy as she tries to sell you wine coolers, is forever burned into your memory. You’re welcome in advance!

Hit the jump to see a list of video and audio sources, plus most of the music video-like clips posted solo.

In order:

1. Vintage distribution company logos (original)
2. Friday Night Videos intro, 1985 (original)
3. Video for “I Want It To Be Real” by John Rocca, 1984 (original)
4. Commercial for Super Mario Bros. 2, 1988 (original)
5. “Living on Video” by Trans X, 1983 (original) + playthrough of Outrun (original)
6. Commercial for Shasta, 1983 (original)
7. “Pretty Face” by Styloo (original) + Sym-Bionic Titan episode “Tashy 497,” 2010 (original)
8. Commercial for Mentos, 1994 (original)
9. “You Are Young,” by C.C. Catch, 1986 (original)
10. Commercial for Ironsword: Wizards and Warriors II and Double Dragon II, 1990 (original)
11. “Cara Mia,” by Annie, 2015 (original) + the He-Man and the Masters of the Universe episodes “Fisto’s Forest,”  “To Save Skeletor,”  and “The Rarest Gift of All”
12. Commercial for Commerce Union Bank, 1973 (original — and please click this, because it’s from a pre-KCET Huell Howser show which is a spectacle in its own right)
13. Instrumental version of “Be My Lover Now,” by Giorgio Moroder and Philip Oakey (original) + vintage footage of Los Angeles in the 1980s (original)
14. Commercial for Magnavox Odyssey, undated but maybe from 1978 (original)
15. Opening animation from Daicon IV, 1983 (original — the song is “Twilight” by Electric Light Orchestra, but that was original to the clip)
16. Commercial for Levi’s 501 jeans, 1985? (original)
17. “Happy Station,” by Fun Fun, 1984 (original) + playthrough of Ai Cho Aniki (original)
18. Commercial for Fruitopia, 1994 (original)
19. “Tonight! Crazy Night,” by Dorine Hollier, 1984 (original)
20. Commercial for Pure Agree shampoo, 1980-something (not the original, still trying to find that file, but you get the point)
21. “Disco Band,” by Scotch (original) + underwater scene from Dario Argento’s Inferno (original)
22. Commercial for The Terminator, 1984 (original)
23. Intro to Chopping Mall, 1986 (original)
24. Commercial for Whatchamacallit candy bar, 1990-something (original)
25. “Exit,” by Tangerine Dream (original) + the video for “Ooh Shooby Doo Doo Lang,” by Aneka, 1982 (original)
26. Commercial for Vanderbilt perfume, 1989 (original)
27. Video for “Madam Butterfly,” by Malcolm McLaren, 1984 (original)
28. Commercial for Sea Breeze with Elle McPherson, 1986 (original)
29. “Eyes” by Clio (original) + the intro to Beverly Hills Teens (original) + episodes from the show that you can watch here, here, here, here and here
30. Commercial for Arrid Extra Dry with Brooke Shields, 1985 (original)
31. “Numbers” by Kraftwerk, 1981 (original) as seen on The New Dance Show, 1981? (original)
32. Commercial for Jill doll with Jenny Lewis, 1987 (original)
33. “Boy” by Book of Love, 1986 (original) + clips from playthroughs of Fatal Fury 2 (original), Art of Fighting 2 (original), Samurai Shodown (original), World Heroes 2 (original and another original), Samurai Shodown II (original and another original), King of Fighters ’96 (original), Real Bout Fatal Fury (original) and Aggressors of Dark Kombat (original)
34. Commercial for Sun Valley wine coolers with Grace Jones, 1987 (original)
35. “Diamond” by Via Verdi, 1986 (original) + the fashion show segment from ABC’s Night of 100 Stars, 1982 (original)
36. Commercial for Chunky candy bar, 1980-something (original)
37. Music video for “Love Resurrection” by Alison Moyet, 1984 (original)
38. Commercial for Dubonnet with Pia Zadora, 1980-something (original)
39. “My Little Japanese Boy” by Baby’s Gang, 1986 (original) + clips from Saint Seiya / Knights of the Zodiac that you can see here, here, here, here and here
40. Commercial for the TV movie The Nightman, 1992 (original)
41. “Follow Me” by Giusy Dej, 1980-something (original) + the disco sequence from the Bollywood Nightmare on Elm Street remake Mahakaal, 1993 (original but also do please see the rest of this bizarre gem here)
42. Commercial for Fruitopia featuring music by Kate Bush, 1994 (original)
43. “Dance It Down” by The Pool, 1983 (original) + a playthrough of Final Fight (original)
44. “A.H.B.” by Survive, 2016 (original) + the disco sequence from Prom Night, 1980 (original)
45. “Puppet Strings” P.S.A. by the Partnership for a Drug-Free America, 1995 (original)
46. “I Want to Fly Away” by Blue Russell, 1984 (original) + clips from The Nutcracker Fantasy, 1979 (non-destroyed version of this clip and also an extended look at the Ragman, should you be interested)
47. “Stickerbush Symphony” from Donkey Kong Country 2, 1995 (original) + the closing credits to Soapdish, 1991 (original)

And in case you’re too TL;DR for the whole thing, here are most of the individual videos:

Outrun + Trans X

Fisto + “Cara Mia”

Cho Aniki + “Happy Station”

Inferno + “Disco Band”

“Tonight! Crazy Night” by Dorine Hollier

The opening credits to Chopping Mall

Aneka + Tangerine Dream

“Madam Butterfly” by Malcolm McLaren

Kraftwerk on The New Dance Show

Beverly Hills Teens + Clio

Neo Geo fighters + Book of Love

Night of 100 Stars + Via Verdi

Mahakaal + Giusy Dej

Final Fight + “Dance It Down”

Saint Seiya + Baby’s Gang

Prom Night + Survive

The Nutcracker Suite + Blue Russell

And finally here are all the commercials, in case that’s your thing

Revenge of the Ragman

Today I’d like to share with you something that’s terrified me for twenty-five years. You’re welcome in advance.

Many times when I was a kid, I’d end up watching a strange movie on Channel 36, the local indie station that aired pretty much nothing but strange movies in addition to reruns of Mama’s Family and Matlock. This is the same station that allowed me to watch a slasher movie re-telling of The Phantom of the Opera in which Molly Shannon played Meg Giry and also The Horror at 37,000 Feet, a TV movie that had William Shatner battling a poltergeist on a luxury jet. Neither of these scary movies is the one that lingered the most, however; that honor goes to The Nutcracker Fantasy, a Sanrio-produced, stop motion-animated version of The Nutcracker from 1979.

I’ve written about it before on this blog, and I explained how stop motion is always unsettling to me, but this movie in particular got to me as a result of the Ragman, a demonic boogeyman who appears at the beginning of the film for the single purpose of terrifying any children plunked in front of this film by well-meaning adults who thought a Nutcracker adaptation would be family-friendly. The Ragman is a crooked old ghost straight of Luigi’s Mansion who stands several stories tall as he shambles down the moonlit city streets, peering in windows to check for young children who have stayed up past their bedtime. Should he spot any, he teleports into their home and transforms them into mice.

There’s a lot more that’s weird about The Nutcracker Fantasy, but this one scene always stood out to me as something that seemed needlessly horrifying in what is ostensibly a film for children. And based on the Google hits I still get on the old post, I’m not the only one who thinks so—nor am I the only one who has been looking for a high-quality version of this scene. But just last year, Sanrio produced a new transfer of the film, along with a new Japanese dub. So I stumbled through Amazon.com’s Japanese site to ordered one, ripped it and uploaded the scene, just so you all could see how beautifully scary it is.

Enjoy!

I’ve paired it with the audio track from the American version, from a YouTube clip that had previously been the best available version of the scene online. No longer! The American voice cast featured Melissa Gilbert, Christopher Lee, Jo Anne Worley, and Eva Gabor, BTW, but you can’t hear any of them in this clip.

I’ve yet to decide what I’m going to do with the rest of the ripped film, but don’t be surprised if you see it surface on this blog sooner or later.

Nostalgic nightmare fuel, previously:

• The Foul Horror of the Zombie Sandy Duncan
• That One Brady Bunch Where Everybody Gets Shot to Death
• Baby Doll Revisited
• A Midnight Swim With Anthony Perkins
• Ethel Gets Eaten: Nancy Cartwright and the Twilight Zone Movie