Mario On Ice
Kid Icarus Served Warm
written by Bill on March 1, 2025

Were you to clamber into the time machine you've had hidden in your basement all these years and travel to my home circa 1989, so as you could search through my bedroom and peruse the dark secrets within, you would find many things. On the walls you would see the Nintendo Power Game calendar, each day carefully marked to count the time remaining until I could flip to the next month and no longer be greeted with a full glossy spread of King Hippo every morning. Alongside which, you would see tracings of Bowser and Bob-ombs taped to the wall that I copied out of magazines, which served to highlight my utter lack of artistic ability. In my dresser drawers you'd find a folder with Mario on the cover, busting out of the TV with handful of mushrooms in tow, possibly on the run from the DEA. By featuring Mario, the folder is too precious to dare use for school, so it stays in my room, holding more shameful attempts at basic visual representation. I had recently been at the home of a family friend, who had showed off her son's drawings and remarked on his technical ability as demonstrated in his picture of a fire escape outside of a multi-level apartment building. All straight lines and intricate detail. In my typical childhood attitude of "oh yeah well fuck YOU", I had attempted the same that very night, and the result looked vaguely like Superman had wrapped a railroad track around a flophouse to detain the gang of stickmen drug dealers inside. In the drawer it goes. On top of this dresser you'd find my lunchbox, emblazoned with the image of the Mario brothers playing Zelda II and stinking like 5 month old milk poured on a dead dog's ass because I can't be bothered to ever wash the damn thing. I'm not made of time. These things would then all be destroyed when my angry black father came in swinging a baseball bat and you would be forced to run away to Mr. Strickland's house. We are NOT gonna be terrorized!

The point I'm trying to make here is twofold.

1. I can't fucking draw and my sandwiches taste like dog ass milk.
2. I had an unhealthy obsession with Nintendo.

With a product like Nintendo in the late '80s, it was really shooting fish in a barrel from a merchandising perspective. Who cares what the hell it is, it's got Mario on it! You got to see something you had attained an almost religious devotion to in some new form; the kind of form was rather immaterial. So, had I actually known about it, I probably would've pissed myself to see that Mario was getting several minutes of prime TV time, even if it was on ice.

Another, slightly more inexplicable trend of the '80s was the "..On Ice" fad. Ice shows had been in existence long before and they still go on now, but for some reason they were particularly novel to the American public during this time, which lead to pretty much everything you could think of being given a goofy interpretive skating treatment by Brian Boitano. Disney On Ice, Sesame Street On Ice, Peanuts On Ice, Barbie On Ice, Predator On Ice, January Regulatory Meeting of the Des Moines Zoning Commission On Ice, etc. Which leads us to our subject.

Oh, right.. One other big trend in the 80s was family sitcoms. Alyssa Milano was, of course, SUH-MAN-TER! from Who's The Boss?. Jason Bateman, as I understand it, was on Silver Spoons and, at the time of this special, a sitcom called The Hogan Family. I was too busy learning about female sexuality from Wendy Koopa reading the encyclopedia and attending Harvard as a kid so I didn't have time to watch this shit. Thus, I have no idea what the show was about. I can only assume it stars Hulk Hogan as a former wrestler turned housekeeper who gets into wacky situations trying to maintain a household while entering a fighting tournament so he can beat the shit out of his daughter to protect her from getting the shit beat out of her.

The special, or the only part we're interested in anyway, begins with our hosts having a discussion behind the scenes. It seems poor Jason is "all keyed up" and he's "gotta let it all out," because ice skating is just too damned exciting. He's really lobbing a softball straight to Alyssa so she can throw in a plug for Teen Steam here, but I guess she was distracted by a bug or something because it just cracks her in the head instead. She mocks him for showing interest in things and they wander over to where someone has built a The Max franchise store in the backstage area of an ice rink.

Jason gets keyed up another notch because holy shit, they have a Nintendo back here! He squeals like a little girl and the crowd quickly disperses in fear of him. Alyssa, of course, has never heard of Nintendo so Jason (the self-proclaimed "Video Prince" -- there's this pregnant pause after he says it where it's obvious even he doesn't buy what just came out of his mouth) takes it upon himself to show her the ropes. Thankfully, Casper or somebody is there to continue playing the game so he doesn't actually have to have a controller with him while he explains. He prattles on while Alyssa absolves herself of all involvement with this segment by not saying a word. From the very second Nintendo is mentioned, she speaks only in grunts and head gestures. When Jason asked if she'd ever played Nintendo, her answer was a resounding claw hand with Michael J. Fox head shake.

Meanwhile Jason does his best to look like a crow who wants to pluck out her eyeball. Anyway, Jason lays out the plot, such as it is, so all the people at home who don't know anything about Mario can follow the complex narrative that's about to unfold. But oh no! Just then, a "computer virus" strikes the Nintendo, assumedly because it used the can without putting down one of those tissue paper covers. The screen buzzes, an unearthly noise eminates from the TV speaker.. What is going on?

Christ, look at him! Milano's spitting out sarcastic remarks to try and drudge her way through this and Bateman's seriously freaking the hell out. No one before or since has ever delivered a line that includes the word "dastardly" as earnestly as he does here. So it seems the virus releases the "evil forces" stored up in the computer, but it really picked a bad time to do so. The sinister plan has finally sprung into action and the only remotely evil creatures it currently has access to are walking mushrooms and winged turtles. If this has to be your weapon of choice, at least wait until somebody puts in a game with guns. It's like trying to take over the world with the guys from Balloon Fight.

The mastermind finally reveals himself and, of course, it's King Koopa. Or, as Alyssa so helpfully points out: "Wait a minute, that looks like Mr. Belvedere." She's really dedicated to selling this piece.

Yes, a third sitcom star decides to drop by and shame himself. This used to happen a lot more often than it does now; The actors weren't just tied to their show, they were tied to the network they were on, and often appeared in special productions the network was putting together. It's not unlike the studio system for movies in the 1930s, where the actors are considered a part of the "company family" and, just like real families, are expected to attend every ridiculous outing to a rundown minigolf course with the fat uncle who can open beer bottles with his belly button. Nowadays, TV actors get off fairly light. Just time served and an allotment of public service announcements and you're free to go.

Koopa explains his plans to bring the world under his control by being a slight nuisance: "Don't you adore chaos? Isn't cacophony divine? One little fly in the ointment, one little bug in the cold creme jar, and the whole world is mine!" He doesn't go into any detail as to how this is accomplished, but it doesn't matter. Showing some sign of a serious personality disorder, he immediately turns around and shits on everything he just said. "You know something, I don't even want it! I just do it for the sheer exquisite pleasure of making trouble." He makes no attempt to kidnap the princess this time. He's just dicking around because it's better than watching People's Court.

He calls his minions together, and the first thing you're struck with is.. well hey, this is actually a pretty accurate representation. Even a lot of official Nintendo merchandise was off-model in those days, but, Jungle Camo Jester Belvedere with Action Hulk Hands aside, this is pretty much straight out of the game. He sends each bad guy off to a different section of the "computer:" The koopa troopa is sent to the memory (though with Christopher Hewett's accent it sounds more like mammary lol boobz. I wonder if you can do the 100 1-up trick by bouncing the koopa up against the nipple repeatedly), the hammer brother (just one?) is sent to the database, the koopa paratroopa is sent to the hard drive, and the goombas are sent to.. to.. zip your pockets? Sniff the froggies? What the hell does he say? Finally, he tells the spiny to "do what you want.. only do it now!" because he's already run out of generic computer terms and he's still confused as to what the hell he just told the goombas to do. Pick the lockets?

The minions all head out to the center of the rink to dance around, while the goombas and the spiny just sorta scuttle in place like broken battlebots. Koopa hops on board his castle on wheels and heads out onto the rink. Inside each child a small part of them dies as a prerecorded Koopa rap starts playing over the speakers, while Hewett just tries to mouth along to a few words here and there when he's not too busy trying desperately to hang on to his rocket car.

Oh, and I suppose you want to hear it. You are some piece of work, you know that? Oh well, at least you probably know how to rhyme words, which is more than I can say for King Koopa. I hope you're also a better driver than he is, because he just rammed one of his own followers.

In reaction to this aural assault, Princess Peach Toadstool finally steps in and takes action. They seemed to do a pretty good job with the other characters, I have faith this will be a fairly accurate

GAH!

Okay, so we've discovered they have a slight weakness in rendering the main characters. In happier news, one of the skater assistants on the right is realizing the dream of so many children across the nation by ripping a lethal asparagus fart on the producer from Video Power. Nearby, Earth Girls Are Easy-era Geena Davis turns away in shock.

Now, it's 1989. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show won't debut until later in the year. No one has yet conceived of a voice for Princess Toadstool. What do you choose? Something regal to suit her title? Something high pitched and hyper-feminine, to fit her role as damsel in distress? How about a dead actress from the '30s with one of the most overly-imitated voices of her time? While she apparently decides to take a break from her troubles with an orgasm, I begin to hate each and every person who laughed at this performance.

Finally she calls in the Super Mario Brothers, who descend, flailing, into the world on the gossamer tethers of the Heavens. Just like in the game!

Now that they're here, the show can.. Wait a minute. Back it up.

Farther.

Eeg. Farther.

Not that far.

There! What the hell is this? Mario and Luigi are standing right there in the back, facing the wall. That's kinda creepy looking, actually. It's like Peach is going to come down those stairs and catch a brief glimpse of Mario standing in the corner right before the Blair Wario knocks her in the head with a POW block.

So they hang the brothers in the air later just for the TV version? The suckers who paid to see this live just get extra characters lying around on their smoke break until their scene comes up? They couldn't just come out from behind a damn curtain? The inner workings of the Ice Capades are strange and confusing. But Mario sorta looks like a Pez dispenser in that shot, so I guess it all balances out.

After some stimulating in-flight conversation, Peach asks the brothers for help and they immediately admit it's beyond their ability. (I don't know what was with Mario's "highness-lady" bit there, but it sounded like it was all he could do to keep from drooling on himself) They need their "plumber's helpers," meaning carts full of kids with foam wrenches and plungers, to be brought in via overall-wearing pushers who are not much more than Chuck E. Cheese Attendants.. On Ice! and look just about as happy with their jobs.

Bowser isn't too concerned, and who can blame him?

And why doesn't he just radio in air support with that walkie talkie?

Perhaps overly confident of his victory given that he commands giant monsters and the Mario brothers command boxes of bored 8 year olds with Nerf pipe-cleaning equipment, Koopa decides to send each of his troops one at a time to deal with the enemy. There's one thing he didn't count on, however. He didn't properly consider that Luigi may decide to pull out a gun and blow them the fuck away.

Jesus. Just paint a kickball to look like a fireball and chuck it at them or something. We've accepted an overweight British man in golf pants as Bowser, we can accept that. Instead, we're treated to a parade of horror as each monster is brought down the aisle, without even the benefit of a blindfold and a cigarette, and taken out execution-style for the delight and amusement of the children. Luigi drags the proceedings into a lower order of depravity by insisting on sticking the gun between his legs and thrusting his hips each time he fires.

Finally it's Bowser's turn on the chopping block, and he helpfully wheels himself up into firing range. The kids are brought in close to trap him in and help send him to his doom. Let's come up with a great parting shot to really rub it in. Mario's got it covered for us.

"King Koopa, you a chicken! Get-a you'self a new chicken coop-a!"

...

"..Jesus Christ, Mario. No wonder they gave me the gun. I waggle my legs in the air when I jump and piss myself when I see ghosts and I still come off as less of a retard than you."

What's the deal with that, anyway? Peach called out for the two earlier using Luigi's name first. Luigi was the one who single-handedly, or at the least single-phallic-weaponedly, dealt with all the bad guys while his brother wasn't even on the stage. During the big climatic explosion, Mario simply stands by expressing no emotion or interest whatsoever. Was the guy in the costume drunk this day?

So the kids all raise their wrenches and cast the incantation to send Bowser to the nether realms, or something. I dunno. The whole experience has been tainted now, thanks Mario. The whole ordeal plays out like those bad Newgrounds games (lol redundant) where they show a picture of Avril Lavigne, then you click it and it changes to a picture of a mushroom cloud. You're expected to derive some sort of enjoyment from the act of overlaying a picture of someone you're not supposed to like with violent imagery. Nevermind that most kids probably liked Bowser more than they did Mario.

The cart kids are sent away to be dumped back into the stands (with the bad guys they just disintegrated magically rematerialized and waiting patiently in the back), and the princess awards each of the brothers the "purple plunger of bravery." They really took the plumber thing and ran with it. The virus has been cleaned out, which according to Milano means that she won (?), and our hosts head off to other adventures while I try to figure out what Striptuse is.

Maybe it's like a strip Batusi. In which case Milano has probably already performed it in some Cinemax movie called Dance of Desire or something.

On the whole I think I actually would've enjoyed this as a kid. Admittedly, I enjoyed watching 20/20 segments that were just explaining to parents what these damn video game things are that their kids keep bugging them for. But despite the bad acting and the unconvincing character costumes, it's a chance to see a larger than life-size spiny running around and that's worth the price of admission alone. Now if this trend would just pick back up again, we could grant kids the opportunity to be brought out on stage and raise their Nerf dildos to help CJ beat a pedestrian to death while Laura Prepon and Frankie Muniz provide commentary.