In the United States, it will have been 25 years since the release of the original Super Mario Bros. on November 11th. For those who aren't keen on figures, that puts the US release date on November 11th, 1985. Since that time, the game has been re-released several times. In 1993, its graphics and sounds were updated (along with those of its two direct sequels) and released as Super Mario All-Stars on the Super NES. In 1999, it was ported to the Game Boy Colour with a few extra features as Super Mario Bros. Deluxe. In 2005, to co-incide with its 20th anniversary, it and several other NES games were ported to Game Boy Advance. And, most recently, it was re-released in its original form to Wii Virtual Console, where it is currently the service's most-downloaded game.
Now, one may think, "Twenty-five years? That's a quarter of a century! Two and a half decades! A Third-Generation antiquity!" Nonetheless, Miyamoto-san's ground-breaking adventure game remains mainstream in one form or another. For this reason, almost everyone of any age group is mostly familiar with either the original game or one of its innumerable spin-offs. I can prove it. We shall use my recent Halloween costume as an example.
Now, even though I wrote on Of Carbon and Silicon a few days ago that I would be the musical entertainment at a local Halloween party for kids dressed as Luigi, I changed my mind at the last minute and went as Mario, instead (sorry, Luigi mate -- I'll dress in green next year). I didn't need to explain my costume to anyone, I didn't need to explain why I was imitating Charles Martinet in speech, I didn't need to introduce my signature musical piece for any reason at all. Literally everyone in attendance (parents and pre-kindergarteners alike) immediately identified me as Mario and the piece of music I was playing as Kondo-san's Super Mario Bros. Theme. And, yes, I was doing my impression of Charles Martinet's "Mario" character voice, rather than imitating, say, Bob Hoskins or Lou Albano or Toru Furuya. The kids all recognised the character voice because they weren't around for the pre-Martinet era (the oldest attendee, I worked out, was born in 2006).
But, the thing I really want to address is Kondo meijin's theme to the Super Mario Bros. overworld (informally known simply as the Mario Theme). In 25 years, many composers have had an opportunity to re-arrange the theme in some way (with Kondo-san, himself, being the most frequent contributor). In an official capacity (meaning, anything heard in a Mario game), I know of several games with at least one remix of the theme. I can recall eleven offhand: Super Mario All-Stars, Super Mario 64, Mario Golf, Super Smash Bros (64 through Brawl), Super Mario 64 DS, Super Mario Sunshine, Luigi's Mansion, Super Mario Galaxy, and Paper Mario. That doesn't count the number of times the unaltered Super Mario Bros. version has appeared. Sometimes Koji Kondo is the arranger, other times another composer is (Mahito Yokota was in charge of arrangements on Super Mario Galaxy).
Apart from that is the Starman's theme (informally known as Invincibility), which also originated in Super Mario Bros. The only times to my knowledge that this theme was not used in any capacity in a Mario game was in Super Mario Land and Super Mario Land 2 on the Game Boy (Super Mario Land's invincibility theme was the "can-can" from Jacques Offenbach's Orpheus in Hades; Mario Land 2's was a remix of Totakeke's Super Mario Land 2 theme). Otherwise, it has made an appearance somewhere in most games which bear the Mario franchise name.
That's the mark of a good videogame composer -- that he can write music that everyone will recognise for years, decades, centuries after the first release. Most game music just falls into obscurity. A jolly decent tune to whistle along with whilst you play the game, but once the connector pins on the cartridge break and you don't play for years, are you going to remember the overworld theme to Princess Tomato in the Salad Kingdom? Rather unlikely.
Huh? "Toejam & Earl"? They were a pop group from the '60s, right?
One quarter-century after the first four noise banks were heard to squelch out the Super Mario Bros. theme, it's still recognisable and fairly popular. 25 years after Mario picked up the first Super Mushroom, people still know who he is.
Amazing stuff, really.
