Nintendo
Super Mario Bros

The year is nineteen eighty-five, directed by a certain Shigeru Miyamoto. The stage where the contest unfolds, a revolutionary console: the Nintendo Entertainment System, 8-bit power that will revolutionize, for better or worse, the concept of entertainment in the years to come.

The lights in the room dim, the audience stops chatting... There is a quiet murmur... Whispering... Then silence.

The curtain opens...

Lights!

Parappa pa pà pa pa...

There is a plumber, there are many brown bricks on which this bizarre plumber walks, there are other bricks that hang in the sky as if they were glued to the backdrop, among them some metallic cubes decorated with a question mark. All around the Immense blue sky.

The plumber starts walking, a huge mushroom with menacing eyes appears and approaches him (the leaflet given at the entrance says this character goes by the name "Goomba"... meh). The plumber jumps, lands on its head, and the being disappears.--Among the audience someone starts whispering something imperceptible. - The toilet-fixer turns around, takes a step back, leaps and bumps his head on the metal box marked with the mysterious symbol, another mushroom comes out, this time inanimate.-- Oooh -- The human plunger, heedless of the danger, runs towards it, "TURU TUru Turu", and becomes giant -- "Wow, did you see?" The audience starts murmuring -- while the newly-formed giant skillfully leaps over green pipes and lands on other mushrooms with fierce looks. Then a leap to cross a gap, another to headbutt a metal box again, and this time a flashing flower comes out. --"And now?" "What is that thing?"-- A leap on the flower and our hero changes color, becoming white and red. But no time to peek at it and two more evil Goombas show up. The plumber doesn't flinch and throws two fireballs from his hands as if they were marbles, which put the unfortunate attackers out of action --"WAAAAAA!!!!" "Did you see it??" "Holy crap!!!"-- The audience jumps up, overcome with a convulsive sense of amazement mixed with joy and hyper-excitement -- "Mario! Mario! Mario!" -- They have never seen anything like it, they can't believe their eyes--"Look at the turtles!!!" "Yesss!!! Kill them" "Shoot! Shoot!" "Jump"-- Mario, that's the name of the plumber, reaches the top of a hill of bricks, jumps down, grabbing a flag that lowers under his weight, 5000 points -- Inside the theater it now feels like attending an Exploited concert. Overturned chairs are thrown towards the sky in joy, the screams are no longer understandable, a single deafening roar fills the room. The theater lights are still off but the flashes of cameras wanting to capture the moment illuminate it like daylight. Awakened by the chaos, the plumber turns around, looks at the audience, under that big red mustache seems to be smiling. Then he turns to the right, and heedless of the cries of the ecstatic audience, he enters a small castle. Fireworks fill the blue sky as the curtain closes.

The crowd is uncontrollable, rushing with manic fury out of the theater. Trampling over each other, overwhelming ushers, breaking doors and windows, they pour into the streets in search of the first store able to sell them a Nintendo and that incredible experience they just witnessed: Super Mario Bros.

The Nintendo era begins.

...thanks to an Italian plumber... funny, isn't it?