The Super Mario Fact Relay Race
I was part of a decades-long mission to tell the world that Tom Hanks got fired.
When I was writing the Super Mario book, I read in the 1994 book Game Over by David Sheff that Tom Hanks was originally cast as Mario in the not-very-good 1993 Super Mario Brothers movie. His salary was $5 million, and Nintendo balked at paying such a high price. So they replaced him with Bob Hoskins, using his husky working-class American accent he previously used for Who Framed Roger Rabbit?
That’s what I read: Hanks out, Hoskins in.
And I went to Google it…and nothing came up. “Tom Hanks + Super Mario” brought up exactly zero results.
This was in 2009.
I double-checked with David Sheff, emailing him out of the blue to ask if, uh, what he wrote and published was true. He kindly wrote back that yes, to the best of his knowledge it was.
So it went into the manuscript for the chapter that covered the disastrous Super Mario Brothers movie. So did the fact that Christopher Hewitt, TV’s Mr Belevedere, played Bowser in a Nintendo-on-ice special hosted by teen stars Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano.
When the book’s one-sheet was being made, the factoid about Hanks being cast made it as one of the bullets. Mr Belvedere and Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano did not.
Part of the unreality of the book world is that, because books take a long time to read, hardly anyone even in the book world reads books. They read the one-sheets instead. If you’ve got a secret to spill you want known, spill it in the one sheet.
I had some big-name prestigious papers review the Mario book, that was nice. And the reviews were normally complementary: that was also nice. But in terms of “moving the needle” of online chatter, they didn’t do much.
What moved the needle was a Buzzfeed-style listicle.
The exact listicle I don’t remember anymore, and it would take me a few hours of forensic web searching to figure it out. But I did an appearance at a Barcade in Jersey City that seemed a disaster — I sold all of one book over 3 hours. But a freelance journalist from a “cool” website was there with friends. He asked a few quite incisive questions, considering three minutes before going into the bar he didn’t know he’d be on the hook for interviewing someone on the history of video games.
The cool website posted it, and THAT got online chatter. For a few days. Then the chatter died down, as it does.
But then an even cooler listicle linked to that cool website, with a fun-facts-about-Mario list.
That listicle somehow had root access to the entirety of the Internet. The word was out; everyone now knew. Not about me or the book or the cool website article: just the fact. Tom Hanks was Mario.
Dozens of other listicles followed, all regurgitating the same facts but with new spot art. It got added to Wikipedia pages. Every few months, for the last decade, it’ll be reposted on Reddit. I daresay some of Tom Hanks’s actual early movies have less online coverage than a movie he didn’t make in 1993.
This fact seemed not a big deal at the time — people get let go for acting contracts all the time. Granted, they don’t become America’s dad and win back-to-back Oscars after being let go for, ahem, not being a big enough box office draw.
I get to claim credit for being part of the relay race team for this fact. “Tom Hanks was Mario” was a fact from 1991 or 1992, smuggled into a 1994 book, and sat dormant until 2009 when I read that book. I put it into a 2011 book, where it also sat dormant, then one cool website happened. Then the listicle launched it into the heavens. Now it’s a well-known accepted fact. And I was one of the people in that relay race.
When I die, this fact may outlive me. It may outlive my grandchildren.
Two things to note in conclusion.
One, Tom Hanks is clearly more of a Luigi than a Mario: Danny DeVito should have been Mario.
Two, when the book came out there was a small but devoted online fanbase for the Super Mario Brothers movie. They were trying to learn absolutely everything about the production of them film, interviewing everyone involved in production about their stories.
Not a single person they interviewed has any knowledge of Tom Hanks being cast as Mario.
That torch of fact I helped carry forward through time; was it wrong? Did I carry a forgotten error forward through time? Have I falsely impugned one of America’s all-time greatest actors for being fired from a dumb video-game movie?
If I ever bump into Tom Hanks, I know the first question I’ll ask him.
Tom Hanks signs off all his social media posts with T.Hanks! so I’ll end this that way as well.
T.Hanks!
SUPER MARIO OF THE WEEK
Pinata week!
PRINCESS LEIA OF THE WEEK
SPIDER-MAN OF THE WEEK
MICKEY MOUSE OF THE WEEK
BOOK OF THE WEEK
ON THE EDGE, by Nate Silver. This 600-page book was basically a 350-page book, and then Nate got a series of interviews with Sam Bankman-Fried in the middle of what turned out to be the biggest financial grift of all time. So the book really derails explaining that.
The first half is about betting games, and I loved reading about that though I do not partake. Call it irrational thinking on my part: if I bet $100 in roulette on black, there’s a ~50/50 chance I either win or lose $100. $100 feels like both not very much to win and a whole lot to lose. So I don’t bet.
The second half is about venture capitol, which I wasn’t as invested in. (Heh.)
UPCOMING APPEARANCES
NOVEMBER 1-3: RHODE ISLAND COMIC-CON — Providence, RI
NOVEMBER 12: OAKESIDE MANSION — BLOOMFIELD NJ (my hometown!)
DECEMBER 14: EAST SIDE MAGS — Montclair, NJ