Super Mario Bros. celebrated a landmark birthday on Sunday, turning 30 and making gamers worldwide feel just a little bit older in the process. That represents 30-years of world-warping, mushroom-eating, coin-collecting, turtle-stomping, dinosaur-riding good times for Nintendo users young and old.
Debuting in the Japan in 1985, Shigeru Miyamoto’s 8-bit plumber has become an iconic popular culture symbol. Mario, typically clad in red, along with his brother (and clad in green) Luigi, have created memories that will live on or many generations to come. Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool (now named Peach) the Koopas, Bowser and the entire Mario Bros. crew made their way to the United States in 1987.
There are many ways to celebrate Mario’s 30th birthday, including gaming as a family . But another popular culture name of iconic status, Google, celebrated the birthday only as Google can. Oftentimes Google will alter its trademark search logo, but other times (like this one) the search engine giant threw Mario fans for a loop in the way of an Easter Egg.
Searching for “Super Mario Bros.” will generate Google’s traditional search results, but with an added “question mark box” from Super Mario Bros. fame to the right. Turns out this is a clickable feature, which yields a special surprise for longtime Mario fans after being clicked over one-hundred times.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PsC0zIhWNww
This isn’t the first time Google has had a little fun with a celebrated date, not in the least. For Pac-Man’s 30th anniversary, Google introduced a playable version of the game across its many platforms. It brought the infamous gag back for April Fool’s Day 2015, incorporating Pac-Man into their Google Maps interface. For April Fool’s Day 2014, Google sent the world on a real life Pokeman chase through their Google Earth application, an Easter Egg that is now being turned into its own game .
Whether or not Nintendo and Google collaborate on more Super Mario Bros. inspired projects remains to be seen, but for this special day Google created yet another Mario themed memory for fans of the franchise young and old.
The franchise is nearing twenty different releases, which are also accompanied by an anime film, television series and feature film.
Not to be outdone by google, Nintendo released Super Mario Maker , which allows gamers to create and share their own Mario themed worlds.
[Photo credit: Just Push Start ]