Mario stuff is pretty weird on its own, but way back in the old days before they really figured out what the official Mario branding was, things got WEIRD. This time in Stone Age Gaming, Kris goes through some of his favorite officially licensed weird Mario stuff that's just a bit... off.

Vintage Mario Madness Notepad Factory Sealed

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Super Mario Bros. "Mario Madness" Notepad from 1989 Factory Sealed … read more

Transcript of the video:

Hi there. Kris from Stone Age Gamer here. And welcome back to Stone Age Gaming. Today, I want to talk about this fellow. This is Mario. You probably recognize him, but when I was a kid, Mario looked a lot more like this. This is an old 1980s action. Not really an action figure figurine of Mario. And this is a current day. Mario Amiibo. Now, Mario, no matter how you slice it, is pretty weird when you think about the logistics of the mushroom kingdom and all the power ups. And it's weird, but it's great. Kind of weird. Who doesn't love the Mario Universe? It's a lot of fun, but man, when I was a kid before, they kind of leveled them out and figured out exactly what Mario was supposed to look like and act like Mario had a little bit more freedom to be even weirder. And, well, there was a lot of weird Mario merchandise that went along with it, so I thought it would be pretty fun with Super Mario Wonder coming out, and it's looking to be pretty focused on the weirdness of Mario to look back on a simpler time when things were even more weird because, well, I just don't think anyone was paying a lot of attention. Let's take a look. 

[00:01:05] Okay. Let's talk about weird Mario stuff. And we're going to start with this. It's a thermos. Now, truth be told, this is not just Mario. We've got Mario and we've got Zelda on the back. This thermos was originally part of a lunchbox set, which I don't have a lunchbox for. I just have the thermos. But I am such a fan. Look how weird this is, right, Birdo? Not so weird. The bomb. That's an interesting face. That is a Oh, no. What? Bizarre. That's it. That's a strange looking. Bizarre. Looks very sad. But look at Wart. This is like some weird amalgamation of Wart and Bowser, which is, like, incredibly strange. I love it, but that's the most ferocious I've ever seen. Wart, which is pretty wild. So there you go. Super Mario Bros. Thermos. 

[00:01:53] Next, let's stick with food themed items, which is this Happy Meal. This was a super marvelous. There's three Happy Meal that it's La loro and tail. Now, I don't know, somebody filled this out. This. A friend of mine gave this to me. He was cleaning out someone's house and they were getting rid of this. So this is the box that the Happy Meal came in. And then I've got these little cards here. I don't I actually don't remember where this one came from. I don't think this came in the same the came with this. Somebody else had given this to me, which I thought was pretty cool. Looks like one of the cards that they would put up on display in some sort of thing in the McDonald's. And then this is a cool little, I don't know, pamphlet looking thing, which is kind of neat. It folds out and has a bunch of advertisements for Mario three and Nintendo Power, of course, because Nintendo Power was the coolest. You really can't you can't overstate how Big Mario 3 was and this game was everywhere when it came out, which is nuts, but that's a pretty cool thing. Not super weird, but interesting enough to show off here. Like it's got the little map for the desert world in the back. It's a pretty, pretty nifty. 

[00:03:02] All right, what else we got here? Okay. These are Nintendo branded Super Mario Brothers, Little Golden Books. Now, I actually did a whole thing on this perilous pit one. If you haven't seen that video, feel free to check it out. But there is some really interesting all brand art in here, including this wonderful picture of Mario just going to town on mushrooms and stuff. This is a really, really weird mario book with some really interesting there's chunky browser down here, artwork, but this one actually got since I made that video. This is Super Mario Brothers 3, The Secret Bridge, which is again just chock full of really fascinating off brand weird mario artwork like. Faces are. Looking quite right there. Where's the where's the one I'm looking for? I mean, there's something something really unsettling about this position for Luigi, But this one, look at this. The coupe is the background just screaming. And these guys are having the time of the look at Luigi's face. They're just having the time of their lives just roasting these coupe. True, They're having a good time. These little golden books are so bizarre and so like, they're almost on brand. They're they're pretty close, but they seem to be a mix up between like original game art and the TV show. Like, that's totally Super Marvel, the Super Show, Bowser or King Koopa, as he were in that one. But ever the cat look at a wrinkly his mouth is this is so weird These are these are awesome. I'm so glad I have these. There's a Zelda one too. Which art where he's going after a marvel. And again, that seems to be loosely based off of the cartoon. There's absolutely nothing on the back of these things. It's just solid colors. So, hey, you know, some Super Mario Brothers little golden books. Yeah. 

[00:04:48] Speaking of the Super Mario Brothers Super show, it's the Super Mario Brothers Super Show. I was obsessed with this show when I was a kid and somewhere, I think at a yard sale a few years back, I picked these these VHS tapes up of just like. Hosted live by both the Super Mario Brothers and special guest stars. Great BMX race and Mario meets KoopZilla and this Mario meets Cube Zillow on. I remember being a kind of racist in the beginning. But then what? What wasn't back then? Let's see. King Koopa has eaten Dr. Teagarden secret weapon, super sushi, and it's been transformed into the huge monster coop zilla. This show was so much fun, and these tapes actually still work. I tested one of them out earlier. This one. This one's interesting. Check this out. The the label is fallen off, but it's got some sort of message written on it that I can't understand. Like, Yo, what's up, homie? Something. Something. I can't read it, but it's neat. I love little, little things like that. When you find things that are second hand, something that was once personalized to some degree. There you go. But yeah. Super Mario Brothers Super Show on VHS. No better way to watch this masterpiece of a show. Look at that. Look at that art. It's amazing. Can't get any better than that. Thanks, DIC. Video. Good times.

[00:06:12] Here's a weird one. Super Mario Brothers themed Dixie Cups. These are official Dixie cups. Five ounce kitchen cups. Although I don't think I've ever seen these in kitchens. I feel like my friends, I'll have these in bathrooms. I don't have one of the dispensers. I would very much like to have a dispenser for these things, But man, look at all these cool prizes You can win on the back in one action, set a T-shirt. This thing. And what is this? Oh, it's the videos. Look at that. It's the videos we just looked at. But none of these are. Those are there. Is this the. Is that the. Oh, that says that's the cubes is the one in the middle. I can't really tell the other ones from here. Oh maybe that's the BMX one there. Right. The second one into the right. Yeah. Maybe that is. Well, that's cool. Wow. There's the whole supermarket brothers cartoon video library. But, yeah, this is a friend of mine gave me these as well. This is a it's full. It's got the cups. And we'll take a look at those in a second. Just take a look at the outside of the box with the blue princess peach dress on the outside. That's very interesting artwork. It almost looks like someone tried to color this in with a cran, but as far as I can tell, that's not the case. This is just the way this was printed, which is so weird because, like, look at her dress. It totally looks like somebody coloring in with a crown. But if you look at it, if I can get the right shine on here, I can see it here. There's no crown on here. That's just the way this is printed, which is super weird. All right, let's see what the cups look like. And I think there's a I think there's a handful of different ones, so I'm just going to grab a stack and let's see what we got here. 

[00:07:44] We've got we can get these things. Mario leaves over a spiny problem created by Lackey to boy, look at that spiny. That's pretty cool looking. Yeah. We're going to go. There we go. Let's see what we've got here. What's next? Boing! Oh, he's punching a goomba. Who doesn't seem at all bothered by being punched, but the curvature was running away. Well, if little Goomba and Koopa trip a stand in Mario's way. Boy, Oh, I get it. It's like a little comic strip. Neko, What? Or we got here. Oh, super green, Bowser. Bowser is Mario's last battle before reaching the princess, and he's on a dock. What? What's. Why is he. On a dock? And what is this? This wasabi smoke in the background. That's really weird. That doesn't make any sense. I saw Mario to business. I see. Eat all your vegetables. Triclyde. And there's good old red. Triclyde. I hate it when they turn him blue in Mario All-Stars. That's. That's always bothered bothered me because he was so cool looking red I was love Try collide. Yeah. And toss in the vegetable. There you go. Nice Mario to representation. What we got here is another bowser on a dock. Or we see if we're going to get any unique ones here. Seen that one already Seen that one already. I feel like there's. Oh, here we go. What? Look at the Cheep Cheeps. What is that? His underwater enemies are no Oh, no match for Mario's fireballs. Again, I ask, what is that? You've never seen a cheap, cheap look. Anything like that? That is wild. Oh, I love it. I think that's it. Is this? Yeah, the lack of two and. Oh, this is a different one. 

[00:09:36] Oh, What are we got here? We got shy guys. Stand back. Shy guys. I'm off to the rescue. Won't make any sense, but. Okay, you got three shy air works. Super Mario Brothers, too. So that's Mario one, Mario. And these are Mario, two shy guys. So they're just taking every asset they can find. It mixed them up. And this looks like a different looks like a bullet. Bill. I look at that. It is a dollar bill. Mario hits the deck as bullet bill whizzes by. Man. Look at that. That is cool. All right. I think. I think we've seen them all now. I feel like that's a that's a pretty good representation of the Super Mario Brothers themed Dixie Cups. That's all. These clouds are so happy. I love it. Super weird. Love him to death. 

[00:10:18] All right. Next is one of my favorites. Boom! Figures. All right. I was so into these things when I was a kid, and I'm still missing one. I have to track down. I think I'm only missing one. There's one where Ma is holding a hammer. Donkey Kong style ballet. These are, I guess, the Cali rubbery. They're really interesting little figurines now. Finding the Super Mario action figures. When I was a kid, that wasn't a thing. This is like what I had to play with. So I would play with these all the time. And they're like slightly off brand, but they were pretty a good match for the artwork that was available at the time, right? So here's Mario climbing a beanstalk like a Vine, like find in the bonus levels. We've got Mario throwing a mighty looking fireball, which I always like this one a lot. This is a super cool one. We've got Mario jumping on a Koopa. Trevor That's very green. But yeah, he's a thorough jumping right over him. They're very well designed. Top to bottom. He's looking off to the side. He seems concerned, like this little guy. Then we've got Mario from pulling up a radish or a turnip, and this is turning from radishes are smaller and redder. I know things about vegetables, but. Yeah, there. There we go. Mario doing that. Very Mario, too. And then we've got we got Princess Peach or Princess Toadstool, as she was known back then. It's pretty, pretty solid. Her face is a little off, but all things considered, not too shabby. She looks pretty good. Then we got Luigi here doing his Luigi run thing. Not. Not again. Not too bad. And that was a really great match up for this, Mario. This was always my I think this was my favorite one, honestly, because it's just the classic Mario pose holding The mushroom goes well with the Luigi. They're pretty good. I love these little guys, but these were same company I think also made these things. 

[00:12:05] Now I did a video on these before. These are technically trophies, but they're like these little mini dioramas and I always thought they were incredibly cool. Either the whole thing on weird video game trophies I have, and I think I covered these in that, but I'll show these off again because they're some of my favorite things. There is a whole line of these, and these are the only two I've ever had. Tracking these things down now, especially in like good condition, is extremely rare, but there's a whole bunch of punch out ones and Zelda ones. I would love, love, love to track these things down because they are so cool looking. They're so weird. You know, Mario's got no whites in his eyes. It's just a but you can tell that the eyes are all, like, actually embossed in there. Oh, no. My blooper, he fell off. So this actually comes right out of his back there. It's not supposed to, but it can. So that's one of the reasons these things are so hard to find in good condition design, because they do actually just kind of fall apart. The glue just comes undone. So there's a closer look at this one. And then this is the one where he's running away from a weirdly orange bullet. Bill. I don't know what that's about, but yeah, he's coming out of the the grass here. The grass is kind of sticking out of the bottom a little bit just because it's old and his gloves are turning pink because the paint is disintegrating over time. But it's all still together. And I never had a high score or anything on it. And there you go, Super Mario Trophies again. There's so many more of these and they're all so awesome. And I wish I, I wish I had them. They're incredibly expensive on the aftermarket, but still ridiculously cool stuff. 

[00:13:31] Speaking of my favorite stuff, it's the Super Mario Brothers board game I did in a whole other episode of Storage gaming on this thing as well. Or you can see this in depth, but I can't make a video about Weird Mario stuff without showing this off. At least the artwork we've seen Peach in Blue. Now we've seen her in green with brown hair. This board game is awesome. It's the board comes in four pieces. It's got all these cards with wacky artwork. I love this thing so, so much. Go check out that video if you're interested in more about the Super Mario Brothers board game from Bill Bradley. All right.

[00:14:04] Next up, we have these these are greeting cards from Nick Soft. These are fascinating. I found these in a whole bunch of different packs. I think too many games somebody was selling. These we've got feeling lousy is for the birds. Get well soon and tweeters flying around a very sick Mario who still got his hat and socks on which is pretty wild. You make me feel like a princess. Oh, cute. We've got. Oh, I'm going to save that one. This one's wild. All right, so let's see. Call me any time. I'm all ears. Hooray for Mouser. Look at that. Awesome Mouser. So cool, Mouser And try Clyde Free guy. All the bosses from Ohio, too, were so cool. I'm so sad we never see him around anymore. You and I are two of a kind. Hurray for. I mean, ninjas didn't always come in pairs, so this doesn't make a lot of sense, but. Okay, why not? It's a card with a ninja on it. I'm bugging you. Have a great birthday. Hoop Star. I think that's what those guys were called. Got to love that. Anything. Mariota is great. Wondering how I stay busy while I'm missing you. Don't worry, I'm finding plenty to do. He's fighting flurries and tweeters and Bezos and vegetables. He's having a good time. Except he seems really worried about it. This. We already did this when they came in these three different packs. I have a couple of duplicates of these. This one here. Oh, this is a classic. Hats off to a good friend. Yeah, Yeah. I know. In the old cartoon Toad, this was a hat. And it's always, like, goes back and forth on whether or not this is a hat. But there's something particularly disturbing about this little fellow right here. He just looks so strange. Oh, man. So these are super cool. Neck soft. Good job with your weird greeting cards from 1989. 

[00:15:58] All right. Speaking of celebrations, we have some Super Mario Brothers themed napkins from paper art. There's an official licensed Nintendo product. I've never opened these. I have to assume they're all the same. They look like it if I look through here, which is why I've never bother opening it. But yeah, that's. That's some absorbent Mario business right there. Look at his very blue eyes. And the balloon is a little slightly different color. They're just happy birthday. I don't know. Like, it's weird. What do you do with something like this? It's. I'm not going to use them because that would that seems like a horrible waste to use something that's so beverage napkins, so unique. But like, you guess you just don't see mario napkins around all that often. Well, now you have. There you go, Mario. Napkins. Enjoy. 

[00:16:46] Hey, what about air fresheners? Yes, This is a Super Mario two air freshener. I have no idea what this smells like. I'm not going to crack it open to find out. I did this with Megaman air fresheners, ones that weren't nearly this old, and they had been sitting in their packaging for a long time. They smelled pretty funky when I got around to it. Let's see air freshener. Use it in the house office or car. Use it anywhere, wherever a pleasant aroma is desired for an odor or an odor problem exists. What is this like? What's it supposed to smell like? I'm so curious, but not. I can't bring myself to open this thing from 1989. This has got to be a that's really that's really something. But that's a mario to box art, right, with that kind of radish. Good times, turnip, not radish. 

[00:17:36] Now, this is a very recent acquisition. I just got this earlier this year. This is a Super Mario Brothers seven piece of decorating kit ideal for windows, walls and doors. This is another one. I just I can't bring myself to open mostly because you can see everything just in the packaging itself. But boy, look at this thing. Look at this. A scared blue, cheap, cheap and you know, Luigi artwork. This is all just official artwork I've seen around. I feel like I'm not familiar with him in the hang glider. I don't think I've seen that one around. But you know like him in the race car suit. Oh, so here we go. Look at that. We got Mario about to conquer Master, who is weirdly tiny. There's that same bubble we saw earlier on. What are we see that on something over here? We saw that little, little bubble somewhere. Oh, was on the thermos. Good old cowboy Mario with a gun ready to shoot somebody. Mario with a heart, angrily throwing a shell over a piranha plant at Berto. Is bananas. And then, of course, this we've seen this one around. That's that was used all over the place back, back in the old days. But yeah, 1989 and just a whole bunch. It looks like it's just these two things so I can see everything without having to crack it open. So I'm not really going to open it. This is made by Eureka, the Paper Magic Group from Troy, Pennsylvania. Well, where to go? Eureka. Extraordinarily cool stuff. I can imagine. I would have loved to have my room decorated with this stuff when I was a kid. 

[00:19:10] All right. Next we have the Super Mario Brothers nightlight. This, they can see the packaging has melted and can't come apart. But if I lining up, I can kind of read this stuff here. Neon Nightlight operates for only pennies per year. What? That's crazy. And there's absolutely nothing on the back. But here's the closer look at the night light itself, which is pretty cool looking when you really get right down to it. And I do believe it actually works still. I'm Well, let's let's. I'm going to do a cutaway and I'm going to plug it in and see if it still works. And then I'll just cut back to here, but I won't know if it works when I did it, because I'm doing it now. Right. So, yeah, there, there it is. Super Mario Nightlight. This is one of my favorites. This is so cool. And it's got a really interesting texture, like considering how old this is or how old it must be. This is definitely at least 89. What are we looking at here? Oh, this is 91. Look at you. While still that's still pretty darn old. And the fact that it's in, it just nothing has really degraded at all. The paint and everything's just looks wonderful. So that's a real win. I love this one. My friend Ferg gave this to me. He's a super awesome guy, and I really appreciate him giving me this nightlight because it's awesome.

[00:20:32] Okay, we're almost done here, and I can't guarantee that these are both Mario related things, but I got a couple of these trading card packs that I figured we could take a look at. Right. So we've got Nintendo game packs here, right? This is the less interesting one because this one, we'll get to that in a minute. This one here is actually already kind of technically opened. The wax kind of came apart, but I've never looked inside of it. So let's see what's inside this pack of Nintendo game pack with top secret tips, three scratch off cards and two stickers. Well, that sounds exciting. Let's see what we got cooking here. Okay, I see Mario two. So we've got we're already on brand for the weird Maurice. Oh, my. God. Look at this. They look at that. Vaguely. Remember, it resembles the Mario two box that is straight up redrawn like the proportions are all off on this. Look at his face. Oh, my God, That's so weird. I love it. As it's a super. It's got a tip for a different game. It's got a tip for Mario. One on the back, hit the flagpole on the timer, and then one, three or six, and you'll get fireworks for extra points. Ooh, thanks, weird guy. Oh, look at that. You got a little Mac punching King hippo in the stomach. That is so cool. Oh, okay. So the tips are just for all kinds of random stuff if you're super or fiery. Mario, a nifty way. Wow. Nifty to bypass dangerous enemies is to let them hit you for a brief time. You'll be invincible. You can slip by. I guess that's a strategy. I don't know. That's a good one. This just looks like it's got a. You could scratch these away for some reason. I'm not sure what the point is. Oh, let's see what it says. Scratch off first area left side of the card and two uncover arrow, then move to the next scratch off area right side of the card. You can't win until at least one arrow and two levers are exposed. I'm not sure that sounds entertaining, but thanks tops. What? Double Dragon. That's out of nowhere. Look at this. It's just a random double dragon. Thing in the middle of all these Mario cards and punch out. That's so cool. What do you. What do you have to say about Double Dragon? Find two elevators to win. Okay, So it's just scratched these things off. And then we got a Super Mario Brothers two one with a bunch of stuff growing out of a log. And this is just another little scratch off minigame thing. Okay, that is neat. These cards are so good. I used to get these when I was a kid, but very few of them. The local place I used to get cards from was there was a wah wah when I was growing up. I think I only had these like once or twice, so I really didn't see too many of them around. 

[00:23:12] These are incredibly cool, but this guy here, he's definitely got something to do with Mario. These are Donkey Kong trading cards from 1982. I was one when these cards came out. That's crazy. Number one video game. Look at this artwork. Look at Mario and Donkey Kong and Pauline. We've got three rub off cards, three stickers, one stick, bubblegum. That's what's interesting, because the gum is still in here. And I'm going to I've never opened this and I'm totally going to open it right now to see what this gum looks like. What year was this from, uh, is there a date on this? I'm so curious if there's a date on this one's Topps Company. Oh, this is 89. Okay. Wow. All right, well, let's see what was cookin in 1982 for Donkey Kong. Bazooka, bubble gum. Oh, my God. This gum is going to be. It's not powder. I can already feel it in here. It's not powder, but. All right, it's a There we go. Hey, I love this already. I don't want to rip anything because, like, this is incredibly cool, so. Oh, my God, Look at the gum. It is. So foul. Oh, that is so gross. It is just rock solid. L I should really throw out the gum part of this. I feel like it's been historically preserved on video, and I can safely throw that away, and it has definitely discolored the cards. But let's see. Honk if you play donkey. Go get it right in the car. You big ape. Is that supposed to be Pauline kicking him in the butt? I don't know. That's weird. I've always loved. This artwork. Here is what your completed Red border Donkey Kong picture will look like. Collect all 15 sticker backs of Donkey Kong picture be. Oh, look at that. You could get them all together and make a big poster of that. Oh, that is so cool. Look at these little, little mini sticker things. They all are funny little faces. That's pretty neat. That's another Wait. Oh, so I got two of the same one in the same pack. Ah, boo to that. Oh, and look, they're still doing this scratch off nonsense. Look at this. We got the same exact thing going on as they did in several years later in these other packs. That's hilarious. And, you know, these are kind of boring to look at. Okay, well, there you go. Those That's worse than the Donkey Kong pack of cards. God, that gum looks horrifying. I need to throw that away. That needs to be out of our lives for good. But there you go. Cool trading card packs. 

[00:25:48] And the very last thing I want to show off is this. I got this at? Goodness. It was a Thursday like the book fair at school. And for some reason, I thought this was the coolest darn thing in the world. As you can see, it has been through a lot. I took this with me like this. I played with it. I don't even know what I did with it, but this thing was like always around. It's got a please do not disturb, but I just always loved the thought that I could put a thing on a doorknob. Sorry. Nintendo game in progress. This is just being held together with electrical tape cause the top of it fell apart. I got Scotch tape all over the place. You're barely holding this piece of plastic together, which was very white when I got it. But much like a Super Nintendo has been slowly yellowing over the years. But, God, I can't even begin to put into words how much I love this. I think I did one on the calendars, the Nintendo Power Game calendars a long time ago. I did a video on those and those I also got at the book fair. But then between the calendars and this dumb thing right here that I love with all of my heart, this is like my favorite thing in the world to have on my bedroom door when I was a kid. I just thought it was the coolest thing. And there you go. That's that's my collection of weird Mario stuff. 

[00:27:04] And there you have it. That is my collection of weird Mario stuff from the 1980s. Now there's a lot more I'm sure that I don't have. There is all kinds of weird Mario merchandise. There's these bed sheets that I have wanted ever since I was a kid that have all this really cool Mario and Zelda stuff on them. There's those boxes, there's like treasure chest looking boxes that have some Mario artwork on them. There is a punch out trashcan that I feel like had Mario on the other side of it. I don't know what cousins had it, but there was a ton of this really awesome, really weird Mario merchandise back when I was a kid. And while this is the stuff that I've amassed thus far, I would love to get my hands on more. But you know, time and money are limited, as is space. But there you have it. Thanks for watching, everybody. If you like what you saw here today, please follow comment like subscribe, share it around and let us know down in the comments. What is your favorite weird Mario merchandise, particularly from the 1980s and early nineties? Like I love that era of Mario so much, but if you've got anything super weird that you would like to share, please let us know either on social media or down here in the comments on YouTube. We love hearing from everybody, especially when it concerns strange old Mario merchandise. That's it, everybody. We have, all of us here at Stone Age Gamer keep playing games.