Super Mario - Saving damsel in distress

Someone please pinch me; Better stab a knife on my chest. I must be dreaming; It must be a nightmare to be correct. I cannot imagine a world where people dont know "Super Mario". I mean, if you are somewhat nearer to my age,(YOUNG) and were introduced into the world with rectangle-box called Television and have went to School in which atleast one of our classmates would have boasted himself having TV video game, then you must be exposed to the Mushroom world of Super Mario. If any of the above doesnt fit to you, I regret to say that you had been a big LOSER in your childhood days. And it was very disheartening to find that many of my friends have not heard of Mario at all. Forgive me if it gives a shock. They dont know Pacman too.

The life it was a simple and silent one, but not after the invasion of TV video games to every house with kids. Then all the parents could hear was cries of their children before getting the console and the sound of tinkling sound of Mario hitting the coins after getting the console. Even a 8 year old kid can challenge a 18 year old easily. It was the era of complete addiction to the TV. Mario challenged the ownership of the television between kids and parents in home. Though the parents were angry at losing their small screen time for watching the glycerine-for-free serials, they are relieved as they dont have to worry about the invasion of the poor-actresses and very-close-friendly-actors appearing very often in the small screen. Though there were so many games to play, the consoles were loaded by default with the 5 important games.

• Super Mario
• Dr.Mario
• Duck Hunt
• Gunmen
• Tank

Of these, Super Mario is the de-facto king of Nintendo video games kingdom. We used to remember every step in the 8 worlds of the game. The positions of all the secret blocks in the game like 1up mushroom or multi-coin bricks were passed onto every new player by the experienced Gurus(mostly 8 year olds) helping the Mario world grow bigger and bigger. Our dreams always had the sound of tickling coins, eating mushrooms and occasionally hitting the school bullies with your fireballs. Within weeks of hardwork, your 8 year old Guru would tell you the warp zones to take you from world 1-2 to 4-1 and world 4-2 to world 8-1 directly. But you will need lot of practice before you can pull off cool stunts like sliding through narrow passages, jumping high above the flag poles, trick to get fireworks which will give you 500 points each. So many games came blooding in side scrolling style following Mario's success. But nothing could ever match the plumber. If you dont know, Mario is an Italian Plumber as per the game.

Trivia that you might like:
(Ref: Wikipedia)

1. Mario first appeared in the arcade game Donkey Kong as a character named "Jumpman"
2. Mario was named after the landlord of Nintendo of America's office.
3. The Princess who Mario tries to save in the 8-bit game is later named as Princess Toadstool and changed to Princess Peach.
4. Super Mario Bros. holds the Guinness world of records for best selling game with more than 40.53 million copies(as of 1999) and the whole Franchise must be above 140 million copies.
5. Mario main competitor was Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog till 2001. But after Sega's new third party status, both started appearing together in many games including "Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games" and "Super Smash Bros. Brawl".