Parents upset about Super Nintendo

[VeronicaConnor]

If this sort of thing amuses you, I can highly recommend The Pessimists’ Archive podcast. It’s basically a chronicle of the history of silly moral panics by the “boomers” of each generation. It’s amazing the stuff people panicked about, and the further back you go, the sillier it seems to us. Bicycles? Panic. Light bulbs? Panic. Radio? Definitely panic. Fun fact, the entire history of bicycles is basically about controlling women.

The one that defined my childhood (and many here, I imagine) was the Satanic Panic of the 80s. I vividly recall seemingly endless news stories, editorials, Very Serious Books, and scary docudramas on the teevee about how we were all being ruined by Satanic cults and D&D. All of us at that age were looking at each other dumbfounded at how obviously not real this all was. What were these news people even talking about? Satanism? Is this a joke? That’s, like, not even a thing.

I would like to say it was easier to panic people back when poofy-haired local news anchors and corporate conglomerate newspapers were your only source of information, but I’m not sure if the internet has proved or disproved that idea, to be honest.

[SqualusAcanthias]

Super Mario Bros. 2 was actually not a Mario game at all but was re-skinned as one for western markets, while the real Super Mario Bros. 2 was never actually released in the West in its original form.

[Amstrad]

See, this I was well aware of as it all came to light when they did Super Mario All-Stars and it included The Lost Levels which was the actual SMB2 (though with the sprite refresh they gave the NES/Famicon era games) while the SMB2 on the cart was the now infamous reskin of Doki Doki Panic.

Those facts are a sort of basic Nintendo/Mario trivia litmus test. The Whole Super Mario Bros. 4 thing though, that was a tiny bit of trivia I’d never before encountered.