The Super Mario Bros. Movie Pays Tribute To An Old Video Game Trick - Exclusive

"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" is finally in theaters, and generations of fans, both young and old, are about to take a trip to the Mushroom Kingdom. Unlike the movie Mario (Chris Pratt), who is getting a tour from Toad (Keegan-Michael Key) on his very first visit, many of us have been playing the Nintendo games based around the little plumber for decades. If you're old enough, you might remember a few things that younger players don't. 

In the film, Toad walks Mario through the town, pausing to say hi to a purple toad named Chanterelle, as Mario checks out pipes, coin vending boxes, floating platforms, a pet Cheep Cheep in a plastic bag full of water, a Crazy Cap store, and an antique shop. Not only does that shop have inventory that is going to make older gamers very happy, but it features a nod to a trick many of us used in the past. 

In Looper's exclusive interview with Keegan-Michael Key, we asked him about the multiple fan nods during the Mushroom Kingdom tour and whether or not he had any idea what was going to be happening on screen as he recorded the Toad lines. Though he didn't know all of it, Key pointed out his favorite Easter egg, and it may very well be yours, too. 

Keegan-Michael Key said of the scene in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "When I read the script, the ad-libs — all of the ad-libs and all that special stuff — not all of that was in there, so one of my favorite things is when [Mario] walks past the antique shop. You hear the two guys in the antique shop, and he is like, 'Are you sure this is going to work?' [The toad answers,] 'Yeah, yeah. If it doesn't, just blow on it.' Just blow on it? Like those old cartridges. That was really great. All those little ad-libs in there are fantastic."

For those of you who may not have been playing since the days of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) cartridges, that was a trick we all used to make a game work. If the connection between the console and the game cartridge wasn't happening after it was inserted, we'd take it out, blow into the cartridge, and then try it again. 

In case you're wondering, it's an urban legend. Unless there was really a lot of dust in there that was keeping the connectors from actually connecting, you were mostly just making the cartridge kind of gross with the moisture from your breath. Still, it's been a persistent urban legend, and there are people who will still insist it works. 

For such a tiny scene, there are a ton of Easter eggs in there beyond the comment about blowing into the cartridge. As you can see in the picture above, there's a hammer that is used in so many of the games. There are music notes for sale, as well as P-switches, and golden keys that cost two coins. There is a Yoshi coin behind glass and a sign with a list of items and coins, including two coins for a 1-up and six for a Goomba. There is an open treasure chest with coins inside and a Yoshi egg display as well. There are even Super Bell powerups on sale for the low, low price of nine coins. 

These all go by pretty quickly, so it's probably going to take several viewings to catch 'em all. (Sorry, wrong franchise.) 

"The Super Mario Bros. Movie" is in theaters now.