‘Super Mario Bros.’ was influenced by ‘Alice in Wonderland’

The mushrooms in 'Super Mario Bros.' are modeled after a real mushroom

Almost every mushroom in "Super Mario Bros." is based on the Amanita muscaria, sometimes referred to as the fly agaric, because it is known to attract flies. It's also the basis for the original mushroom emoji and the mushrooms from the popular game "Minecraft."

'Super Mario Bros.' was released in 1985

The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. It’s seen as a landmark in the history of video games and minted the Mario character as a pop culture icon.

The video game Mario Bros. was a spin-off of the wildly popular Donkey Kong, another Nintendo title that featured a carpenter named Mario.

The levels for 'Super Mario Bros.' were designed by hand

Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.

Mario's archnemesis hosted a children's show in the 1980s

"Super Mario Bros." grew so popular in the '80s, even King Koopa, the video game's villain, had his own television show, though it's been all but erased from TV history. There's good reason for that: It was a bizarre enterprise, featuring '30s cartoons, a grumpy stand-up comedian, and cheap production.

How the inventor of Mario designs games

Shigeru Miyamoto has created some of the most iconic video games in history, from Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong to The Legend of Zelda. The game producer boils down his creative philosophy to three basic principles: story, simplicity, and...

Most of the 'Super Mario Bros.' sequel was borrowed from a preexisting Nintendo game

Nintendo was eager to create a sequel following the success of "Super Mario Bros.," but the original "Super Mario Bros. 2," released in Japan, proved too difficult. Crunched for time, the company used the bones of a preexisting game, "Doki Doki Panic," and inserted elements from Mario's world for the US release of "Super Mario Bros. 2," making for a follow-up that was drastically different from its predecessor.

'Super Mario Bros.' teaches players its rules as they go

Rather than constantly climbing up the screen from platform to platform like “Donkey Kong,” “Super Mario Bros.” moves from left to right. In anticipation of gamers’ confusion with the new style, Miyamoto designed the first level as a walk-through, allowing players to learn the rules without reading a manual.

Listen to the evolution of Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. theme, 'Ground Theme.'

'Super Mario Bros.' helped save the video game industry

A 1983 crash left the industry in tatters, desperate for a hit. Nintendo’s focus on a more immersive home experience was realized in “Super Mario Bros.,” bringing the industry from the arcade to the living room. The title eventually sold over 40 million units.

The game turned Mario into a pop culture icon

The character has appeared in over 200 games and has had his own movies, television shows, and other kinds of entertainment.

Nintendo developed the character as its technology improved

Nintendo developed the Mario character as video game technology became more sophisticated. In 1991, Charles Martinet began playing Mario at trade shows and then voiced the character for 1996’s “Super Mario 64,” which included the now-classic catchphrase, “It’s a-me, Mario!”

Nintendo's Mario was named after the landlord of the company's American headquarters.

1993's 'Super Mario Bros.,' the first live-action feature film based on a video game, was a massive commercial flop.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dressed as Mario at the Olympics

In a 2016 ceremony at that year’s Summer Games in Rio, Abe dressed as Super Mario to celebrate his country hosting the 2020 Olympics. It was a logical move: The character is one of the most recognizable characters in the world and someone who’s now associated with Japanese culture.

Lewis Carroll's 'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' turned the fantasy genre upside down

A lot of 19th-century British fantasy was often stiff; its children’s literature was often overly didactic. Carroll’s novel—about a young girl who falls into an unusual world full—was neither, offering vivid, psychedelic imagery and seemingly nonsensical word games.

The game’s theme was the first video game composition added to the Library of Congress

Koji Kondo’s “Ground Theme,” the opening music for “Super Mario Bros.” was added to the National Recording Registry in 2023. “Having this music preserved alongside so many other classic songs is such a great honor,” Kondo said. “It's actually a little bit difficult to believe.”

'Alice's Adventures in Wonderland' was inspired by a real-life Alice, the daughter of Lewis Carroll's friends.

The design changed video games forever

Miyamoto’s direction and Kondo’s sound showed younger generations the potential of video games, inspiring a more sophisticated form that moved far beyond the one-dimensional entertainment of the arcade era.

During a 2013 speed run of 'Super Mario 64,' the protagonist was inexplicably warped up to a new location—a glitch that would later be attributed to a cosmic ray flipping a bit within a byte responsible for tracking Mario's height.

‘Donkey Kong’ was based on the ‘Popeye’ franchise

Nintendo pursued the “Popeye” franchise in the early 1980s, hoping that developing an arcade game for the popular character would result in a hit. The bid failed, but Nintendo still used “Popeye” as the model for 1981’s “Donkey Kong.”

In 2021, someone paid $2M for an unopened 'Super Mario Bros.'

The collectibles site Rally announced in 2021 that an unopened "Super Mario Bros." cartridge sold for $2M. That's the highest price ever paid for a video game.

In 1957, a vice president at JPMorgan became an outspoken evangelist for psychedelic mushrooms.

The 'definitive' history of magic mushrooms

Where did magic mushrooms come from, and how did they get their magical reputation? This article explains the history of the psychedelic fungi from pre-history to now. The earliest concrete evidence of psychedelic mushroom use is 12,000-year-old murals in Northern Australia that portray mushroom iconography. Considering how many species seek out and consume psychoactive substances, such as Siberian reindeer, it's possible human use of these psychedelic mushrooms may predate these murals.

Watch Walt Disney's early innovative film, 'Alice's Wonderland,' which innovated the use of animated characters in the real world.

Nintendo began in 1889 as a playing card company

As a leading video game publisher, Nintendo has contributed to expanding the prevalence of handheld and console technologies for over a century. It has also developed franchise mascots that have appeared in other media, including Mario and Sonic.

A sealed copy of Super Mario Bros. sold for $3M, making it the most valuable video game cartridge ever auctioned.

Koji Kondo composed the game's iconic soundtrack with a limited palette of sounds

The game's soundtrack and effects were limited by the Nintendo Entertainment System's 8-bit hardware, which had significantly fewer sounds than a typical synthesizer. That didn't stop Kondo from writing some of the most recognizable video game music in history.

The Japanese folklore that inspired Pokémon

Characters from the popular video game series appear to reference the yōkai from Japanese folklore, which first became popular during the country's Edo period, when art and literature became mass-produced.

Magic: the Gathering was inspired by baseball cards

Richard Garfield originally pitched a game publisher on a more complex game about programming robots, but he was told that they were looking for something less expensive and more portable. Inspired by the way baseball cards were collected and traded, he came up with the idea for Magic: the Gathering, which gave players packets of random cards, effectively pieces of the whole game, rather than the entire deck.

L. Frank Baum aimed to make 'Oz' a modern fairy tale

Baum began writing stories for children while working as a traveling salesman and found success with 1899’s “Father Goose, His Book,” a book of nursery rhymes. Its popularity made him realize children did not want moral education; they wanted escapism.

Disney was originally called the Disney Brothers Cartoon Studio

In 1923, brothers Walt and Roy formed what would later become The Walt Disney Co. They began by continuing to produce Walt's "Alice Comedies" and a series based on Oswald the Lucky Rabbit, a precursor to Mickey Mouse.

The creator of Sherlock Holmes published a book claiming fairies were real

In 1917, two young girls took photos of one another appearing to interact with fairies and a gnome. Sir Arthur Conan Doyle, author of the Sherlock Holmes books and a fervent believer in spiritualism, published the photos in a magazine and asked the girls to recreate them, which they did. Conan Doyle went on to write a book about the fairies. In 1983, decades after his death, the girls admitted the photos had been faked.

Imagining the memoirs of aging Disney princesses

This resource shares a collection of drawings that humorously imagine the books Disney princesses would write as middle-aged women. See Cinderella’s guide to passive income or Sleeping Beauty’s story of becoming sober in this creative collection of comics.

Why mythologist Joseph Campbell loved 'Star Wars'

Joseph Campbell, the literature professor who wrote about the power of mythology, suggested that "Star Wars" was a powerful modern myth that used classic archetypes to communicate a universal message.

Artificial lightning can improve the yield of shiitake mushroom growers

Researchers have found that shockwaves produced from lightning strikes homogenously break internal filaments called hyphae, transitioning the mushrooms from a vegetative growth to a fruiting phase. Repeated minor shocks near mushroom logs mimicked this effect.

Fantasy is heavily influenced by myths, legends, and folk tales

In fantasy, anything is possible, mirroring the supernatural worlds of history’s earliest stories. The narrative voice of fantasy is often similar to early tales, too, with an affinity for the magisterial rather than the contemporary.

'I can’t go back to yesterday–because I was a different person then.'

- "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland" author Lewis Carroll (1832 - 1898)

'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' was the first major American fantasy novel

Baum blended elements of Hans Christian Andersen, the Brothers Grimm, and Lewis Carroll, placing them in an American context. The illustrations of William Wallace Denslow brought the fantastical elements to life, as seen below. The book was an instant smash hit, selling out its initial 10,000-book pressing within the first eight months. By the time it entered the public domain in 1956, it had sold 3 million copies.

A theory about Pink Floyd and 'The Wizard of Oz' was popularized by a 19-year-old

Pink Floyd’s seminal album “Dark Side of the Moon” eerily synchronizes with “The Wizard of Oz,” offering a psychedelic soundtrack for the movie. Journalist Charlie Savage popularized the phenomenon when he was 19. He’d go on to write for the Boston Globe and New York Times winning a Pulitzer Prize.

George Lucas used Joseph Campbell's 'hero's journey,' a narrative structure that encompasses the common characteristics of multiple cultures' mythologies, to revise 'Star Wars.'

See Walt Disney's corporate strategy document from 1957, complete with a plethora of Mickey Mouse illustrations.

JRR Tolkien redefined fantasy for a new generation

Tolkien's debut novel, 1937's "The Hobbit," was aimed at young adults, yet it felt far more serious than the whimsical tales of Lewis Carroll or L. Frank Baum. "What Tolkien does is take the 'otherworld' fantasy developed in the 19th century and makes it child-sized, melding it with folklore and Norse myth," notes Farah Mendlesohn, the author of "Rhetorics of Fantasy."

Tolkien's grandson says 'Lord of the Rings' was influenced by WWI

JRR Tolkien fought in World War I, an experience his grandson, Simon Tolkien, says informed the fantasy legend’s famous trilogy. The companionship between Frodo and Sam and Sauron’s pervasive evil, according to the younger Tolkien, were directly influenced by time on the battlefield.

LSD-like drugs may inspire new antidepressants

LSD and psilocybin have shown promise as antidepressants. Using a virtual library of similar chemical compounds, researchers determined via animal studies that two molecules inspired by LSD have antidepressant effects without any associated hallucinogenic experience. These molecules were found to be 40 times more potent than the common antidepressant fluoxetine, also known as Prozac, with antidepressant effects lasting up to 21 days.

Some believe 'The Wonderful Wizard of Oz' is a political allegory

Although Baum claimed his book was intended as a simple children's story, scholars challenged that notion. One high school history teacher, Henry Littlefield, began teaching the book as a satire of the Gilded Age and published an essay inspiring other scholars to consider the text as a politically charged allegory.

Oregon voters in 2020 greenlit adult use of psilocybin—the active ingredient in magic mushrooms—in state-licensed centers, and a 2026 analysis indicates the program has good safety and satisfaction data.

Explore a collection of famous literary maps, including original images from 'Treasure Island,' 'The Swiss Family Robinson, ' and 'Walden.'

Despite meeting as ambulance drivers in WWI, Ray Kroc and Walt Disney weren't the driving forces behind McDonald's and Disney's numerous business partnerships.

Understanding the Disney adult phenomenon

Disney isn’t just for kids, at least according to Disney adults, who dress up as their favorite characters and make pilgrimages to the company’s parks. They’re often considered immature, unrefined, or worse, but the members of this subculture don’t see anything wrong with their passionate devotion to Disney. This article explores the phenomenon through interviews with actual Disney adults, offering a more nuanced take on the reasons behind the much-maligned trend.