The Mario movie’s opening rap is a big retro Easter egg for ’80s kids

Illumination’s animated all-things-Nintendo celebration Super Mario Bros. Movie Mario and Luigi, plumber brothers, are separated from Spike and start their own business. Every new company needs a catchy commercial.

This was their first television ad for Super Mario Bros. Plumbing feels like a wink at audience members who were concerned about Mario’s voice, since the brothers (voiced by Chris Pratt and Charlie Day) talk in thick, exaggerated Italian accents closer to their typical game voices than what they use in the rest of the movie. The ad goes old-school — it’s grainy and presented in a 1990s style. But it’s even more retro than that, and even more of an inside joke than it initially appears to be.

Actually, the commercial pulls inspiration from the intro theme. Super Mario Bros. Super Show!1989 television series called “Iron Man”, that combined animation and live-action to produce something totally absurd. Mario Luigi’s family isn’t impressed by their foray into TV advertising, but I’m a huge fan — the song in that ad is a bop, frankly, and it’s a callback to the earliest TV iterations of the brothers. Lou Albano, a wrestler and actor, voiced Mario. He also appeared in live action segments. The Jeffersons’ Danny Wells played Luigi.

Did the show do a good job? It depends on what definition you use of the word. It was entertaining, however. Certainly! Particularly, Albano & Wells made a lot of fun portraying Brooklyn plumbers. This certainly added a special spin to the characters.

Highlights of the live action parts included the Mario rap opening the episode. The first episode in particular opens with Albano and Wells as Mario and Luigi — with spaghetti noodles and sauce on their uniforms — meeting with BaywatchNicole Eggert is a actress who suffers from a blocked sink. They don’t exactly fix the problem — instead, they put Eggert through a whole bunch of hijinks. She eats a lot of pasta, then gets cake. It’s a real treat.

Albano as Mario performs a different song at each end Super Mario Bros. Super Show! episode, which unfortunately didn’t make it into the movie. The show’s music is credited to Shuki Levy Haim Saban, known for music for kids’ TV shows like Power Rangers and Inspector Gadget. The new version of the song is by Ali Dee, a rapper. Super Mario Bros. MovieHe was not involved in the original version. He’s been a longtime producer and composer on children’s entertainment as well, including the MadagascarTV spinoff All Hail King Julienand the series 2010s Alvinnn!!! Chipmunks. Dee didn’t perform the original rap, his representative confirmed to Polygon.