There's little about the revered Mario Bros. franchise that hasn't been covered to death on the Internet and elsewhere. It seems like every conceivable facet of the series' history has been documented, catalogued, and recorded in everything from books and magazines to TV documentaries. Ask anyone under the age of thirty to sum up the story of Mario and friends and you'll likely hear the same response: a groundbreaking arcade game, a stupendously successful console debut, and a multitude of sequels, spinoffs and Saturday morning cartoons. And up until a short while ago, that was it.

...Until now. Lo and behold, the vast chasm of darkness and deceit that is the Internet has coughed up one of the most well-kept secrets in all of gaming. As it turns out, despite what you've been told since the tender age of five and contrary to Nintendo's steadfast claims to the contrary, the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 -- the game that would eventually appear on U.S. shores as "The Lost Levels" -- was not the first followup to Nintendo's legendary platformer. That honour, believe it or not, goes to an obscure Japanese PC-8801 game that has been lost to the winds of time these many years, excised from the official Mario cannon and forgotten by all but the most hardcore Nintendo loyalists. Prepare your eyes for a shocker, boys and girls. Here, exclusive to the Retro-Playback blog, is a tantalizing look at one of the gaming industry's long-lost stepchildren.

Released in 1986 by veteran developers Hudson Soft, Super Mario Bros. Special was designed for the Japanese-only NEC PC-8801 computer and became the first officially licensed Super Mario Bros. game following the release of the original. That's right, before NES gamers the world over would guide Mario et al through levels ripped from Doki Doki Panic or take to the skies with myriad powerups in Super Mario Bros. 3, a few lucky Japanese gamers could be seen huddled in their living rooms, eyes no doubt glued to their fuzzy computer monitors, busily navigating the twists and turns of what has proven to be one of Mario's most bizarre adventures.

You once again take the reigns as everyone's favourite portly plumber and guide him through a set series of levels, but that's pretty much where the similarities end. The levels have all been redesigned from scratch and, while the basic gameplay mechanics remain intact -- you still flatten enemies and break apart blocks by jumping, after all -- the pipes are placed differently, enemies pop up in unexpected locations, and even the coin blocks are seemingly strewn about the terrain with little resemblance to the original. To add to the bizarre nature of the game, the 2-player mode has been scrapped and the other Mario brother is nowhere to be found. (Poor Luigi...He wouldn't get his own game for another six years, and even then it would seriously suck balls.)

Purists will be happy to hear that the series' trademark tunes are still present, though the music isn't nearly as catchy when it's played by a three-year-old with a Fisher Price "My First Piano." To that end, the graphics are also a step down from Special's NES predecessor, with a noticeably smaller colour palette and stiffer animation. The computer's limited capabilities also don't allow the game to "scroll" like SMB for the Nintendo Entertainment System did, so an endlessly annoying flip-screen system is used whenever Mario walks off screen (a gameplay mechanic that also has the unfortunate side-effect of causing Koopa shells to bounce back towards Mario for no goddamned reason.)

Determined to **** around with the original game engine to the point of near ludicrousness, Hudson Soft has also thrown in several new enemies, items and powerups that'll have you doing double-takes. Wait, was that a flaming barrel from Donkey Kong I just saw? Yes it was. Whoa, did I just see a pair of Fighter Flies from the original arcade Mario Bros.? Yes you did. Holy shit, did I really just pick up a powerup shaped like a...Honeybee? Trippy, I know.

The many in-game oddities, neat as they may be, do little to mask the ugly truth though: Super Mario Bros. Special looks and plays like garbage, and there's little doubt as to why it's never been re-released or even acknowledged by the Big N. It flat out sucks. Perhaps that's a bit harsh for a twenty-year-old Japanese computer game, but I call it the way I see it, folks. Even so, it's an interesting blip on the Nintendo radar, and there's just something fascinating about a followup to perhaps the most beloved and influential platform game of all time that completely eschews every bit of its predecessor's level design. What's the deal, Hudson Soft? The original SMB wasn't deserving of a quality port? Thought you could do a better job than Japanese Jesus himself, Shigeru Miyamoto? Tsk, tsk.

In case you've got twenty minutes to blow and normal routines like walking the dog, gardening, and appreciating the beauty of nature's many wonders are lost on you, then you might want to check out this ready-to-play PC-8801 emulator. It comes bundled with your very own copy of the SMBS ROM and, fittingly enough, is just about the worse collection of junk code currently available for download. Still, it'll get the job done well enough, and being able to navigate Special's many obstacles is an experience everyone should appreciate at least once. And as an added bonus, after you're done, it'll make a nice addition to your Recycle Bin. Woot!

Originally posted on March 12th, 2006

The Crash Test Dummies first appeared in a series of public service announcements jointly produced by the Ad Council and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration beginning in the late '80s. The commercials featured two dummies named Vince and Larry who actively demonstrated what could happen when a person did not wear a seatbelt during an auto accident. Unlike humans, who die or become crippled in real crashes, Vince and Larry dusted themselves off after each collision and cracked macabre jokes about each other's condition -- one would chuckle at the sight of his partner's leg falling from its socket, the other would point and laugh at the ghoulish burn marks and skid scrapes covering his pal's mug. Spooky stuff, indeed. The ads were reportedly so successful that by 1994, seat belt usage had increased from 21% to 73%, saving an estimated 75,000 lives and preventing more than 1.5 million moderate to critical injuries.

It wasn't long before someone realized these mascots could not only save lives but become bankable commercial products as well. In a short period of time, a veritable avalanche of merchandise -- from plush dolls and bumper stickers to board games and T-shirts -- flooded the market. Tyco began manufacturing "Incredible Crash Dummies" toys in 1991, minus Vince and Larry, who were scrapped from the line due to legal issues with the U.S. government. Over the next few years, the franchise grew exponentially as a computer-animated cartoon pilot was produced, a plethora of vehicles and playsets were added to the toyline, the main dummies received new "Pro-Tek" uniforms and video games for all the main platforms hit the shelves.

With names like Dash, Dent, Skid the Kid and Spare Tire, these little dummies were without a doubt some of the most original and outright bizarre figures ever produced. Borrowing a page from other popular toylines of the day such as G. I. Joe and TMNT, each figure came packaged with a variety of accessories, his own distinct function and a cute little backstory. However, unlike many other toys on the market at the time, the Crash Test Dummies' claim to fame wasn't a Saturday morning cartoon or thirty-three thousand different figure variations. No, the Dummies rose to prominence in an overcrowded toy market because of one simple design feature, and one design feature alone: they broke apart. Literally. Buy a figure, shove it into a plastic vehicle, throw it against a wall, and watch the ensuing chaos as tiny plastic limbs go flying everywhere.

Thanks to rubber straps that could hold an unsuspecting dummy captive, the Crash Plane was probably the most deadly and destructive of all the vehicles produced for the line. Aside from the death-straps, a mysterious internal mechanism also caused both wings to fall off when the craft's nose was pushed, so throwing it with full force against the garage door often proved irresistible. In keeping with this general theme, the Crash 'n Dash Chopper later came complete with a side-seat that could be removed at will, meaning you could roll the bike across the carpet at full speed and then unleash the helpless passenger to roll to his fiery death. Or, at least, into some strategically-placed LEGOs.

Of course no toyline is really complete without a few villains to spice up the playtime action. Torturing little dummies is fun and all, but what really determines the success of a franchise is whether the enemies are cool enough to make things interesting. The Ninja Turtles had Shredder, G.I. Joe had Cobra, and the Crash Dummies had, tada, the Junkbots. Led by the nefarious Junkman and his evil minions Jack Hammer, Piston Head and Sideswipe, the Junkbots made a habit of terrorizing their crash dummy counterparts by carrying out such dastardly deeds as sabotage, kidnapping, and the worst offence of all, neglecting to separate their recyclables.

Modeled to look as if they'd been pieced together from odd scraps of junkyard garbage, the Junkbots were pretty damn bad-ass for a toyline aimed at five year olds, and, truth be told, given the choice of throwing it down with a mutated warthog or a six-foot-tall mountain of scrap metal and carburators, the choice is pretty obvious -- a warthog I know I can kill with a well-aimed shotgun blast to the face.

Of course, while the figures were designed to be broken apart and put back together over and over again, in reality a Crash Dummy figure only had a life expectancy of about one or two good years. After that, the figures' internal springs would undoubtedly become damaged, oftentimes irrevocably, rendering the poor little chaps useless and putting a damper on an otherwise remarkable toyline. This fundamental design flaw probably had something to do with the line's ultimate demise some years later. A brief revival in 2004 saw the release of new crash dummy figures under the Hot Wheels brand, but further attempts to relaunch the franchise have apparently met with failure. Bummer, too -- these little dudes were some of the most original toys ever produced.