Some of the creators ofNintendo’s popular ’90s mascot commercials have shared some stories regarding how dangerous filming could be.Nintendofans that grew up in the 90s likely fondly recall Nintendo’s silly live-action commercials featuring mascot versions of Mario, Donkey Kong, Pikachu, and other characters. They’d beat each other up in aSuper Smash Bros.commercial, push each other in the water in aMario Partycommercial, and otherwise create mayhem. Apparently, those commercials were more dangerous to create than they may seem.
In the 1990s and early 2000s, KCL Productions helped make dozens of commercials for Nintendo. The company was known for its high-quality mascot costumes, which would be featured across almost all the Nintendo commercials. It started with thehilariousSuper Smash Bros.commercialfeaturing Mario, Yoshi, Donkey Kong, and Pikachu, but would go on to include commercials forAnimal Crossing,Super Mario Sunshine,Kirby,Banjo-Tooie, and many more.
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In an interview with Game Informer, KCL Productions employees Kathy and Tim Lawrence shared some of their experiences creating these commercials. To say KCL Productions went above and beyond expectations for the commercials would be an understatement. One excellent example is from theMario Party 4GameCubecommercial, where mascots joust in a pool. Tim Lawrence explains that his Yoshi costume went from “35 pounds to over 200” in the pool. He said he raised his hand as if to say “I’m about to die; someone save me.”
Another example involves a commercial forSuper Mario Advance 2on the Nintendo Game Boy Advance, which had a section filmed underwater. Tim had to dive underwater, put on the Mario mascot head, blow bubbles out of a special straw, and then take the head back off before he could come back up to get air. The team even had to add diving weights to the Mario mascot head in order for it to sink instead of float. Tim described it as a “combination of excitement and terrifying fear,” and that he had thought about whether the shoot might be his “last day on earth.”
Swimming wasn’t the only stunt, let alone the most dangerous stunt, that the Nintendo mascots had to do. In theBanjo-Tooiecommercial, a stuntman skydived wearing a Banjo costume. Kathy was worried it could be so un-aerodynamic it could break the stuntman’s neck. The stuntman did test runs holding the head just in case and ultimately had no problems.
The KCL ProductionsNintendo commercialsonly lasted around a decade, but the Lawrences hold those memories close. They say that they were “very grateful” for them and that it means a lot how much Nintendo fans love those traditional costumes. With regard to fans requestingNintendomake more commercials with mascots, Kathy says that while it’d be great, “You can’t really bring back the ’90s.”
