First look: Universal Studios Hollywood powers up with Super Nintendo World
LOS ANGELES — In 1981 Shigeru Miyamoto created a video game character whose entire personality was contained in what the designer first described as "16 dots by 16 dots."
As that character evolved, those pixels would comprise red suspenders, a pouch of a tummy, an oversize nose, a bushy mustache and eventually a whole lot of jumpy pluckiness, making him an unlikely but confident hero as he sought to rescue a damsel in distress. Miyamoto at first called him Mr. Video, a prescient and self-assured designation for a character who by 1985 would come to dominate home television screens.
It wasn't long before Mr. Video transitioned into Mario, the most recognizable video game character ever created. Mario would become so popular that Miyamoto would look to the Walt Disney Co. and its brand management of Mickey Mouse for direction. "Mickey Mouse sort of grew and evolved alongside cartoons and animation. I felt it would be best for Mario to grow and evolve alongside video games. Whenever we introduced new technology, we always paired that introduction with a new Mario game," Miyamoto once told The Times.
Today, Mickey Mouse ears are a global symbol for theme parks around the globe. Could Mario's trademark red newsboy-like cap challenge that dominance? Maybe, but that's not the bet driving Universal Studios to build multiple Nintendo-inspired lands in its theme parks.
"I think it's very clear," says Jon Corfino, vice president at Universal Creative, the division of the company responsible for theme park experiences. "It means that entertainment is not static."
The colorful ground where Corfino is standing in Universal Studios Hollywood was once home to
