If you were a cool kid like me, this was your first NES game. Alright, just to get this out of the way, that is the first time I am ever going to use “NES” in this entire thing. When I was a young man, there were three systems: Nintendo, then there was Super Nintendo, and there was the cornier Sega. Sure, both companies came out with many other consoles over the next couple decades, but who cares?
The Nintendo came out on October 18, 1985. I was four. I can remember asking my parents for a Nintendo with the most dedicated vehemence a four year old can muster. I’d seen the ads. Nintendo’s marketing machine got my head in a full nelson and pushed my nose in the pixilated dirt. I needed this more than anything else. Two months later, I got it for Christmas ’85.
’85 was a banner year in the Kula household as far as Christmas was concerned. I was an only child, so this was the last year that I would rake in unimpeded loot, and to top it all off I got a Nintendo a mere two months after its release. My half-brother Josh had an Atari and it was ok, but that mess was for old people.
Speaking of old people, what made this Nintendo even more special is the fact that it was given to me from the bag and hands of Kris Kringle himself. He showed up to my house ho-ho-ho-in’ with his big bag of goodies. Both of my cousins got scooters—psh. Santa reached into his bag and handed me a parcel that was shaped an awful lot like the Nintendo set I’d seen propped up in all those commercials. I was such a state of awe that I didn’t care that a mythical being had delivered my hardware, but I did have time to notice one thing; Santa Claus looks an awful lot like my uncle Gene.
From that moment on, I was a four year old on the cutting edge of console technology—the envy of every kid on my block that I didn’t yet know. After being a good kid and making sure all the would-be jealous suckers were home with their crummy scooters, I tore into the packaging. After my dad hooked up the Nintendo to our ancient console TV (with much difficulty), I inserted the cartridge that once lay within the box: Super Mario Bros.
After struggling with it for a few minutes, performing the now-classic rookie parent moves of jolting the controller up when pressing A and completely failing to use the B button to “super speed—“ my own verbiage—I realized Nintendo wasn’t a weakling’s pastime.
Looking back, one thing was much more important than Nintendo—togetherness. My mom and dad would sometimes sit and watch me get farther and farther in Super Mario Bros, all the while cuddling on a couch and cooing over how good I was doing. Mom and dad would alternate playing with me, and when I think about it, this was one of the best times I ever had growing up. We were a family unit, we played together, we rejoiced the trouncing of Bowser together, we all recoiled when we saw how unfortunate looking the princess was. My dad joked that we should have let Bowser have her. The discovery of Princess Toadstool came at unlikely hands though.
It was actually my mother Diane that beat the game first, marking the first and only time that would ever happen in my lifetime. To this day, she jokes about potentially “kicking my ass” whenever I mention that I am either currently playing or about to play Nintendo.
Having read several issues of my cousin Justin’s Nintendo Fun Club, I knew what to expect from Super Mario Bros. except the staggering difficulty. Of course, people around the world are now beating it in under five minutes, but back in December of ’85, the Kula family sat in front of a glowing fireplace sharing Nintendo together, eyes agog when one of us would find a hidden 1-up, in awe at the sheer destructive force of the Fire Flower, and in a collective state of disbelief at discovering the warp zone at the end of world 1-2. It was a truly wondrous time, and the most vivid memory I have of a fully functioning family unit.
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