Whatever happened to … ? #1: Mario’s bid for a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame
In February 2005, a petition to put video game stars such as Mario and Donkey Kong on the Hollywood Walk of Fame was launched. The rallying cry of the big push:
Interactive entertainment is an important part of the entertainment industry. Each year, video games usually make as much money—or even more—than the movie box offices. Let’s get a category created on the world-famous Hollywood Walk of Fame to recognize the video game starts who have become part of our daily lives.
Video games have been popular for decades, and visitors to Hollywood would like to see their favorite interactive stars honored, too.
We, the undersigned, ask the Hollywood Chamber of Commerce to add a new “Interactive” category to the Hollywood Walk of Fame to honor starts like Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda, and numerous others who have reached true celebrity status.
No kidding.
About two weeks later, the petition started getting attention—and some commentaries, among which is from Rick “32_footsteps” Healey of Netjak.
Healey wrote, “First off, just look at the petition’s goals. They want to see, I quote, “stars like Mario, Donkey Kong, Zelda and numerous others” honored by Hollywood. Like it’s worked so well every other time Hollywood has given any attention to video games (the Super Mario Bros. movie, Alone In The Dark, Resident Evil … I dare not continue). I’d think video gamers, at this point, would realize that the two are like oil and water.”
He was, of course, referring to video games and Hollywood. Healey then pointed out “One thing that works against the petition’s aim is that Hollywood is very reticent to honor fictional characters. They’ve given out over 2100 stars on the Walk of Fame. Ten of them are fictional characters: Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck, Big Bird, Kermit the Frog, Bugs Bunny, Godzilla, Lassie, Rin Tin Tin, The Simpsons, and The Rugrats (don’t ask me about that last one—I don’t have a clue either). Those are pretty heavy names (except for that last one) with a huge reputation. Mario might squeak in there, but I don’t know if any other video game character (not even Link or Zelda, considering Daffy Duck doesn’t have a star) could make the criteria. For live roles, it’s even stricter—the only live role on the list is The Lone Ranger, and even that name is shared with the actor who portrayed him, Clayton Moore.”
These two quotes from Healey weren’t the ones that caught my attention, though. What got my eye was this:
The ultimate goal of the petition is, other than to hype Nintendo’s roster of mascots, to have gamers and game developers hold their heads high and stand equal to other media. After reading that list, though, we ought to aim higher than that. Let’s instead make a Gaming Walk of Fame. Put it in Kyoto or San Francisco, and honor Peter Molyneux next to Keiji Inafune. We don’t need an institution of phony acts and hateful people. We just need to stand for respect on our own merits, and that should be good enough.
That’s cool, Rick. It’s so cool that it actually came true. Check out this story from BBC News:
Star honors for video game icons
Pong creator Nolan Bushnell and Donkey Kong maker Shigeru Miyamoto have received the first-ever “Walk of Game” stars for video games in San Francisco.
The two men were honored at a ceremony for their services to the video game industry.
Pong was one of the first video games and was made by Bushnell while at Atari. Miyamoto’s Donkey Kong helped usher in a golden age of gaming.
Video game characters Link, Mario and Sonic were also inducted.
Bungie’s masterpiece, Halo, became the first video game to have its own star on the Walk of Game—a riff on the Walk of Fame stars in Hollywood.
“Thank you very much for this honor. It’s always fun to be walked on wherever you can be,” said Bushnell.
The Atari legend also said he had not lost his love of video gaming—confessing to a 16-player session of Halo at home with his children and their friends.
“What I leave behind in reaction time I make up for in stealth and guile,” he said.
Pong was created in 1972, but it was not until 1981 and the arrival of Donkey Kong in arcades that video gaming began to enter the mainstream. A variant of tennis—Pong was played with two “paddles” controlling on-screen bats to serve an electronic ball to your opponent. Video games are now a US$20 billion-a-year business and remain the fastest growing sector of the entertainment industry.
The two men had metal stars embedded into the floor of the Metreon Center, a Sony-branded shopping mall.
