Super Mario Bros. Theme Goes Big Band

A recently released video from UK Gamecube magazine shows the hipster side of Mario, the game's main hero.  The "Mario and Zelda Big Band live" concert was held on September 14th, 2003 at the Nihon Seinenkan Hall in Tokyo, Japan.

Of course, the catchy theme to this top selling video game has inspired many other arrangements. In one of the more recent, New York flautist, Greg Patillo, presented his beatbox flute version.

To this day, the Super Mario Brothers game holds the Guinness Book World record for most units sold - nearly 40 million. Its popularity continues today, and Nintendo has re-released the classic version for several of its modern systems.

Mario actually appeared first as the hero in Donkey Kong before earning his own game. But while Donkey Kong's star has faded, Super Mario has blossomed into a full-blown franchise, spawning myriad games for subsequent Nintendo systems. The site, theMushroomKingdom.com has the rundown on Mario's history.

Hollywood released the Super Mario Brothers movie in 1993, hoping to cash in on the video game's success.

Despite the game's gangbuster status, the 1990s movie was a box office flop, earning just half of the money spent filming it.

Japanese based Nintendo started in 1889 as a playing card company. Despite the weak home videogame market in the mid-80s, Nintendo decided the time was ripe to release its Nintendo Entertainment System. Soon, the NES was outselling competitors at a ten-to-one ratio. Learn more about this system's history at ClassicGaming.com.

Though Donkey Kong never reached the popularity of Super Mario, it's a classic favorite that saw a resurgence in popularity when Nintendo re-released it in 1999. Gamespot.com provides a comprehensive history of this game.

In 2002, to publicize the release of the Super Mario Sunshine title, Nintendo broke another Guinness Book World record. They served up the world's largest bowl of pasta - 1.5 tons of "Pasta a la Mario".