# mario was once a game somebody had to explain

- Link: https://tacobout.online/2026/10/23/mario-was-once-a-game-somebody-had-to-explain/
- Published: 2026-10-23T18:00:00-05:00
- Author: Telly

there is something useful about reading a review of _super mario bros._ written 
before it became a foundational text. somebody had to sit down and explain the little
guy. the mushroom kingdom did not arrive with a museum label.

the [video game history foundation’s computer entertainer archive](https://gamehistory.org/computerentertainer/)
preserves the newsletter’s entire 1982–1990 run, with free access and a creative
commons license. co-editors marylou badeaux and celeste dolan were covering games
as things people might actually buy, rather than entries in a canon that had already
been settled.

that distance matters. a contemporary review can restore the uncertainty that a 
retrospective smooths away: what needed explaining, what seemed impressive, what
a reader was expected to know. even the photograph of mario on a television makes
the game feel like an object in someone’s room again.

preservation gets more interesting when it keeps the conversation around a game,
too. the cartridge tells us what was playable. the newsletter tells us what somebody
thought was worth mailing.

image: archival photographs of co-editors marylou badeaux and celeste dolan, from
computer entertainer, june 1987, p. 5, and february 1986, p. 1. scan: [video game history foundation](https://gamehistory.org/computerentertainer/),
[cc by 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).