Super Mario Stadium (television series) (2025)

The title of this article is official, but it comes from a non-English source. If an acceptable English source is found, then the article should be moved to its appropriate title.

Super Mario Stadium is a game show based on Nintendo that was aired on TV Tokyo from October 7, 1993 to June 27, 1996. The game show included a heavy relation to the Super Mario franchise, with many games from the franchise being advertised and played. The show later saw a successor that started airing on July 4, 1996, titled 64 Mario Stadium.

Overview[edit]

Super Mario Stadium is a revamped version of Super Mario Club, which had previously aired in the same Thursday 6:00 pm slot, and adds soccer elements to the show's Famicom- and Super Famicom-centered content, capitalizing on the J.League boom that had just begun at the time.

Initially, the theme was "intelligence, physical strength, and gaming ability," and a knockout battle was held to determine the winning team (three people per team) from a large number of contestants, but after the J.League boom subsided, the quiz program returned to the traditional video game-focused style, and the number of contestants was reduced to a small number. However, the final match has always been decided by a game battle since the first championship. The winning team receives a certificate proving that they were the champions, and each member is given a choice of a new software that had not yet been released, as well as a passport ticket to Tokyo Disneyland.

At the end of the show, a quiz is played to the theme song, and viewers are asked to answer questions. Entries were accepted by postcard, and winners were chosen by lottery to receive a prize. When the show first started, prizes were given out as special merchandise, but later the format was changed to give winners any game software they wanted.

The show later ceased broadcasting under the same title when sponsor Nintendo released the Nintendo 64. It was subsequently renamed 64 Mario Stadium and broadcast.

When Masaki Aiba (then an ordinary person) was in elementary school, he participated in a game project with his friends and lost to their opponent, Rusher Itamae.^[1]

Cast[edit]

Hosts[edit]

• Tooru Watanabe
• Noriko Katō

Semi-regular[edit]

• Rusher Itamae
• Ide Rakkyo
• Bakushō Mondai
• Hiroyuki Watanabe

Main segments[edit]

Knockout segment[edit]

Many teams of three people participated, and the winning team was decided by a knockout system. It was held from October 1993 to September 1994.

• Round 1 (many → 4 teams) - Elimination by quiz. One incorrect answer disqualifies. If the winning team cannot be determined due to time constraints, an approximate quiz will be asked, and the team closest to the correct answer will win.
  • There was one round where all the teams were wiped out, and they restarted with the remaining teams from the previous round.
  • Also, if one team remains, they are eliminated at that point. The quiz continues with only the teams remaining up until the previous question.

• Early semi-finals and finals
  • Semi-finals (4 teams → 2 teams) - Like a penalty shoot-out in soccer , each player kicks a ball (3 balls per team) towards the goal. The two teams with the most goals advance to the finals. Rusher Itamae and Ide Rakkyo alternate weekly as hosts and goalkeepers. There are four kicking positions, which are decided at the host's discretion (women mainly kick from a position closer to the goal, while men with sports experience kick from a position further away).
  • Finals - Tetris 2 is played in a relay format, with each player playing for one minute (three players playing for a total of three minutes), and the team with the highest score wins. There is no intermission when players change.

• Semi-finals and finals after rule changes
  • Semi-finals (4 teams → 2 teams) - Team representatives will play a VS Match Race of Super Mario Kart, and the winning team will advance to the finals.
  • Final - Like a penalty shoot-out in soccer, each team member takes turns kicking a ball at a time, and the team that scores the most goals wins. The hosts and goalkeepers are Rusher Itamae and Ide Rakkyo, who take turns each week.

Quiz & Game Battle[edit]

Starting in October 1994, four teams of two people, mostly elementary school students or younger, competed in buzzer quizzes about pre-release game information and game battles using the Super Famicom.

The final battle is the Star Challenge Quiz. Every week, a celebrity guest plays a game, and the four teams predict the result using the points they have earned so far. However, the rules are that each week the show sets a minimum and maximum score or ranking for that week, and participants must predict within that range; predictions below the minimum or above the maximum are not allowed.

Teams that predict correctly are awarded points according to their results. If the guest's result falls below the minimum limit, all teams' bet points are returned, but if the result is above the maximum limit and the show becomes exciting, all teams are awarded correct answers. This is similar to a children's version of the "return" rule in Quiz Derby, which used to be broadcast on TBS Television, where contestants would get their points back if all the contestants answered incorrectly.

The Star Challenge Quiz is known for the occasional major comeback, and there have been many cases where a team that was last in the standings until just before the match would get the only correct answer and go on to win the match.

Ending themes[edit]

• Kaori Mochida: "Mō Ichi Do"
• Ai Miyake: "Kizutsuku Yūki ga Hoshī yo"
• Naho Hoshina: "Gentle Wind"
• Noriko Katō: "Truth"
• Noriko Katō "Genki Deiru yo"
• Noriko Katō "Tsumetaku Shite Kudasai"

Gallery[edit]

• Alternate logo

Names in other languages[edit]

References[edit]

External links[edit]

• Japanese Wikipedia article

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