Gameblog Error Macro just officially rocked my face with a highly detailed, and despairingly sardonic, review of a generation of bizarre third-party Mario games:

From 1991 to 1995, nine Mario titles were released by companies other than Nintendo, one of them being Mario's first appearance on the PC, six of which being edutainment titles. They were all made with kids as the intended audience, meaning the name of this article also serves as a good catch-all title for any of the games seen below.

The article is in the finest tradition of game reviews, and includes screencaps, sound files, and animations from the games: Super Mario Bros. & Friends: When I Grow Up, Mario Teaches Typing, Mario Is Missing!, Mario's Time Machine, Mario's Early Years, Hotel Mario, and Mario's Game Gallery.

The latter is the first time "official" Mario voice Charles Martinet appears on the scene, and Error Macro has a brief and hilarious aside about the voice actor's hellish job. His first appearance "interacting with people at trade shows in 1994 via a real-time demo of Mario's head (which would later become the intro to Mario 64) that was mocapped to his face."

Booth babing is horrific enough; imagine spending an entire convention with crap glued to your stubble, knowing your job depended on keeping up a pretention of cheerful Italian nationality at all times. By the end of the second day you'd be attacking particularly hairy attendees, chewing off their neckbeards and vomiting clumps of it onto your lips in an effort to mimic your avatar's impressive 'stache. "It'sa me!" you'd scream, scattering packs of Japanese businessmen like gazelles before a lioness. Eliza Gauger

Mario's Bastard Children [Error Macro]