ONM Remembered – #314
“3,265: The weight, in pounds, of pasta that filled Nintendo’s world record-breaking bowl of spaghetti.”
from Official Nintendo Magazine issue 121 (October 2002)
Another stupid feature ONM introduced after its 2002 revamp was “Nintendo By Numbers” – a column that sat alongside the news that listed numbers relating to whatever trivia they felt like sharing today, Nintendo-related or otherwise. It was a relatively harmless feature, if rather vapid, but what infuriates me is the total lack of context for some of its trivia.
For instance: why was I not informed of this titanic bowl of spaghetti?? When did this happen? Who sanctioned this?! And did they leave any for me???
I’ll need to double-check my magazines, but it seems this event did receive some press online, including its announcement on Nintendo’s site, even calling for Mario cosplayers to show up. Because what better excuse do you need to bust out your pair of elastic overalls?
Other sources mention that the event involved people diving into the spaghetti pool in search of hidden goodies, including boxed GameCubes, a ticket to Hawaii, and even replicas props of Yoshi and the FLUDD.
I’ll confess I’m bummed so much spaghetti was brewed up for the sole purpose of drowning cosplayers, but dang if that doesn’t sound like a lot of fun – if not something that should be a regular event in our everyday lives. Going to the DMV? Not until you’ve waded through this swamp of lasagne, you won’t!
[…] before their spaghetti stunt, Nintendo were unleashing another strange marketing attempt – having people in Pikmin […]