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Top 10 Weird Things About Nintendo's "White Knuckle Scorin'" [top ten]
 
Hey, everybody. Kris here.

So I'm walking around this huge warehouse of old CDs and vinyl - called Cheapo's here in Austin - and what do I come across?



That's right. It's Nintendo's "White Knuckle Scorin'", a compilation CD released way back in 1991. Now, I confess, even as a big Nintendo fan, I'd never heard of this thing before. Naturally, I had to buy it. (Anything with a picture of Mario on it, am I right folks?)

Well, I've taken it home. I've listened to it a couple of times. I've read the accompanying comic book. And I'm here to tell you, dear Negative World, that Nintendo's "White Knuckle Scorin'" is totally wack. In fact, it's so hilariously wack, I've written a Top 10 all about how wack it is. Strap on your waterpacks. This is gonna hurt.

Here we go...

Top 10 Weird Things About Nintendo's "White Knuckle Scorin'"
06/22/11, 06:29    Edited: 06/27/11, 23:58
 
   
 
#10 Let's Start With The Album Artwork
Before we really dig in, the first thing you have to know about "White Knuckle Scorin'" is it's supposed to promote literacy. Noble cause. If you grew up in the late 80s and early 90s you're used to seeing popular characters pushing some public virtue or other. Bugs Bunny giving safety instructions. Michelangelo telling you not to use drugs. Sonic warning you about the creepy touch. So that's not really all that weird.

This album comes with with a CD booklet that has a Mario comic in the pages. So I think it's safe to assume that this is aimed at kids, right? It's Mario. It's about the virtues of reading. I think that's a fair assumption.

Okay, so with that out of the way, let's look at the album cover specifically.



Now there's the fashion of the late eighties punching you in the eye! (Punching even harder than Mario's punching that Goomba, even.)

I admit from the start that this could be a lot worse than it is. At least it's playful and colorful. But a few points, anyway:

- What the heck does "White Knuckle Scorin'" even mean? Is that some gamer terminology I've never heard before? It's particularly ironic considering Nintendo was the company that did away with high score style games. Yet here we are, in 1991, talking about high scores again on a Nintendo product.

It's such a weird name that I've seriously been searching for some kind of double entendre in there. But I can't work one out. It has the word "Score", so maybe that's something. Who knows?

- It's 2011, and I've still never played a Mario game where the sprites were that big.

- What's with the chick on top of the TV? I know the 90s were Xtreme, but I don't remember any "TV Sitter" fad.

- Is that a CD player falling over there, or is that supposed to be the console? Cause if it's the console, they're apparently playing that awesome game on an early version of the Phillips CD-i.

- The kid playing is doing a pretty good job, but he's so distracted that he apparently hasn't noticed his buddy "moving into position" behind him. (I hope he's been watching Sonic.)

- Check out that chick on the floor. How'd she get in that position? Oh, right, she obviously fell off the TV.

- Let's not kid ourselves, though. It's really all about the Jamaican dude fist pumping at the top of the page, isn't it. Tokenism aside, he looks pretty darn awesome. If his Reggae band was on the accompanying CD, I'd bet it'd be more fun to listen to.

So that's the front cover. Kinda stupid, but not too bad. What's going on when you flip it over, though?



Ah. Bowser kicking the crap out of Mario. This doesn't bode well.
 
#9 Flesh For Lulu and Trixter: Ambassadors For Literacy
It's likely you've never heard of Flesh For Lulu. But with a band name like that, what kind of music do you think they were known for?

If you said goth rock with a bit of a leather-and-sex angle, then you have more sense than whoever greenlighted their inclusion on "White Knuckle Scorin'".



Now, to be fair, Flesh For Lulu wasn't a puppy-eating, porn-metal band or anything. Next to their name, the scariest thing about them was probably the intense stare of their square jawed lead singer. And, despite banned album covers and stuff like that, their music wasn't actually all that controversial or dark. Their song here, "She Was", sounds like pleasant Jesus and Mary Chain-lite.

But even if Flesh for Lulu isn't something 5 year old Nintendo fans are going to run screaming from, they're still not the sort of band you expect to turn up on a Nintendo album promoting literacy. The B-52's? Sure. Devo? Maybe. Flesh For Lulu? Not so fast.

Trixter, on the other hand, I have almost nothing to say about. They were a hair band because of course they were. Here you can see them lounging around playing their guitars suggestively and all that nonsense hair bands got up to.



Apart from the fact Trixter was terrible, I question the wisdom of using a band who can't even spell their own name correctly in a literacy campaign. Who next? Korn? The Divinyls? The... uh... Beatles?

Anyway, mostly I'm just saying Trixter sucks and shouldn't be allowed anywhere near children, especially ones who can't read and might mistake them for a better band. Like Warrant.
 
#8 Bowser Can't Read, But He Can Write Letters / Wants To Join OPEC
So a big part of how they try to establish that reading is important in this dog biscuit is by showing how Bowser doesn't know how to read. His motto is "Ignorance Is Bliss" and the whole plot hinges on his inability to read some instructions on how to properly kill Princess Peach. So, there we go. Bowser can't read.

Except that another part of the plot is Bowser sending out a fake letter to the Mario Bros.



So, Bowser can't read but he can write, apparently. Good penmanship, too. Talk about sending mixed signals to kids!

While I'm on the subject of Bowser, can you guess what his big plan is? (Other than the fact I already told you in the title.) Is it a big takeover of the Mushroom Kingdom/Isle Delfino/Mario Galaxy via airship? Fat chance, reader. He wants that oil.



So, this is supposed to teach illiterate kids to read, but it also assumes they have some idea about what OPEC is all about. Heck, I'm a college-educated adult and I only sort of understand what OPEC is all about.

But, you know, maybe kids watched the news a lot more back in 1991.
 
#7 Mario, Luigi and Yoshi Are Stupid As Hell
For a comic that is using the Mario brand to encourage kids to read and do well in school, they just straight up insult Mario and Luigi's intelligences over and over again. I mean, read this nonsense:



I mean, scratch that. They don't just insult Mario and Luigi. They insult all plumbers. Obviously all plumbers are stupid. But maybe I'm misunderstanding their intent with that sentence...



...or maybe not. So Mario and Luigi are supposed to be thick-headed simpletons, eh, simply because they are plumbers? Not only that, they're the heroes of an educational story! Wouldn't it make more sense to show how smart they are now that they know how to read?

But Yoshi's even worse. He's just as dumb and he's illiterate, too. And apparently colorblind, since he can't tell the Mario Bros apart.



We're supposed to glean that Yoshi can't tell the difference between our heroes because he doesn't know the difference between the letters "M" and "L". That's patently ridiculous considering nobody but Mario, Luigi, Laverne, Shirley and the Ninja Turtles ever wear clothes that have the first letter of their names embroidered on. And somehow civilization gets by.

Anyway, along the way, Mario teaches Yoshi to read. Problem solved, right? Wrong.



So, obviously, we're supposed to conclude that Mario and Luigi are stupid because they are plumbers, and Yoshi is stupid because he just freaking is.

Also, Mario steals Wario's car at some point, apparently.



Just wanted to fit that in somewhere. Keen-O.
 
#6 Roy Orbison Sings A Celine Dion Song Written By Cyndi Lauper For Literacy
I'm a big fan of Roy Orbison, but it's still weird to me that he covered a Cyndi Lauper song. She's great, too, but they come from such different musical worlds. So the fact that he even recorded "I Drove All Night" is already sort of a musical peanut butter and banana sandwich. He does a good job interpreting it, though, and it's actually a pretty well-known cover of the song. If "White Knuckle Scorin'" has a hit on it, it's certainly this.

I know I'm pointing out that a lot of the musicians here don't fit in with Mario. As weird as it is to see dinosaur rock acts like "Crosby Stills and Nash" and "Dire Straits" on this compilation, isn't it particularly odd to see Roy Orbison associated with Nintendo? I mean, he recorded for Sun Records back in the Elvis days. He was having hits when Miyamoto was still just a kid. And even back then, Roy was a bit of an old school guy with that operatic voice. He was just from a completely different age than Mario. It wouldn't surprise me to learn that Roy had never played a video game in his life. (Okay, so there is a specific connection between Roy Orbison and Mario. One of our great forum goers is even named after it. You've got to admit, though, that's a pretty tenuous link.)

And what makes it even weirder is that the most famous version of this song is the cover by Celine Dion, which was a pretty sizable hit for her a few years later. So, to modern ears, it's almost like Roy's covering one of her songs. Roy/Cyndi/Celine. Now there's a Triforce of Music I never expected to see.

(The less said about Roy singing the words "I drove all night... to make love to you" on a Nintendo album, the better.)
 
#5 Hey Kids! It's Britny Fox singing "Turn On".
For those who don't remember, Britny Fox wasn't a female singer. Britny Fox was a glam-metal hair band made up of a bunch of dudes who were, no kidding, former members of Cinderella. So here we have men who dressed like women, looked like women, and who played in not one but two different bands whose names sounded like women. Or, more specifically, two different bands that sounded like they were named after strippers.

And they're rockin' out on your Mario literacy album, kids.

Now, since the members of Britny Fox were apparently the Birdos of glam metal, their appearance on a Mario-inspired album might make a sort of twisted sense. If you had to come down on one side of this thing, the Mario series is probably pro-transvestite. And Mario himself is not above playing a little campy dress-up (see SMB3). But you've got to wonder what Nintendo was thinking adding the Britny Fox song "Turn On" to the track list. When the lead character of your videogame/music crossover is a guy who eats mushrooms to grow big and stomp around a psychedelic landscape, maybe you don't allow space on your album for a song with a chorus that goes:

"Turn On
Higher Than You Ever Wanted
Turn On
Higher Than You Ever Needed"

It's sort of complicated because the phrase "Turn On" has two meanings, and both of them are inappropriate for children. Clearly, with the word "higher" in there, the dudes of Britny Fox intend the phrase in the 60s hippie sense of getting, like, totally loaded, man, and seeing all the colors of the universe radiating from the spiritual core of eternity out into the heart of man, who rises to kiss the rainbow lips of God. Or something. Drugs, I mean.

But, just to cover all the inappropriate-for-kids bases, the comic makes sure to use the song title in the second way, too, just to let us know that Mario is, um, "growing big" during battle.



So, there you go. Mario getting turned on. Thanks for inspiring that mental image Britny Fox. I was going to say it'd be just as inappropriate if Nintendo had included Samantha Fox singing "Touch Me (I Want Your Body)", but on second thought, yeah, okay, that'd still be worse. But just a little bit worse.
 
#4 Yoshi, the Inter-Species Sexist Dinosaur
Quick, think about something Yoshi might say.

If you thought he'd say "Yoshi" over and over in a cute cartoon voice, then pat yourself on the back. You know your Yoshi.

If you thought anything else, you lose. Because Yoshi never says anything else.

But if you thought something uncomfortable and sexist, then pack up your typewriter and throw on your mirrored sunshades because you just won the chance to move to Hollywood and write dialogue for "White Knuckle Scorin'".

I wish I was kidding.

Let me start by saying I can forgive the writers for making Yoshi talk too much in this comic. Yoshi was a relatively new character and, apart from some letters he left for Mario in Super Mario World*, there wasn't a clearly defined personality for him yet. He was still something of a mystery. So the fact that they've got him just cold acting like he's the 3rd Mario brother is understandable.

What isn't understandable is Yoshi perving on Princess Peach.



Now, I don't know how things go in your neighborhood, but where I come from calling a woman "smart-looking" doesn't make up for the fact you just called her a "babe" with a "dynamite bod". (It should also be noted that "smart-looking" doesn't actually mean "smart".)

But, hey, maybe it's just an isolated thing, right? Maybe they just goofed that panel up.



Maybe not.

The fact that he's getting lusty over Peach, who isn't even his same species, just makes it even more inappropriate. We're sort of getting into creepy Comet The Super Horse territory, now.

Frankly, I'll never look at Yoshi the same way again. Just why does he wear that saddle at all times?

*another illiterate character writing a letter, btw
 
#3 "Ignorance Is Bliss" by Jellyfish
Now, Jellyfish. There was an interesting band. They released a couple of decently-regarded, largely underappreciated albums back in the day.

I always think of Jellyfish as a band that tried to bring Queen-style production grandeur back to rock n' roll. But their timing sucked. It was the early 90s and rock was getting back to basics. There was no room for Queen in that climate (the soundtrack of Wayne's World notwithstanding.)

So it's that sort of band who came up with the one song on "White Knuckle Scorin'" that is absolutely all about Mario. If you've never heard this song... well, as they say, Ignorance Is Bliss.



No, scratch that. Hearing this song is bliss. You should really watch that YouTube link. The whole thing is rather awesome.

But it's also about as nutty as can be. There are tempo changes all over the place and more mood swings than in Super Princess Peach. Bowser seems obsessed with doing something to the Mario Bros involving a monkey wrench. Your guess is as good as mine on what that is. He also seems to think that Peach is a "braniac" because she can read, which leads to this weird little exchange that suggests Bowser has a sister:

"You remind me of my kid sister
She read so much she got a blister
A big one - I mean big - on her brain
What a schnook!"

There's that word schnook again, too. Is that even a word?

But the strangest lines, by far, are in that catchy chorus:

"Princess Toadstool
I know you're frightened ooh ooh
But if you knew just why you're here your fear would just be heightened
So lets just say, 'Ignorance is bliss'"

Now, that's some sinister stuff!

But let me point out what I think is the most obviously ironic part of this whole endeavor: On a pro-literacy Mario album, the only song that has anything to do with Mario is an ode to ignorance sung by Bowser. Really? So no one stopped and thought maybe the catchy number should be... pro-literacy? You mean they couldn't convince Sheena Easton, who also appears on this record, to sing a song about reading? Don't you think that would have been more in line with their stated intent?

Maybe that was the original idea and everyone except Jellyfish turned them down. My mind reels thinking about the pitch meeting that must have taken place between the band and the label. "You guys want to be the next Queen, huh? Well I've got your very own Flash Gordon lined up already. What do you know about Mario?"
 
#2 Princess Peach says FU----


Okay, she says "Fudge". But, come on. Who do they think they're kidding?
 
#1 The Strange Combination of Vocabulary Building and Near Illiterate Drivel
The absolute weirdest thing about "White Knuckle Scorin'" is the text of the story.

On some level, I can understand that they got the characters wrong. This was probably done up by some peon who knew nothing about Nintendo's beloved Mario franchise. I get that. But what I find really strange is that the story, which is supposed to teach kids the virtue of reading, can mix so many hard words with so many stupid ones.

Like, check this out:



Okay. Here's Luigi using big French words. Sure. But then there's this, too:



Did I just read that? The literacy story has someone saying "Whas' up?" Not even, "What's Up", but actually a brand new contraction, invented for English specifically for Yoshi to say to the Mario Bros? And which breaks all established usage of the apostrophe? Are you kidding me?

You've also got a word like brigands:



Not a super difficult word, but probably challenging for kids. But there it is sitting right next to some nonsense about lard chips.

Or this:



Suck an egg? I mean, that's a little rude, isn't it? If that phrase was in your kids' Little Golden Book, you probably wouldn't read it to them, right? I know I wouldn't. So why are Mario and Luigi teaching your kid to read it?

But that's not the only time the word "suck" gets thrown around (next to another pretty advanced word):



So, you know, reading is important, kids. But it's okay to suck at math. Mario does. And it's also okay to use the word "sucked". Use it around your parents.

There's more:

Bad puns stolen from the ninja turtles.


Outright sexual innuendo.


Faux-Medieval speak that's sure to confuse illiterate kids.


Words so hard (and French) that even I had to look them up.


Wait a second. The internet is telling me that word means cleavage. What the heck? This Mario story has Peach stuffing things in her cleavage? Let me pull out here and get a better idea of what's going on around this scene.



What? The narrator is commenting on the shape of her chest? In a kids story? What kind of inappropriate sexist crap is this? Who is the sexist writer who ca...

Oh no.

Oh no no.

Oh no no no.

Are you thinking what I'm thinking? This reads like it was written by someone who's just learned the power of the written word. Someone who can't navigate the subtle tonal shifts of the English language, yet. And someone who has an obsession with Peach's, uhm, dynamite bod. Could it be? Could it be that this story was actually written by...



NOOOOOOOOOOOO! Never learn to read, kids! Never!
 
Well, as Bowser might say, I think I've made my point. Goodbye.



URL to share (right click and copy)
06/22/11, 06:29   Edited: 06/27/11, 23:58 
 
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So this was the thread that inspired Kotaku, ScrewAttack, and so many other sites to lie to a generation of millennials about this book being bad. Well, it's not. If you really couldn't laugh at Luigi suddenly being too dignified to utter a "clichéd riposte" or cringed when Peach hid something into her cleavage (a visual gag I've seen in Disney movies as well as the Super Mario Bros. movie), I have to wonder what kind of stupid drivel you watched as a kid. Because 12 year old me? He would have laughed his ass off at this book. There are more more adult concepts, more innuendo in your average Animaniacs episode than there is in this book (and no one thought it was "sexist" to call a woman hot in the late 80's and early 90's, so let's not blame a 26 year old book for not being PC enough for today).

I might catch hell (or at least a ban) for bumping such an old thread, but good lord did I have to get this off my chest. It's a silly kids book filled with dumb humor, and if some of the words and concepts were advanced for your average third grader... great? It's like you're unfamiliar with the concept of putting subversive humor in children's entertainment. There's nothing sinister or overtly inappropriate about it, no moreso than your standard episode of Tiny Toons or Pinky and the Brain.
12/30/16, 09:25   
Edited: 12/30/16, 09:29
@Poochy

Oh, it's much worse than you've even said. From my personal emails, dated 6/26/2011:


Dear Kotaku, Screwattack and many other sites,

I trust at this point that you will have read my article "Top 10 Weird Things About Nintendo's 'White Knuckle Scorin'" which I have submitted through the usual channels at our United SJW Conspirators VPN. I feel this adequately concludes phase one of our plot to lie to a generation of millennials about this book being bad. Phase Two, of course, will be for you to paraphrase this article, rewrite some of the better jokes just enough that you can claim them as your own, and then run it as your own content with a tiny link at the bottom citing me as your source. As we agreed in our last secret meeting inside an oxygen tent, inside the active volcano of our underground base, this is the fairest and most direct way to communicate our humorlessness about the comedic norms of early 90s cartoon characters. Also, I think we all agree, that it's fair to me.

Those old cartoons thought they were so funny, but we'll show them. I just hope Flesh For Lulu doesn't ever hear about it. Those guys look like they mean business and I'm certain they've already got a small arsenal of leather whips.


Humorlessly Yours,
Kris Wright

PS: Any way we can get other websites to start using "Top 10 Weird Things..." all the time? I've never seen it used before, but I like the way it rolls off the tongue. I think it could really go.
12/30/16, 19:50   
Edited: 12/30/16, 19:52
Holy fuck people really will defend anything on the internet.
12/30/16, 19:51   

Poochy signed up for the site to bump this! Awesome! I love the idea that we somehow inspired a bunch of major websites to write about it as well.

And by we I mean Kris. Once again I blame Kris for everything.
12/30/16, 19:56   
Edited: 12/30/16, 19:58
@Zero

I would say Poochy died on the way back to his home planet, but since I'm the avowed enemy of 90s cartoons, I have no idea what that means.
12/30/16, 19:58   
I still can't tell if this was a real thing...
12/30/16, 20:24   
@Poochy
First up, welcome to Negative World!

It's kinda surreal finding someone who's a big enough fan of White Knuckle Scorin' that they've registered to reply to the article...but then again, I've seen every episode of the Super Mario Bros Super Show multiple times, so I'm familiar with the appeal of nostalgic 90s Nintendo weirdness. Ultimately, though, Kriswright's style is very tongue-in-cheek rather than malicious (the article is titled "Top 10 Weird Things..." after all, not "THIS EMBARRASSING PIECE OF GARBAGE KILLED MY DOG"), so I wouldn't take this kinda thing too harshly. It was funny enough for other big sites to more or less swipe it and post it as their own, for what it's worth, so I dunno. Maybe they cranked up the ire themselves. Gaming journalism, right?

For what it's worth, the storybook segments here did seem kinda funny, in an out-of-character way. And to be fair, while there's a weird emphasis on how dynamite Peach's bod is, she's also the only character in the story that's not illiterate or dumb.

SONG CUE!
12/30/16, 21:10   
@TriforceBun

Well, you're being a little generous to someone who basically signed up at Negative World just to attack me personally. But I'll bite and talk seriously about it for a second, just so you guys don't think I'm incapable of being anything but a smartass.

Obviously, this whole article was one big joke. Whether or not you think it's sexist drivel to have Yoshi talking about Peach's "dynamite bod" really isn't the point. I call it that not because I'm making a political statement or because I'm a humorless bore, but because - as any Nintendo fan here can agree - it's really damn weird to see Yoshi talking like that about Peach at all. When I read that booklet for the first time, I knew I had to write about it because it was just so weird. I wanted other people to see it.

To be honest, I'm more amused by Poochy's comments than anything. I wasn't making a political statement and I think almost everyone who read this article understood that.

But it's interesting to see the difference between who he thinks I am and who I actually am. If he ever does come back here to see how we responded to him, here's my message to him: Poochy, I'm sorry to break it to you, but you don't know who you're talking to or really what you're talking about. I'm sorry, but that's just true. You want to know what 'stupid drivel' I watched as a kid? Well, shows like Tiny Toons and Animaniacs and basically everything else you mentioned. So... I mean, maybe this can be a learning experience for you - a cautionary tale against attacking strangers on the internet. Next time, maybe just laugh along or move along. Pick your battles. And pick better ones.

Then again, this has had 32,000 readers and only one of them has complained. I'm not sure you could get such a good ratio even if you just wrote chocolate chip cookie recipes for a living.
12/31/16, 02:09   
Edited: 12/31/16, 02:10
Guysssssssssssssss you're not supposed to show your cards to trolls so fast! We could have milked this for awhile!

Actually this was probably just a hit and run and they're not coming back anyway.
12/31/16, 02:31   
@Zero

I blame T-Bun. He's the one who decided to take the high road for some reason.
12/31/16, 02:43   
I am a fun-ruiner!
12/31/16, 06:29   
Zero said:
We could have milked this for awhile!

Yes, because ongoing drama is something that Negative World is barren of!

(How many locked threads do we have around here??)

EDIT- HAHA, I don't think I ever read this before (somehow, or maybe forgot); what is with all the song cues?! And the first one I saw was T-Bun's a post or two above! Weird!

EDIT2- I'm ashamed to say that I don't think I've ever read this. Sorry, Kris I know its been a much-talked about deal on NW for quite some time. I have no idea why I didn't read it. Hilarious read. And you know so much about Jellyfish! The stuff about Britny Fox was especially entertaining. From the ashes of Cinderella.. wow. Did I ever tell you about the time I commented on Pretty Boy Floyd, "who are these babes?!" Probably not, because its embarrassing and I never want to speak of it again. Wait.
12/31/16, 08:18   
Edited: 12/31/16, 08:45
Well "for awhile" I mean we could have seen how far this person would go before they realized the article was tongue-in-cheek. It might have lasted a few days.

But like I said, doubt they're coming back anyway.
12/31/16, 08:39   
Either way, this is definitely one for the "Top 10 Weird Things About kriswright's Top 10 Weird Things About Nintendo's "White Knuckle Scorin'"" list.

Also, check out all those quotations at the end of that phrase. Five in a row! Talk about a white knuckle score.
12/31/16, 15:15   
Edited: 12/31/16, 15:16
@Mr_Mustache
B-but you replied on the first page!
12/31/16, 15:49   
@ploot That was actually Stache's evil French doppelganger, Monsieur_Moustache, in disguise!
12/31/16, 19:16   
Edited: 12/31/16, 19:16
@nate38

Funny. That description sounds like Pervy Gui.

01/01/17, 01:39   
Edited: 01/01/17, 01:40
@ploot

I DID?! I don't even know whats real anymore.

EDIT- What the heck, I'm on Page 2 multiple times, too. Where am I?
01/01/17, 08:15   
Edited: 01/01/17, 08:16
@Mr_Mustache

I bet Page 2 you is the guy who sent that cartoon of yours before too
01/01/17, 08:49   
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