How Did This Get Made? · Earwolf and Paul Scheer, June Diane Raphael, Jason Mantzoukas

Super Mario Brothers LIVE! (Classic)

April 7, 2026·48 min·4 clips

Bob Hoskins only learned Super Mario Brothers was a video game mid-shoot from his son.

A snake drink starts the spiral. Dennis Hopper's girlfriend drinks something with snakes in it, and the panel locks onto the little creature noise like it might solve the movie. Dennis Hopper then gets treated as the ruler of Dinoland, with the hosts comparing his energy to Frank from Blue Velvet. The plumbing question keeps coming back. One host cannot get past how this world hears "plumber" and reacts like someone just named a public threat. Maybe there is no water. That idea gets tied to Jello Biafra saying they do not have water, which turns plumbers into walking reminders of what Dinoland is missing. Nobody quite accepts it. Another theory has plumbers getting too close to the other dimension, maybe by turning the wrong valve. That falls apart just as fast. The group notes that Mario and Luigi do not exactly arrive through expert plumbing anyway, since they run through a wall. Then the brothers are barely brothers. The bit slides into the Mario not-brothers, the Mario acquaintances, and the Mario pals, because their onscreen relationship feels weirdly loose. Bob Hoskins still gets his due. Even with all this nonsense flying around, the hosts credit him for committing hard enough that Mario feels strangely solid. Then the comparison gets even dumber: Batman and Robin, except Batman is Bob Hoskins in a warped video-game nightmare. That is the rhythm here. A tiny plot wobble gets tested, defended, mocked, and turned into a running bit before anyone can park the thing.

As heard by us

A live Super Mario Brothers riff turns hated plumbers, Dennis Hopper intensity, and Bob Hoskins commitment into prime bad-movie comedy.

How Did This Get Made? hits Super Mario Brothers at the level where the movie starts sounding like a municipal planning dispute from another dimension.

Read the full review in PlayNext →

Why you'd press play

Three friends take apart the Super Mario Brothers movie and keep finding it weirder than they remembered.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

Listen to the show on

Apple Podcasts Spotify

Play clips from this episode More from How Did This Get Made?