Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin'

Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin'
Compilation album by Various artists
Released	December 3, 1991
Length	41:12
Label	MCA Records
Trixter chronology
If Looks Could Kill (1991) Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin' (1991) Hear! (1992)

Professional ratings
Review scores
Source	Rating
Allmusic	[1]

Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin' is a compilation album released by Nintendo in 1991. In spite of the appearance of Mario on the cover, only the first song on the album has anything to do with the Super Mario franchise. The booklet enclosed with the CD featured a comic story based loosely on the Super Nintendo game Super Mario World.

Audio preview

"Ignorance Is Bliss" can be previewed in its entirety on the Jellyfish Best! Last.fm page.^[2]

Track listing

1. "Ignorance Is Bliss" (performed by Jellyfish)
2. "How Have You Been?" (written by John Sebastian, performed by Crosby, Stills & Nash)
3. "Magic in the Night" (performed by Bombshell)
4. "I Drove All Night" (performed by Roy Orbison)
5. "Iron Hand" (performed by Dire Straits)
6. "Into the Fire" (performed by Alias)
7. "She Was" (performed by Flesh for Lulu)
8. "Line of Fire" (performed by Trixter)
9. "Turn On" (performed by Britny Fox)
10. "Forever Friends" (performed by Sheena Easton)

Comic synopsis

The comic book enclosed with the album was produced by Voyager Communications, parent company of Valiant Comics, who had produced the Nintendo Comics System. Over the course of the story, characters mention the titles of the songs on the album, prompting other characters to say "Song cue."

The story opens with Mario, Luigi, and Princess Peach arriving for their vacation in Dinosaur Land, but the Princess, the only one who has thought to read the guidebook, suddenly vanishes. Mario and Luigi go searching for her, but they only find a dinosaur named Yoshi, who explains that "a big ugly turtle has been muscling in around here". Realizing that Yoshi is referring to Bowser, the Mario Bros. figure that he's kidnapped the Princess.

Over at his castle, Bowser is telling Peach about his plan to reduce Dinosaur Land to fossil fuel, and then join OPEC as an oil tycoon (despite her criticism that he's too ignorant for that occupation). Later, the Koopalings visit the Princess's cell, intending to torment her for Bowser's pleasure, but she instead reads to them from her guidebook, which they warmly accept because Bowser never reads to them. Peach later briefly escapes from her cell and steals a page from Bowser's spellbook, intending to make sure the Mario Bros. don't fall into Bowser's clutches.

Soon, the Mario Bros. and Yoshi find a large rock with a note from Peach, warning them to avoid the Valley of Storms. Luigi decides that he and Mario should split up and have Yoshi ferry further messages between them. Unfortunately for this plan, Yoshi has bad memory and doesn't know how to read or write, so Mario agrees to teach Yoshi how to do these.

When Bowser finds out that the plumbers are coming, he decides to use a really nasty spell on them, but being rather illiterate himself, he has Lemmy recite the spell. Eager to show off the reading skills he'd learned from the Princess, Lemmy reads the spell, which unfortunately for Bowser, transforms the entire countryside into a medieval motif and turns Mario and Luigi into armored knights and boosts their confidence.

The medieval illusion fades away by the time the heroes reach Bowser's Castle, so the Koopa King sends an army of Mecha-Koopas to deter them. When they finally get to him, they find that he has placed the Princess in a high-tech cage which then begins to lower into a molten lava pit. Seemingly too late to save her, Mario is too grief-stricken to put up a fight against Bowser. But just then, Peach leaps into the fight, revealing that she managed to escape because Bowser left the operating instructions in the cage.

With help in the form of a tip from Lemmy, the good guys defeat Bowser, and the Mario Bros. and Peach decide to return to the Mushroom Kingdom; unfortunately, all the Warp Pipes connecting Dinosaur Land to anywhere else have been cut off. Luckily, the Princess has found a spell in Bowser's spell book that can send them home, but one of them will have to stay behind to read it. Yoshi, having learned to read thanks to Mario's lessons (although he thinks Luigi taught them), volunteers to read the spell.

References

1. ^ Allmusic review
2. ^ Jellyfish Best! Last.fm page.

External links

Audio preview from Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin'

• 1. "Ignorance is Bliss"