Author Topic: The Lighter Side of the Gamer's Summit  (Read 3790 times)

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Offline msuzuki

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The Lighter Side of the Gamer's Summit
« on: August 28, 2002, 12:54:09 AM »
Nintendo broke the record for the world's largest bowl of spaghetti, but a Luigi look-a-like stole the show.

Last week, Mario fans from around the San Francisco Bay Area gathered in S.F. Little Italy’s Washington Square park for the chance to win a GameCube and a trip to Hawaii.  A group of roughly 20 Mario look-a-likes showed up hoping to be one of 6 lucky contestants to dive into the world’s largest bowl of spaghetti.  Hidden insider the 2,700 pounds of pasta were 6 GameCube boxes, 1 of which had the magic tickets.  The other 5 boxes weren’t too shabby either offering different types of Nintendo prize packages.


Several of the look-a-likes did a great job with props as a homemade FLUDD, Yoshi, Fire Flower, Fireball, and Bob-omb could be found with the Marios.  Also included in the contestants was a father-son team and a duo of both Mario Brothers.  Yes, TYP, your boy Luigi was there representing the rest of the family; and represent he did.  Luigi was among the finalists chosen by a panel of 3 gaming journalists, as was the father-son team and the Mario with a FLUDD and a Yoshi.


With the finalists chosen, the 5 Marios and 1 Luigi were separated into 3 pairs.  Each pair would have 5 minutes to dig into the pasta to search for a GameCube box, one of which contained the lucky ticket for the Hawaii vacation.  The first pair had a fairly easy time finding a GameCube box and came out remarkably clean for people who’d been in a giant bowl of spaghetti and fake meatballs.  The next pair then jumped in and were a bit more entertaining.  The older half of the father-son team didn’t mind getting dirty and got his arms into the spaghetti quite well.  Unfortunately, it took Dad a while to realize that all the prizes were hidden inside identical boxes.  His son (and the rest of the crowd) spent more than a minute yelling at him to just take any box and to stop looking for a magical envelope buried deep inside the pasta.  Eventually, he figured out what was going on and came out, GameCube box in hand, with plenty of tomato sauce covering him.


The final pair included the lone Luigi, and that’s when the real fun began.  It was quite apparent that the Luigi was a fun-loving guy as he was more than happy to play the role doing his best impersonation complete with hand gestures.  Of course, that was just the beginning.  Once inside the spaghetti, Luigi seemed more interested in making a big a mess as possible while digging, swimming, falling, lounging, and even eating his way through the spaghetti than finding a GameCube box.  The man was an absolute riot, though.  If the trip to Hawaii went to the most entertaining look-a-like, there’d be no contest.  At least, he got some nice air time on the local news that night.  I’ve got some pics to give you an idea of what he was like, but I’m fairly sure soMeone AT anoTher websIte Got the eNtire thing on video (no, I’m not very clever).  Maybe someone should pester the guy to upload it for the world to view.


When all was said and done, Luigi was an absolute mess and the star of the show, everyone else got at least a GameCube, the Mario with the FLUDD and Yoshi got the trip, and Dad was an unhappy camper.  My apologies to the winner if it seems like I’m downplaying that part, but really, the most entertaining part of the event was Luigi’s spaghetti bowl antics.  Now stop reading already and click on the related link and check out the pics!