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I'm Julia Turner and this is the SlatecultureGabFest, the Mario movies star power edition.

It's Wednesday, April 26, 2023.

On today's show we'll bleep, bloop, bloop into the Mario movie, examining what's made it such a box office sensation

and how the film, which features Chris Pratt as the voice of Mario, capitalizes on Nintendo's glorious IP.

Then, Chimp Empire, the new docu-series from Netflix and the director of My Octopus Teacher.

It's part jaw-dropping footage and part reality show and asks us who will be Uganda's next top chimpanzee.

Finally, we'll discuss Heart on My Sleeve, a song that briefly went viral last week because it sounded like a collaboration between Drake and the weekend but was actually concocted using AI.

Steve and Dana are both out this week but we are extremely lucky to be joined by two of our very favourite friends of the program.

Joining me today is Jamal Buie, columnist at The New York Times. Welcome to Mal.

Hello, thank you for having me.

So fun to have you here. Also joining us is Slate, Culture Writer and Culture Gab, alumna, Nadira Gough. Hi Nadira, hey!

Thank you guys so much for joining me. I'm excited to dig into all of these topics with you. Let's do it.

Okay, diving in. The Super Mario Brothers movie is smashing box office records, earning nearly 900 million globally so far.

It's made by Illumination Studios, famous for its little yellow minions in close collaboration with Nintendo and Universal.

And it stars Chris Pratt as Mario, a downtrodden but plucky plumber who gets diverted into a technical world where he must partner with Princess Peach to say of his surprisingly cowardly in this version, Brother Luigi,

from a LaGubria spouser voiced hilariously by Jack Black. Before we get into the film, let's take a listen to a clip.

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