When Nintendo (and Mario) Rescued Video Games

HISTORY This Week

The HISTORY® Channel

History, Education, Society & Culture

4.6 • 3.9K Ratings

🗓️ 22 September 2025

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

September 27, 1986. You’re a kid in the mid-80s. You get home from school, flip on the TV, and see something strange: a commercial where a giant egg hatches behind a family’s console, revealing a toy robot. His name is R.O.B. — the Robotic Operating Buddy — but he's just an accessory. The real product: Nintendo. Today, the Nintendo Entertainment System is launching nationwide. Just a few years earlier, the U.S. video game market had collapsed under the weight of bad games and too many consoles. But Nintendo had a plan — to sell Americans on something that didn’t look like a video game at all. With a plastic robot, a disguised gray box, and a plumber named Mario, how did Nintendo manage to sneak video games back into living rooms—and rescue a dying industry? Special thanks to Jeremy Parish, media curator at Limited Run Games, producer of NES Works, and co-host of the Retronauts podcast. -- Get in touch: [email protected] Follow on Instagram: @historythisweek Follow on Facebook: ⁠HISTORY This Week Podcast⁠ To stay updated: http://historythisweekpodcast.com Apple: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/history-this-week/id1493453604 Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/show/2YFm0ezrXmMqLXbxgZpkmd?si=9a84fadee11447d4 Audacy: https://www.audacy.com/podcast/history-this-week-71b4d To learn more about listener data and our privacy practices visit: https://www.audacyinc.com/privacy-policy Learn more about your ad choices. Visit https://podcastchoices.com/adchoices

Transcript

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0:00.0	The History Channel, original podcast.
0:05.0	History this week.
0:06.8	September 27, 1986.
0:12.2	I'm Sally Helm.
0:14.8	You're a kid in the mid-80s.
0:17.2	You just got home from school or from playing
0:19.4	wiffle ball in the streets with your friends.
0:21.6	And you do what most kids do when they come home.
0:24.2	You turn on the TV.
0:27.6	Will it be you?
0:29.4	Will your family be the first to witness the birth of the incredible Nintendo Entertainment System?
0:36.7	The first NES ad, I believe, that aired in America,
0:40.7	has these kids in a living room and there's this egg.
0:43.5	That is Jeremy Parrish, author and co-host of The Retronauts podcast.
0:48.5	So, The Egg.
0:50.4	This egg that emerges from, like, behind their TV console, and it cracks open.
0:56.5	The first to play with Rob, the extraordinary video robot.
0:59.9	He follows the commands you put on screen so you get to the dynamite before it explodes.
1:05.0	This is a commercial for a new thing called the Nintendo Entertainment System.
1:11.0	Today, it's launching nationwide.
1:13.7	And you would know it as a video game system.
1:17.4	That's what it is.
	...

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