On a serious note, SMB Plumbing is a promotional website hosted by Nintendo and Illumination Entertainment to promote The Super Mario Bros. Movie, and became available to the public on February 12, 2023. You can even call or text the business (US only) at (929) 55-MARIOnote , in which calling causes an answering machine with Luigi's voice (Charlie Day) telling the caller to text the number instead, and texting the number will ask the texter to sign up for a newsletter.
The website was updated in celebration of MAR10 Day. There are now links that lead to Fandango to book tickets for the movie and the manhole now leads to the Final Trailer instead of the poster with Bowser in front of his army. The testimonial subsection now has much more positive reviews from people that isn’t their mother and there is also a link to a verified Instagram account
too.
Watch the SMB Plumbing commercial here and visit the website here.
Providing examples of Tropes is our game!
- Alternate Reality Game: A Downplayed example but a surprisingly non-horror one. The website is real, the number can be called, and now there’s a verified Instagram account.
- Anachronism Stew: Despite the vintage Deliberate VHS Quality look that the commercial uses, the lady seems to be calling the Mario Bros. on a modern smartphone. Possibly Justified, as the Mario Bros. probably didn't have much of a budget.
- Big Applesauce: Aside from a leaked poster, this commercial confirms that, despite the infamous time paradox created with 1995's Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, the Mario Bros. in this movie's universe are once again originally from Brooklyn, New York, as they were in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and other American Mario media prior to 1995.
- Big Little Brother: Justified in the new addition of “20 Questions” within the live chat which states that Luigi is only taller than Mario since Luigi grew up eating Mushrooms whereas Mario hated mushrooms way before he ended up in the Mushroom Kingdom.
- Chroma Key: An In-Universe example. Green screen lines can be seen around Mario and Luigi at certain points, though Luigi's green clothes don't seem to be affected.
- Company Cross References:
- The live chat and testimonials reference a "Punch-Out!! Pizzeria" that the brothers can be found at.
- On the service area map, clicking on the Queens borough plays music and sound effects from Kid Icarus. Clicking on Brooklyn plays those from Donkey Kong (arcade).
- Interface Spoiler: This can probably go under the movie’s WMG page but the Testimonials suggest a variation of this trope in which the Mario Bros. return to Brooklyn with the skills they learned in the Mushroom Kingdom.
- Logging onto the Fourth Wall: The smbplumbing.com address, as seen in the commercial, leads to a real website.
- Nepotism: One of the 5-star reviews is very obviously from their mom (as indicated by the username being BrosMom).
- Remake Cameo: Subverted. Many fans thought that Jeannie Elias was the one to voice the woman in the commercial before the movie revealed that it was actually Jessica DiCicco.
- Sock Puppet: The user jump.man, who calls the Bros. "Marvelous" and "Legendary", is likely Mario pretending to be someone else giving the site a positive review. The character was previously called Jumpman in a Nintendo of America arcade flyer for Donkey Kong until Italian American landlord Mario Segale famously came into the picture.
- Special Effect Failure: With the use of Chroma Key, the idea of Luigi's green clothes also being affected is subverted.
- Stealth Pun: One of the online reviews is from "anothercaserole", a pun on the ever-famous line: "Thank you, Mario! But our princess is in another castle!".
- Stylistic Suck:
- The commercial is made to be cheaply-produced with a cheesy rap song, Bad "Bad Acting", and visible production mistakes.
- The website is designed as a cheapo, mostly one-page portfolio website that looks like it was made with a website builder a la Squarespace, with some (pseudo-)clip art, a careers page that was "coming soon" at launch, and even a broken image link leading to a 404 page.
- Who Writes This Crap?!: The actress in the commercial, reading off an off-screen teleprompter, clearly shows that she finds the crack about how her bank account is the only thing that Super Mario Bros. Plumbing hasn't drained to be incredibly corny.
- ERROR 404
LOOKS LIKE SOMETHING IS BROKEN!
