The Super Mario Bros. Movie Pays Tribute To An Old Video Game Trick

Keegan-Michael Key said of the scene in "The Super Mario Bros. Movie," "When I read the script, the ad-libs — all of the ad-libs and all that special stuff — not all of that was in there, so one of my favorite things is when [Mario] walks past the antique shop. You hear the two guys in the antique shop, and he is like, 'Are you sure this is going to work?' [The toad answers,] 'Yeah, yeah. If it doesn't, just blow on it.' Just blow on it? Like those old cartridges. That was really great. All those little ad-libs in there are fantastic."

For those of you who may not have been playing since the days of Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) cartridges, that was a trick we all used to make a game work. If the connection between the console and the game cartridge wasn't happening after it was inserted, we'd take it out, blow into the cartridge, and then try it again. 

In case you're wondering, it's an urban legend. Unless there was really a lot of dust in there that was keeping the connectors from actually connecting, you were mostly just making the cartridge kind of gross with the moisture from your breath. Still, it's been a persistent urban legend, and there are people who will still insist it works.