{"id":21,"date":"2011-08-15T18:34:37","date_gmt":"2011-08-15T18:34:37","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=21"},"modified":"2011-08-16T13:56:50","modified_gmt":"2011-08-16T13:56:50","slug":"super-mario-bros-duck-hunt-nes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/?p=21","title":{"rendered":"Super Mario Bros.\\Duck Hunt (NES)"},"content":{"rendered":"

Back when I was 4 or 5 (which would have been in ’88 or so), we made a family trip to Shediac, New Brunswick.\u00a0 There were longtime friends of the family who lived there, and their kids were a good 10-12 years older than I was, which meant I would probably spend the weekend being pretty bored and finding ways to keep myself occupied.<\/p>\n

The couple’s son had\u00a0some kind of\u00a0machine\u00a0hooked up to his bedroom television,\u00a0and he was kind enough to show me what it did.\u00a0 He popped something into it, turned it on…\u00a0 and I was forever changed with what I saw.<\/p>\n

\"The<\/a>

1988 - Nintendo Entertainment System (Nintendo)<\/p><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n
(Note that this isn’t the original Super Mario Bros.<\/em> cartridge, but the 1988 mashup with Duck Hunt<\/em> that was included when purchasing the\u00a0console.)<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
There was just some strange satisfaction when I took that controller in my hands and headed on over to that first Goomba to stomp on him.\u00a0 It took me a little while to get used to, but it all felt so natural to play.\u00a0\u00a0Needless to say, I was hooked.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
I begged and pleaded with my parents to have one of my own.\u00a0 It was one of those toys I just had to have.\u00a0 I had never really wanted anything else so badly, honestly, and this was the first thing I can ever remember repeatedly asking for.\u00a0 Of course, it was quite expensive to buy, and my parents wouldn’t just go and give their kid what they wanted when he wanted it…\u00a0 I mean, that would be spoiling him, right?<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
First, my Mom told me I had to be 7 years old to legally own a Nintendo system.\u00a0 What gullible 4-year old isn’t going to believe that?\u00a0 I mean, you have to be a certain age to drink alcohol, a certain age to buy cigarettes…\u00a0 I guess it made sense.\u00a0 Reluctantly, I agreed, and just stopped asking for one.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
(My Mom’s a genius…\u00a0 or, I was an idiot.\u00a0 One or the other.\u00a0 Probably the first one.)<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
That winter, my sister got a job working at the store around the corner from our house.\u00a0 They sold snacks, bare essentials, rented movies and, oh yes, video games and consoles.\u00a0 One snowy morning, I woke up to see an NES hooked up to our living room beast of a television.\u00a0 I was mesmerized.\u00a0 All of this awesomeness…\u00a0 and it was all MINE.\u00a0 For a day or two, anyway.\u00a0 My sisters had fun with it too, I guess.<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
Pretty much that same year, my Dad had a work trip to Calgary, Alberta.\u00a0 What does he come home with?\u00a0 An NES, complete with two controllers, an NES Zapper\u00a0and Super Mario Bros.\\Duck Hunt<\/em>.\u00a0 I thought to myself…\u00a0 “Um, aren’t I breaking some kind of law?\u00a0 Dad works with the police…\u00a0 shouldn’t he know better than to supply video games to minors?”<\/div>\n
\u00a0<\/div>\n
So it began.\u00a0 23 years of collecting video games, and I haven’t looked back.<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Back when I was 4 or 5 (which would have been in ’88 or so), we made a family trip to Shediac, New Brunswick.\u00a0 There were longtime friends of the family who lived there, and their kids were… Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-21","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-mario","category-nes"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=21"}],"version-history":[{"count":4,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21\/revisions\/33"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=21"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=21"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.controlpadblues.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=21"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}