By Mario Zhang
It takes a lot to create a legend, but it takes even more for that legend to grow beyond its canon. SMG4 started as a small fan-made project, but it is now remembered by millions of Mario fans worldwide as one of the most influential Mario-inspired pieces of media on the internet.
After Nintendo’s major success in 1983 with the release of their videogame Super Mario Bros, they wanted to expand the eventual franchise to TV shows and advertisements. This led the intrepid pair of plumber heroes who kicked shells and explored castles to frequently show up in official spinoffs, such as Mario paint programs and other series. This would all eventually lead to one man, Luke Lerdwichagul, who started his YouTube channel dedicated to broadcasting fan-made Mario TV shows, parodies, and mini-films, a man who would later be known by millions of subscribers as SMG4.
Many great projects and games come from accidental inspirations. Just like how Mario came to life after Nintendo became inspired by their office’s landlord in America, Luke was originally inspired when playing Super Smash Bros, a multiplayer Nintendo game that allows players to pick from famous characters from Nintendo and other licensed video game companies and battle each other. While he was having fun, an error occurred on the screen, and he was immediately amused by Mario’s glitchy appearance. What he saw gave him the initial idea to create comedy inspired by Mario, and so he created a YouTube channel with his own avatar in the shape of Mario, but with a blue suit and cap. He named his avatar “Super Mario Glitch 4,” or SMG4 for short. The channel’s early focus was on glitches and lore in Mario games. He then decided to center the channel around humor by framing the original Mario as a clown, while he made SMG4 sensible and trustworthy. They often show up as partners on the channel, causing trouble alongside each other, and that trouble leads to crises that force the duo to fix things together.
On May 7th, 2011, the channel released its first video, “The cake is a lie,” which is a two and a half minute video of Mario acting upset for being fooled by the princess. At that time SMG4 had no voice actors and no fancy technical work. All he had was video editing and a tiny bag of ideas he wanted to test. Most of his early videos did not wander far from the original games, so they gained very little traction, but after he started to improve his video setup skills, his ideas became much more polished and attracted more viewers and even sponsors to keep on improving his video quality and setup.
For most Mario fans like me, Mario is a righteous, fearless figure, capable of turning the tides in any situation. But what would Mario be like if his brain had as much processing power as a pile of spaghetti? That is the question that SMG4 kept in mind when he created his videos. In each episode, Mario acts like a nonsensical bozo everywhere he goes. He can tear down the castle just to get his favorite spaghetti. He gets naked (in pixel state) to scare away people he doesn’t like, and so do Mario’s friends, including his brother Luigi, Princess Peach, even his former nemesis, Bowser. SMG4 manages to twist the distinctive characteristics of these characters to make them laughable, and barely recognizable, like a funhouse mirror. Most of the other Mario content creators can develop his hero side creatively, but SMG4 is one of the few that could develop his casual side while simultaneously retaining a captivating storyline.
Apart from the constant rescue the princess gist in most of the official Mario games, SMG4 applies his imagination and created a brand new storyline for every one of Mario’s journeys. Mario and his friends now visit Bowser’s castle for a cooking show: they use the Mario Maker game to create infinite spaghetti but accidentally delete the castle. They also go on an entire adventure just to buy toilet paper or to get their butt scratched. But his most popular videos involve Mario watching Nintendo memes and glitches, then reacting to them or trying them out. This later expanded to Nintendo ads, videos on TikTok, and even Mr. Beast game shows. Much of the audience comes to the channel to watch memes, but an even larger audience comes to see their favorite video game character act stupid on screen.
Despite SMG4 distorted Mario’s personality, SMG4 actually made Mario into a much more relatable character: the silent, enduring plumber hero who barely had any lines in his game was given a new human side by the SMG4 team. He has his own hobbies, personal interests, and he hates AI-generated and Among Us memes. When he sees food he stops thinking and goes on a rampage until it’s all devoured. Sometimes what the fans want is simple as that: They want their favorite character to be more than just a powerful puppet. They want to see the hero making mistakes and learning from them instead of rushing straight into the problem and coming out triumphant each time.
After gaining a bigger and more dedicated audience, SMG4 started making original stories and plots, adding educational, emotional and personally relatable mini-movies to create a deeper connection. The goals then became different, as a significant number of older fans had higher expectations. They want a buffet of events rather than 10-minute shorts separate from each other. In response, each year starting from 2015 SMG4 made “War of the Fat Italians,” or WOFTI for short. These are usually half-hour long movies of Mario and his friends coping through major crises, including fighting eldritch gods, Nintendo lawsuits (where he included his copyright conflict with Nintendo), and comedians creating chaos in his reality.
Adding onto the complexity of the stories, SMG4 puts effort into building up each supporting character’s background, giving them unique personalities, strengths, and weaknesses. We have cringe manga fanatics who believe anime is real, an assassin mom raising three kids, and two soldier pals always pulling each other’s legs among others. Each of them collides uniquely with Mario, which leads to plot twists that keep the audience on their feet.
Now that his fan-made videos have proved to be a great success, SMG4 has bigger ambitions, and a desire to jump out of the Mario circle. In December 2025, SMG4 made a video to announce that he had achieved what he wanted, and that he would retire from SMG4 creations to focus on other projects, marking the end of his legacy in Mario Fan-made parody. However, there will always be imitators like SMGF to follow in his footsteps, fans who never enjoyed enough from the stories, and good old memories of watching the legendary plumber getting himself into some mischief and stupidity.
