Mario Bros.: Postmodern, or just plain weird?

So the other day, John and I found a copy of Super Mario All-Stars for the SNES and whisked it home so we could enjoy the nostagic and infuriating days of our youth playing Super Mario Bros 1, 2, and 3, plus the unreleased "Lost Levels".

Ferreting a small Italian plumber from level to excruciatingly strange level of bizarre enemies, nonsensical architecture, and a plot that's enough to make most feminists explode on the spot, all I could think to myself was, "Gods, I paid (or my dad paid) $90 to buy Mario 3 when it first came out on the original Super Nintendo! How the hell does that even make sense???"

Weird things that are only striking me now about this game:

1) What is with the mushrooms? I know it's the Mushroom Kingdom, but can you say WEIRD overkill? We have goombas, the angry-eyed sidewalkers who, for whatever reason, will hurt you (kill you) if they haphazardly sidle into you. ("Look out! He's slowly...walking...toward you...!")

Then there's Toad, the anthropomorphic mushroom people (and character of the same name) who, throughout Mario 3, shows up in various forms to help you. You can enter their Mushroom houses (is that some form of cannibalism? What do you call turning people into housing?), where they'll give you trinkets to help you on your way; or else they'll open a gambling house where you can play memory for Fire flowers or leaves or what-have-you. So, Toad, when are you going to start a Texas Hold 'Em table in that magically appearing speak-easy of yours?

Then of course there's Mario's Super mushrooms, the magic fungus that appears after the wanton destruction of public property and increases your size by 200%. I mean, really, Lewis Carroll did it first in Alice in Wonderland, but isn't this just encouraging kids to stuff unidentifiable plants into their mouths? Especially considering that the Super Mushroom looks so much like the Amanita muscaria mushroom, a poisonous and hallucinogenic 'shroom.

2) Castle/Flying Ship Levels: Worst. Defense System. Ever. These boss-level flying ships feature a host of automatically firing cannons lobbing slow-moving projectiles at you that you can disable by jumping on them. What a waste of slow-moving ammo.

3) Defying the laws of physics...and logic: So, I can stop a giant bullet fired out of a cannon, but I can't do the same with a hammer thrown by a Hammer Brother? And what's with shooting fireballs in the water? And the haphazard placement of bricks? And the generally very inhospitable climes of the Mushroom Kingdom in general? I mean, Giant World? Who the hell wants to live there (I mean, apart from giants)?

Not that any of this weirdness detracts from the gameplay, of course. But looking back now, all I can think of is, damn, it's amazing my generation survived after this game with our sanity intact...mostly....