Retro Replay Retro Gaming History, Reviews & Emulation
If there’s one thing that’s always been true about Nintendo, it’s that the company is incredibly family-friendly. Nintendo routinely produces games for children and their parents, while delivering excellent gaming entertainment along the way. It’s what’s made Nintendo a household name. While it has competed with other big players, including Sega, Atari, Microsoft, and Sony, Nintendo has always carved out a nice niche for itself in the gaming industry. One thing that Nintendo is not known for is pornography, but that doesn’t mean it hasn’t “dabbled” in that particular industry — not once, but twice.
Okay, “dabbled” might not be the right word, but it’s probably true: Nintendo owns or owned the rights to two adult videos. The ones in question are titled “Super Hornio Brothers” and “Super Hornio Brothers 2,” both of which were produced in 1993. To be clear, Nintendo had nothing to do with the production or approval of these two porn parodies, but it likely does or did own the licensing rights, which is why you can’t (easily) find them online. According to Internet legend, Nintendo found out about the two movies and stepped in to ensure nobody would ever watch them, which is why the company purchased the rights: not to release them, but to bury them.
If you know anything about porn parodies, and don’t worry, we don’t kink-shame here, you know that they often target whatever is popular at any given time. The result is a pornographic film that features characters from a popular TV show, book series, comic book, movie, or video game, and instead of doing what they typically do in their respective titles, they … well, you already know what they do.
Back in 1993, when these two movies were made, “Super Mario All-Stars” was killing it on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). Around the same time, players were enjoying numerous Mario games, including “Super Mario World,” “Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins,” “Super Mario Kart,” and “Dr. Mario,” which is to say nothing of “Super Mario Bros. 3,” released in 1988 on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES).
Needless to say, Mario was a hot commodity at the time, so when the folks behind the two movies decided to make something new, Nintendo’s favorite plumber was the perfect target. “Super Hornio Brothers” features Ron Jeremy as Squeegie Hornio, who is accompanied on his adventure by his brother, Ornio Hornio (T.T. Boy). Squeegee is a computer programmer, and the two are zapped into a computer game where they find Goombas, white, puffy clouds that look disturbingly like bushes on the ground, and King Popper (Buck Adams, who also directed). The plot follows the two brothers as they save Princess Perlina (Chelsea Lynx) from King Popper, and more details are too risque to mention on this site. There’s a video on YouTube that’s technically safe for work showing some scenes from the films:
There’s never been an official release, and the videos aren’t legally available online, though you’ll likely find only bootleg copies made from worn-out VHS tapes. An explanation of this appeared on Ron Jeremy’s website, which is no longer online as its owner was indicted on 34 counts of sexual assault in 2021 and was deemed mentally incompetent to stand trial, and is no longer operating it. Regardless, the site previously explained that Nintendo purchased the rights for an undisclosed sum to keep it from ever seeing the light of day. Thanks to bootleg copies and the Internet, that effort ultimately failed, but as far as Nintendo is concerned, the films have no official, legal release.
In a 2015 interview with Vice, Jeremy was asked about “Super Hornio Brothers,” and he noted that he’d performed in thousands of movies throughout his career, suggesting he might not recall that particular picture. He did, and had the following to say:
“Yeah! Buck Adams did a great job. He wanted to simulate the actual show. I had never seen the video game — I don’t play them at all, except when I go to Hugh Hefner’s mansion. He has some video games in the back room. Other than that, I never play video games ever. I think they’re boring. As a former schoolteacher, Asians are kicking our a**! While our kids are drinking beer and playing video games, Asians are getting high SAT scores. If you look at Harvard, Yale, [and] Stanford, it’s almost all Asian and Scandinavian. [Note, per Vice: This isn’t true.] Not a lot of Americans there, and it’s on our soil. It’s just weird. Nothing wrong with video games recreationally, but our kids are living on it. You know, not even reading books anymore.
While it’s unclear why Jeremy went on a rant about education while incorrectly attributing higher SAT scores to Asian students at various Ivy League institutions in America, he added the following after being asked about the specific work Adams did with the film:
“He tried very hard to simulate the basic show. Buck knew “Mario Bros.” inside and out. I’ve been told before that I look like one of the brothers. They’ve made jokes about it. I even did layouts in magazines where I had to impersonate that, with a plunger in one hand, overalls, a big, big mustache. Pretty funny, you know? He had good attention to detail. It was one of his better videos. He added that noise when I walked, you know? (makes a video-gamey boink-boink-boink sound) Plus, it had good sex scenes. Pretty basic thing if you’re gonna watch an adult movie. That’s gotta be hot too. It was one of his really, really better gigs. I’m pretty sure it spawned a sequel.”
When the question about the film’s rights was raised, Jeremy didn’t have much information, but explained the following:
“The ones keeping films alive nowadays are a company called Hot Movies. Hot Movies own[s] my website RonJeremy.com. My Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram go to a man named Mike Esterman, but Hot Movies has been doing this for me for years. It’s a nice relationship, and they’re also very good with the industry because they’re one of the very few companies left that still pays. Everyone else is going out of business because of the internet.”
Unfortunately, that tidbit added little to the conversation beyond plugging his website and the company that owned and operated his social media at the time.
Now, we must state that Nintendo has never confirmed ownership of the licensing rights for either “Super Hornio Brothers” or “Super Hornio Brothers 2.” Snopes did a deep dive into the films’ rights and came up empty. Snopes confirmed the videos existed and even found a U.S. Copyright record for a “Super Hornio Brothers” video released on November 11, 2020. The record didn’t mention Nintendo anywhere and was attributed to Midnight Video.
Because Nintendo’s ownership remains unverified, it’s impossible to say with 100% certainty whether the rumor is true. That said, it’s entirely possible Nintendo sought the rights to these movies to keep them from seeing the light of day when they were produced. In the years since, multiple porn parodies related to other Nintendo franchises, including Pokémon and Mario, have appeared.
That may be because it’s nearly impossible to stop these parodies now that the Internet is widespread, or because Nintendo’s interests in thwarting them have shifted in another direction. Either way, the idea that Nintendo owned the rights to two adult videos is both hilarious and weird.
