“Human Video Game” by DJ Jazzy Jeff & The Fresh Prince + Ready Rock C

This was the final track on the epic double LP from Jeff & Will. He’s The DJ, I’m The Rapper was so chaotic that it’s hard to say if this is really just a filler track.

Not all classic Hip-hop is good. A lot of it is SO BAD that it’s good. I think this track would meet criteria for the latter.

Songs about video games were also only being made for 10 years at most by 1988.That gives this track some novelty value as well. “Human Video Game” mentions Donkey Kong and in the longer version also Pac-Man. The cassette release had the longer version.

The “beat box” style of mouth music had been around only a few years by the time this track was recorded. Now this is common place, even quaint. At the time, however, it was mind-blowing. I’m not kidding. I was there. Yeah, I’m old. Shut up.

I was a kid at the time and it was 1988 so naturally I had this on cassette. It was one of the few tapes I owned so it was well played on my little boombox.

“Go Go Mario” by Hiroko Taniyama as Princess Peach

I can’t think of a better track to celebrate National Video Game Day. The story behind this track is pretty interesting.

It’s hard to track down the original recording of this song because it’s been redone a number of times and the original was released only in Japan.

In 1986, a Japanese talk show called All Night Nippon held a contest that asked fans to mail-in their own lyrics written to the tune of the Super Mario theme song. A winner was selected and singer Hiroko Taniyama is thought to have recorded the vocals but the performance was credited to Princess Peach, a character in the game.

The single was then produced and released on 7inch vinyl and cassette. The original title was “Mario No Daibouken: or “Mario’s Big Adventure”.

courtesy of discogs

The single made it to the top 40 in Japan and was re-recorded in other languages as well but it never quite made it to the English-speaking world.