Happy Anniversary to The Wizard

Written by John Scalzo  on December 15, 2004

Specials: The Wizard was released 15 years ago today. Happy anniversary to the biggest moment in Fred Savage's career.

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Today is the 15th anniversary of the theatrical release of The Wizard and with that I have just made some people feel very old (I'm very sorry). Unfortunately, like a harried sitcom father, I don't think anyone will remember this anniversary. There will be no anniversary DVD reissue. There's never been a DVD, period. And I doubt there ever will be. Trolling several of my local Blockbusters didn't even turn up a well worn VHS copy.

Of course, none of that is very surprising. The Wizard was a 1989 movie partly financed by Nintendo to help promote Nintendo products and the upcoming launch of Super Mario Bros. 3. It had a low budget and even lower expectations of being "good", but if you were between the ages of 7 and 11 in 1989 you ate it up with a spoon.

And ate it up I did. I was there opening night, all eight years old and hopped up on sugar. Ushers handed out a mini issue of Nintendo Power titled Pocket Power that talked about the new features of Super Mario Bros 3 and mini-catalogs of Nintendo merchandise as we entered the theater. The rampant capitalism was underway before the Universal Studios logo even appeared.

The plot didn't really matter. It was a movie about video games, people who played video games even, and we were too young to remember Tron. But in the years since the movie's release, as Super Mario Bros 3 has faded into fond memories, all nostalgic twentysomethings remember is the ridiculous chain of events leading up to Super Mario Bros 3. And like any halfway decent anniversary party there has to be a retelling of the life of the happy couple and this is no different. So here goes, The Wizard in ten minutes or less:

The Wizard was the story of Corey (Fred Savage) and Jimmy Woods (Luke Edwards). Jimmy was autistic and had become further troubled after his twin sister died during a family vacation to California. All he does is spend his days stacking things and muttering "California...". I counted once and he said it at least twenty times over the course of the movie (curse you Blockbuster for keeping me from this cinematic triumph!). The movie opens as Jimmy has once again tried to run away to California. Because of this, his mother and stepfather place him in a home, which doesn't sit well with Corey. Corey kidnaps Jimmy and together the two head for the coast.

Their parents freak out (as parents in kid movies were bound to do) and hire a bounty hunter to chase the two boys down. This doesn't sit well with the boys' father and brother (Beau Bridges and Christian Slater), so they hit the road as well to bring the boys home. The boys are at a bus station several states away and this point and Corey places Jimmy in front of a Double Dragon arcade machine (which featured the game's 8-bit NES conversion) to keep him busy. He returns a little later and find that Jimmy has scored over 50,000 points! It's here that the two meet Haley (Jenny Lewis), a street smart daughter of a trucker and a Reno showgirl. As Haley helps them evade the police, they share their road trip plans and she makes the dynamic duo a trio.

With allusions to The Who's Tommy, the pre-teen road trip genre and a dumb adult giving chase we're really off now. As they use Jimmy's skills to sucker businessmen out of bus fare, a local teen tells them about a big video game tournament in Los Angeles with a $50,000 prize called Video Armageddon. Since they'll be in California anyway, Corey and Haley plan to enter Jimmy into the tournament.

It's here that they meet Lucas, a rival video game wizard who shows them the true meaning of power, the Power Glove. The Power Glove was Nintendo's latest toy and it was a joke from day one. You'd place the glove on your right hand and moving the glove back and forth created movement in your character and the built in controller worked like a regular NES controller. I was never sure of the point of the thing, but Lucas uses it to drive all over Jimmy in a game of Rad Racer, with Jimmy refusing to even play because Lucas is so "bad" or in Lucas' words: "I love the Power Glove. It's so bad."

If you remember anything about The Wizard, it's this line. No one loved the Power Glove. And even if they did they would never talk about it like that. Dear god, it was one of the moments that even as an eight year old I knew I was laughing at how stupid it was instead of what they expected to be a killer line.

Jimmy is shattered and goes back to stacking. (you'd think with all this stacking they would have worked the brand new Tetris in there somewhere) and Corey and Haley contemplate going back home. But no, they push forward and make it to Reno, where Jimmy pulls a Rain Man and wins enough money at craps to get them a comped room and tons of free goodies. At this point the screenwriter gave up on any insightful story advancements and went into full commercial mode. In truth Jimmy was being trained for all the games he might see in the tournament and being schooled in the finer points of Wizardry by the Nintendo Power Line. Nintendo was getting their money's worth as the movie showcased Ninja Gaiden, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the Power Glove, Zelda II, Double Dragon and Mega Man II.

Of course, just when you think it would become all Nintendo all the time, The Wizard pulls it's second memorable card. The bounty hunter has caught up to the kids and has his hands on Jimmy. So in the middle of a crowded casino Jenny Lewis (who is roughly 12) yells: "Ahh! He touched my breast!" The casino's burly security men advance on the bounty hunter (to which he replies "She doesn't have any breasts!") and the kids get away. I don't think my parents were amused. I on the other hand thought it was one of the funniest things I had ever seen. And it's still funny and I can explain why. It's just... just... [uncontrollable laughter for the next three minutes].

They finally make it to the big Video Armageddon and Jimmy cruises through the first rounds. Then the announcer says: "The final will be decided with a game no one has ever seen before." Everyone gasps in horror. "SUPER! MARIO! BROTHERS! THREE!" The whole movie has been leading up to this, the first public unveiling of Super Mario Bros 3. The audience went wild and the movie wasn't even over yet.

Will The Wizard defeat Lucas during the inevitable showdown at the big tournament and make it to California? Or will the bounty hunter catch them before the big finish? I guess you'll just have to go on your own cross country trek to find that one out.

For a small movie about video games, The Wizard managed to attract some big talent. Fred Savage was coming off the success of Little Monsters and he was starting the second season of The Wonder Years when The Wizard hit theaters. Even after moving on to the great Working, he will probably forever be known as Kevin Arnold. Christian Slater is returning to the world of video game movies next year with the release of the Alone in the Dark movie. He will be playing Edward Carnby alongside Tara Reid as a scientist (maybe her name will be Christmas Jones?). Beau Bridges is a well traveled character actor with over 100 credits to his name. Sadly, Lucas was never heard from again. I guess he was too "bad".

Others didn't quite find fame right away. Jenny Lewis turned to music and is now the lead singer of alternative rock outfit Rilo Kiley. She also just recorded a solo record that should be out next year and has worked with the great band The Postal Service (if you haven't heard it yet, find their CD Give Up, it's amazing). Luke Edwards used his best glass-eyed staring to play the troubled Jimmy Woods and he has been working regularly ever since appearing in things like Jeepers Creepers II and spending a year on MTV's Undressed. Believe it or not the cast also included a young Tobey Maquire, who goes uncredited as one of Lucas' goons. Yes, ladies and gentlemen, The Wizard, the only movie where a 13 year old video game geek can have goons.

It's almost a shame the actors were overshadowed by Super Mario Bros 3. It was like the reveal of GTA: San Andreas, only about one hundred times bigger because you saw people playing it, you learned the location of the first warp whistle and it came out two months after the movie. It was the finished product and you saw the spectacular graphics that the game had brought to the Mushroom Kingdom. It only made $14 million at the box office but every one of those kids would go on to buy Super Mario Bros. 3. Nintendo's scheme had worked and the video game and movie worlds made one step closer to the delicate symbiosis they have today.

In spite of all the commercialism, The Wizard did something that no movie has really done since. It focused on us, the gamers. This being 1989, all of "the gamers" were kids, but it had never really been done before and it hasn't really been done since. I'm sure some day an edgy indie director will turn their camera on a story of the gamer culture they've been a part of their whole life. But until then we're going to have to make due with the movies based on games. So be prepared for the aforementioned Alone in the Dark, Doom, Spy Hunter, BloodRayne, Metroid and a host of others. We have to support The Cause.

The Wizard was also a landmark moment in video gaming's push towards the mainstream. It was the first time many parents were exposed to Mario, Ninja Gaiden, Link, the Power Glove and other video game-related things outside of their children's Christmas list. News outlets everywhere reported that Mario had a Q rating higher than Mickey Mouse. It was some mythical number that marketers had determined through focus groups that proved children were more likely to recognize a picture of Mario than of Mickey Mouse.

Video games were becoming really big business for the first time and people didn't know how to treat them. They were still playthings for kids, but the tide was turning. The Wizard showed adults playing the games. Seeing Christian Slater and Beau Bridges pound away at Zelda II and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles was odd to say the least, you just didn't hear of that in 1989. But Tetris came out for the NES that year. For parents who had never bothered to replace a broken Atari (my dad was a Pole Position fiend), Tetris was a gateway game to pick up the controller again. The tide was turning and The Wizard was leading the charge.

The Wizard could never be made today. The industry has grown too large and too scattered and become too teen oriented with games with like Halo, Grand Theft Auto and Madden. There are no titles that everyone can get that excited about anymore. No single game has caused that much of a stir among the entire gaming population since Super Mario 64. But it will happen again, it has to, and when that day comes maybe we'll even see The Wizard II.

So now I finally raise my glass to The Wizard. To Luke Edwards, Fred Savage and Jenny Lewis. To Christian Slater. To Beau Bridges and his quest to defeat Mecha-Turtle. To Lucas. To Lucas' Power Glove. To "He touched my breast!" To Super Mario Brothers 3. To California...

Happy anniversary.