- An Japanese insider reported that Nintendo had big plans for the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony.
- The gaming giant even planned to have Lady Gaga appear in a Super Mario warp pipe.
- But Nintendo scrapped their plans after changes in the company's leadership.
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The Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony might have been cranked up to 11 if reported plans for a surreal celebrity cameo hadn't been scrapped.
According to Japanese investigative magazine Bunshun, the Japanese video game company Nintendo, creator of the Super Mario franchise, planned to have a big presence at the opening ceremony this year.
Nintendo reportedly even planned to get Lady Gaga Involved by having her appear remotely from the United States while wearing Mario's iconic red hat and hopping into one of the franchise's signature warp pipes, a long green pipe that Mario jumps into for instant transportation in the video games. Then a Lady Gaga lookalike would have emerged from a different warp pipe at the ceremony.
The stunt was intended to be an homage to former Japanese prime minister Shinzo Abe's appearance as the character disappearing down a warp pipe at the closing ceremony for the 2016 Olympics in Rio De Janeiro.
Additionally, Nintendo was also going to lend music from its classic games Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda, and Pokemon to the ceremony's background orchestra.
The plans were drawn up in October 2019, but changes to Nintendo's leadership over the past year and a half led to the decision to ultimately cancel the company's presence at the Tokyo Olympics as a whole.
Fans watching on television were still treated to an impressive spectacle at the opening ceremony this year. At the end of the televised program, the camera panned out to show off a lit-up globe made up of 1,824 drones hovering above National Stadium.