Lady Gaga was meant to jump out of a Super Mario warp pipe at the Olympics. No, seriously
Lady Gaga was reportedly going to jump into a warp pipe for the Tokyo Olympics opening ceremony. What could have been. (Getty Images/Nintendo)
Lady Gaga was meant to jump out of a Super Mario Bros warp pipe at the Tokyo Olympic Games, leaked documents have claimed.
The “Stupid Love” singer was reportedly meant to travel from the planet Chromatica to our pitiful lump of rock via a warp pipe for a performance at the Olympic Opening Ceremony on 23 July.
In documents viewed by Bunshun, a proposed version of the ceremony would have seen Gaga appear remotely wearing Mario’s signature red ‘M’ cap before vanishing into a warp pipe.
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Lady Gaga would then have leaped into the National Stadium. Well, kind of. It would have been Japanese comedian Naomi Watanabe dressed up as the musician.
The initial plans were first drawn up in October 2020 but all mentions of Lady Gaga were removed as recently as spring this year.
Nintendo walked back on Tokyo Olympics due to games’ unpopularity, reports claim
The stunt was intended as a homage to the country’s former prime minister Shinzo Abe who dressed up as the iconic Nintendo hero as he lept out of a warp pipe at the Rio closing ceremony in 2016.
Nintendo itself was reportedly set to have a hand in the Olympic 2020 Opening Ceremony, which included a kaleidoscopic array of video games references, 8-bit beeps and jingles from Final Fantasy to Sonic The Hedgehog.
Former premier Shinzo Abe during the closing ceremony of Rio 2016. (Okan Ozer/Anadolu Agency/Getty Images)
Mario, however, was nowhere to be found. Reports said the opening ceremony would have been a who’s-who of Nintendo stars, with music and visual themes from Super Mario, The Legend of Zelda and Pokémon billed.
But Nintendo reportedly backed out at the last minute, Bunshun claimed, because the games running in the throes of the coronavirus pandemic has proved unpopular among the Japanese public, according to polls.
Instead of Gaga and what we could have only prayed was her Chromatica pink warp pipe, we had John Legend, Keith Urban, Alejandro Sanz, Angelique Kidjo and the Suginami Children’s Choir performing “Imagine” at the actual opening ceremony.
There’s always the Chromatica 2024 Summer Olympics, we guess.
