In December of 1989, I was a very casual NES fan. I played it solely at friends’ houses as I didn’t yet have a console of my own. As a senior in high school at that time, while video games were still very much a part of my identity, I was more an arcade game guy while trying to juggle a kinda-social life and school responsibilities. December of 1989 is when The Wizard made its theatrical debut. I paid no attention. I read, months later, that it featured Super Mario Bros. 3, a game that I was introduced to well after The Wizard‘s run.
It took until 2001 for me to watch The Wizard— more than a decade after its release. It quickly became a favorite movie. It instantly transported me back to an alternate past when I would’ve owned an NES and gone nuts seeing it and its games featured on the big screen. The story was hokey, the acting was uneven, there were issues with how the games were portrayed… but I didn’t care about any of that. When I experienced some significant health issues in late 2001 and through a portion of 2002, The Wizard became comfort food. On tough days, watching the movie cheered me up and helped to carry me through the worst of it.
When I started collecting NES games in 2012, watching the movie motivated me. It wasn’t a motivation to be Jimmy Woods or compete in a Video Armageddon-like event (though I would’ve LOVED that), but rather a motivation to play and appreciate NES games more. This was coming off of another down point in my real/non-gaming life, so the movie also again provided comfort. I’d regularly watch the movie after long days in class (after returning to college for the first time since 1991), or when I needed some cheering up.
As my adventures in video game collecting continued, I came across an issue of Pocket Power that was handed out during The Wizard‘s theatrical run. It cost $1. While it was mostly an advertisement for Nintendo Power and some NES games, the first few pages were dedicated to the movie.
This must have been a sweet trinket to get for going to the movie. Seeing stills from the film and reading a quick interview with Fred Savage was like a trip back in time. It would’ve been like taking a souvenir home from the theater.
The Video Armageddon competition in The Wizard was a callout to Nintendo’s PowerFest ’90 and its Nintendo World Championships (NWC) event. NWC was covered with a one-page feature (as seen above) and helped to generate excitement. Had I been the NES fan then that I was now, I definitely would have made the trip to test my skills. I also likely wouldn’t have been close to the best of the best. Even playing the NWC game now, decades after the fact, my best scores don’t come close to what the winners logged back then. It’s definitely fun to think about, though. On-site tournaments like that are a rush, even today. RetroWorld Expo hosts tournaments every year, and I try to take part in a few here and there.
Now, in 2026, I’m collecting and playing NES games again. I’m trying to resurrect my skills, and I’m enjoying myself along the way. I don’t know if I’ll be able to finally get 50,000 on Double Dragon or play through Ninja Gaiden twice without taking a hit… but I’ll definitely be watching Jimmy Woods do his thing when I feel that urge to play my favorite movie and soak in the happiness that watching it brings.
Pete's Perspective 
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