Jun 4, 2009
Did Conan O’Brien Steal The Background Of His New Set From Super Mario Brothers?
Survey says: Um, duhvs!

So … Conan O’Brien started his new gig as host of The Tonight Show this week and a few folks noticed something … familiar about the backdrop background of his newly designed set. After careful consideration (and genius side-by-side comparison), it seems pretty obvious that Conan‘s new background came straight from the Mushroom Kingdom of the Super Mario Brothers video game:


From Gizmodo: Conan’s new Tonight Show set sure is nice, but the guys at Serious Lunch noticed that his new monologue backdrop looks pretty familiar. As in Mushroom Kingdom familiar. Chen and I are in disagreement as to whether or not this is intentional. I say it’s a coincidence, but he’s convinced that Mario was a definite inspiration for this background.

OMG … of course this background was inspired (to say the least) from the Super Mario Brothers video game. There is no way in hell that the indenticalness of the background to the layout of the video game can be mere coincidence:

Image and video hosting by TinyPic

LMAO! I bet Conan had no idea … but, yep, seem pretty clear to me. What do y’all think?

[Source via Source]

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45 Comments. Add Yours

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  1. EhCanadian says:

    Ya Conan knows about this. Conan is a huge Nintendo fan. He loves Mario to death. He supports Nintendo like a hardcore gamer.

  2. Ruth says:

    That is AWESOME! It will be more hilarious if the presenter has NO idea – GO set designers!!!!! :-D

  3. samantha says:

    i love it! haha so great

  4. xoxo says:

    hahahaha I love it! That is so great. When I first saw it, it reminded me of Arsenio Hall’s background, what with the cheesy blue color (am I remembering it right??)

    Anyhoo, I love Conan and am glad he’s the new Tonight Show host! I am a BIG FAN of the string dance! lol

  5. Monica says:

    Wow…..that’s awesome, lol

  6. John says:

    He did it because LA is hosting E3…the big video game conference….

  7. davex says:

    This isn’t an actual layout from any Mario game. The shapes were just similar to some commonly used pieces of the games so someone pretty much filled in the clanks with a bunch of random parts of different mario games. They did painted it in.

  8. glou says:

    oh gosh- i just noticed the underground part they added to the stage in the comparison pic. clever!

    i mean, obviously it was chopped together, but its totally inspired by the mario backgrounds.

  9. and that is why i love conan.

  10. Michelle says:

    That’s awesome!!! Now where the hell is my Nintendo?! lol

  11. J says:

    Haha that’s pretty cool/random.

    However Conan’s backdrop looks unfinished. If that is seriously just his backdrop, like WTF? It looks like the first layer and then they are gonna add colour or something else.

  12. janelle says:

    @J – The backdrop is actually pretty fancy for its use. Any fancier would deter from the host and be too distracting. The traditional is a plain dark cool color.
    I wouldn’t be surprised if Conan mentions this :)

  13. Alicia says:

    For anyone who has played all the Mario games you will notice this is a hoax. The top middle section is not from any Mario game and neither is the bottom purple block . This was photoshopped to common pieces that you may see in a Mario game but are not directly from it. The blogger from SeriousLunch.com made it all up as listed here http://www.thrfeed.com/2009/06.....-hoax.html. Sorry guys.

  14. Kent says:

    Fun fun fun post – love it!
    Hafta say, as I scrolled down thru the comments, my jaw implant hit the keyboard as I noticed you’ve worked out Tori and Kylie hat-tricks later this year. I do get quite a quick out of such blatant concert gluttony! Not to mention the fact that I’m SEETHING with envy you lucky duck, you.

  15. Gamer says:

    @Alicia – Um, no shit. It looks cool, which is why we’re impressed.

  16. Marissa Anne says:

    How could anyone think that is coincidence?!?!

  17. kar says:

    yeah that’s not real. not to sound nerdy but there is no mario backdrop that looks like that. it looks like pieces from different screens put together. i noticed it right away.

  18. sophia says:

    i LOVE THIS! LURVE IT

  19. Shazz says:

    hahaha that is hilarious!

  20. Meream says:

    Those two are die-hard supermario fans! :D Wonder what Conan will say about it.

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