The ‘Super Hornio Brothers’ Mystery Gets a Christmas Revival

LOS ANGELES—For some reason, the strange and oddly popular story about the ancient porn parody many believe is one of the worst ever made has once again reared its holiday head. Yes, we’re talking about Super Hornio Brothers, the Buck Adams-directed flick based on the old Super Mario Brothers Nintendo video game. Hornio was released in 2004 by Midnight Special and starred Adams, Ron Jeremy, TT Boy, Kristi Lynn, Chelsea Lynx and Kitty Yung. “Let me tell you a Christmas story, boys and girls,” wrote Elizabeth DeLoria in a piece published Dec. 26 on gameranx.com. “A story about giving, a story about generosity, a story about miracles—a story about finding one of the last copies of a Mario Brothers porno in existence.” The years-long journey to track down the elusive copy actually came to a successful conclusion back in 2009, but who’s counting time with a mystery this compelling? “Our story starts on the Something Awful forums, where user doorknobjohnny began his search,” continued DeLoria. “After scrounging around the internet and having no luck himself, he asked the Something Awful goons to try their luck. This quickly became a world wide search for a porno that just couldn’t seem to be obtained.” According to lore (and Deloria), the “goons” of the SA forum went to work with a dedication unknown to today’s attention-deficit youth. “Emails were sent, calls were made, stores were searched from top to bottom and one goon, on remembering back to his childhood, contacted his parents and asked for their copy,” she wrote. “The Museum of Pornography was contacted along with Ron Jeremy himself and even the porn studio that produced the thing. Eventually someone claiming to have a copy was located, but they were asking $300 for the VHS copy.” Needless to say, it makes more sense to spend years looking for something than pay $300 (for VHS no less), so the search continued on as if a copy had not been located. After all, recounted DeLoria, “…many were willing to contribute to a fund, but others felt the choice would be rushed.” As the searchers were soon to find out, the mystery of the lost porn parody had its roots in corporate intrigue. As DeLoria explained, “This is because when Nintendo caught wind of [Super Hornio Brothers], they bought the rights to it and then stopped it from circulating—both of the films, actually. Yes, there was a Super Hornio Brothers 2, which only existed because this porno went for so long that they had to split it in two.” As the years past and many of the goons grew up and moved from their bedrooms into their parents’ basements, morphing from relatively lame gaming platforms to the sophisticated gaming machines that dominate the market today, the searchers lost interest, the case grew cold and eventually the thread itself died. Then, just like on TV, a lead from out of nowhere brought the ‘cold case’ back to life. “In 2009, an announcement was made,” wrote DeLoria. “A mysterious and anonymous benefactor had delivered both doorknobjohnny and forum moderator Zack Parsons a copy of Super Hornio Brothers. There was much rejoicing.” And the goons from the land of Something Awful had something to watch. Unfortunately, that something was itself something awful. “Super Hornio Brothers was actually a little bit disappointing ... in every way possible,” reported DeLoria. “In fact, if you wanted to be completely honest, it was probably slightly terrifying thanks to Buck Adams’ attempt at using a ‘King Koopa’ voice for the duration of the film, which is something you really have to see and hear to grasp fully.” The post has a brief excerpt of the hated voice, for the masochists among us. For the seriously unhinged, however, a pretty funny (and devastating) video critique of Super Hornio Brothers by Brad Jones, complete with a brief history of the film’s production history, can be found on thatguywiththeglasses.com. Jones intersperses his comments with scenes from the movie in the same way that some directors sprinkle comedic bits into horror movies. For those curious about what this apparently painful parody from the past is about, other than a creepy version of a kid’s game, the synopsis from IMDB reads, “A power surge sends whacked out computer programmer Squeegie Hornio and his brother Ornio into cyberspace where they meet up with, have sex with, and even fight, a variety of characters from a popular video game.”