About

Mario Paint songs are musical compositions created by individuals using Mario Music Composer, an audio-editing tool included in the popular SNES video game Mario Paint. For more information about the game itself, see the section below. Today, popular video-sharing sites like YouTube and Nico Nico Douga feature thousands of Mario Paint songs made with third-party softwares like Mario Paint Composer and Mario Sequencer.

Mario Paint

Nintendo's Mario Paint was originally released in August 1992. As one of the earlier efforts to bring art & music into video games, it allowed users to create their own artworks using image and audio-editing tools included in the package. Yet despite the creative freedom given to individual players, there were little means to export any of these artworks and share them with larger audiences.

Origin

In 2006, online popularity of Mario Paint songs saw its first leap when a team of Japanese developers released a freeware called Mario Sequencer (shown left, below), the first desktop version of Mario Music Composer. Eclipsing with the rise of video-sharing communities, the software and its musical compositions became a hit on Japanese memetic hubs like Nico Nico Douga. The earliest NND video of Mario Paint song was uploaded in April 2007, which was a 23-second composition of "The Wind's Yearning" originally featured in the video game Chrono Trigger.

In 2007, an online flash game site called UnFun Games released Mario Paint Composer (shown right, above), yet another downloadable version of the original tool. Seen by many as an opportunity to relive their early 90s childhood, people downloaded the program and began making Mario Paint renditions of popular tunes found in videogames, animes, television shows and etc. The earliest YouTube rendtion was uploaded in June 2007, which featured the "Ruby Stage" theme from the videogame Panel de Pon.

Today

• Today, Mario Paint compositions have taken on a life of their own; there are over 9000 videos of Mario Paint compositions posted on YouTube and Nico Nico Douga.

• Currently, the most popular of these videos is a version of Through the Fire and the Flames, with almost 3,000,000 views on YouTube. The composers have even formed their own community, with forums and even a wiki.

Videos

Resources

• Mario Paint Wiki
• Wikipedia Article
• Mario Paint forums
• Nico Nico Douga Wiki