Jack Black on scoring ‘Donkey Kong’ points and “dad points” for being in ‘The Super Mario Bros. Movie’

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is the number one movie in the world, with an opening weekend haul of more than $377 million. But co-star Jack Black had already become number one at home — when he was cast as Bowser.

“I did get some dad points. It’s true,” Black told ABC Radio, adding of sons Sammy, 16, and 14-year-old Tommy, “The boys were impressed. They’re not easily impressed. But this one, they were like, ‘Nuh uh.’ I was like, ‘Yep.’ ‘Really?’ ‘Yeah,'” he recalled with a hearty laugh. “Oh, yeah. It was good. It was a good day at Casa de Black.”

It’s easy to imagine his role in the most recent episode of The Mandalorian had that same effect at home — but Jack wasn’t allowed to spoil that when he chatted with us.

Black explained his love of the Super Mario saga goes way back. “When I was a kid, I was there for the very first Nintendo video game. Little game. You might not have heard of it: Donkey Kong. It was Mario saving the Princess from the Donkey Kong. And it was incredible. I mean, I — I was obsessed with it. I was 12 and I played the hell out of it. I must have sunk thousands of quarters into the local machine.”

Complete with an imitation of the game’s sound effects, Black recalls, “I never conquered it. It was a tough game. You had to time those jumps of the barrels perfectly.”

He adds, “I have great, great, fond memories of Nintendo. … that was like the seed, the sprout of Nintendo. And to see it grow over the decades into a whole gigantic universe, that’s pretty impressive. Unprecedented in the world of video games.”

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