Nintendo Sticker Activity Book

Off-the-wall fun for Mario and Link

Special thanks to tekaraasagiri@gmail.com for scanning and sending me this book! If you have any video-game related books, comics, or merchandise that isn't posted on the site, please scan or photograph the item and I'll happily post it on the site with credit to you!

This book seems to be a receptacle for collectible stickers, which were very popular in the late 80's/early 90's. You could buy randomized packs of stickers which completed pictures in an official sticker book. There were many themes, including Disney movies, Care Bears, and other pop-culture characters. This specific book was a sticker activity book featuring Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda. Unlike many sticker books, this one original came with a red "viewer" that was placed over certain areas of the book to reveal puzzle answers. The viewer was probably a small, business-card sized piece of translucent red plastic. Without the viewer, the book isn't quite as much fun (although you can still see the stickers and kind of make out the puzzle answers without it).

Most of the stickers are from official artwork of Super Mario Bros. and Legend of Zelda. The larger pictures are things we've seen before - whether in Zelda's instruction manual, the Trading Card Treats, or Mario Goods (stickers and puzzles, specifially). There is even an appearance by the weird "Bowser with Flowers" scene! It seems that many of the Mario "scenes" came from the Japanese Super Mario Bros. 2 judging by the character designs (Japanese Mario 1 had the tiny baby-Peach and other weird character designs, like the original cartridge art on page 7). Some of the Super Mario Bros. 2 enemies appear here with pictures I've never seen before - I wonder if they were custom-made for this book? The drawings on the sticker book pages themselves appear to be custom-made for this book. There are some really entertaining ones, like the "Mario got lost in the wrong game, help Link get him home!" on page 22.

Like many early Nintendo goods, the book is half Mario and half Zelda. Altogether, it's a good collection of early Nintendo artwork. Both Japanese Mario games as well as the American Super Mario Bros. 2 are represented, and both Zelda titles as well. The rhyming text is horribly cheesy (or delightfully cheesy, if that's your thing), but it allows you to guess which scenes' stickers are missing. There's really no multi-sticker scenes in this book that I haven't seen somewhere else before.

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