Welcome to the sixth Anniversary of the Lost Media Files and six years to the day I started this series and I thank you everyone who has seen my pieces of Lost Media through these years so what will this be about I’ll be discussing is the illusive and infamous promotion of all time: Super Smash Bros Fest 1999 livestream.
Dateline 1999. The world was a totally different place compared to today: Digimon and Spongebob made the airwaves, NASA launches the Mars Polar Lander, Star Wars Episode 1 is released in theatres to everyone’s joy, dismay and then admitting the prequels weren’t so bad years later and in the wrestling world WWE leads the Attitude Era in the highest of highs and WCW finger poked themselves into their demise and years later lessons has still not been learned: looking at you WWE and AEW. But an all-time classic gaming franchise gets started: Super Smash Bros for the Nintendo 64. Now what this game was pitted every Nintendo character into combat: Donkey Kong, Yoshi, Mario and Pikachu then years later would expand into every gaming franchise that would open the forbidden door. From Solid Snake to Bayonetta, from Minecraft to Sonic they all would duke it out, but while this is technically about Smash Bros it’s about an event that happened.
On April 24th of 1999 in Las Vegas, Nevada at the MGM Grand Adventures Theme Park Nintendo held a promotional event called Slamfest ’99 which promoted the first release of Super Smash Bros to the Nintendo 64 as what happened here was a wrestling match pitting Mario and Yoshi vs. Donkey Kong and Pikachu in a tag team match playa so here it was a wrestling event held in Vegas while there was a few WCW PPV’s happen and WrestleMania at Caesar’s Palace this was still cool to witness. According to a few description’s Mario and Donkey Kong started the match for their team, Donkey would attack Mario forcing Yoshi to get involved into the match that would have Pikachu jump in to attack and turn into a giant brawl within the minutes of the match so much so that everyone turned on each other even the ref which is usually a casualty in matches gets in the brawl and bites Pikachu’s ear saying it was “tasty as chicken”. The referee would eventually declare this match over waiving it as a draw, much to the dismay of the audience. If this was me, I would see Steve Austin barge into the ring and stone cold stunning everyone in the ring and even the ref and peacing out with a beer party.
So how did this search start? It began on August 22nd of 2014 a NeoGAF message board user called “Rosti” revealed there was the original page of the event hosted by a website domain name “MediaOnDemand” however the video that contained the video was taken down so the hunt would subside. In 2020 which might as well be called the stay at home year, the “Supper Mario Broth” Twitter revealed a photo of the costumes of Pikachu, Mario, Donkey Kong and Yoshi that was also picked up by GameExplain’s Andre as the search for this illusive livestream would really take bloom. In 2021 the Lost Media Wiki kicked off the hunt for the lost Super Smash bros Slam Fest stream began though after it dwinded of interest: Ed Espinoza a Golin Harris employee who worked for Nintendo’s PR private message LSuperSonicQ that he worked on it then more would follow like Eric Mangol a former director of “MediaOnDemand” revealed that he may have a recording, while Jimmy Vaughan revealed that Nintendo decided if this was recorded or not which I would argue nowadays they must have offered to be recorded. Ed also discussed that the performers were from Cirque de Soleil as the ring announcer who read the script was to be cheesy as Hulk Hogan’s magnum opus: No Holds Barred. Minus Zeus. Thank goodness.
Now after all this information have we found it? Or has this been found? No. but with many screenshots of the event and many backstage behind the scenes photos I would argue that it’ll eventually be found no way Nintendo even if Japan’s government is very strict with their pieces of media I.E. sending copyright strikes to nuke YouTube channels like Suede or wrestling Youtubers even if under fair use? I won’t divulge into that now that such a monumental promotional campaign like this can’t stay hidden for long.
That covers the infamous lost livestream of Super Smash Bros SlamFest 99. For August I will divulge deep into the world of comics about a former Image Comics member and his lost comic. See you then.
Lost Media Wiki: https://lostmediawiki.com/Home
The Maurice Bear Times 