Fly Agaric And You

Why is there a timer in the Super Mario games? Well...sometimes people pop some fly agaric, get high and slip into Super Mario Land for a short stretch of time. Once the stuff passes out of the system, poor Mario slips out of Super Mario Land. Yes, that's exactly why he looks startled and promptly jumps off the screen. No, eating mushrooms in-game won't work, precisely because none of that is actually real. It's like this super long dream where you keep realizing that the princess is in another castle, and some highs last long enough that you actually do get to save the princess. Otherwise, it just becomes another bad trip, and Mario wakes up feeling a tad nasty. Poor guy.