List of references in advertisements

The following is a list of advertisements that involve or invoke the Mario franchise, but are not for Mario products. For a list of advertisements for the Mario series, see List of Mario advertisements instead. These advertisements may be on television, other forms of public broadcast, or in print media such as posters and magazines.

Action Replay DSi
The packaging of the Action Replay DSi depicts numerous video game characters, including an altered version of Bowser's Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time artwork that makes him primarily green and olive yellow, with a spikeless red shell, light brown eyes and hair, a different hairdo, downward-curling horns and silver bracers inlaid with red gems.

Just Say No
An anti-drug commercial featuring Lou Albano, which aired on Philadelphia's WPSG, showed him wearing Mario's cap, although the rest of his outfit was different and he introduced himself as "Captain Lou Albano".

McDonalds
In the McDonalds's TV commercial "Archenemies ," numerous different arch enemies are seen setting their differences aside over various McDonald's foods. Among them are Mario and Bowser. In the commercial, Mario makes amends to Bowser by giving him a potted Piranha Plant.

Playstation
An ad for Crash Bandicoot's first game features a man in a Crash Bandicoot costume at Nintendo's headquarter screaming into a megaphone "Hey plumber boy, your worst nightmare has just arrived", which then transitions to footage of the game.

Sega/Sonic the Hedgehog
A TV advertisement for the original Sonic the Hedgehog and the Sega Genesis compares them to Super Mario World on the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, boasting that the package deal was "faster" and $50 less expensive than Nintendo's product. Despite the salesman's best efforts to flog Super Mario World, the kid from whose POV the commercial is shown is drawn to the TV showing the Sonic footage over the Mario screen and insists on buying it and the Genesis.

One year later, Sega would make a now-infamous commercial boasting that the Genesis had "blast processing", whereas the SNES didn't. As a show of what blast processing supposedly did, a drag racer with a TV screen strapped to it raced down a drag strip; the TV didn't show any footage, but scenes from various Sega games, including the then-new Sonic 2, were shown as the car drove past. As a show of what happened if one did not have blast processing, a beat-up minivan, also with a TV strapped to it, barely putted down the same track; the TV showed Super Mario Kart.