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Video games cause people to jump off cliffs
by Kris on 2/11/2003 (19) 
 | | This is the situation that poor Bobby Smith recreated. Assuming Mario is a man of average height, we can estimate the distances of this drop to be twelve-thousand feet, or nearly twice the distance from the Earth to the Moon! | For years and years, the video game industry has falsely lead the public to believe that one may jump down any height and walk away unscathed. This trend became most prominent with the introduction of the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1985. Games such as Super Mario Brothers (and subsequent sequels) and Metroid had the title characters falling from heights equivalent to three story buildings and more, all without any sign of injury and a total disregard for the vengeful power of gravity. While the numbers are somewhat rough, it is estimated that mimicking of this behavior lead to nearly seven deaths in the years of 1985 thru 1990. Experts estimate that since that time, this number has most likely doubled, though official falling death statistics are no longer recorded due to the fact that no one cares.
"Most people don't realize how serious a problem this is" claims Dr. Steven McSteven. Dr. McSteven is the founder of Falling Deaths and You (FDU), an organization created to promote awareness of height related injuries and to create a race of giant killer bees which can be used to stop a possible invasion of slightly smaller, yet still deadly, giant killer bees. "There are nearly multiple deaths each year related to people reenacting falls that they have seen in video games and the number of injuries reaches nearly into the double digits! In contrast, other highly dangerous and highly regulated activities such as curing and shoe tying only reach half these numbers combined!"
Case in point, the story of young Bobby Smith. Bobby Smith was an avid video game player. Due to his lack of social skills and a striking resemblance to the elephant man, Bobby's days consisted of eating, sleeping, and video games. Bobby often claimed that he once "killed a Goomba, just to watch it die... and for 100 points". One warm summer day, Bobby put on his special orthopedic shoes and headed out to the local cement block factory. Sneaking in through the sewer pipes, Bobby made his way to the back lot of the cement block factory where the defective cement blocks were placed in the shape of a castle and a right triangle, with a flag pole in the middle to mark this location. Bobby climbed to the top of the triangle, much as Super Mario has done at the end of numerous levels. Bobby then leapt for the flag pole with dreams of seven fireworks and 5000 points. Sadly this dream would never come to fruition. Due to Bobby's tiny chicken legs (he literally had chicken legs due to a rare childhood disease that left him with the legs of a chicken), he was not able to cover the distance and landed several feet short of the flagpole. Upon hitting the ground, he fell victim of a terrible ankle sprain that haunted him for almost a week!
 | | Do not try this at home. A fall like Samus so often takes would kill a normal person. | Another case is the unfortunately story of Timothy Jones. Timothy was never popular at school due to his horrible body odor and his tendency to try to eat the other children. As a release, Timothy turned to the likes of games such as Metroid and Kid Icarus, neither of which he was even remotely good at but he enjoyed them none the less. One day, the neighborhood children tied up Timothy, beat him with baseball bats, and left him for dead in a cav
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