YouTuber recreates Mario Kart in New York City

Vlogger Caleb Simpson turned New York City into his geeky playground. 

Simpson and his friends played a real-life game of the 1996 classic Mario Kart, where users race go-karts as characters from the Nintendo franchise. 

The YouTuber, who has 3.9 million followers on TikTok under his username calebwsimpson1, dreamed of doing the stunt since he moved to New York from North Carolina in 2015. 

In the video, Simpson is dressed as Mario as he speeds in a go-kart with his friend, Irving Salazar in a Luigi costume, throughout the Big Apple. They zoom around iconic spots like Times Square and Washington Square Park.

“If I told you this was happening, you would think I am making this up right now. But this is actually going down,” one stunned passerby says as he whipped out his camera. 

In another clever moment, Mario heads into Joey’s Pepperoni Pizza for a slice. Then Luigi steals his go-kart while he’s inside. But Luigi isn’t short on antics to sabotage Mario, later he throws a banana peel (just like in the game) to derail his brother’s vehicle. 

“I thought it’d be funny,” Simpson told the New York Post. 

However, the logistics weren’t so seamless. While the go-karts were easy to purchase online, they had to find ones slower than 15 miles per hour to avoid breaking the law. There are several run-ins with cops in the video, but those scenes are truncated. The reality was, they were stopped each time and had their IDs checked. 

Ultimately, Simpson said he wanted to, “push some positivity and hopefully make the people laugh.”

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