Rio Olympics: Japan's Prime Minister Morphs Into Super Mario During Closing Ceremony

3:11 AM PDT 8/22/2016 by Abid Rahman

Shinzo Abe Mario - Getty - H 2016
Getty Images

"Let's-a-go!"

Mamma mia! Sunday's closing ceremony saw Tokyo accept the Olympic hosting baton from Rio in the most Japanese way possible, and certainly in a way that will be hard to forget. 

In a short video that showed off the best of Tokyo, Japanese athletes — with a little help from cultural icons like Doraemon, Hello Kitty and Pac-Man (but strangely no Pikachu) — punched, kicked and threw the red ball logo of the summer 2020 Games into the hands of a rather wooden Shinzo Abe, the Japanese prime minister, whose mission was to deliver it to Rio for the ceremony. 

Abe, running late, decided to morph into Mario and take a shortcut through a drain pipe, appearing in the Maracana stadium, red ball in hand, to proclaim Japan ready to welcome the world in four years' time.