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Editor's Note: Portions of this article originally appeared on 1up.com in 2010. It has been updated and expanded.

Nintendo kicked off its enormous marketing spectacle, the Nintendo World Championships, with a three-day event in Dallas, Texas on March 8, 1990. It was the first stop of what would be a thirty-city tour across the United States and Canada.

A three-stories-tall inflatable Mario loomed over the Fair Park's Automobile Building, leading visitors to the "Power Walk," the section of the show where visitors could play the newest (and sometimes not-yet-released) NES games on 130 dedicated demo units (in addition to 200 Game Boy stations!). Titles like Chip & Dale's Rescue Rangers and Astyanax made their first public appearances at the show, and recent releases like Batman, RoboCop and Super Mario Bros. 3 were available too; essentially, parents paid to have new games directly marketed to their kids.

Another attraction at the show was the Super Stage, where Nintendo's legendary Game Counselors were on hand to answer any obscure gameplay question the kids might throw at them, share tips, and run around in costumes inspired by The Legend of Zelda for a stage show. Also featured was a special area where kids could make their own rap videos by playing with Super Mario Bros. props and lip-syncing to the pre-recorded tune.

"The end result [of the rap video performances] looks bad and goofy," wrote games journalist Howard Wen in VideoGames & Computer Entertainment, "but the few brave kids who engage in this kind of production appear to be having a good time."

The main attraction of course was the Championship Arena, where players in three age categories competed to be the best Nintendo player in their region on a specially-created competition cartridge. The winners from each would all be flown to Universal Studios later in the year to compete for the coveted world champion crown.

Frank Cifaldi is a developer, archivist, and video game historian. He founded The Lost Levels , blogs on The Video Game Preservation Dump , and sits on the advisory board of The Museum of Art and Digital Entertainment. You can follow him on Twitter .