“Sometimes you want to take a break from rescuing princesses and just dance....” In this case, I wanted to take a break from my usual routine and make a little video about Super Mario shaking his Tanooki tail.

I recently picked up a Hauppauge high-definition personal recording device, which lets me document footage from games (among other sources). Rather than put together a montage of my ferocious (read: non-existent) Modern Warfare 3 skills set to Drowning Pool’s “Let the Bodies Hit the Floor,” I went and made something a little more funky and retro.

Enter the “Do the Mario” dance. Did you ever do this little trick in the original Super Mario Bros.? By jumping back onto the beanstalk and running, the 8-bit plumber looks like he’s dancing in time to the music. I always assumed that that’s what inspired the song and dance from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.

In case you’re wondering, I grabbed the footage from the Wii’s Virutal Console since my attempt at recording from the NES just looked like goomba.