“My neighboring farmer made a pretty sweet corn maze this year.” With those 11 simple words, Reddit user RadioActiveLobster drastically undersold the sheer spectacle of what might be the single most gloriously unnecessary achievement of the week: a massive, eight-acre maize labyrinth at Stoughton Farm in Newark Valley, New York, bearing the likenesses of Mario, Luigi, Toad, Yoshi, and Princess Peach from Nintendo’s ever-popular Mario franchise. Were it not for the presence of Yoshi, this could be considered a cast reunion for 1985’s seminal Super Mario Bros., but the adorable, undersized dinosaur technically didn’t debut until 1990’s Super Mario World. Spike-covered antagonist Bowser is also conspicuous by his absence here. But these are quibbles. The important thing here is that five iconic, beloved video game characters have received a rare tribute in the form of a portrait so large it can only be properly seen from the vantage point of a drone, helicopter, or hot-air balloon. This is beyond flattery. It borders on some kind of pagan worship.
The good news here is that this large-scale work of fan art, punningly titled “The MAiZE,” will be open for tourists starting on Saturday, September 17. Video game addicts and corn enthusiasts alike will likely be drawn to the Mario-themed maze, much as the incongruous baseball diamond in Field Of Dreams attracted its own share of pilgrims and nomads. The downside, unfortunately, is that the maze will not really look like much of anything from ground level, other than neatly-arranged patches of corn, separated by occasional gaps of not-corn.
The proprietors of Stoughton Farm have a history of doing this kind of thing, going back to at least 2005, when their annual maze bore the image of a US101 helicopter. Since then, the progress-minded Stoughtons have used their chosen medium to promote literacy, renewable energy, and even speak out against bullying. Arguably, their first foray into popular culture came in 2012 with a Sleepy Hollow-branded maze. Ironically, that spooky story shows just how effective bullying can be under the right circumstances.
[via The Daily Dot]