The traditional Olympics closing ceremony had the current host (Rio, Brazil) handing off to Tokyo, Japan for the 2020 Summer Olympics, and guess who Japan called upon to show up? Japanese President Shinzo Abe turns into Japan's favorite son, Super Mario:

#Tokyo2020 already stepping the game up!!! pic.twitter.com/HBbDZCAztS

— pettyofs (@pettyofs) August 22, 2016

Shinzo Abe, the greatest video game character of all time #SuperMarioBros #ClosingCeremony https://t.co/2KwyRLrwys https://t.co/qkHainLfEp

— CBC Olympics (@CBCOlympics) August 22, 2016

A Mario pipe appears in Rio during the Olympic closing ceremonies with the world watching. 

It's pretty cool, I think a big honor for a video game character to basically represent a country on the biggest international stage. Another notch in Mario's impressive career. Pac-Man and Doremon were also featured, but their chose to have Mario turn into the Japanese president himself. 

Mario 35th anniversary will be crazy. Also, the Univeral Studio x Nintendo should be done by then too.

Mickey Who?

;)

I saw that as it happened and I was like, shit... I know where I'm going summer of 2020 lol 

BTW... this should end the silly "debate" about which character is bigger, Mario or Pikachu.

Yup, the Nintendo Land section of Universal in Osaka is going to open in 2020 right in time for the Olympics. It's probably what kinda pushed Nintendo to get the deal done in time. 

A Mario CG movie for 2019 or 2020 woud make a lot of sense too. 

My heart is being played with. This is really great, genius move by Nintendo. Seems they were pretty serious with branching their IPs outside of games.

I take it Mario will probably be involved with the 2020 Opening Ceremonies in Japan too in a similar style. That should be cool.

Wow Go Mario!!!

When I first saw it live, I tried to look for a link but couldn't so I ended up not posting about it :p

Nice to see other mascots like Pac Man in as well

Here it is in all its glory, loved it!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dQqzMkx3i_g

Now hopefuly Nintendo show us the NX =(