Hello! My name is Alex Tan a.k.a. PangaeaPanga® (sometimes shortened to Panga or PePanga), and I am a Mario speedrunner and level designer. I am widely known for beating Super Mario World blindfolded, as well as my insanely difficult Mario Maker levels, which has been officially certified by Guinness World Records and can be viewed here! I am originally from Rocky Hill, Connecticut. I graduated from both Rocky Hill High School and the Greater Hartford Academy of Mathematics and Science's half-day program (now the CREC Academy of Aerospace and Engineering) in 2014. I graduated from the University of Connecticut School of Business with a degree in Management Information Systems in 2018.

When I was younger, I made a lot of tool-assisted speedrun videos. I learned later in college and with the help of intellectual property attorneys, was technically not legal. I was made famous for the Item Abuse series, but due to Nintendo's intellectual property rights, these videos were taken down. I have learned my lesson and since moved on to legal ways of making my levels through the Super Mario Maker platform, which is what I am well known for today. Sometimes I go by "PePanga" in Super Mario Maker since the name "Panga" was taken, so I added on the "Pe" part. It is my hope that Nintendo one day can work with the community to allow creations such as Item Abuse to peacefully exist in their ecosystem through some kind of licensing or other intellectual property arrangement that is mutually beneficial to Nintendo and the community.

Needless to say, I need to make clear that I do not have any affiliation with Nintendo and its affiliates. We may have our differences but I want to focus on where we have common ground, such as supporting Awesome Games Done Quick (AGDQ), Summer Games Done Quick (SGDQ), and other community initiatives.

History of PenangBenny

My father let me learn the mechanisms of YouTube by allowing the use of his account, which was called "PenangBenny". My online Skype friends at the time didn't want to say the full name "PenangBenny" so they shorted it to simply "Panga." I honestly have no idea how that happened but I liked it, so I stuck with the name for a bit. I started to feel the name "Panga" wasn't unique enough, so I decided to try and think of how I could add onto "Panga" to make it sound cooler. I first tried "PelePanga," since I liked the alteration. I later changed it to "PangaeaPanga" since the word "Pangaea" had the word "Panga" in it, so I stuck with it since then. This was back when I was like 12, and this is how my stage name, PangaeaPanga was born. We still have control over the PenangBenny YouTube account, but I primarily work out of my PangaTAS account these days.

Please note that PenangBenny as stated above is a name that belongs to and was originally created by my father. The company PenangBenny Consulting in Connecticut is owned by him and my eldest brother. I'm not related to this company, as PangaeaPanga Productions is an independent company that is focused on my work. Any other use of the PenangBenny name or mark is not authorized by my father, and will be addressed accordingly.

Random Facts