It may be the game disc. Is the game new or are there any scratches at all on it?
It's from Gamefly. It doesn't look scratched but there are some weird scuffs on the top of the disc. I finally got it to work by putting the Wii sideways on the floor... I played for awhile and it worked fine. Then when I was done I decided to go to the home screen and try to load the game again, and of course I got the error (and had to unplug the Wii to turn it off).
It looks like it's just a matter of luck... I ordered a lens cleaner disc from Amazon, so we'll see if that helps. Hopefully I can find a cheap game at the Bx just to try tomorrow to see if it's the disc or the console. I've read online that it can be the console going bad, and it's $75 to get it repaired through Nintendo (including shipping I paid $70 for the Wii...so that pretty much brings me up to the price of a new Wii if I send it in for repair).
Anyway, New Super Mario Bros was pretty fun. Got past the first Bowser fight. It's kind of addicting. Like I die and want to go right back at it because I'm mad that the game's beating me... At the same time it's frustrating to die in a stupid way.