Mario Soup

Update ❤️💚

This is my last chance. YouTube video by Supper Mario Broth

Supper Mario Broth’s mother passed away unexpectedly yesterday.
Without the financial support he was receiving as a caretaker, it is extremely unlikely he will be able to continue providing content. Please watch, share, and donate to his linked Patreon if you have the funds.

youtu.be/QAPGbeknudY

The object with perhaps the most dissonance between its name and actual nature in the Mario franchise is the Luigi Block from New Super Mario Bros. U, which looks like Mario and makes characters act like Mario when hit.

This month's experimental post: We Need To Talk About Parallel Universes
I explore the hypothetical alternate universe scenario where instead of focusing on Mario games, my life would have gone differently and I made a similar blog about other franchises I like instead.

An officially licensed 1994 Larry plush from Japan is notable for giving him a comically small amount of hair compared to his regular design.

Poisonous officially licensed Mario products exist. In 2008, this set of pins depicting various Mario characters was recalled for containing unsafe toxic amounts of lead.

While the Legion of Stationery from Paper Mario: The Origami King are praised for their personalities, a common criticism is that these are not reflected in their designs. The official Super Mario-Kun manga slightly redesigns some of the members to reflect their personalities.

Event card from the officially licensed 2010 Collector’s Edition Nintendo Monopoly board game.

Most objects in 3D Mario games are not solid from the inside to allow Mario to walk out if he manages to clip in. However, the chandelier in Don Pianta's office is solid on the inside, so that if Mario clips in using glitches or cheats, he will be trapped inside it forever.

Extremely rare "Evil Toad" figurine from a 1986 collection of "Mysterious Occult Super Mario Bros." figurines from Japan. While not authorized by Nintendo, these were sold legally under Japanese parody laws.

Out of the bits of Luigi's characterization revealed through his comments in Luigi's Mansion, one of the most bizarre is that braziers make Luigi sad. While he is scared of many objects in the mansion, only braziers have the power to make him feel sadness instead of fear.

An officially licensed 1991 Chargin' Chuck plush is supposed to have an expression that matches his Super Mario World sprite. However, many of the manufactured units have their eyes tilted at a different angle, giving them a particularly peaceful or serene appearance.

For additional context, Vivian being on fire is seemingly intentional, being part of early concept art where she shared an elemental theme with her sisters:

The original version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door contains an early Vivian model called tst_vivi. Compared to the finished Vivian, tst_vivi is:
-smaller
-skewed
-cropped to a square
-floating in mid-air
-on fire.

Three extremely corrupted Marios found in the files of Super Mario Strikers, named MarioGreen, MarioOrange and MarioPurple. These were possibly stand-ins for Luigi, Wario and Waluigi during development before being properly implemented.

Officially licensed 'The Super Mario Bros. Movie' Luigi mustard from Germany.

Illustration from an official 1986 Japanese children’s book, depicting Peach with a mushroom-shaped haircut alongside her father, the Mushroom King. He was only mentioned in the original Super Mario Bros. manual, and only appeared in licensed material such as the Nintendo Comics System comic series.

Promotional inflatable Chain Chomp ball.

Normally, if a character has an irremovable plumber-type hat in a Mario game, the top of their head is simply not modeled underneath. In Mario Super Sluggers, the top of specifically Luigi's head (but not Mario, Wario or Waluigi's) is modeled and severely deformed.

In Super Mario Sunshine, the Goop during Gooper Blooper battles is not supposed to spawn Goobles. However, due to an oversight in the code, there is a 1/32768 chance for a Gooble to still spawn. This Gooper Blooper Goop Gooble event has a 0.003% chance of occurring.

Extremely rare officially licensed 1990 Raccoon Mario mask.

2002 drawing of Mario and Donkey Kong with a Nintendo Gamecube by Shigeru Miyamoto.

Sprites of Yoshi waving at the screen, likely intended for an overworld map animation, found in development files for Yoshi’s Island.

Concepts for character designs for Archie Comics’ unreleased Mario comic, was pitched to Nintendo between 2011 and 2013 and rejected, shared by Archie Comics artist Tracy Yardley, known for working on the official Archie and IDW Sonic the Hedgehog comics.

Yoshi’s Woolly World contains extra Yoshis unlockable when the player uses a compatible amiibo. For an unknown reason, there is a “Link Yoshi” and a separate “Toon Link Yoshi”, despite being completely identical and using the same textures, as confirmed by extracting them from the game’s files.

In Paper Mario: The Thousand Year Door, once Mario has stayed at inns 50 total times, he is woken up by the host for an event and rewarded with 200 coins and a celebratory photo. Added in the Nintendo Switch version, if Luigi is at the inn when this event occurs, he will also pose for the photo.

Luigi-themed parody of Edvard Munch’s 1893 painting “The Scream”, drawn in Art Academy: SketchPad and featured on Nintendo’s official site in 2013 as part of the Year of Luigi celebrations.

The “Photos with Mario” application for the Nintendo 3DS contains a Toad who appears when the Mario, Luigi and Peach AR cards are used together. This Toad uses a unique sad face for one of his animations, different from the sad face Toads use in the majority of their 3D appearances.

Photo of marshmallows with Boo faces posted on Nintendo’s official Japanese LINE account in 2017. The marshmallows are flavored after calpis, a Japanese milk-based soft drink. These were custom-made for internal use at Nintendo, never being made available for commercial purchase.

The source code for Nintendo’s official 2015 Super Mario Bros. 30th anniversary site contained an ASCII artwork of the Small Mario sprite from Super Mario Bros.