1051
Early layout documents for Super Mario Bros. show that early in development, the ground was shown at an angle from above, giving the path visual depth. This was changed to a completely 2D view in the finished game, but the idea was later used in the Donkey Kong Country series.
1052
In the Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series, Waluigi is depicted as the pinnacle of skill, often beating the second most skillful character, Dr. Eggman, by a single pixel of skill (bottom right, circled), as well as in some cases, being the only character with perfect skill.
1053
In Mario Party, if computer-controlled characters have 99 Stars (usually requiring cheats) and visit Boo, they will attempt to steal another Star, but that option will be greyed out. Despite this, the character will fruitlessly attempt to select it forever, softlocking the game.
1054
In the Flipside Outskirts in Super Paper Mario, there is a doorway where positioning Mario in a precise location (left) and switching to 2D results in Mario merging with the wall. Switching to Peach or Bowser retains the effect; however, switching to Luigi ends it immediately.
1055
The data of Super Mario RPG contains an unused purple Bahamutt-like enemy with sunglasses, which appears to be a hybrid between Bahamutt and Boshi. The decision to combine them may have been due to both being related to Yoshi through their Japanese names (Doshi and Washi).
1056
When Mario visits a shop for the first time on a save file in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the shopkeeper mentions this. The story forces Mario to visit a shop before Chapter 3; if this is skipped with cheats, the later-game shopkeepers will have an incredulous reaction.
1057
As a decoration on the Creepy Cavern board in Mario Party 3, three Whomps are seen playing their own game of Mario Party (left). The board they are using is actually Rules Land, the tutorial board from Mario Party 2 (middle), mirrored vertically (comparison on right).
1058
When opening the data of Super Mario Bros. 2 in a hex editor, the word "ZELDA" can be found in plain text due to some code being copied and pasted from The Legend of Zelda. This is both the earliest and the most obscure Zelda series reference in a Mario game.
1059
After the Game Boy Advance was announced in 2000, but its design not yet shown by Nintendo, Edge Magazine featured mockups of what they expected. Interestingly, the ideas of four face buttons and the ability to run Super Mario 64 ended up predicting the Nintendo DS instead.
1060
In the data of Super Mario Galaxy, an unused model for what is either a Tox Box or a related enemy can be found (left). Compared to the Tox Box in the finished game (right), the unused design looks much less threatening.
1061
A 1999 promotional video by Nintendo of France contained a segment of low-quality Paper Mario footage using a very early build of the game. Some of Mario's sprites seen here show that the animations at that point in development were meant to be much more exaggerated.
1062
The character Indiana Joe from the Super Mario Bros. Super Show has no face in the show (left) or in his production art (middle); however, for one scene, he has a visible eye (right), suggesting he at one point had a face which needed to be erased, and that scene was overlooked.
1063
In the Mushroom City track in Mario Kart: Double Dash, a smiling yellow block appears in the far background between buildings (directly above Mario and Luigi on the left). The block is too far away to be seen clearly on original hardware, requiring external tools to view.
1064
Illustration of a "hip", presumably teenage Mario from a 1993 article on games featuring teenage protagonists in the German Video Games magazine.
1065
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, if a Dark Lakitu is tattled, Goombella will talk about it "throwing pipes" even though it never does so. It actually throws Spiny Eggs, which are called パイポ ("Paipo") in Japanese; the translator mistook this for the English word "pipe".
1066
A commercial for an inflight entertainment system on Singapore Airlines planes features a shot of Super Mario Bros. Deluxe where Mario turns into a 3D model and jumps out of the screen. During this, a unique sprite of him facing the screen that does not appear in-game is used.
1067
In Super Mario World, Cape Mario can defeat a Bob-omb after it has already exploded. Standing next to the explosion and performing a Cape Spin will revert the explosion back into a Bob-omb, which will then fall off-screen in its usual defeat animation.
1068
In Super Mario Sunshine, there is a small invisible slope at a dock near the Noki Bay entrance in Delfino Plaza. This results in Mario appearing to randomly raise his legs if placed in a specific spot. Pressing R or L to change Mario's stance deforms his legs even further.
1069
In the data of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, there is code that visually replaces Berries with Yoshi Cookies (left). This was likely a scrapped cosmetic reward, similar to how green coconuts turn into watermelons in Super Mario Galaxy when 9999 Star Bits are collected (right).
1070
1992 officially licensed Super Mario Kart Koopa Troopa keychain (left) with a terrified expression. This is based on the fact that most of Koopa Troopa's official artwork for the game depicts him in various states of shock or surprise (right).
1071
In 2000, the official Nintendo of America site featured an April Fools' Day article claiming that Lickitung can evolve into Luigi in Pokémon Red and Blue by turning the Game Boy upside down (highlighted). In 2013, a Pokémon that actually evolves this way was introduced (right).
1072
The Wheel Slug is a friendly character cut from Wario Land: Shake It that would have been used by Wario to ride along rails. It has animations for transforming from a slug into a wheel and back. In the finished game, it was replaced with a vehicle called the Unibucket (right).
1073
Normally, answering "No" to a confirmation prompt in the Mario Party series results in simply repeating the selection without any extra animations. However, in Mario Party 2, answering "No" after preparing a game causes the screen to tilt and all characters to fall off.
1074
A 2010 article from Edge Magazine that called the Mario franchise "the Citizen Kane of gaming" included three illustrations of shots from the 1941 movie Citizen Kane altered to be Mario-related (top row). The original shots are included in the bottom row for comparison.
1075
In Super Mario Odyssey, the Metro Kingdom is filled with NPCs that are only visible from far away, but dissolve and finally unload when he gets closer to conserve resources. Sometimes they are grouped with regular NPCs, resulting in scenarios like the one in the image below.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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