1501
A PSA about used battery disposal from a 1991 issue of the German Club Nintendo magazine. Mario says (translated, roughly) "Used batteries belong in the proper disposal containers and not in the environment!" Bowser replies "Just leave me alone!"
1502
Photo of Shigeru Miyamoto alongside some of his original 1981 sketches of Mario's sprites for the Donkey Kong arcade, from Nintendo's 2011 company guide.
1503
Segment from a 1991 Mario manga intended to teach the Japanese audience the English names and pronunciations of several characters from the Mario franchise.
1504
In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, the background of the Battleship Halberd Interior stage of Subspace Emissary contains panels with extremely small labels. Although the textures are very blurry, extracting them shows there are two labels reading "Mario", one "Peach" and one "Luigi".
1505
A 1985 print ad for the Nintendo VS. System, a multi-game Nintendo arcade hardware, features 15 pictures of Mario with different appearances showcasing the various games. For "VS. Ladies Golf", a golf game with only female characters, a unique design of Mario as a woman is shown.
1506
Officially licensed small plastic Super Mario Bros. folders from Japan with the captions "SPECIAL TIME WITH FIRE" and "GET FIRE!" The folders were part of a cross-promotion between Nintendo and Kirin FIRE, a Japanese coffee drink brand.
1507
In the selection screen of Super Smash Bros. Melee, characters are represented by artwork rather than 3D models, as they were in Super Smash Bros. In the game's data, unused animations for a scrapped 3D selection screen still exist. Below are Mario's and Luigi's "selected" poses.
1508
A new hammer power-up introduced in Super Mario Maker 2 allows the player to break grey blocks (left). This could be an extremely specific reference to grey blocks exclusive to a single e-Reader level in Super Mario Advance 4, which needed to be destroyed with hammers (right).
1509
The February 2019 reveal trailer for the Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening contained a Goomba design in line with their standard Mario series appearance (left). However, this has since been redesigned (middle) to match the original Game Boy version (right).
1510
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga contains a Christmas tree-themed hermit crab named Hermie III as a boss (top). This is likely to be a reference to the Japan-only RPG Tomato Adventure, released one year prior by the same developer AlphaDream, which contains a similar enemy (bottom).
1511
In Super Mario Odyssey, the game does not handle Mario's legs being on two different slopes correctly, with him appearing to stand halfway in mid-air (left). In contrast, Super Mario Sunshine, released 15 years earlier, has code that handles each leg's incline separately (right).
1512
Before playing a course in Super Mario Maker 2, a brief animation of Small Mario in the course's style plays alongside a life counter. In the NSMBU style, Small Mario's right leg (viewer's left) is visibly distorted below the knee. This does not occur during gameplay (right).
1513
As a Buzzy Beetle's shell is normally not removable in 3D games, only the underside of its body is modeled. An exception to this is the Buzzy Beetle trophy model from Super Smash Bros. Brawl, where its entire body is modeled inside the shell. (Untextured version in bottom right.)
1514
In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the optional boss Bonetail has empty eye sockets (top). However, the game's data contains an unused version of Bonetail's facial texture that features a glowing blue eye (bottom). A mock-up of how this would appear in-game is provided.
1515
In the E3 2019 Nintendo Treehouse gameplay of Luigi's Mansion 3, it was shown that the game's goal is to collect elevator buttons, one for each floor of the hotel. For a few frames in the game's trailer, the elevator panel is visible, revealing that the game will have 17 levels.
1516
In the Nintendo Switch version of The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening, the text that appears when Link obtains the Yoshi Doll (right) is different from the text in the original Game Boy version (left) and references how much time has passed between the versions.
1517
A segment seen extremely briefly during the 2019 Super Mario Maker 2 Invitational reveals that whenever Mario enters an area with a Koopa Troopa Car via a pipe, the Koopa driver will be asleep in the car's seat before being woken up by Mario's presence.
1518
In Super Mario 64, most stairs are coded correctly, with Mario standing on the steps (left). However, the central staircase in the castle lobby is actually just a ramp using staircase graphics, leading to Mario floating between steps. The shadow reveals the true shape (right).
1519
Thanks to the new datamining efforts of spriters-resource.com user "Simpsons Dumper", the WarioWare/The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask crossover event graphics from Nintendo Badge Arcade, previously only seen as blurry screenshots, have finally been ripped in original quality.
1520
Bowser's body is fully drawn under his shell in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. By modifying the game's code to not load the shell graphics, we can see how Bowser would appear without it.
1521
After a prolonged period without major game appearances, the Koopalings were redesigned for their return in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. While this changed mostly body proportions and hair, Larry Koopa is notably the only Koopaling who lost teeth in the redesign, going from 4 to 2.
1522
Artwork from the Super Mario Bros. Mushroom World pinball machine. While the character artwork is taken from other sources, the landscape drawing in the background is original.
1523
In the data of Mario Party, unused early versions of characters' facial textures can be found. Here is a comparison between Yoshi's early eye texture (left) and the one used in the finished game (right).
1524
Mario Kart: Super Circuit is chronologically the last time Toad has ever had legs in official media, instead of having his feet connect directly to his torso. However, the only evidence of this comes from extremely low-resolution artwork (legs circled).
1525
Excerpt from an official Nintendo interview with Takahiro Harada, producer of Wario Land: Shake It, and the game's design director Tadanori Tsukawaki, about how they believe that Wario is macho.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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