1951
A detail from Mario Kart 8 may reveal an aspect of power-ups in the Mario series. In that game, Tanooki Mario is lighter than Mario and Cat Peach is lighter than Peach. This implies that these power-ups help increase the users' agility by literally reducing their weight.
1952
A 2009 international psychological study found that playing Super Mario Sunshine for as little as 20 minutes subsequently increased helpful behavior in test subjects, in contrast to "antisocial games" like Crash Twinsanity, which decreased helpful behavior.
1953
A quiz from an officially licensed 2002 Burger King/Nintendo activity book reveals that Donkey Kong was born in the UK.
1954
An extremely rare event may occur when walking through the front door of Big Boo's Haunt in Super Mario 64. A Boo laugh sound effect will play at a greatly reduced pitch, sounding much more like a human laugh.
1955
In Mario Party 4, if debug functionality is used to access the final Bowser minigame without selecting a character, the player will be assigned Mario stuck in a default pose. Bizarrely, Mario's default pose is not a T-pose, but a stance with his hands folded instead.
1956
Unlicensed 2013 Cat Mario and Cat Toad plushes with uncharacteristically tall foreheads.
1957
In Super Mario 3D World, the Blockstepper enemies are always seen wearing soldier hats; however, they are fully modeled underneath. By removing the hats in a model editor, we can see what a "civilian" Blockstepper would look like.
1958
The Checkpoint Flag is usually an immovable fixture of levels. However, in Level 1-5 of New Super Mario Bros. U, a frozen Hammer Bro can be used to lift it and carry it around. Unfortunately, moving or destroying the flag does not change the point at which Mario respawns.
1959
Balloon Boos are rare enemies appearing in only one level in New Super Mario Bros. They are found in confined spaces where there is little incentive to use a Mega Mushroom, but if one is used to defeat them, an obscure animation of them flying away like a real balloon will play.
1960
Paper Mario contains an unused message reading simply "a". Here is what it looks like when loaded in-game.
1961
An easily missed bit of worldbuilding in Super Mario Odyssey: in the Mushroom Kingdom, a Toad says Peach brought back hats from the moon. If the Toads are viewed through binoculars before finishing the story, they have no hats because Peach is not yet back from the moon.
1962
Mainline Mario platformers have a history of obstacles based on mines being designed for the games, but ultimately going unused.
1963
An announcement: to expand on the Supper Mario Broth veracity policy, all posts that are deleted from this account due to inaccuracy will be posted on the new @CorrectedBroth account in a corrected form. Details below. Thank you to all readers who suggested this system!
1964
The Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels punishes the player for quitting the game and reloading it. If the player continues without quitting after 8-4, the enemies will move at normal speed. Quitting and reloading the save makes them move faster.
1965
In Super Mario RPG, the mine cart minigame is perfectly capable of playing itself. If the player leaves once the game starts, it will complete itself in 3 minutes and 24 seconds.
1966
Officially licensed 2021 Boo ear headband in the style of the classic Mickey Mouse ear headband, available at the Super Nintendo World theme park in Japan.
1967
On the main menu of Super Mario 64 DS, there is a button to switch between Mario's and Yoshi's head being displayed. Swapping from Mario to Yoshi, then back to Mario, then back to Yoshi, and finally back to Mario again will cause the game to trace Luigi over Mario's face.
1968
In Super Mario Odyssey, if Mario performs a mid-air dive and hits his head on a wall directly above a bench, he will fall down onto the bench and sit on it even if it is already occupied. Doing this results in him merging with the NPC sitting on the bench.
1969
The official Japanese guide for Super Mario RPG contains artwork of various clothing items, however, the artwork depicts just the clothing and not the character actually wearing it. I have created mock-ups of Mario wearing his various outfits by pasting his body onto the clothes.
1970
Concept art sketch for a design for the Uproot enemy seen in the Art of Super Mario Odyssey book, whereby the enemy would have worn upside-down underwear on its head.
1971
Earlier this year, I posted about random vaguely ominous messages that may appear when Super Mario World crashes, such as "Illusion lies ahead". Since then, more examples of such messages have been discovered.
1972
In the code of the Japanese version of Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the heart symbol is not a special character, but the font's representation of the kanji "鳩", meaning "pigeon" or "dove". Whenever characters use the heart symbol, they are actually saying "pigeon".
1973
As pointed out by reader @Ramenheim, the reason for this is likely that the kanji is pronounced "hato", which sounds like "heart", making this a Japanese-English pun!
1974
Development data for Super Mario 64 contains an early version of MIPS the rabbit, which was colored pink. Unlike the finished game's MIPS, this version had the uncanny-looking ability to turn its head backwards 180 degrees, similar to an owl, to see Mario approaching from behind.
1975
The decorative butterflies in Super Mario Galaxy 2 will change their color to green if they land on Mario while he is sleeping. Details in image.
Additional obscure Mario content for suppermariobroth.com.
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