Weirdest Moments In Super Mario's History
Super Mario Bros. is, without any shred of doubt, the most famous and beloved of all Nintendo's franchises, but that doesn't mean the series hasn't had its share of weird moments. Throughout the decades, Mario has been put through some of the weirdest stuff imaginable, both on and off the home console. Here's some of the strangest things we've ever seen in Super Mario's storied history.
World -1
One of the most famous video game glitches in history, the unbeatable deathtrap commonly known as Minus World is probably the first truly weird moment in Super Mario's history.
Occurring in the original Super Mario Bros., Minus World is an exact replica of the underwater level in World 7-2, with one small caveat — it cannot be beaten. Once Mario or Luigi enters this secret realm, there's no escaping certain death. The Italian plumbers' only choice in the matter is whether they prefer succumbing to enemies or the passage of time ... there are no other options.
There are two known ways of entering Minus World, both of which involve pixel-perfect jumping-and-ducking maneuvers into very specific locations. However, we don't recommend dooming poor Mario or Luigi to this cruel, inescapable death. It's sick, twisted, and just plain wrong.
Peach might be Bowser Jr.'s mom
According to Shigeru Miyamoto, nobody knows who Bowser Jr.'s mother is — but we're not buying that for a second. If anybody knows the truth of BJ's parentage, it's Miyamoto, and we just think he's not willing to spill the beans and spread controversy all over the Mushroom Kingdom.
As far as we're concerned, there's only two possible explanations as to how Bowser Jr. entered the world. The first option is that, as YouTuber Gnoggin argues, Bowser reproduces asexually — which would explain why Bowser Jr. looks almost exactly like the young Bowser in Yoshi's Island. It also, for that matter, would explain why all the Koopa Troopas look pretty much identical. (We'd have to assume they're asexual, too.)
The second option is significantly more weird — King Koopa and Peach GOT. IT. ON! Why would we think this? Well, it's simple, really. For one, Bowser has a rather long-running and totally creepy obsession with kidnapping Princess Peach. Secondly, Bowser Jr. is positively convinced that everyone's favorite Princess Toadstool is his mama — even though he apparently figures out that's not the case by the end of Super Mario Sunshine. But the simple fact that Nintendo brought up the possibility at all is just plain creepy.
Now, just try to get through the rest of your day without picturing Bowser and Peach bumpin' uglies. (Yeah, doesn't get much weirder than that.)
Bowletta
Bowser might be a bit of a weirdo — what with the whole serial kidnapping business and all — but he's nowhere near as weird as the Bowser-with-boobs horrorshow that is Bowletta.
The terrifying result of the spirit of a charcter named Cackletta possessing Bowser's body, the Great Bowletta — as she prefers to be called — is the thing nightmares are made of. Sporting a cheshire-cat grin, demonic pink eyes, and a pair of breasts, Bowletta takes Bowser to a whole different level — one which we never wanted to be on.
If you're somehow, perversely interested in seeing the Bowletta abomination in action, dust off the old Game Boy Advance or snag Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the Wii U's Virtual Console. But remember — some things, you just can't unsee.
Mario in the real world
We know from Nintendo's Super Mario Odyssey trailer at their 2017 Switch Presentation that everyone's favorite Italian plumber will, for one reason or another, enter the real world — or at least an environment that looks like the real world. The problem is, we're pretty sure Mario doesn't belong in the real world, and watching the mustachioed plumber jump around some digital New York City-esque locale, apparently named New Donk City, is uncomfortably weird. Why is he apparently two feet tall? Why does he still have "super" powers when not in the Mushroom Kingdom? Isn't he originally from the real world? If so, why doesn't he look like a real human? And why is nobody in the real world questioning this? Why do the people behind Mario give absolutely not a single toss about continuity, canon, and a storyline that actually makes a lick of sense?
Making the whole thing weirder is YouTube user Crowbcat's realistic take on Mario's urban lifestyle. Using a whole boatload of Grand Theft Auto V mods, we're treated to a montage of a more-appropriately-proportioned plumber drunkenly backflipping off a boat, eating fast food, and commandeering a helicopter — you know, classic Mario stuff. We're not sure which take on Mario in the big city is weirder, but we're positive both versions are more than weird enough, in their own right.
Eyebrawl
The Mario Party series has seen some weird minigames in its day, but definitely none weirder than Mario Party 8's Eyebrawl.
In this fun-filled and totally-not-creepy minigame, players are invited into a dark and totally-not-creepy forest in the middle of a dark and totally-not-creepy night. A quick glance up at the moon leads to a pleasant little jump scare — a pair of disembodied eyes looking right at you — before players are tasked with frantically moving their Wiimotes in circles, in a desperate attempt at making the totally-not-creepy eyes dizzy. To keep the fun moving, eyes that become too dizzy pop — only to be replaced by larger disembodied eyes. Eventually the horrorshow ends, with the victorious player escaping while the loser is surrounded by a group of small disembodied eyes while weeping uncontrollably.
Like we said, it's really fun and totally not creepy at all. Now excuse us while we go get our night lights.
Mad Piano
There's certainly nothing weird about pianos. We love Beethoven's Piano Sonata No. 8 in C minor. (Who doesn't?) Indestructible grand pianos with razor sharp teeth that chase us while trying to kill us, though? That's another story.
The Mad Piano in Super Mario 64 certainly made more than a handful of players poop their pants the first time they went after that conspicuous red coin it's guarding. Seemingly a normal, decorative piano in Big Boo's Haunt, the Mad Piano still makes us jump to this day, every time it jumps to life and ferociously starts chomping away in our direction.
We're afraid that not even ol' Ludwig van could tame this wild musical beast.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
Nothing screams 80's television weirdness like the short-lived Super Mario Bros. Super Show! Those of us old enough to remember staying home sick from school and watching old VHS tapes of questionable quality, featuring this Mario-themed show (also of questionable quality), will certainly look back on this moment of Mario history with warm nostalgia — like we do. Everyone else might just look at this show and think: WTF?
We're not entirely sure which was better — or weirder, depending on how you look at it: the live-action parts, or the animated parts. The animated parts are straight-forward enough — Mario and friends battle Koopa and the Koopalings in all sorts of cartooney ways. But during the live-action segments, Mario was played by wrestling legend Captain Lou Albano, who — together with Luigi, played by, uh, somebody — ran a plumbing company in Brooklyn. (No New Donk City nonsense, here.) Yep, in this self-proclaimed "super show," the Super Mario Brothers are true New Yorkers, with the accent, attitude, love of pizza, and penchant for curse words. If none of this strikes you as weird, at least consider the fact that this is probably the only time you'll ever hear Mario ever say "f*** you" to Luigi. (Or "thank you," if you're really that naive.)
Mario Ice Capades
What do you get when you give Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano an NES, give Luigi a flamethrower, paint a guy who looks nothing like Koopa different shades of green, put some poor soul into the freakiest Princess Peach costume you've ever seen ... and then put the whole thing on ice? Besides one of the lamest uses of the Mario property ever, you get 1989's Mario Ice Capades.
This atrocious production featured Koopa Troopa costumes that looked only a step up from a 7th-grade class play, with the downright stupidest-looking Peach outfit imaginable. It also featured Luigi blasting spinys, goombas, and the like into oblivion with a flamethrower — which is simultaneously awesome and absurd — earning the dynamic duo the "Purple Plunger of Bravery." The whole production is a travesty, however you spin it. That said, we did learn, from Peach, that the Mushroom Kingdom accent apparently sounds a lot like a New Yorker's — so at least there's that.
Perhaps history forgets things on purpose. We're just going to go on pretending this moment in Mario's history never happened.
The Super Mario movie
With an epic tagline like "This Ain't No Game," it's hard to imagine how the Super Mario Bros. live-action movie could be anything less than great. Unfortunately for '80s kids everywhere, it sucks.
Setting the trend for pretty much every video game film that would follow, 1993's Super Mario Bros. movie is a total disaster. First and foremost, it has almost nothing to do with the game series, other than the plumbing. Toad is a hippie dude who plays guitar. Mario is actually afraid to jump, at one part. It takes place in some dystopian dump. We have no idea what the goombas are supposed to be. The closest parallel to the game is that Yoshi is actually a dinosaur — and that's really as good as it gets. There's nothing redeeming about this trash heap of a film, other than how you can say you watched it, and were able to actually sit through the whole thing. That's Tough Mudder levels of hardcore, right there.
And we wonder why Nintendo doesn't make movies anymore.
Prime Minister Mario
One time, Mario was a prime minister, and we're not talking about former Italian prime minister Mario Monti. We're talking about Super Mario! (And no, we're not talking about that Super Mario either, Italian soccer fans.)
As is tradition, Brazil ceded a portion of its 2016 Summer Olympics' farewell ceremony to Japan, which will host the 2020 Games. Awesomely for us, Japan used their time in the most righteously weird way, showcasing their Olympians alongside some anime, Pac-Man, and — unsurprisingly — Hello Kitty. More importantly, however, was Japanese Prime Minister Shinzō Abe morphing into Super Mario, before taking a warp pipe from Tokyo to Rio de Janeiro. (We told you it was righteous.)
Awesome? Yes. Weird? Most definitely. Also, we're pretty sure Abe is our favorite prime minister now. (Though the second Canada's Trudeau becomes Luigi, that crown is his.)
Weird Mushrooms
It's no secret that Mario has a penchant for mushrooms — but some mushrooms make Mario get real weird, real quick. The result of an apparent bug, the appropriately-titled Weird Mushroom in Super Mario Maker turns Mario into a super trippy, tall-and-lanky version of Mario — one we simply don't like to look at, because it looks like he just took a torturous turn on Bowser's stretching rack.
Technically speaking, the Weird Mushroom gives Mario all the traits of Luigi, in terms of jumping ability and of appearance — he becomes a tall, slightly hunched monstrosity. (Sorry Luigi. We swear, it works well for you.) Essentially, the Weird Mushroom makes Mario look you'd expect Mario to look ... if one was well into a mushroom trip of their own. Itsa far out-a, man.