Top: the Big Donut is a battle course first featured in Mario Kart 64. While its name refers to donuts in all languages, the source code of Mario Kart 64 lists a different name for it in a comment, being “BA-MU”. This is an abbreviation of “バウムクーヘン” (Baumkuchen), a German cake that is popular in Japan.

Bottom: a Baumkuchen for comparison, which the course resembles very strongly.

While naming the course after the cake would have been a recognizable reference for Japanese audiences, it is possible that it was named after a donut either because the cake is not that well-known worldwide, or because of a preexisting association of donuts with the Mario Kart franchise such as the Donut Plains tracks from Super Mario Kart.

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In Donkey Kong Bananza, the main ability of the Zebra Bananza power-up is being able to run faster than Donkey Kong’s other forms. Most challenges in the game do not require that amount of speed, so the chief mandatory use of the power is crossing over crumbly bridges that collapse too quickly for any speed slower than Zebra Bananza’s to be able to get across.

However, several of the game’s other powers make Zebra Bananza obsolete for this purpose. Ostrich Bananza can simply glide over most such bridges, and Snake Bananza can slow down time, which makes the bridge collapse slowly enough that it can hop across without being fast.

In addition to this, it is possible to cross such bridges without any powers whatsoever. By alternating a grab/jump/upward punch/drop motion with a solid chunk, Donkey Kong can keep picking up a chunk and setting it down on the bridge as seen in the footage. For an unknown reason, the bridge only collapses under Donkey Kong’s own weight, not under the weight of the chunk, allowing him to stand safely on it in defiance of physics.

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In Super Mario Maker 2, Morton creates floor-following fireballs (with physics resembling the Spark enemies first seen in Super Mario Bros. 2) every time he performs a Ground Pound.

Interestingly, since Munchers act like floors for the purpose of the fireballs, and since they can be stacked on top of Morton, it is possible to put a Big Muncher on top of Morton’s head to create the effect seen in the footage.

Some of Morton’s fireballs will orbit the Muncher instead of travelling along the floor, giving him a “fire shield”. This can be used e.g. as in the footage by combining it with Frozen Coins, by adding an extra challenge to dodging Morton if this is done in a claustrophobic environment, or simply to make Morton look more impressive.

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In 1993, a group of Mario, Peach and Yoshi plushes known as the “Color-Me Mario” set were released in Japan. These were mostly covered in a white material that could be colored with crayons and then washed off.

Here is a rare photo of a set of all three plushes in pristine condition.

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Officially licensed figurines from Japan, based on Mario and Luigi’s famous “arms folded” renders originally created for Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix.

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In Donkey Kong 64, the Game Over scene shows King K. Rool being successful in his activation of the Blast-o-Matic, ending with a shot of the Blast-o-Matic’s nozzle being aimed at DK Island.

Normally, the sequence ends here and the game restarts. However, by modifying the game’s code to prevent the game from restarting, it is revealed that the playable Kong (Diddy in the footage) has been in the scene all along. Similar workarounds are used in many other games where the playable character object’s code contains crucial functions; the character is loaded somewhere out of sight even if they should not be, such as e.g. Mario being underground in the void during story cutscenes in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door.

To prevent Diddy Kong from interfering with the scene, he is laterally locked to a single position (the doorway of K. Lumsy’s prison) and cannot do anything except jump. The game will remain in this state indefinitely.

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All Mario Kart games have difficulty modes named after engine classes: 50cc, 100cc, 150cc etc. In some Mario Kart games, the engine classes do not actually correspond to in-game variables, so e.g. there is no single value that is “50” for 50cc and “100” for 100cc. Instead, each engine class is custom-crafted with different values and the “cc” numbers are just for the player’s benefit.

However, in Mario Kart 7, the “cc” number is actually a real variable in the game’s code that can be changed to create any possible engine class. If it is made greater than 150cc, the karts predictably become even faster. Interestingly, there is behavior for negative engine classes, which is shown in the footage.

All regular acceleration (so Rocket Start being exempt from this) actually accelerates the kart backwards. Note how Yoshi appears to go forward from the Rocket Start but then immediately starts accelerating backwards uncontrollably.

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Ludwig von Koopa has been voiced by voice actor David J. Goldfarb since 2014. However, his voice acting in games is limited to grunts, yells and other vocalizations, not actual dialogue.

In this recording, David J. Goldfarb performs a line said by Ludwig during his boss battle in Paper Mario: Color Splash at a request from a fan. This offers a glimpse of how Ludwig would sound if he was fully voiced, at least according to the voice actor’s conceptualization of the character.

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Officially licensed 1994 Donkey Kong Country phone card from Japan with an exceedingly bizarre, partially misspelled caption reading:
SUPER DONKY KONG
Donky is doomed.
no matter how you play,
he’s sure to stay.

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In Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the gameplay of Chapter 2 revolves around leading a horde of Punies through the Great Tree. The Punies have two states: “following Mario” and “lost”. If Mario goes somewhere they cannot follow, such as by jumping over a gap, the Punies become “lost”. Only “following” Punies spawn with Mario after he walks into a different room; “lost” ones remain behind.

The Nintendo Switch version of the game rewrites the code for the Punies in a way that causes them to be able to be tricked into thinking they are not lost when they really should be. Punies become lost only if Mario goes somewhere they cannot follow for three frames in a row. As such, if Mario keeps jumping rapidly enough that he only touches the ground for 1 or 2 frames, he can go anywhere he wants without the Punies thinking they are lost.

Note how in the footage, even though the Punies cannot actually physically follow Mario across the pillars, the counter in the top left shows all of them still “following” him, and they all still spawn with him after he goes through the pipe.

This can be used to skip various puzzles in the Great Tree since now the goal is merely to get Mario himself to the exit instead of both Mario and the Punies, as the Punies can now simply be tricked into thinking they went with Mario.

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