In Super Mario Galaxy 2, there is a black hole that will not activate the usual “sucked into a black hole” animation, instead making the player characters simply float in midair until they disappear.

It can be found at the end of one of the moving platform paths in the Bowser Jr.’s Fearsome Fleet galaxy.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: lugalan

Whenever Mario obtains accessories in Super Mario RPG, these simply get added to his inventory. A commonly known exception is the Ghost Medal, which is forcibly equipped upon him when he completes the Three Musty Fears quest.

However, a much more obscure second exception exists that very few players would ever see organically during gameplay. If Mario obtains the Troopa Pin from Sergeant Flutter by scaling the wall in Land’s End quickly enough, and he is not currently wearing an accessory, Sergeant Flutter will actually equip it onto Mario himself.

As it is highly unlikely that a player would have played all the way through 5 out of the game’s 7 sections without equipping an accessory on Mario (unless doing some manner of self-imposed challenge), most players would not see this and the pin would simply be added to Mario’s inventory as usual.

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Concept art for various logo designs for the Crazy Cap stores in Super Mario Odyssey, seen in the Art of Super Mario Odyssey book.

Note that “since 1994” and the monkey’s appearance are likely a reference to Diddy Kong, who debuted in Donkey Kong Country in 1994. Since Crazy Cap is said to originate in the Donkey Kong-themed New Donk City in-universe, it would have been appropriate to theme it after a specific Donkey Kong character in this manner.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Art of SMO (2018)

Original illustration of Toad taking off his mushroom cap and using it as a parachute from an officially licensed 1991 German book accompanying the Super Mario Bros. Super Show cartoon series, based on a similar scene seen in the cartoon.

Note that in recent years, Nintendo has repeatedly and explicitly stated that this interpretation is no longer correct and that Toad’s mushroom cap is part of his head, and thus non-removable.

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All unique animated segments from the commercial for the Super Comboy, a version of the Super Famicom/SNES marketed for the South Korean market. Note the variety of characters from other franchises except Nintendo ones, such as Dragon Ball, Looney Tunes and Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

While it has been long assumed that the choppy quality of the commercial was due to faults in the recording equipment on part of the person who archived the earliest known version of it, this high-quality version revealed that this is simply how it was animated, and the low framerate was likely a time or budget issue. Compare the choppy framerate on the singing characters with the smooth framerate of Mario peeking out from the curtain at the end.

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Rare officially licensed 1989 Mario vs. Luigi ladder race game. The aim is to tilt the ladders in such a way as to cause the Mario and Luigi pieces to latch on consecutive rungs of the ladder on the way down, with the first player to reach the bottom being the winner.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: TheGameDisplay

Artwork of Geno wearing the clothes of the protagonist of Moon: Remix RPG Adventure, drawn by Super Mario RPG character design supervisor Kazuyuki Kurashima, who was also the character designer for Moon.

More references to Mario and particularly Geno that can be found in that game can be seen in these posts.

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In Super Mario Galaxy, whenever Mario enters the galaxy selection screen from an observatory dome, the screen appears to zoom out extremely far to show the surrounding galaxies.

However, internally, it is not only the screen zooming out, but the area Mario is in also shrinking. In its regular state, both the dome and the galaxies are loaded in at the same time, but the galaxies are set to be invisible as long as Mario is not on the selection screen.

The above animation shows the default state of the Garden dome with the galaxies visible, whereby they rotate slightly outside the playable area.

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: noclip.website

Bizarre 2005 British print ad for Mario Power Tennis (please zoom in to see details).

Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Source: NGC (UK), Issue 104, 2005

In Luigi’s Mansion: Dark Moon and Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, the Greenie ghost enemies that appear in the Jungle Exhibit room of the Treacherous Mansion use spears that are decorated with tiki masks (left). These actually depict Krazy Kalimba, the first Tiki Tak Tribe boss from Donkey Kong Country Returns (right).

On the original 3DS hardware, this is very difficult to see due to the screen’s small resolution, and even in Luigi’s Mansion 2 HD, the darkness in the room makes the mask hard to see well (the brightness and contrast of the screenshot was increased for this post).

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