Top: in the ending sequence of Donkey Kong 64, after King K. Rool is defeated in his boxing match, Candy Kong appears in order to distract him so that Funky Kong can shoot him from the other side of the ring. When King K. Rool sees Candy Kong, he performs an exaggerated take whereby his face seems to get very close to the screen.

Bottom: looking at the scene from the side using external tools to move the camera, we can see how this is accomplished. Instead of moving King K. Rool’s head closer to the camera while keeping it the same size (which is the effect created in the finished game), his head simply grows larger for a few frames.

Source: Ballaam / LookAtTheWindow

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Top: in World 8-4 in Super Mario Bros., there is an underwater section in a castle, the only one of its kind anywhere in the game. Normally, the player would simply emerge from the entrance pipe and continue to the right. However, if the player attempts to interact with the pipe, Mario will become hurt or even killed by something seemingly invisible.

Bottom: if Mario is Fire Mario, shooting a fireball at the pipe will also destroy the invisible object and award 200 points.

This is actually a Piranha Plant which is invisible due to being incorrectly drawn behind the water background instead of in front of it. The reason the Piranha Plant is there to begin with is because every single upright pipe in the game that is not in World 1-1 is programmed to spawn a Piranha Plant if there are enough object slots open (not too many other enemies are already loaded).

This results in some pipes appearing to not have Piranha Plants during regular gameplay (as they are usually reached when there are already too many other enemies loaded), but even they can be made to spawn Piranha Plants if Mario systematically defeats and unloads all enemies around them. This invisible Piranha Plant is simply a combination of this implementation and a graphical oversight.

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Collection of all types of items retrievable from dedicated Yoshi’s Island claw machines, available in Japan in 1996. Note that the two Baby Marios have different expressions and arm poses.

Source: blacktangent

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In Super Mario Galaxy 2, crouching at the edge of a mud puddle will cause Mario (or Yoshi) to walk if the crouch button is continued to be held, although still at crouching speed (internally, he is in the crouching state, merely with a walking animation).

This results in “phantom mud” where Mario appears to be stepping into invisible mud even on clean surfaces as long as the button is held.

Source: SPG64

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In Super Mario World, the secret Soda Lake level is a unique location in that it is the only place to feature the Torpedo Ted enemies. These enemies were evidently designed to only be used in this very specific scenario and as such do not have proper interactions with even some of the most common items programmed.

Due to the fact that there are no Super Stars in Soda Lake, it is normally not possible to see that Torpedo Teds were never given an intended interaction with it. By modifying the game to place a Super Star in the level, the bizarre unintended interactions can be seen.

Note how the Torpedo Teds don’t actually “die” when hitting invincible Mario, and are merely knocked back in an arc, yet still continue moving. At the end of the footage, it is also shown that catching a Torpedo Ted right after it emerges allows it to be hit on sequential frames, quickly gaining enough points to get multiple 1-Ups.

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In Mario Kart: Double Dash, the place where the drivers emerge from after going inside the Warp Pipe on the Peach Beach track is supposed to be an open window above the pipe (the only open window on the track, making it clear this was the design intent), but this is nearly impossible to see in-game.

Top: the closest this can be seen is in two-player mode if one player turns around to look at the building, but the game’s camera does not move up high enough to show the window unless the second player is very far away. As such, this is basically not visible (note Mario and Luigi being barely larger than a pixel on Wario and Waluigi’s screen). Also note that this game does not have a rear view button so Mario and Luigi cannot look behind them as they would be able to in later games.

Bottom: only with external tools can the camera be shifted in such a way as to actually show what is happening. Note that the window is aligned with the Item Boxes but not with the exit point of the drivers; this is possibly a remnant from earlier in development where the arc was different so that the drivers could emerge directly from the window and grab the Item Boxes.

Source: Peardian

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Top: artwork used on a rare officially licensed 1986 Famicom game case, depicting the cast of Super Mario Bros. riding a car.

Bottom left: this artwork would later be used for the album cover of a 1986 Super Mario Bros. Japan-only vinyl record.

Bottom right: the place this artwork was most famously used was the cover of All Night Nippon: Super Mario Bros., a limited-edition retool of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels for the Famicom Disk System that replaced some characters with caricatures of Japanese radio personalities.

With the bottom two in mind, looking at the top image reveals that due to their format, they have been cropping out details of the original drawing all along. In particular, the smiling sun on the left, the full fortress on the right, and most notably the Spiny riding a Lakitu’s Cloud in the top right can not be seen in any of the later versions.

Spinies have never actually been able to ride Lakitu’s Clouds until Super Mario Maker in 2015, 29 years after this image was drawn.

Source: bigafrodogg

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A preview article in a 2002 issue of the Brazilian Nintendo World magazine featured a bizarre edit of the Super Mario 64 official artwork of Mario displaying a victory sign where he was made to extend four fingers instead.

A comparison between the original artwork and the edit is provided.

Source: vitorio.neocities.org

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Unused goalkeeper model, named simply “Goalie” internally, found in the files of Super Mario Strikers. In the finished game, the goalkeepers for all teams are Kritters (the one for the robotic Super Team is a robotic Kritter).

Whether this design was at one point actually seriously considered to be a new original character to appear in the finished game, or was simply a placeholder, is unknown.

Source: El_Taco_Rojo

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World’s first photograph of both of the extremely rare Big Ol’ Mario and Big Ol’ Donkey Kong plushes in the same place at the same time.

The two 3-foot-tall Big Ol’ plushies were featured in a 1997 Nintendo Power catalog and retailed for $100 (ca. $200 adjusted for inflation); however, so few units were produced that for decades it was assumed that none of them actually existed. Over time, the few of them that were purchased began surfacing from private collections, so that it was finally possible for a collector to obtain both of them at the same time in 2026.

Source: cake_hoarder

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