A Super Mario variety blog.
Screenshots, photos, sprites, gifs, scans and more from all around the world of Super Mario Bros.
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Animations for TicoJii, an unused character found in the files of Super Mario Galaxy. He appears to be an early version of an elderly Luma, possibly an early design for Polari from the finished game (as Polari is said to be elderly, although he looks identical to other Lumas outside of his color scheme). He also resembles the Millennium Star from Mario Party 3, though that may be simply a coincidence.
In addition to these three animations for idling, waving and talking, TicoJii also has code for becoming yellow. It is notable that in the finished game, blue and yellow are colors used for Star Chips/the two colors of stars that transport Mario (Launch Stars and Pull Stars), so it may have been related to those.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: LooygiBros
Top: Super Mario 64 is the first game that lists Princess Peach’s name as “Peach Toadstool”, being known almost exclusively as “Princess Toadstool” in Western material and “Princess Peach” in Japanese material prior to this. (She was referred to as “Princess Peach” in Yoshi’s Safari in 1993 in English once before.)
Bottom: in a 2025 interview with Time Extension, Leslie Swan, localization manager on various Nintendo games and voice of Peach in Super Mario 64, revealed that she was the one who suggested this compromise of using both names to Miyamoto herself.
As such, very fittingly, the person who is heard saying “Princess Toadstool, Peach” at the beginning of Super Mario 64 for the first time also happens to be the person who invented the name in the first place.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Time Extension
Donkey Kong’s model in Super Smash Bros. is notable among other 3D Donkey Kong models due to standing upright in his default pose, which never happens in-game.
It is possible that he was originally designed by using a default humanoid model as a base, as opposed to being modeled completely from scratch; though it could also be that the designers believed that it would be easier to have every fighter have the same default pose instead of making custom ones.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: Jay6T4
Extremely rare 2005 Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix store display.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: cakehoarder
The 2013 Nintendo company booklet features an extremely expansive collage of tiny square images on its last pages, depicting behind-the-scenes work on Nintendo products or items in Nintendo’s offices.
Here are the Mario-related images from the collage, compiled from a high-quality scan of the booklet (please zoom in to view). Note that these are very small on the physical sheet of paper and would likely require a magnifying glass to view at the same level of detail as these scans.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: phantop
A bizarre glitch may occur in the Super Mario All-Stars version of Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, whereby this particular Koopa Troopa may refuse to be kicked when stomped, and instead becomes both invincible and incapable of harming Mario, pushing him instead.
The mechanism of why this glitch occurs with this Koopa specifically is not currently understood.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source
Illustration from a 2001 issue of Electronic Gaming Monthly magazine, featuring Mario and Sonic as bellhops for George Clooney. The topic of the article is the (at the time, seeming) lack of popularity of video games compared to the movie industry.
Currently, 25 years later, the video game industry is much larger than the movie industry.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: sharkabytes
When reaching the player selection step in the menu of Mario Tennis for the Nintendo 64, the host Toad slides to the left, out of view, to free the screen for the player characters.
However, he does not actually despawn when he does this. Instead, he continues standing there, barely out of frame, which can be seen by moving the camera using external tools.
Main Blog | Patreon | Twitter | Bluesky | Small Findings | Source: MT (NA, VC)