Small Mario Findings

Top: graphics for an early file select screen for Super Mario All-Stars, found in development files for the game. This screen combines the file selects for all four games in the collection into a single table, which enables very quick access but can only spare enough space to dedicate very small titles to indicate the actual games.

Bottom: in the finished game, this was made into a two-step process whereby the player first has to select the box art for the game and then gets a save menu dedicated to that game in particular.

Source: SuperArthurBros

Rare officially licensed 1991 Boo plush from Japan.

Source: nadeshico.Japan

In 1984, software called Family BASIC was released for the Famicom in Japan, which allowed the console to be programmed using the BASIC programming language via a keyboard connected to a controller port.

Various magazines published source code for original games, many of which featured Mario due to him being one of the included sample graphics. Here is an illustration for a type-in game called "Evil Castle" from a 1988 issue of the micomBASIC magazine.

Source: vghistory

For decades, the only image available of a pre-release screenshot of a Banjo-Kazooie-themed refrigerator in Donkey Kong's treehouse in Donkey Kong 64 (removed in the finished game) was a low-resolution web upload.

Only in 2026 was the original issue of the 64 Dream magazine where it was published in original resolution scanned and uploaded. Now, a lot more of the detail is visible.

Source: Rare_Gamer

Officially licensed 1989 Super Mario Bros./The Legend of Zelda wallet.

Source: WC Finds

In Level 5-2 of Yoshi's Story, Lots O' Fish, the first Special Heart is found in a room with many Cheep Cheeps, which normally all need to be defeated for the heart to spawn.

However, due to a bizarre glitch, if the player enters the room through the pipe, immediately exits it, and then reenters it again, the heart will spawn immediately instead of requiring the Cheep Cheeps to be defeated, as seen in the footage.

Source: ヨッシー大好き研究所

Officially licensed 2000 Yoshi finger puppet from Japan.

Source: missynicole13

In Donkey Kong 64, a bizarre corner case occurs with the switches inside the giant mushroom in Fungi Forest. All switches must be hit to cause a series of cannons to appear; however, if the player happens to either exit the level or save and quit within 2/3rds of a second after shooting the final switch, the game will save the flag for "the switches have been hit" to the save file, but never actually spawn the cannons.

This will cause that save file to not be able to be fully completed. As such, it is recommended for casual players to never quit out of levels or shut down the game too quickly after completing a puzzle, and instead wait for any subsequent cutscenes to finish first and only then do so.

Source: theballaam96

In Wario World, pillars to the left and right of the entrances to the worlds have symbols roughly representing the themes of the worlds: -World 1, Excitement Central, has mushrooms due to taking place in a forest -World 3, Thrillsville, has wind gust spirals representing cold winds due to taking place in the mountains -World 4, Sparkle Land, has stars due to its "magic" theme

However, World 2, Spooktastic World, has hearts, which may be confusing as it is a horror-themed location; a player may be expecting e.g. skulls instead.

The meaning becomes clear, however, when looking at its original Japanese name: ドキドキワールド (Doki-Doki World, "doki-doki" being the onomatopoeia for a heartbeat). The hearts are supposed to represent a heart pounding due to fear, which is only fully apparent in conjunction with the name and may be lost to international audiences.

Officially licensed 1989 sweatshirt themed after Mario's overalls. Note that the area to the left and right of the suspenders is miscolored, creating red segments on the "shirt" portion that is supposed to be blue.

This is likely due to the manufacturing process; doing this allows for the middle portion to be made out of mostly red fabric with only a single blue segment in the middle, and the back of it to be entirely red, while doing it the "correct" way would have required additional blue segments on the back as well.

In Super Mario World, Yoshi is not supposed to be able to spit fireballs in the switch rooms of the Switch Palace stages, due to the tileset needing extra tiles to display the texboxes and these using the same indices as the Yoshi fireball graphics.

By using glitches to spawn a Red Shell (or a Rainbow Shell as seen in the footage), Yoshi can spit out fireballs in these rooms, which appear as text tiles due to this.

Source: MrPyt1001

Officially licensed 1993 Toad plush keychain from Japan.

In Paper Mario: The Origami King, one of the jokes that can be optionally encountered in the brief visit to Peach's Castle late in the game is attempting to open the door on the right side of the foyer, which is locked. Bowser will then suggest there is nothing on the other side to begin with.

While this is true in the sense that there is no actual way to open the door and it does not lead to a room, looking behind the door reveals there is actually a space there that is identical to the spaces used for loading zones behind other openable doors in the game, so the door could in fact accommodate being opened and taking Mario to another room. It stands to reason that the space behind the door would not be modeled at all if it was not intended to be opened at any point, as is overwhelmingly the case with unopenable doors in 3D video games.

This suggests that the door was possibly intended to lead somewhere during development and the room was removed, and Bowser's comment is not merely making fun of unopenable doors in video games but also is inside joke for the developers. It should however be noted that it is possible that the space was simply copied over from the other side of the room when it was modeled (since the layout is symmetrical), though the room is not actually exactly symmetrical making this slightly less likely.

Source: noclip.website

Promotional shirt from the Tour de Fun, an event held in Chicago by Nintendo of America in 1990.

Source: 5starvintage

Super Mario Run contains, among other unused graphics, two "dummy" graphics in its files that are absurdly low-resolution images of a Bowser statue and the Acorn Plains background, rendering them nearly unrecognizable.

Source: DogToon64

Extremely rare officially licensed 1987 Golf: Japan Course (Japan-exclusive Famicom Disk System golf game) handkerchief from Japan.

Source: nadeshico.Japan

Original illustration from the El Mundo de Nintendo newsletter, a precursor to the Mexican edition of the Club Nintendo magazine, featuring Mario alongside other NES game characters.

Source: SuperGamer18