Small Mario Findings

Officially licensed 2026 Super Mario Galaxy Movie pouch from Japan.

Source: 1468z

Highest-quality available screenshot of the poker-playing ghosts from the pre-release version of Luigi's Mansion, originally published in the UK Nintendo Official Magazine in 2000. In the finished game, the ghosts are absent, though a tiny barely visible image of them can be found on one of the machines in the Ghost Portrificationizer room.

Source: Delphinus48

Illustration from an article in a 1993 issue of the Japanese Famitsu magazine, serving as a mock-up of a speculation about the future of video game presentation.

The article posits that if games using photorealistic imagery like Mortal Kombat are popular, but so are games with highly cartoony characters like the Mario series, then surely something combining the two styles into one (with cartoon bodies and live-action heads) would eventually emerge as well.

Source: Famitsu (Japan), Issue 222, 1993

1992 box of Kellogg's Apple Jacks with a Super Mario World cross-promotion event. While the Mario & Yoshi and Koopa Paratroopa illustrations are merely redrawn official art, the artwork of Mario holding six maps of the Forest of Illusion is entirely original.

Source: estatesaleuniverse

In the Poisonous Pipeline level of Donkey Kong Country 3, a bizarre "pseudo Warp Barrel" glitch may occur underneath the Koin enemy near the end of the stage whereby the playable character will act as through entering a barrel and warping to a nearby location, despite no actual barrel being present.

This appears to be tied to the exit barrel from the level's second minigame that leads to this location, but has not been observed to occur with other minigame exits in the game.

Source: DarXmash

Reader-submitted artwork of Peach with peaches, featured in a 2004 issue of the Japanese Nintendo Dream magazine.

Source: Nintendo Dream (Japan), Issue 120, 2004

Officially licensed Super Mario Bros. holographic wristwatch (and its packaging) from Japan.

Source: blacktangent

In Super Smash Bros. Brawl, if Wario is knocked off his Wario Bike by an attack on the same exact frame as he would fall of the bike on his own (e.g. due to riding too long), he will drop two bikes at the same time.

The bottom left and bottom right animations show slowed-down versions of the same scenario except that in the bottom left one Wario falls off normally, while in the bottom right one Ganondorf attacks him on the correct frame for the glitch to activate.

Interestingly, both bikes need to be destroyed for Wario to be able to use the Wario Bike move again after this.

Cover of a 1997 issue of the Next Generation magazine, featuring the head of a Mario render (particularly his punching render from Super Mario 64) behind shattered glass.

Source: VGArtAndTidbits

Unlicensed Korean Mario toys, featuring a combination of redrawn artwork originating from various games and Mario cartoon series.

Source: 396kancho

Print ad for officially licensed 1993 Super Mario Bros. cookies.

Source: anguilline, discontinuedfoods

In Paper Mario: The Origami King, Luigi is found in a broken-off piece of Peach's Castle near the beginning of the game (left). Much later, Peach's Castle itself is visited, where the room that contains that broken piece can optionally be entered (right).

Almost all of the details about the piece and the room line up, with small missing pieces being explainable as having been broken off and scattered.

However, one discrepancy is the carpet. The room shows the carpet went clearly all the way to the edge of the broken piece, while the carpet in the broken piece has a gap between its right edge and the edge of the floor. It is unlikely that the carpet was intended to look like it was torn away in the cataclysm (since that would not have created such a clean geometrically aligned cut), and appears to actually be an oversight.

Source: noclip.website

Design from an officially licensed 1989 "Mario Madness" T-shirt. In a rare instance for official Mario merchandise, this uses neither a Mario game logo nor any actual Mario imagery.

In the February 2019 announcement trailer for Super Mario Maker 2, the Twisters in the Super Mario World game style resembled the Foo enemies from New Super Mario Bros. Wii, instead of their minimalist circular design from the finished game.

Below is a recreation of the pre-release design and spinning animation, which can be reasonably assumed to be completely accurate due to the high resolution of the trailer allowing the pixels to be reproduced clearly.

Source: DogToon64

Rare officially licensed 1995 Cranky Kong plush from Japan.

Source: japantreasureguild

On Roll 'em Raceway in Super Mario Party Jamboree, the players can roll four Dice Blocks at once. As an extension to the "matching 7s" bonus that is a longstanding tradition in the series and would grant (often 50) coins upon rolling two or three 7s, rolling four 7s on this board rewards the player with 70 coins.

Top: Luigi's 3D model has two hair tufts on the back of his head that are visible whenever he takes off his hat.

Bottom: in the Nintendo 3DS version of Luigi's Mansion, these are stored at a small size inside his head at all times, since storing them in their proper location would make them clip through the hat. They only emerge whenever his hat is off. Note that in the original GameCube version of the game, the tufts are absent to begin with.

Source: Fristi