Small Mario Findings

Rare artwork of Mario hitting his head on a pipe in World 4-Fortress 2 of Super Mario Bros. 3, used only once at a small print size in the official 1988 Nintendo Power guide for the game and nowhere else.

Very early on during the development of Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, the intention was to keep the original eye colors of Mario, Luigi and Peach as blue, while the finished game gives all characters flat-color dark eyes. This idea was seemingly abandoned so early that even in the game's prototype version only few sprites still have those eye colors.

Source: tcrf

Officially licensed 1981 Donkey Kong arcade figurine depicting Pauline playing the arcade machine, including the original packaging.

Source: disneywars

In Super Mario Bros. Wonder, an amusing interaction occurs between Pole Blocks and the Armad armadillo enemies. If a player pulls up from a hanging state on a horizontal pole directly underneath a rolling Armad, the Armad will get launched at incredible speeds, as seen in the footage.

Source: enchanted-glimmer-4

Papercraft activity for Super Mario Land 2, featuring an original drawing of the game's setting that is completely inaccurate to the actual map in the game itself and instead repositions all the landmarks, from a 1994 issue of the Japanese Shogakukan magazine.

Source: mercari

Unreleased (what would have become an) official port of Donkey Kong Jr. for the BBC Micro home computer, developed in 1984 with Nintendo's license but never released since the company, Atarisoft, canceled many projects at that time due to financial trouble. The project was leaked online much later by the original developer.

Source: gamesthatwerent

Top: in Paper Mario: The Origami King, the streamers are each destroyed by finding the spool at the source of the streamer and hitting it with the 1,000-Fold Arms ability. The center of the spool is only ever seen from the front in fixed view, and is destroyed alongside the streamer, so it is impossible to see what it actually looks like.

Bottom: using a model viewer to see it without the paper of the streamer from the side, it becomes apparent the spool is actually a stake, hammered into the wall holding it. While this can be inferred in-game due to the fact that a hole remains in the walls holding the spools, it can never be actually seen. The designers did not strictly need to model the pointy end of the stake, yet still did it presumably for authenticity.

Source: noclip.website

Officially licensed 2021 Shy Guy plush.

Source: watch4tanya

Rhomps are enemies that appear exclusively on the sandy slide in the first mission of Slipsand Galaxy in Super Mario Galaxy 2. Due to the fixed camera angle on the slide segment, it is impossible to see where exactly they appear from, as the camera points down at first and then points up to show them when they are already present.

Using external tools, we can see how they appear. They rise from the sand suddenly off-camera (though due to the curve of the slide, the rear few rows are actually above the sand), which suggests they may have originally been intended to appear on-screen (or at least visible in the far distance). This is because usually, objects that were never intended to be seen appearing on-screen have no spawning animation whatsoever, and simply "pop" into existence.

Regarding the despawning of the Rhomps: normally, they fade out when they reach the camera. This is supposed to make it look like the camera is simply phasing through them and they continue to move past it (the same way many other objects in 3D video games fade out when they would otherwise obscure the view), but in reality, they simply despawn when they fade away.

Source: SMG2 (NA, Wii)

Officially licensed 2026 Donkey Kong Bananza plush keychain from Japan, depicting Donkey Kong with a Banandium Gem. Note how due to plushes physically not being able to appear translucent, the diamond-like gem at the end was reinterpreted as having each facet in a slightly different color, to attempt to convey a scintillating effect.

Source: image

Back of specific versions of the officially licensed 1988 Nintendo Cereal System cereal boxes, advertising trading cards included in the boxes. Note the unique color scheme on the Koopa Troopa, giving it a red shell while combining that with green legs.

Source: discontinuedfoods

Top: in Paper Mario, during the battle against Bowser in the hallway of Peach's Castle near the end of the game (as opposed to the fight in the same location at the beginning), he will say this line when using the Star Rod for the first time.

Bottom: this is a reference to a line from Emperor Palpatine in the 1983 Star Wars movie Return of the Jedi.

Source: retroelectrical

Officially licensed 2017 "Mario jumping into a Warp Pipe" beanie. The design inventively has the Warp Pipe on the inside of the hat so that the length of the Warp Pipe will be adjusted based on how much the hat is rolled up, as seen on the right.

Source: miss.daisy40

Near the end of Mario & Luigi: Brothership, Bowser's Castle becomes inaccessible, and remains such forever on that save file. However, it is possible to clip into the castle and explore it as usual if the Fire & Ice Bros. Move is performed in a specific spot near the door, as shown in the footage.

The catch is that while it is possible to enter the castle in this state, exiting it is not actually possible at all, since the game will turn into a black screen with no way of escaping it if that is attempted. As such, saving inside Bowser's Castle after clipping into it will make the player's save game permanently broken, so saving after doing this glitch is highly unadvisable.

Source: Alfredo18

The internal name for Paper Mario: Color Splash is "gojika", which is most likely a Romanization of 午時花 (noon flower), which is famous for its distinctive 5 petals. This is almost certainly a reference to this game being the fifth in the Paper Mario series.

Source: info

In Super Mario World, many glitches exist that allow Yoshi to eat unintended objects, some of which end up placing unintended items into the item reserve box. One very commonly used application of this is placing a Magic Ball into the reserve box, which normally appears only in the Sunken Ghost Ship and instantly wins the level if touched.

If the Magic Ball is released from the reserve box inside a bonus game and collected, the bonus game will be "completed" in the same way a level would be, instead of being "won" the regular way. This is, of course, not intended and will cause the bonus game room to reload, except without the blocks that comprise the actual bonus game in it. Mario will be trapped in the empty room forever until the game is reset.

Note that -the pipe in the upper left is an exit-only pipe and cannot be entered -there is no timer so Mario cannot die from the time running out -pressing Start + Select does not work so none of the potential ways of leaving the room are actually possible.

Source: Wingcapman

Box artwork for an officially licensed 1986 Famicom-themed mahjong game from Japan, featuring some redrawn and even unique Mario artwork like the Bloopers on the bottom.

Source: chriscovell