The Bow on Birdo

Pauline with a giant steamed bun by Studio Despotamus - Joel Gaylard

“So, the below image of Princess Peach is official Nintendo art for a Club Nintendo exclusive calendar of some sort and I thought it was really cool, because of this I tried to reproduce a similar image using my favourite Super Mario lady Pauline (above). I did it in half an hour in Adobe Illustrator, it’s not perfect by any means or original but it’s fan art, so that’s okay AND I thought it was cute enough to post!”

“Hey, I think we should have a new female character in this Super Mario RPG game we’re making.”

“Oh, that would make sense.”

“Yeah, and maybe she could be a bad guy, because we don’t have many female villains in the series.”

“Sure, sure. That would probably be great.”

“Okay then. I was also thinking that she could have gigantic boobs.”

“Umm…”

“Like, just pendulous mammary sacs that jiggle hilariously when Mario hits her.”

So here’s a weird story. A few years back, I met my friend’s stepdad, Howard Phillips, the guy who was the first American employee of Nintendo, who appeared in cartoon form in the Nintendo Power “Howard & Nester” comics, who was a major force in pushing Nintendo products in the U.S. and most importantly of all, who told Nintendo execs that the original sequel to Super Mario Bros. wouldn’t fly in the U.S. He set into motion the chain of events that brought the American Super Mario Bros. 2 into existence.

It wasn’t until just recently that it occurred to me that because of Howard Phillips, little gay six-year-old me got to play as Princess Peach and ended up becoming one of those guys who always insists on playing as the girl character. In fact, it’s because of Phillips, more or less indirectly, that Peach exists today in Smash Bros. with the moves she has. In that one decision, this guy ended up shaping a lot of my video game experiences.

By me. In fact, when I was a kid, I had dreams that looked like this.

My Christmas present to you is one final episode of Singing Mountain in 2017: ICE MUSIC. But not the holly-jolly Christmassy stuff. No, this is the sparkly ice palace stuff — chilled out winter landscape music. I hope you enjoy. Here’s to a chilled out 2018.