Nintendo settles decades-long debate: Mario’s a jerk who's been punching Yoshi all this time
Despite his status as the unofficial king of video games, it's time Mario got off his damn high horse. Or, um, high... dinosaur-frog-horse creature thing?
In an interview to commemorate the release of the mini SNES Classic, Super Mario World's directors finally settled a long-running debate. Apparently, every time you pressed the Y button to use Yoshi's tongue, you were actually making Mario punch his loyal reptilian steed in his adorable face.
Nintendo developer (and recent childhood-ruiner) Shigefumi Hino explained that:
“Lots of people think that while Mario is pointing his finger forward, he’s saying ‘Go,’ and Yoshi’s tongue comes out. However, the set up that I drew was that when Mario punches Yoshi in the head, the character’s tongue shoots out in surprise.”
So, like, surprise! You were an unwitting enabler of virtual animal abuse -- you sick bastard.
Somehow, it gets worse. Not only did you smack Yoshi upside the head every time you needed his tongue to progress in the game (ew), but he also made audible protests to such treatment.
Hino continued that:
“What’s more, there’s an added ‘bop’ sound. However, it seemed like people would say ‘Poor Yoshi,’ so that’s why it became that Mario is saying ‘Go.’”
What in the ever living actual hell, Nintendo? What finally tipped you off to the idea that this might distress your young audience? Or, more importantly, why was head-punching the first option?
We may never know.
But it isn't totally out of character for Mario, who's kinda always been a dick about the whole hero thing anyway. I mean, how many other animal and sentient mushroom corpses has he left on his destructive path to "saving" princess Peach (read: getting some of that princess booty)?
We're shook.
Honestly, we're pretty much fully Team Bowser now because -- who knows -- maybe his real motivation the whole time was to free his fellow reptilian brethren from such oppression.
Apparently reality is a lie, the winners write history, and everyone you thought was a hero is actually the villain.
Welp... be sure to grab an SNES Classic if you wanna relive the good-old days of punching innocent dino-horses in the face! Each console will include a copy of Super Mario World, with animal-abuse animations intact as originally intended.
Jess is an LA-based culture critic who covers intimacy in the digital age, from sex and relationship to weed and all media (tv, games, film, the web). Previously associate editor at Kill Screen, you can also find her words on Vice, The Atlantic, Rolling Stone, Vox, and others. She is a Brazilian-Swiss American immigrant with a love for all things weird and magical.
