Common misconceptions regarding the Super Mario Bros. franchise.
Examples:
- Mario is always viewed as using his head to smash blocks open in the games, which leads to people joking that Mario suffers brain damage or a similar injury by the end of the game. While not obvious at first, if one looks closely when Mario jumps, he raises a fist in the air as he jumps and his fist hits the block, not his head. Ironically, if Mario is using a power-up that lets him fly or he is holding something in his hands, he really does use his head to break the blocks, but this is usually due to lack of proper animations. In official media, Mario always uses his fist to hit blocks from underneath, though Luigi actually does bash blocks with his head in Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World. This example is used as the page image of video games' Common Knowledge page.
- Similarly, Mario does not "spit" fireballs from his mouth after collecting a Fire Flower, he "throws" them from his hands. (Again, Luigi does spit fireballs from his mouth in Super Mario All-Stars + Super Mario World.) For that matter, apart from the Mushrooms in the Mario & Luigi series and The Super Mario Bros. Movie, he doesn't "eat" the various powerups he encounters. Even as graphics continue to improve, Mario is still depicted as simply absorbing power-ups into his body when he "collects" them. However, a Club Nintendo comic says Mario eats Fire Flowers and when Mario is talking to a Lakitu cameraman in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door, the Camerman asks Mario if he eats Fire Flowers.
- Many fan videos joke that the manual for Super Mario Bros. states all the blocks are Mushroom Kingdom citizens transformed into blocks and thus whenever Mario breaks a block, he's killing a citizen. The original manual actually says only the Power-Up Blocks are transformed citizens, and they are noticeably completely indestructible within the game; in fact, they actually help him by giving out the various items they hide.
- Everyone "knows" that Mario's original name was Jumpman, but it actually wasn't. Before the character debuted in Donkey Kong, Shigeru Miyamoto called him "Mr. Video" and planned to include him in various different video games as cameos. And even before that, artwork of the character was labelled "Ossan", which is Japanese for "middle-aged guy". On top of that, while most media at the time of Donkey Kong's release calls Mario Jumpman, a flyer with story information explicitly calls him "little Mario". Likewise, Donkey Kong was always intended to be Donkey Kong (due to an assumption that the name would read as "stubborn ape" to English speakers) and is not a misspelling of "Monkey Kong".
- Whenever Daisy's kingdom of Sarasaland is brought up, it is always said to be a kingdom that consists only of a desert. However, Sarasaland is made up of four different climates. Alongside the desert of Birabuto, there is the aquatic Muda Kingdom, Easton is made up of rocky terrain, and the Chai Kingdom is based on Ancient China.
- Everyone "knows" that Mario is abusive towards Yoshi in Super Mario World, hitting the poor dinosaur on the head to make it attack his foes. In actuality, it only appears this way due to sprite limitations; official artwork
◊ has always depicted Mario pointing forward at their target, not smacking Yoshi, and this is how it has always been represented in more recent media◊ with higher-fidelity graphics. As for Mario dumping Yoshi down a Bottomless Pit just to save his own skin, that is a purely player choice and there is no part of the game where that is required. In 2017, it was "confirmed" in an interview with Takashi Tezuka and Shigefumi Hino that Mario has always been hitting Yoshi on the head... except it wasn't confirmed at all. The interview actually reveals that this was the original intention, but it was changed during development to Mario telling Yoshi "Go!" specifically to avoid making him seem abusive towards Yoshi. Unfortunately, misleading headlines in reports covering this interview only worsened the Common Knowledge effect. Though Mario has displayed hostility towards Yoshi in some early 90s spin-off games (such as angrily shooting the Super Scope above his head in Yoshi's Safari and chasing him with a hammer after stealing his cookie jar in the NES and Game Boy versions of Yoshi's Cookie), Super Mario World being cited as an example of such is simply false. - Mario is a middle-aged man in many gamers' eyes. While this was true in very early titles - thus why Mario was played by older men in live action adaptations - it has long since changed. Mustaches tend to make people seem older, after all. Mario (and Luigi, for that matter) are actually very young men in their twenties, barely older than Peach, as evidenced by games like Yoshi's Island DS and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time showing the three of them as babies at the same time. In the Japanese version of Super Smash Bros. Melee, he's said to be 26, and Miyamoto stated in 2016 that Mario is currently considered to be 24 years old.
- Fanon often is confused for canon:
- There has never been a "Clawdia Koopa" (supposedly Bowser's ex and the mother of both the Koopalings and Bowser Jr.) mentioned in any official media; as far as anyone can tell, the name comes from Lemmy's Land.
- Stanley from Donkey Kong 3 is not Mario's cousin and has never interacted with him except for a single Saturday Supercade episode.
- Mario's species name is not homo nintendonus, and Yoshi's full name is not T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas. Both ideas come from a 1993 character guide published by Nintendo's American branch, was written by someone unaffiliated with their Japanese branch, and uses a whimsical sense of humor throughout that indicates it is not meant to be taken seriously.
- The arcade version of Super Mario Bros., Vs. Super Mario Bros., does not have levels from The Lost Levels in it. The arcade game was made first, by many of the same people, and some levels were copied into the console sequel, so it's The Lost Levels which has Vs. levels in it, not the other way around.
- Super Mario Bros. 2 is not a "rip-off" of Doki Doki Panic. While Doki Doki Panic does count as a Licensed Game due to using characters created by Fuji TV, both games were entirely developed by Nintendo. Similarly, Super Mario Bros. 2 is not simply a re-skin of Doki Doki Panic either, as the former adds many gameplay changes compared to the latter, such as being able to run with the B button, characters becoming small when at 1 HP, only having to beat the game once instead of four times to see the true ending, and several other things.
- It's been stated matter-of-factly that the seven Koopalings were "based on" the creators of Super Mario Bros. 3. This comes from a somewhat clumsily-translated interview with Miyamoto in the Nintendo Power "Mario Mania" player's guide. Read in full context, it's clear that Miyamoto is saying the various creators of SMB3 each got to design their own Koopaling, not that the Koopalings were based on themselves in some way. This explains why none of the Koopalings really "match" each other, from a design perspective, and why there is a female one, despite the fact that no women were part of the design team.
- There's a portion of the fanbase that believes Bowser used his Japanese name of Koopa in the NES games. With one tiny blip, this isn't the case; the name Bowser goes all the way back to the instruction manual for his debut, Super Mario Bros. While he was called Koopa in the cartoons and the live-action movie, English translations of the games have consistently called him Bowser, with the exception of Super Mario Bros. 3, which does indeed call him Koopa in English, though this is primarily due to mistranslation.
- One fact that tends to come up in Alternative Character Interpretations of Mario being less than heroic, or even straight-up evil, is that he stomps on enemies that are beyond harmless, like Goombas, who don't even try to attack Mario, they just mind their own business and walk in pre-determined paths, the only danger being from running into them. It is true that in the original game and other old 2D platformers, technical limitations made it so that enemies couldn't have complex attack patterns, so they simply walked back and forth, acting more like obstacles. In 3D platformers, and in spin-offs like the various RPGs, though, it's made clear that the Goombas that work for Bowser aren't simply "minding their own business" and they do actively try to attack Mario. The same can be said about basic Koopas.
- A lot of people seem under the impression that the enemies are not only minding their own business, but are nothing more than the local wildlife. However, as far back as Super Mario Bros., they have been portrayed as an invading military force.
- Luigi is often treated as the poster child for put-upon little brothers, with Mario being a Big Brother Bully. This seems to come from people misinterpreting or misunderstanding Luigi's second banana complex. Mario's not a Glory Hound who forces Luigi out of the spotlight because he can't share it. As a matter of fact, Mario is just about the only person who actually appreciates Luigi. Luigi's issues instead stem from the fact that everybody else puts the spotlight solely on Mario, ignoring him and his accomplishments, even if he was right there alongside Mario to help. Luigi's cowardly personality also means he tends to prefer being safe at home than going on adventures, often being dragged into his latest adventure against his will, so it may even be that he actually prefers Mario to be in the spotlight. The RPGs also show that Luigi is typically left behind so he can then guard the Mushroom Kingdom while Mario is off on his adventure.
- This track from Mario Golf for the Nintendo 64 is almost exclusively referred to as "Dormie". However, not only does it play when a player has one hole left to win in Match Play/Get Character regardless of whether or not it's a Dormie, but it plays on the last hole in all other multiplayer modes.
- Regarding Mario Tennis Ultra Smash:
- Gameplay-wise Ultra Smash is not "Open with Mega Mushrooms". The game added two nuanced mechanics that significantly altered the gameplay, making it more strategic: the Jump Shots and the titular Ultra Smash (which serves as a way to severely punish your opponent when they are unable to return the ball properly —akin to Aces's Special Shots— negating the luck aspect of the Chance Shots, which was one of the most disliked things Open introduced). It also added a new Classic Tennis mode without Chance Shots/Power Shots for those who preferred the gameplay of the first two installments, which Open didn't have.
- It doesn't have only one court either, it has nine: Hard, Clay, Grass, Carpet, Mushroom, Sand, Ice, Rebound and Morph; all of the variations that were previously seen in the series. What it doesn't have is non stadium-themed courts.
- Mario and Peach are often regarded to be an Official Couple by many fans and critics, with many viewing them as the video game equivalent of Mickey and Minnie. However, while there is a ton of Ship Tease between them, and it is confirmed that the two have mutual romantic feelings for each other, their relationship is portrayed differently depending on the source, with some portraying their relationship in rather romantic◊ ways, while some others don't address the status of the romantic relationship at all. Either way, at the very least they are officially considered to be mutual Love Interests (if implied). There were plans for them to finally hook up in Super Mario Odyssey, but this was scrapped from the final game likely to maintain the series' status quo. Likewise, Luigi and Daisy are not officially a couple either, despite the two of them having plenty of Ship Tease with each other as well ever since NES Open Tournament Golf —where the pairing originated as a case of Pair the Spares— acting as Luigi's caddie just like Peach does for Mario. Ship Teasing in various games aside, the only official mention of the relationship status to date is in Super Smash Bros. Melee where it's stated that "After her appearance in Mario Golf, some gossips started portraying her as Luigi's answer to Mario's Peach".
- Calling anything "non-canon". The Mario franchise is a Quirky Work with explicit Negative Continuity, and no game is more or less "canon" than any other. Not Paper Mario, not Super Mario RPG, and not Mario Kart, Mario Party, or any other instance of Go-Karting with Bowser.
- It is often believed that in Super Paper Mario, Dimentio kills Luigi, Mario, Peach, and Bowser after Chapter 6. Even This Very Wiki once claimed that in many pages. In reality, he just teleported them to the afterlife; hence why they aren't turned into Shaydes and are allowed to leave.
- Shy Guys are known as standard recurring enemies, much like the Goombas and Koopas. Despite this, they have only been enemies in two games of the main series, Super Mario Bros. 2 and Super Mario 64 (with only the Fly Guy variant appearing in the latter). They've been common enemies in much of the spinoffs, most notably Yoshi's Island and Paper Mario. Standard Shy Guys are rare enough in the main series that the closest they've come to debuting in the 3D games is their appearance in the adjacent game Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, which is merely built with the Super Mario 3D World engine and assets.
- On November 17, 2014, GameSpot posted an article about an interview with Koichi Hayashida on Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker. He discusses the Toads' gender, where he claims that they never went out of their way to decide the sex on them. This led to the conclusion that the Toads are literally genderless. However, that's not the case. In an interview, Shigeru Miyamoto clarifies that when the Toads were first designed, they didn't focus on their genders, though their Japanese name Kinopio was chosen as a portmanteau of kinoko (mushroom) and Pinocchio, Pinocchio being a boy, of course. Once Toadette came into the picture, they clearly designed her to be female. Because she was the most feminine out of the others and because the character Toad was clearly referred to as he, it led the conclusion that the rest were male with the RPGs being exceptions. In other words, it's likely that Hayashida's comment was implying that the Toads just have Ambiguous Genders and not entirely genderless, a point that is further made with Super Smash Bros. Ultimate with the Move Lists for both Peach and Daisy. In Peach's, it clearly states that Toad is male, while Daisy's refers to the Blue Toad as an it as the other Toad colors aren't as significant.
- Fans and some early official sources often refer to Rosalina by the term "princess" because of her crown and dress. None of her official appearances have ever referred to her as a princess, and in her debut game, Super Mario Galaxy, she's implied to be a near godlike entity in the present, while her backstory suggests she originally was an ordinary girl without any sort of noble background.
- Several sources agree that Nastasia's mind-altering powers should be referred to as "hypnosis", as that is used more to describe them than "brainwashing". However, outside of one reference to "hypno-powers", they are exclusively referred to in-game as "brainwashing".
- Waluigi is often referred to as the "main villain" of Dance Dance Revolution Mario Mix. While it is one of his more prominent appearances since Waluigi starts the plot by stealing the Music Keys, he's beaten at the end of the first world, a quarter of the way into the game, and never appears again after that. The actual main villain is, of course, Bowser.
- Many can easily assume that Wario and Waluigi are brothers, since they are the respective evil twins of Mario and Luigi (who are brothers) and are very similar in themselves. However, their relationship is deliberately meant to be ambiguous, with official sources often going back and forth on if they're related at all or if they're just close friends. That said, modern sources such as Waluigi's profile on Nintendo's Japanese website have indicated that the two are unrelated.
- When discussing Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, it's common to claim the game was passed over for a Western release solely because it was too difficult, mainly as a point against Nintendo. However, there's a variety of factors as to why it wasn't released stateside initially. Not only was it too difficult (there were also many difficult games licensed by Nintendo in the US, they just didn't have the value that Mario had), the game looked too similar to the previous game, and this wouldn't bode well for a new series that came out of the ashes of The Great Video Game Crash of 1983, where one of the problems were games that looked exactly like their predecessor, but with new levels.
- It's easy to think that Peach's dress gives her the ability to float. In actuality, 3D World has her wearing different power-up suits and still retaining her floating, meaning that it's an innate ability.
- It's believed by fans that Daisy used to be Ambiguously Brown before her redesign, to the point that some have accused Nintendo of "whitewashing" her when they redesigned her. However, Daisy has always been depicted with a fair-skinned appearance as far back as her debut in Super Mario Land. While some of her renders and models from the early '90s and early 2000s, as well as Peach's Daisy-themed Palette Swap in Super Smash Bros. Melee do give her a slight tan, this was more an unintentional byproduct of the limitations of early CGI at the time rather than a deliberate creative choice, as several human Mario characters — including Mario himself — have been depicted with a tanned look in many early 3D renders around the mid-to-late 90s and early 2000s.
- The fruits that Yoshi can eat in Super Mario World are berries according to the manual as well as the in-game files. Many players mistake them for apples, likely due to their large size and red/green coloration. The fact that they grow on bushes instead of trees (though some can be found on trees in the Forest of Illusion levels) should be telling.
- Mario being born from a peach that came from space is sometimes mentioned as a serious backstory Nintendo came up with for him at some point, as shown in Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. However, the OVA where that happened was never intended to be a straight adaptation of the games and was instead an adaptation of the Japanese folk story Momotarōnote that had Mario characters playing the roles of the characters in the story, while the other two featured them in other fairy tales.
- Due to one article, it is often thought that Wario's image as a tough character in games like Wario Land was fabricated by the english localization. In tandem, it is also believed that Wario's goofy and gross nature was removed in American advertisements for the Wario games. In actuality, Wario has always had "macho" and "slovenly" elements to his personality from the beginning in all regions. For example, the Japanese commercial for Wario Land II, focuses on Wario's strength. The first Wario Land game was even at one point going to have the subtitle, Kairiki Wario, meaning "Super Strength Wario". One example of Wario's sillier qualities being shown in western advertising is the American commercial for Wario Land 3, which showcases Wario's Iron Butt Monkey nature, wacky transformations and crude manners. Wario's Wario Land moves also occasionally show up in WarioWare, such as his famous dash attack being used in the "Loot scoot" minigame of WarioWare, Inc.: Mega Microgame$.
- It's widely believed that there are a set of strict guidelines regarding the Mario series, informally referred to as the "Mario Mandates", that prevent spinoff games (particularly RPGs) from using characters and locations that don't appear in Mario platformers. This rumor started around the time Paper Mario: Sticker Star released, bringing with it a Continuity Reboot that traded in the diverse cast of previous games for identical-looking Toads, and gained ground when interviews regarding Paper Mario: The Origami King seemingly confirmed that the team was "no longer allowed" to create original characters based off existing Mario species. Other Mario spinoffs released around the same time as and after these, however, still feature diverse casts and settings — most notably, the remake of Super Mario RPG still uses unique designs for the Chancellor and other Toad characters — indicating that these "mandates" are strictly an internal decision on Intelligent Systems' part, fueled by an overly literal interpretation of Shigeru Miyamoto's suggestion that the team "prioritize using characters from the main Mario universe wherever possible."note
- Daisy's infamous "Hi, I'm Daisy!" quote is hit with this twice. There's one crowd that thinks Daisy says this in every single appearance, but another crowd that will counteract this by saying she only says this in Mario Kart: Double Dash!!. Neither is true. In addition to Double Dash!! she also says this in Mario and Sonic at the London 2012 Olympic Games before the start of some events.
