Retronauts - 597: Bowser, Part 2

Episode Date: March 11, 2024

Back in December, we thrilled you with the first 20 years of Bowser's history. And, given that he's nearly at the "lordy, lordy" stage of his life, we still have a few more decades to discuss. On this episode of Retronauts, join Bob Mackey, Henry Gilbert, and Drew Mackie (of Gayest Episode Ever) as the crew discusses that large lizard's adventures in the 21st century.

This week on Retronauts, Will Kupa Yupa. Hello everybody. Welcome to another episode of Retronauts. I'm your host for this one, Bob Mackie, And today's topic is Bowser, part two, because four short months ago, I left everyone hanging with part one of our history of Bowser from the Super Mario Universe. That was episode 577, where we covered the character's origins, his role in the core games through Mario Sunshine, and some groundbreaking Bowser moments. So this time around, we're going to look at the last 20 years of Bowser, plus his appearances in the many, many Mario spinoffs. And I'm going to assure everyone out there, we can't come. cover everything because I dare anyone to look at the Bowser entry in the Mario Wiki and get

through that in less than a day. It's impossible. But I have curated their great research and found the most essential Bowser things to talk about. Before I continue here, who is here with me today? Who is our Californian correspondent? Grumpy Daddy, who's also never had a wife? Drew Mackey. So we have at least one person on this podcast with some similarities to Bowser. Who else do we have? Kupling's deadbeat dad, Henry Gilbert. Thank you. Henry was not with us on part one. And I have to say that I really wanted to invite Diamond back,

but this was going to be a recording for a different topic that fell through. So I'm recording an emergency episode that literally posts in a few days. So I am doing this at a time that's incompatible with Diamond's Japan time. So this is my apology to Diamond. And I'm sure Diamond might have a few things to say in the comments of this post. So that's just my little Miaculp. there. So, yes.

Mia Cupa. Thank you. Yes, we can't stop the Cupa puns. Even though we did the whole Bouser Cupa discussion the first time around. And we all admitted that as elder millennials, we are kind of stuck on Cupa a bit. I don't know. Henry, you weren't on part one. You're constantly talking about Cupa slash Bowser in our time together.

What is your connection with this character? Well, the Mario series is, yeah, it's my favorite game series of all, of all video games it's what brought me to video games uh really like the first video game i truly loved was super mario brothers uh played at a friend's house when i was like four so i've i've always love the maria series and and bowser through association though of course all my merchandise is mario merchandise i'm not a bowser fan but uh i totally there's he is the best villain of mario i've come to love bowser especially in the stuff in this era of Bowser that is laid out before us, that is when I truly came to love the character

of Bowser. And on top of that, yes, I, at my wedding that Bob, you attended, my husband and I dressed in, well, normal white tuxedos, but stealthily, I was dressed as Mario from Super Mario Odyssey and his white tux and top hat. And my husband in Bowser's white top tux and top hat as well. So I, you know. So you had the Mario Bowser role play wedding. And you had the amoebo's because your costumes were based

on the amoebo which were based on the Mario Odyssey character designs, right? Yes, we had the tuxedo amoebo's in our hands. We took photos with him in front of the Harvey Milk bust that is in the San Francisco town town hall. The city hall.

There you go. It's a city. I was going to say, like when there's a new Mario game, you're going to have to have a recommitment ceremony because there's going to have updated costumes. It's going to be a big to do. Our official proposal was the day of the release of Mariwati as well. That's when he, like, we had talked about it before, but officially a ring was presented to me in front of the Castro Theater on the day of the release of Super Mario Odyssey, because just to be extra adorable. I had no idea. It was actually on the release date. Yes. Yeah, that was.

Darren's plan was very nice, yes. How did Darren feel about being the Bowser in this relationship? He likes it. He is, my husband enjoys the character of Bowser. He is a very, he likes Bowser a lot, yes. You know, I don't know what you're implicating there, Henry, but whenever I would come over, he'd be always spinning around the apartment on his back. So I have to assume that he was aspiring to be like Bowser.

No, it's, and as far as the Bowser versus Kupa debate is, He's always been, even though I of course was addicted to the Deke Mario cartoons, if you ask me his name, I would have said ever since he became Bowser in 64 in the U.S. I never called him King Kupa again. He's not Kupa to me, not King Kupa. He's Bowser. Even though when you go to say Universal Studios and see T-shirts with the Bowser insignia on it, what it says in Japanese under his name is Kupa. So I'm. I'm like, oh, I guess he's still Kupa in official merchandise in Japanese to this day. Yes, they didn't ever revise the name in Japan. And, you know, I'm still at a crossroads. But doing that first part really helped me get some Kupa therapy through my system. So that is where Henry stands with Bowser slash Kupa. And let's pick up where we left off because previously we talked about the origins of the character, the name, where the visual design came from.

the whole, again, the Bowser-Cupa split when that happened. And now we're going to pick up in the 21st century. But first, we're going to start in 1995 because I forgot that technically Bowser is in Super Mario World 2, Yoshi's Island. And I think I forgot this because in this game, he looks a lot like Bowser Jr. And maybe that's why I wanted to forget because I just, maybe some part of me was like, oh, that's Bowser Jr., who cares? But no, it's literally Baby Bowser in this game. And he is the final boss. Listeners should know I also hate Bowser Jr.

I'm an anti-Bowser Jr. person. Do not like him. Hate it when he came around and he replaced the Kupilings. When we had on our side podcast, what a cartoon, we had on the creators of OKKO, we thank them for doing a two-partner episode about how much Bowser Jr. sucks. Well, I mean, a recent release has rehabilitated him for some people. Sure. The Bowser Jr. design really started here because Baby Bowser. despite how the character design is a bit off and, like, you know, cartoonier than Mario normally is.

The essential Bowser Jr. elements are there, except his bib doesn't have the scary face drawn on it. Yeah, it's the practice for Bowser Jr. And this boss fight is etched in my memory. Like, Yoshi's Island, one of my all-time favorite video games. And this ending, getting to it on a rental the first time, my brother and I, it took us forever. to beat it. I remember a very tense couple. I feel it feels like it was an entire like Saturday night

of like, okay, all right, you died, all right, my turn. I'll see if I can beat him. And just over and over until we finally bested Bowser in his giant mode seven scaling form that only the Super FX2 chip could pull off.

It's true. Yeah, it was a real Marvel. And in this game though, Kamak is the real villain. He has the most agency. He He's the one who's kidnapping Mario and Luigi. And I don't know how Baby Bowser fits into his scheme, but that's just kind of where you end up at the end of the game. You enter Baby Bowser's little, his little throne room,

and he calls Yoshia Green Donkey. And you literally beat up a baby, which is great for a boss fight, and then he becomes very, very large. And honestly, my take on this is I don't like this boss battle very much. The music is really bad. And every boss fight in this game is based on a, visual gimmick. And here it's something that we've seen before. Like, oh, thing get bigger and then thing gets smaller when it goes away. I think the Raphael, the Raven fight is better. There was a

previous thing get bigger fight in this with the big boo. Like, I find those a lot more interesting than this. But in its concept, I do like the gigantic Bowser, which would then become a motif for the rest of the series, making Bowser bigger and bigger. So you don't like the music. So I like the Super NES sound chip What I don't like is the guitar synth It just reminds me of the Super Punchout soundtrack which I don't like Most of the Mega Man X music which I don't like It's just very like muffled

Not good approximation of what that sound should be It's not good It's not good However it is so the soul of like Super Nintendo sound And I love it despite the fact that it doesn't sound anything like a guitar, like it's clunky. I hate it when people are like, it's bad on purpose

and that's why I like it. But in this case, it's like the limitations of the sound hardware take me back to that place and time. It still sounds good to me. I was into how it was pushing the limits of the Super Nintendo to actually rock. In the boss fight, I always just loved how Bowser, the pressure

of Giant Bowser just crushing you if he makes it all the way to the front of the screen. And like, you don't get another chance like it's just like nope wham you did i think when it comes to the the weird noises the super nintendo can make i think i just enjoy uh the orchestra hit more than the fake electric guitar when you can assemble an entire song out of orchestra hits like in star fox for the sns i am there and to a lot of people that is probably just as grating as the the faux electric guitar in this game and other super nintendo games uh i mean also i i hate i hate to even think about the yoshi's

Island sequels, but this also set the tone of all the Baby Bowser appearances in the crappy sequels that shouldn't have the name Yoshi's Island tarnished by them. Yeah, unfortunately, it's been done like three or four times by now. But yeah, I forgot that it's something that I forget about because I think of Bowser Jr., but Baby Bowser is a going concern in the world of Nintendo as a distinct character because he does show up whenever they make a Yoshis Island game, including the most recent one. Yoshi's Crafted World, the Switch sequel to the Wii U Yoshi's Woolly World game. So, yeah, he's a major character in that.

And technically, he is a playable character in Yoshi's Island DS. Yes, you're technically playing as Yoshi, but Bowser is riding on the saddle, and he has his own kind of power there. So it should be noted, and we made a note of this last time, that playable Bowser is very, very rare, so we must embrace and appreciate any time he's playable. and here in Yoshi's Island, yes, he's playable, but do not play this game.

No. Please don't play the game. So do you think the badness of this, Steinme, Nintendo's efforts to make more baby versions of adult characters? Because for a while, it seemed like they were going to do everyone, but we never actually had to confront the horror of, like, Baby Waluigi or baby Pee Pirona or something.

They seem to have stopped. Yeah, it was, I mean, I think Nintendo went through the baby craze that America went through in the 80s, like where he had Muppet Babies and baby versions of, Looney Tunes and things like that. They had their own little phase, and I think it really peaked around the mid-aughts with Mario and Luigi partners in time, because you had Mario and Luigi fighting with Baby Mario and Baby Luigi, and I think like every baby variant of every character was

there. And then in things like Double Dash, which was a few years earlier, it was like, okay, here's your roster and like a third of it seemingly is babies, baby versions of people you like. I much prefer the metal variations that that came in. I also, I just had to Google this just to be sure because I should have done this right before, but I was like, no, wait, I must be misremembering this. So the 3DS one, Yoshi's New Island or New Yoshi's Island, that one is time travel. So for Yoshi with Baby Mario, time travels to current day to battle regular Bowser.

at the end of that game. So that's why he doesn't fight. I was like, wait, he fights Baby Bowser in the 3Ds 2, right? Like, no, he travels to the future to fight the grown-up Bowser. It seems a little silly, doesn't it? Yeah, that's not how you use time travel to take out an opponent. You have to go back to when they're a baby and dispose of them. We all know this.

But yes, that is Yoshi's Island. And the introduction of Baby Bowser still, you know, I believe Yoshi's crafted world was, I think, 2019 or 2020. So still a relevant character in some sense. sense in games that Nintendo is not working on and games that they farm out. So they're more focused on Bowser Jr. So that is 1995. Now let's jump past Mario Sunshine back to when, you know,

Mario games are getting good again with the Galaxy series starting in 2007. And, yeah, so Bowser is really upping the stakes in this game by taking on the universe instead of just one single kingdom. And technically in Galaxy 1, he causes the most damage he's ever caused in a Mario game because through his actions, the universe ends and then is recreate. created afterwards, thanks to the sacrifice of several brave little stars. We salute them. Yeah, he finally gets, like, serious again. And also, I feel like he gets even bigger than he was in, like, as in physically large than he was in sunshine. Like, he's a scarier imposing guy. And I feel like it turned away from, you know, there's, there were spin-off games we'll talk about later.

But in the in-between between Sunshine and this, he became more of a joke. Like he was more of a clown and not an imposing guy that you're like, oh, we end the game with this guy. Like it was kind of like what happens to the Skeletor? I'm just like, well, I'm not scared of Skeletor anymore. This felt like they were trying to get him scary again instead of like a, and just let all the dumb, stupid dialogue be said by Bowser Jr. Yeah, I think between Sunshine and this game, we had about five years worth of. the two RPG series, which effectively just make fun of Bowser for most of their runtime, which is fun, but you're right, it does subtract from the intent of the character originally

to be kind of fearsome in a thing that you're anxious about fighting at the end of a stage. I wonder if, I mean, we're going to talk about him in a few minutes, but I wonder if that's why they introduced the concept of Dry Bowser to make Bowser, the actual Skeletor version of his ready website. Basically turning him into a zombie, the zombie fad of the aughts was a brave decision, Nintendo. Do you notice that the baby fad and the zombie fad didn't ever collide in the Mario games? And I really think we

missed out on not getting zombie baby Mario. Yeah, I mean, I think it's just once the baby fad, once the zombie fad starts, the baby fad has to immediately screech to a halt because it is the exact opposite thing. Instead of the youngest, cutest thing, it's beyond death.

Whatever lurks beyond that door. It just depends on what, if the American subconscious is more into death or birth, which side are we on at the certain times. That's true. Yeah, I wonder if this aligns with any national movements or the economy or anything like that.

Who knows? That's not for me to find out. But I mentioned the destruction of the universe in this game and the rebirth of the characters in the universe. This is all thanks to Yoshiaki Koizumi, who is often at odds with Shigero Miyamoto when it comes to putting story in games. And I don't know what Miyamoto was doing, what he was working on. But Koizumi really put the most story in this Mario game, which is one.

why everyone after this scales back so much as if to prove a point. Like, we don't even need dialogue sometimes to set up why you're doing anything. But that's why there is Rosalina's storybook in this game. That's why it takes these, like, big, strange turns. It's not something Miyamoto likes, and he can get pretty snarky about it when you look at the interviews around the time of this game's release and the time of Mario Galaxy 2's release. Is Rosalina...

Rosalina's in Mario Galaxy 2, right? At the very end, at least. Yeah, yeah. She's there. No, I also remember in in 3D world when Rosalina is an unlockable character later, I believe that's where I saw an interview where Miyamoto was kind of razzing Kozumi of like, you always put her in these games. Like he seems, Miamota seems less into her. But yeah, I think I also think Bowser, the upping of his scariness or trying to make him a serious threat again. Like it starts right from the beginning of like you basically get like a, a. Blitzkrieg is the First word of the mind But it is an attack on the like You don't hear you don't come to town

And be like Bowser did take over Or Bowser did these things in the past You get to see what a Bowser invasion is And you get to see a bunch of terrorized toads Running around Yeah it's like a it's like a cupa Trooper fire bombing happening in the Mushroom Kingdom And you're on you're on the ground for that

And one thing I notice about you know You're right about how they're trying to make Bowser more fearsome, more ferocious, more intimidating. They kind of lose the heavy metal guitar when it comes to writing Bowser themes from this point on, and it is now epic orchestral soundtracks with usual vocal arrangements somewhere in there. Just kind of not really singing words, but kind of, you know, singing in tune with the big orchestral movement. So, yeah, this is where Bowser's themes even start changing. It would be funny if he got a one-wing angel style of Balser.

I mean, if you look up the song, the boss fight music for this game, it's approaching that and Galaxy too. It gets pretty close, actually. I have one more thought on Miyamoto and him sort of not liking all the story elements with Rosalita. And I'm reading way too much into Miyamoto's personal life when I do this. But it is really interesting that in the first Mario Galaxy, Rosalina, she's kind of God. Like she's kind of like nurturing the cosmos and growing the cosmos and restoring the cosmos once it breaks. And otherwise, Mia Butto's God for the Mara universe.

And I think it's interesting that he wouldn't like a character that is like sort of like his rifle, but like a girl. And he's like, no, no, we don't need you anymore. We have Rosalina. She controls the entire Cosmos. He's like, that's my job. I don't want this new character to be given the responsibility that I should normally have. Who is this false god with bare shoulders? It's funny.

He let Al Numa just kind of take over Zelda and make tons of, like, like Zelda's story points and deepening of the story and emotionality of the Zelda games ever since Aluma took over. But yeah, based on those Galaxy interviews, definitely I was reminded of like, Miyamoto seems to be more stuck in on

not allowing that to happen as much to Mario. Though I do think Odyssey deepened to the story more than any of the like the previous 3D Marios were allowed to. Right. Oh, for sure. Yeah. I mean, Mario Galaxy, sorry, Mario Sunshine had cutscenes, but it didn't

need to a deeper, more emotional story. It led to you just waiting for the game to start because the story wasn't even more complex than Mario 64 really, outside of like the framing of Mario. But yeah, in Mario Galaxy 1 and 2, the boss fights with Bowser play out kind of the same where

you're a surprise on an orb that you're running around. In Mario Galaxy 1, Bowser's on the orb with you and you basically have to incapacitate him and then, you know, punch him around as he's spinning around on his shell once you incapacitate him. And then in Mario

Galaxy 2, that's when he gets even bigger to the point where he's not even on the orb with you. He's floating around it. Breathing fire, punching the orb, and then you basically have to knock back debris at him. But yeah, these, they operate on similar ideas, but Mario Galaxy 2

really ups things by making him bigger and making you kind of just alone on that orb dodging attacks until you can get a hit in on him. I love the tennis back and forth, especially the music sound effects like, da dun, da, da, da, da, da. Like that kind of of thing just to let you know like you're smashing it and and it's one of my favorite things

in classic nintendo game design where early in the game they present you with a gameplay type thing then that they don't hit you with the entire game but it's there and then when you get to the final boss fight they they didn't pull it out of their back pocket like remember this remember this well now it's the main part of the final boss fight yeah it really builds up from the original introduction of those ideas. Do you feel like it is the evolution of the Raphael the Raven fight that you talked about in Yoshi's Island where, like, it seems like a beta run for something that, like, they were doing in as much as technology would allow them to do on Super Nintendo. And then as they could do more and more with like around spherical surface that you can move around, they brought it to like the logical, like biggest possible extension for the big Bowser fights. Does that make sense?

Oh, yeah. I think so. Like they never get rid of ideas. and they love iterating ideas again once the technology gets better to improve on them or exploit them in a way they couldn't before. So I can see them starting with Raphael the Raven and thinking, oh my God, if you could do this in 3D, how cool would this be? But it wouldn't be until nearly 11 years later that they would figure that out.

And yeah, I do remember two in Galaxy 2. You mentioned part of the going back to basics thing, like that it starts with a 2D level. I remember two at the time because I was I was very invested in covering Galaxy 2 when it came out like it was like this was I love Galaxy 2 partial because it was the first big game I got to like cover and review as a games journalist and and I remember like a big reason they wanted that 2D opening with Mario being chased is because the new Mario game on Wii had outsold the first Galaxy game by like multiples of like three or four and so the Miyamoto was like well we need to make a a 2D opening just for like all of the 2D people who buy this game and think that this is 2D instead of the more confusing 3D

game. Yeah, yeah. This was basically like I don't know six months after New Super Mario Brothers We which we'll talk about and that was a good onboarding for all those people who had probably never played a 3D Mario game before. And one thing about this game is Mario Galaxy 2 in particular

is that Nintendo refuses to sell us this game again. Now they sold us Mario Galaxy 1 for about, I I don't know, three or four months, whenever that was available during the pandemic, that 3D Mario collection. Mm-hmm. Yeah.

And some very naive part of me thought, like, oh, Mario Galaxy 2 is not on this because it's going to be DLC for this collection. Well, they don't want my money. And no one can play this game unless you, you know, had purchased it for your Wii U digitally when that was open or if you have the disc. So I have that stuff, but I do want to play it on Switch.

And I feel like in this slowing down, of the Switch, the winding down of the Switch, I feel like maybe hopefully they'll let us play that 3D All-Stars collection again and perhaps let us play Mario Galaxy 2 again. It's what I'm hoping. No, Galaxy 2 is one of my all-time favorite game. I couldn't believe it was

on that All-Star collection that then they took away from us anyway. And it's that and Winwaker both need to be on the Switch already. Before the final Kirby game launches on Switch in 2027, they will release those again on Switch, I hope.

so yeah that was Mario Galaxy 1 and 2 we love those games we podcasted about them and because I got up at 630 to write these notes for a 1 p.m. episode I forgot Mario Odyssey

the damn game Henry Bases wedding off of but actually I did watch a video of the final boss fight today to remind myself it's been seven years and I know one of the coolest parts

of the boss fight is you controlling Bowser but to go back to the beginning of the game that's not how the game begins. The game does not begin with a peach kidnapping. Is that correct? It's been a very long time. Boy, ah, man. I mean, no, it is a, no, Odyssey is a peach kidnapping because he's going to marry her. He's going to force her to marry him. Yeah. Sorry. Yeah. I was thinking

of New Game Plus when, uh, after you Bouser, she goes off on her own vacation. Oh, I love that part. Yeah, that's so fun. She earned it. She earned that vacation. Yeah. She earned the right to reject both of them and be like, no, I'm just going to go. Yes. To spoil the the ending. That's a perfect ending. Yeah, no, I love that it ends with the hack getting thrown on Bowser at the end. And yeah, that Bowser, uh, it is, it brought in more than, uh, other games had of like, Bowser kidnaps her for, um, chased reasons of forcing a marriage on her. Like it's not, but again, if you, well, okay, look, they, yeah, I know it's they, in the movie,

they tried to deal with this as best they could of just like, well, yeah, he does want to force a marriage on her but it's it's so he can officially be the king of the mushroom kingdom that's why i mean when your sexual dynamic comes from pop-i it doesn't age uh into the year 2017 very well does not uh one more thing that's cool about the final fight in this game is that when mario has possessed bowser so you're controlling bowser they when you're escaping at the end they have you run into the two-dimensional sections so you actually get to control bowser's original super marie brother Sprite, which I think it's only happened like in one other game in the entire series, unless I'm mistaken. It's something you don't get to do very often. And that's just a very cool moment

of like, oh, I'm controlling the original Bowser Sprite. This is, this is novel and cool. I'm glad they did that. Yeah, no, it's a great ending ball's fight for sure. And I mean, the Kupilings, we'll talk about them, you know, later, but they're not here. Instead of having Kupilings, Bowser has these, this group of rabbits, which I think I love their designs. They're really cool. the bad like the the bad brood or something Brutels

Brutels okay I knew it was a good pun I knew it was a good pun They are Evil wedding planners Mm-hmm They're like his wedding planning group And then you have

Mrs. Brutel who is Looks like Bowser in drag Which is a trip And I'm very annoyed That this character hasn't like Stuck around Like Mario Kart or something Because she has a really cool design

But she has like Bowser's facial features As a white rabbit No I And also as as a weeb, I enjoy the being able to tell my husband, like, it's on the moon with rabbits, because that's a thing in

Japanese folklore. Rabbits in the moon, get it? Like, yeah, which I, of course, first learned from Dragon Ball. Yes. If you eat mochi, no, a rabbit on the moon made it in the working conditions there are not good. So you're complicit. Yeah, I apologize.

I don't know why I missed this because I was watching a damn video about it. But yeah, this has been the last like, big appear. I mean, this is the last 3D Mario game, who knows will we announce at E3 or whatever, but this is an important announcement, sorry, this is an important moment for Bowser. And again, a very, in a technical way you are controlling Bowser, so it is worth mentioning, because it just happens so rarely, we need to talk about it. I mean, I feel like you've covered Odyssey at length in previous

retronaut. So, I mean, it makes more sense that you're going in depth on stuff that's further back, right? Yeah, and I'm just shocked that I remember so little of it, but again, it's been almost a decade, it's been a really long time I was in six years since that yeah it's no sorry seven it'll be seven this fall oh my god yeah we are due we are due for another one I assume we'll see something on

at e3 I don't know who knows what they're working on we don't So that's Mario Odyssey. Now, with Deep regret, I must talk about the New Super Mario Brothers series. I never thought I would. It's time for the eight corner on new Super Mario games. Yes. And, you know, I have played all of these, but I remember nothing from them.

and there are good reasons behind that but they share a lot of things in common that I never was paying attention to because I never thought too much about these games so yeah we in 2006 we're going back to basics with 2D Mario games Bowser Jr. I forgot is really doing most of the work in the DS game because he's the one who kidnaps the princess

you encounter him more than Bowser throughout the course of the game and there's a good reason for that which is something I also forgot about because these new Mario games love to psych you out or fake you out rather because your first encounter with Bowser in the first new Super Mario

Brothers game for the DS, it plays out like you would expect. You're on the bridge with Bowser. You've got to run under him or jump over him to hit the switch on the other side and he falls in the lava. Okay, yeah, if you played the Mario one, a decade earlier, or sorry, two decades earlier, you knew that.

That's just the basic way a Mario game is played. The twist is that when you destroy Bowser this way, he doesn't just fall off the screen. the flesh melts off of his bones and he dies horribly in front of you and becomes screaming in pain, suffering.

That was once a horror moment in Super Metroid when the boss comes back to life as a skeleton and you thought it was dead. Here it's just in a Mario game 10 years later and this is when Bowser becomes dry Bowser and basically Bowser Jr. has to

improvise until the end of the game to come up with things for you to fight while Bowser is dead. And the final boss fight is literally the resurrection of Bowser. Bowser Jr. throws all of his dad's bones in a cauldron, and he comes back to life to basically just be an obstacle in the room while you fight Bowser Jr. again. On that level, it's incredible. I mean, I wasn't on the first Bowser one you guys did, but I mean, did you talk about how

the, you know, canon in the first Super Mario Brothers is that every Bowser you face is a fake Bowser and if you kill them it like turns like oh that was actually a cupa like the like literal sprite changes and so yeah if you kill them with fireballs the sprite the show you like oh the magic turned this cupa into a Bowser so there were there there are some narrative at play there just to excuse the reuse of the asset so so that would mean though in story that when you drop those bowsers in like if you're able to drop the Bowser at the start of one of one four into the lava then you just killed a replacement bowels and like if you're able to drop the Bowser at the start of one four into the lava then you just killed a replacement bowels. But then when they do it as your first Bowser you face in New Super Mario Brothers, it's like, no, that was the real Bowser, and you've killed him already. And they don't, like, they're like, they're improvising for a way to fill out the rest of the boss fights now that you killed him early. So I was just reading the, the Wikipedia summary of the game's plot just to refresh myself during my research this morning. And this is what reminded me of this fact, the sentence on the Wikipedia plot description that really, The lava burns off Bowser's skin and flesh, leaving an undead skeleton and introducing Dry Bowser. So, yeah, this is when we get Dry Bowser, the, I guess, the Evolve version of Dry Bones, the Dead Coupas.

And yes, like Baby Bowser, Dry Bowser has his own life, his own interests, and his own appearances in different games distinct from Baby Bowser, Bowser Jr., regular Bowser, and so on. so the weird thing about naming him dry bowser which is just because of dry bones but that goes back to a biblical thing and it's been a long time since i was in catholic school but um there is a reference in somewhere in the bible to dry bones being reanimated back to life and that is why dry bones has that name because that biblical passage resulted in i think a gospel song and since all the characters in mario three are named after pop songs it happens to be a religious themed pop song and it's really worth thinking about dry bowser how having a direct tie to the Bible. Very, very strange when you think about it. It's so funny how, it's really funny how all of these enemies, if they were invented in Mario 3, their names are forever tied to dead people, problematic people, or weird musical references. But yeah, Drew, I know the song Dry Bones about Ezekiel, the biblical figure.

And that's where that reference comes from. But I guarantee you 99% of the audience playing it won't even look into that. And, like, boo in the ghost called boo. Yes, boo is the joke here. But in Mario 3, they're called Boo Didleys, based on the blues musician. So they didn't keep the Diddley part, just like how Morton Cooper is no longer Morton Cooper Jr. Because Morton Downey Jr. died in, like, 1992. Right.

Resnor's. Let's not forget about them, too. Yes, Resnors. They're a weird outlier because that's Super Mario World, and that's when they were not doing that quite as often anymore. I think Wendy O is still Wendy O though even though she's equally tragic I think so yeah You know what it's too bad that Monty Moll

isn't actually like named after like Monty Hall or something It's just the alliterative There's probably something we're missing here But yeah dry Bowser He has numerous appearances throughout the series Like Mario Party Mario 10 Anything any Mario spinoff where they need like a Bowser variant He'll be there Mario Kart

the Mario Kart game for iOS or mobile They have gold Dry Bowser Where it's basically just dry Bowser Dipped in gold So many variants This is why I wish they'd bring back The Big Rabbit Lady from Odyssey Because obviously they want big characters

You can do better than Skeleton Bowser Who actually would weigh less than normal Bowser But that's not really hot worse in Mario Kart but whatever Yeah He should be pretty good Well I mean same with They even took the skeleton thing In Odyssey to the logical conclusion of like

Mario the skeleton oh yeah you're right that's one of the costumes right there's like a zombie costume and a skeleton costume yeah we don't call him dry maria do we the once i the once i unlocked mario with red overalls and tan shirt as he appeared in super maria brothers one that was the only costume i had my mario odyssey mario wear i had him wear that in the mario 64 uh version of himself the low-poly one i did enjoy that one but yeah that this is where it all begins and they like playing with what you know about the

original Super Mario Brothers in these new games and they'll continue to do so throughout them. So that is the original DS one. Let's jump ahead to 2009 to new Super Mario Brothers Wii. So yeah, once again dialogue-free intro where the princess is kidnapped,

although this game is notable for the grand return of the Kupilings who we discussed in Bowser Part 1 once again in 2012, Shigura Miyamoto said, these are not Bowser's children. Bowser Jr. is Bowser's son.

We don't know who the mother is. So we don't know why he has access to these children. Perhaps he's in one of those big brothers and big sisters club of America things where he's mentoring them. Who knows? My head canon is that they're just contract

employees and the contract expired and that's why we don't get him for a few years. But he finally worked out the wording of the contract and they finally came back eventually. They're like a board of directors. Yeah. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, the Kupolings is elevated, you know, Kupa soldiers fine. And I mean, I'm as far as gameplay goes, I get why they're, you know, it's good to include them because that way you're not just having, you know, boom, boom and Bowser Jr. B are only like mid bosses in the game. I rather see the seven Kupilings over and over again. Of course, I have a childhood devotion to them. But I just, I wish that Miyamoto didn't just close the door on that stuff. Like, no, they're not as kids. It's like, but they are his kids.

You made him his kids. Why are you taking it back? Yeah, it's one of those late in life canon changes that I don't like. Sorry, I'm looking up at my Larry Kupa plush figure in this bookcase in my recording room. If I had a pause, I would go and grab it and hug it, but I can't right now. But yeah, the Kupilings, we might have covered this in the first episode, but yeah, they were in Mario 3, Mario World. They were in Yoshi Safari weirdly. Then they just kind of went away for a decade to really.

emerge in Super Mario, sorry, not Super Mario, Mario and Luigi Superstar saga, and here six years after that is the grand return. And I had my notes that, like, this really lifted my spirits during the worst part of the global economic depression. My old friends are back. I've been unemployed for eight months, but hey,

I can fight Larry Cooper again. Did you notice when they're back in the superstar saga, they don't speak? Yeah, that's true. That was, I don't... It's really weird. You're like, oh, my friends are back. Oh, they're not right. There's something wrong with them. They must have seen something horrible. When they appear in later games, they are allowed to talk.

Oh, go ahead. No, no. My bet is that Alpha Dream kind of snuck them in, and they're like, fine, but you can't write them saying words. It feels like the only time the Kupilings really get to have anything meaty is when somebody who's not Miyamoto has enough power to put them in something. Like, same with, I'm very thankful to Masira Sakurai, who when he put Bowser Jr. in Smash that his eight and when Bowser Jr. has eight costumes, The other seven are the Kupeling. So you can ignore Bowser Jr. and be a Kupeling instead. And I do.

And because of that, they also got into the next Mario Kart game, which was, I don't think even Bowser Jr. got in Mario Kart 8 initially, but the Kupa kids did, which is nice. They were supposed to be in Super Princess Peach, and then they scrapped them all and replaced them with a bunch of generic bosses. But you can see the art they made up for them and the beta elements for that game. Boy, now this makes me wonder how the Bowser and his family will or won't be representative the peach game that comes out this month

I wonder yeah I'm curious about that there were no details I could find but you mentioned Henry that Alpha Dream the developers of the Mario and Luigi RPG series that they probably snuck them in and I feel like they did because we'll talk about those games during this podcast but they were trying

to work in a lot of fun cameos that were cut out of the first game so I feel like they were having more fun than Nintendo wanted them to have and then later we see I think it was with the maybe it was with both RPG series

but Nintendo was like okay no new characters everyone's got to be a toad maybe it was with paper Mario I think

yeah after a thousand year door I think or after super paper Mario no it's

it's dark being a fan of the Mario RPGs is to slowly see them be constrained in their

creativity each new entry it's how it felt but you know thousand year door is coming back and is getting a remake

and maybe that combined with the re-release of Super Mario RPG means Nintendo will realize people actually like that style of game more, hopefully? Yes. I hope so too, Drew. I'm sure I've said this on this podcast too many times, but Origami King was fine. I tolerated that game to the end, and it was better than the previous two or three.

But we just want a normal Mario RPG again. You killed the other studio. Just give me some numbers, give me some time hits, and I'll be fine. We don't need to reinvent the wheel. every time you make a new Mario RPG. I think you've said that on this podcast if you turn. I think you said that I'm talking Simpsons a few times too. I think.

Oh, I'm sure I did. This is my one-issue voter thing. I would vote for Trump if he promised me that. I get it. I get it. I totally get it. Well, we can, your biggest hope should be that Shigero Miyamoto continues to be very invested in Super Mario movies and theme park rides to thus free up his schedule to not bother the RPG makers with his strange rules. More lunches with Chris Son, I say.

Less time at Nintendo of Japan. Back to Mario Wii. So the sole encounter with Bowser is seemingly as simple as what we saw in the original game, Super Mario Brothers, the original game he was in. So you dump him into a pit, but then there's a Yoshi's Island twist where a comic appears, he swoops through the screen, he sprinkles his magic dust, Bowser grows huge. But in what would become a common theme for these games and future games, This now is an escape sequence level akin to Metroid where you are making it to the end across all these platforms and treacherous territory, except in this case, you're also using Bowser's fireballs that you're avoiding to blast spaces through the geometry to get to where you need to go. It is a problem that they have. Once they make Bowser too big, the question is, well, how do you hurt him? And usually it's, no, you just make it far away and he falls in the lava, falls off a cliff or whatever, or you hit a switch.

this this is a question for all the future ones of what what do you do with a final bowser fight like do you and i was thinking this up to when i face bowser in wonder that i was like all right is this a chase or is it a hit him five times like which which is this if you haven't beat the game yet i won't reveal it but uh i personally my favorite i don't want all of them to be chases but when i look at the last 10 years of mario games i prefer the chases to hit him to hit him to hitting him. Like, I like a great chase. Hmm. I like when there's a mix of both, I think.

Mm-hmm. I think if they give you, like, a variety of different approaches to the boss fight, the final one, it feels like it's a big event to me. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. I got to say, when I was looking at your notes for this recording, and you did a very good job detailing all the different

new Super Mario Brothers Bowser fights, it is like coming down to very specific details. We were like, in this one, this thing happens. And then this thing. And then in the next one, it's incrementally different. And it's an unenviable task. Oh, yeah, I'll tell you, I played all of these games to completion.

I think I finished all of them. But years apart from each other, so I was never thinking how they were similar because I didn't have a great time with them. I didn't want to think about them. Going back for a podcast, I'm noticing like, oh, there are these trends that they're developing in this series I didn't like very much. So let's move on to new Super Mario Brothers You, the worst title to ever be featured on a game box. by my estimation. Story non-existent, same as Mario Wii,

the new Mario Wii game. And the Soul Bowser appearance in this game is a mix of what we saw in the past two new Super Mario Brothers games. I also hate saying new Super Mario Brothers. I hate it.

I really hate saying. It just is a mouthful. I'll be, I'll go ahead. I can be a weep and say Shin Mario Brothers. Ooh, now I like it. Yeah, well, I think that's why this title is also crummy

because it was a launch game, I think Nintendo was thinking, can we put the letter you at the end is our new, like, you know, is it the 64? Will it work the same? And so then you have like double branding here of like new Super Mario Brothers Wii.

I also think is a weak name for a title, but you know, it did sell a trillion copies, so who am I to blame it? But once you replace the word we with just you, instead of Wii, you just make it you. It just reminds me of like, oh, this was a failure

and branding of the Wii U and in general just speaks to the failure of the Wii U as a, you know, I mean that financially. I had a good time playing on the Wii U, but My, behind me in this room is a hot Wii U hooked up to a TV. I could turn it on at any moments. I'm threatening

the podcast right now. I could boot up Mario Galaxy 2 on that thing. But yeah, oh, in this in this game though, so the Bowser appearance is like the Wii Bowser appearance. It's a simple boss fight followed by, you know, Bowser falls in the pit, he gets big. In this case, it's not an escape sequence.

You have to fight Bowser Jr. in the same arena, like in the DS game. But once you incapacitate Bowser Jr., you can access his clown car, jump in that, fly up, and then butt-stomp Bowser's giant Bowser's head with your clown car. And at this point, I must point out, that Big Bowser in these games is not Gigabowser. Gigabowser is an original character created by the Smash Brothers universe with nothing in common with regular Bowser when he gets big. That is important.

Some things in common. I mean, some basically think he's in common. They make him more like beastly when he's Gigabowser, though. Yeah, he's like Gannendorf and you two and Bowser mashed into one thing. Yeah. It's a good description.

It was funny watching the gameplay of this Boss Fight 2 that I remember I remember playing it. I swear I was the first person who is not a Nintendo of America employee in the U.S. to beat this game. Because it was the

gameplay event for it. And I asked like, so could I play the whole game and beat it? And they're like, yeah, everybody here at this event can do it. I was the only person. Maybe it speaks to the game's quality. I was the only reviewer who stayed

all day and finished the game and rolled credits on it. Other people just left and discussed. This is the game that's been Like remade several times over also, correct? This was re-released once for the Switch With a new Luigi U attached to it Staple to it, as deluxe

Yeah And then So new Luigi U is not a remake of this game Or it is a remake of this game It reuses levels But it makes them into What I find is really irritating time attack levels Which I'd rather watch someone better at the gameplay them

than me because we did the Mario Wonder podcast. I'm not going to dump on these games the entire podcast people. Don't worry. But after playing Wonder, going back to this, is so rough. You fully realize what was wrong with these games after playing Wonder, how they control. So they revisited it with Luigi and it became like the Luigi-centered version and then they

redid it again and put Pechette in, or am I confusing games now? So they put in the Princess Peach Golden Mushroom Power Up in in the core game when they re-released for Switch. This is so complicated. And only Toadet can use it.

But then horny fan artists thought, what if, what if boo picked that up? I mean, that was the best aspect of that game. Yes. It's like this game. But like it is interesting that like this one game, we just, I feel like we've been trapped in this iteration of the new Super Mario Brothers game for kind of a long time. I completely forgot that this is where this, this, that was the game that launched a thousand Bowsett fan accounts.

That was such a great day. I was like at the gym like scouring Twitter and sending the best ones to like my roommate being like no no this one's good too no these are all good it was it was a fun day but basically I mean outside of the fan art the the peach mushroom was Malibu Stacey's new hat that is that is a great comparison thank you

for that thank you I will defend new Luigi you is just being a little better than you because yes time attacks annoying but they actually could design the levels for a single player instead of four players and a giant stupid screen yes you are correct about that I totally agree on that point

But yeah, that is new Super Mario Bros. You. Now it's time to move on to a game I got no beef with because I found it. After three iterations, they finally found one that I didn't mind playing at all. But someone had to convince me to play it. New Super Mario Brothers 2. It has nothing to do with Mario 2. You know, this is simply the second new Mario game. No, it's the fourth.

What's going on here? This is my beef with it. As a Mario 2 fan, I was like, this is just about money. This has nothing to do with throwing vegetables. I have no interest in this. yeah honestly it should have been a wario game or just make wario a playable character because there is no story the story is so slight that there's not even a wikipedia summary of the story it's just that oh peach is captured and then mario and luigi have gold fever as pictured in the film the treasure of the sierra madre that's essentially what's happening here yeah yeah i i remember it it came out the same year as you i think within like two or three months of it and uh yeah it's definitely the better game and i But when I rewatch the giant Bowser fight sequence of that one, the only thing that struck me in my memory of it was like

that they used the two screens much better than New Super, the DS New Super did. And also I liked the gold coloring everywhere as part of the greed inherent in the game. It is just a Metroid escape sequence because you're going up a big shaft and avoiding hazards. And you don't actually fight Bowser. I think maybe there's like a tiny,

battle before the uh oh yeah it's a fake out fight which i thought yeah i do remember that being fun yeah and comic isn't in the game or maybe he is but during this final boss fight once you take out the first form of bowser the kupilings fly by and they hit bowser with like their seven magic wands and that's why he gets so big and it's very pretty and then when he gets big he just kind of like wax him out of the way like fuck you kids get go away you've done your job uh but yeah it's an okay thing but it is just simply like again this is just metroid and that that's fine, but I like being able to attack Bowser in some way. Usually it's just like, okay, you made it to the top, you hit a switch.

In this case, I think you make it to the top, and Bowser just dies. I think he just gives up. Let's say he chokes to death on gold. I have no plan B. That could be him in almost every game, but yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, that would be right. Yeah, so finally the tyranny of the new Mario games is over. Now we have new Mario games that are not, the word news is not in the title, but you understand. Lowercase and the new.

Yeah, exactly. Thank you. So we're going to move on now to Super Mario 3D land. The story here, there's a bit more to it because Peaches kidnapped. All of these power leaves like blew off a tree in the castle grounds. And now Bowser has them. He's experimenting with squirrel magic, I guess. And, yeah, another Bowser fakeout because we love them, don't we folks?

In this case, the first boss fight is with Bowser. And it's like what you were talking about earlier. Henry in the original Super Mario Brothers, the Bowser's you fight are imposter's until the end. So when you fight this Bowser, you are actually fighting a Goomba, and that's revealed when you defeat him.

And you find this out by employing Mario's favorite tactic in this era, boiling him alive. Yes. Yeah, it's great. It's great. Okay, I love 3D land. I love 3D land so much and 3D world.

I really love these games of 3D land. I super duper loves. And because I love raccoon Mario and raccoon Mario was back. The leaves are back and also the postcards you would get that were drawn to look like Yuichi Katabe's art, though he had retired at that point. That was what I loved. I've only, there was like somebody wrote an article

about the history of this like Mario raccoon thing, but there's no money in that. Yeah, nobody would do that. Nothing so in depth. No, Drew, I love your, I love your piece on that. Yes. I really do. We're referring to Drew's blog, which I'm sure he will promote at the end of the podcast. Oh, I will. And we'll probably write more about Bowser because of this.

So thank you. Excellent. But another thing I loved about 3D land and why I happily gave it a 10 when I reviewed it or maybe I did do a 9 and it got bullied into it. But it's that Bowser fight scene. I love the end Bowser fight scene of it. I love that it kept going. It's when I go back to it, I now think like, well, I've played better ones, including in just the sequel to this game is a better version of it. But the way, when I first experienced it, especially Bowser throwing barrels at you like Donkey Kong, I just love that moments.

Like, I just laughed so hard. Like, oh, my God, he's throw barrels in me. I love that. I love that. So just because I might be confusing them. This is the one where you're escaping and it's like, Bowser is like jumping around you and like fucking with you where you're trying to do some like 3D platforming, right? Yeah, platforms are crumbling. There's lava underneath you.

It is essentially the 3D reimagining of the 2D escape sequences in the other older games. And, you know, I don't mind this. I find this game very boring. And then when I finished it, I actually finished it recently to get to the better content. And I actually found that like kind of too tedious. So I don't like either half of this game very much. I love the next game. But this one, I just, I gave it a chance.

I just can't do it. I think this Bowser fight sequence is in some ways better than the one in world, which is spectacular. But when you get down to what you're doing, it's introducing a lot of concepts that come out of nowhere. And this one's like very baked into like what a Mario versus Bowser fight should be in my head, which would make more sense when we talk about Super Mario 3D world. I also love in 3D land that it's in the big boss fight. One of the best things about 3D land is the use of camera placement for the 3D mechanic. And every stage of the boss fight, like once you get past one, then the camera moves into a new spot that is another like. like perfect spot for the next like challenge to be.

And I really loved just the use of perspective and not a free roaming camera to make the most out of the 3D effect. Up to the final part, when you beat Bowser and that, they are doing a classic uncharted run at the camera towards the camera thing. And then you jump on the switch and kill him. He's crash bandicooting, Henry. That's what we call it. Oh, that's right. No, I think it's a well-made game. I just found it to be of a different design mindset

that we don't really do anymore where it just felt like super super breezy and I know it gets a lot harder after you finish it but then I was kind of done with it but I do like how this boss battle is designed and yes it all leads to a switch you hit to Boyle Bowser alive. Don't worry. The flesh will not off his bones you're going to see it. And then when Bowser returns in the second half of the game

he is a corpse. So they're resurrecting that idea no pun intended from the last set of games. So moving on to a game I like, Super Mario 3D World. So after years of weird excuses from Nintendo, which were like, oh, we can't make the dress move right or whatever. I don't understand this.

But they finally have Peach in the game as a playable character. Hooray. No more alternate colored toad as your fourth character. And because Bowser needs someone else to kidnap, he kidnaps these things called the Sprixies, the Sprixie princesses. I don't remember this part at all because the kingdom you go to

looks very much like every other place you go to in a Mario game. But, hey, it's just an excuse to get Peach on the team and for you to rescue a different thing. And, yeah, I'm a big fan of this game. And finally, we, after almost a decade, the melting the flesh off

Bowser's Bones era is over. Nintendo needs a new idea. They need to do something new because the Wii's been out of year, sorry, the Wii U has been out a year. This is their 2013 holiday game. They need to put out a big spectacular Mario game. So it's time to innovate. We have to make Bowser more proactive.

Give him access to a hot rod. And that's what's going on in Mario World. Wait. I love his ride. 3D Mario World. Sorry. I don't like this game's title either. No, sorry.

Super Mario 3D World. I got it wrong. Twice. Henry, sorry. You're talking about hot rod. We believe you. You love the game. No, yeah.

I love Bowser's wheels. I love that he had a set of wheels. And that's like, it gives you a little, like, instead of just having. to repeat killing him. It's like, well, you break his car. And then, and it fits in with like, after he'd had all of these airships, and there's still his

airships in all of these games, too. He's got all of his other stuff where you battle him and his minions. This time he's also like, you know, instead of just having like a giant tank, I have a cool car. I have a big muscle car and I'm going to throw crap at you. Real divorce Bowser energy coming

from that car. He never had a wife, so he can't be divorced, but I understand what you mean. I feel like So the battle itself is fun, but when I step back from it, I'm like, why the fuck did he get a car? Like, where did the car come from? He's not a car guy. Like the hot rod, that's Wario. Worry is the one who drives a hot rod. It just seems like there's, it doesn't appear anywhere else in the game. And in my head, it kind of comes out of nowhere. The last part of the fight where he takes on the cat power, that makes sense. But the car part is weird to me. And maybe I'm just a weirdo for finding fault with that. The car is such a fun out of nowhere idea that I was just delighted when those sections would appear. And also the way you take him out is by kicking a soccer ball. back at him, which is also does not fit the theme of chasing a hot rod, but hey, that's the first thing I remember about the game is the hot rod stuff.

So I'll give it credit for being original. So yeah, that's the first two Bowser encounters. Oh, Henry, go ahead. Maybe it's just because I love Archie Comics and his junkie jalopy, and I think like, oh, Bowser finally has a car just like Archie. He needs a little, like, a raccoon tail hanging from

his aerial or whatever you call that. That's right, yeah. 23 studio. Yes, okay, yeah. Yeah. I heard something else. Not ariola. That's what I heard. And yes, the final sequence in this game is, you guessed it, another Bowser escape sequence thing,

but they really amp up the scale of things because you are scaling a building while avoiding him. He has transformed from Bowser to Meowzer because he now has the cat power up. So he can scale the building like a cat would scale your curtains, basically. And you have to scale the building while avoiding him and that at a certain part of the fight, are multiple copies of him chasing you

like bursting out of the building bursting out of walls. Because he used a double cherry power up too. Like using all the new power ups. It doesn't just come out of nowhere. You're right. He does use the other power up. And so I will say this. You do end this boss fight by hitting a switch, but they realize, oh, stomping on this switch

is not satisfying. Getting under Bowser hitting the pow block over and over and over again is much more satisfying, even though it's essentially the same action. So I'll give them credit there. even though I wish another fight would have happened on top of the building. But hey, it was exciting to scale the building in the first place. So it's a memorable boss fight, in my opinion.

I think it's cool that I don't think there's another time where Bowser gets to use items, really? Like in Mario Kart, you can use items, but like in a regular Mario game, he doesn't get to use power-ups in this one he gets to use two. And that is exactly where this game that's like so catfocus should have ended up. So that part of it is perfect in my book. As an elder millennial who loved in the Adventures of Super Mario 3 cartoon episode where Bowser uses all the power-ups and starts fighting back, I was like, finally, this happens in one of the games, and he uses the same power-up as Mario. It's one that's like, you know, childhood playground thoughts of like, well, I'm Bowser if he used the invincibility star. Like, what would happen if Bowser touched it instead of Mario?

This game to me is when the Mario series starts getting really, really good again. In terms of new ideas, production values, this is the first HD Mario game. And in terms of soundtracks, they really tried on this one, and it rules. And this would like determine just how eclectic the soundtrack would be in Mario Odyssey. This is going for a certainly big band theme. But I think this really pushed the music team to their limits and gave them more inspiration because the music in the Mario, the new Super Mario Brothers games, I think, is kind of kind of bad uh it's not awful but i expect a lot more and this brought the more i was expecting

well you know it's it's crazy to think that it was it was just i believe for years between galaxy two and three d world which is not a lot of time but that there all the new games in between make it feel longer but galaxy two i thought had an amazing soundtrack but yes the 3d world's jazzy soundtrack i think that came after no well no it's like a maria card eight was it this yeah was there at the same time, which also brought the jazz back to Mario. No, you're correct. Sorry, I didn't mean to slag on the Mario Galaxy soundtrack. I just forgot that we talked

about them because we spent time talking about four new Super Mario Brothers games. I don't know why they were trying so hard on Odyssey and not trying as hard on the new games. Trying hard is maybe the not accurate statement. Going in a different direction, mayhapes.

Boxes composers lazy on these other games. Why were they being lazy this time? Let's investigate. yeah sorry sorry for falling into that trap everybody but um so yeah and then when this game was re-released for switch which i have it and i've been wanting to play this bonus content for a while and i had planned to play bowser's fury for part two but again emergency episode this must go live on monday haven't had time yet what's going on in this i hear this kind of redefines bowser or does new things with bowser uh bowser's fury this uh i love this game i love it though

it's it's a game let like it's uh it's a good six hours of a game. But I'd, especially Bob, now that you, unlike for years, now you finally live in the same house as your spouse. This is perfect spouse co-op gameplay, a couch play gameplay, because my husband and I played it a ton. He was Bowser Jr. It's the most I've ever liked Bowser in a game. And if you like Big Bowser, this is him bigger and badder than ever. And I also really like I like the characterization in the game that Bowser Jr. is like, my dad is really scaring

me right now, Mario. Can you please help me? He's, he's scarier than ever. Wow. You know, so when I have my recommitment ceremony with my wife, I'll be Mario and she'll be Bowser Jr. And the height difference is the same. So it would make sense. Sorry,

it's a weird, like, so the part where like Bowser Jr. is worried about his dad's, like, mental welfare is kind of disturbing. And I was like, where did this come from? I'm like, who introduced this theme into the game? And that's kind of troubling, but it does result in, they basically, like, a Mario Kaiju fight, and it's beautiful. And I'd forgotten how awesome that last battle is, but I looked it up on YouTube this morning.

And I was like, this is really, really cool. I can't believe this is not a concept we've gone back to since this buzzer's true. I hope that it's something they really explore the next time they make a 3D Mario game, which maybe they're sitting on that for the launch of Switch 2 or whatever. whatever, whenever that comes. I think you mean switch you? They're going to make the same mistake. Yeah.

I'm kidding. I hope not. But no, I also really love that Bowser. So Bowser basically is full of like extra evil. Like black tar, evil hate has filled him. And he's huge. And it is a giant open world with like different areas. You don't like teleport anywhere.

It's just like, here's a giant map. Solve things within this map to collect. certain number of the of the stars and then you can finally fight him and power at mario into like a god lion to fight him but i just love that like in over time it builds up and builds up and bowser junior's like my dad's getting strong again we're going to have to fight him in a minute so it's i i love that it's like a darkening of clouds of like bowser's coming bowser's coming like if we're talking about bowser actually being a scary menace uh bowser's fury while is a perfect title for it because that's what it does

even though it's and it is a pun on Bowser is furry in the game too because he is also still his cat man I literally did not think about it until right now but that is a pun that was completely lost on me I'm going to call for more for more gamelets as you call them because I I have finished 13 games this year because many of them were under 10 hours and I like not being just worn down into submission by playing something for three

months although some of those games are on my cue like infinite wealth and I know I'm going to have fun but that's a commitment but I like just oh new experiences all the time but then I'm going to settle down with some infinite wealth come springtime I chose to finish infinite wealth at 80 hours when I could have gone another 20 because I was like well because FF7 rebirth is coming out today so I better just wrap up infinite wealth um one little thing about the sprixie princesses and I always like to point this out because people tend not to realize that they are a throwback um the sprixies are like the generic inhabitants of wherever 3D world takes place.

And I don't know if the name of the land, maybe it's Sprixie Land. I don't know. They're the Sprixy. It's a Sprixy Kingdom, I believe. Sprixie kingdom. They are a, they're based on the little fairies that come out at the end of Mario 2, the ones that work's keeping hidden in a bottle.

So they are really abstract designs, but they have these like black dot eyes and little fairy wings. And they're basically taking those 2D models and trying to translate them to something that makes sense for a more modern age. But that's why the Sprixy pointers is look like the way. they do they're supposed to be those Mario 2 theories oh I had no idea but that makes perfect sense because it's a big Mario 2 throwback We're going to move on from the main Mario series to some other spinoff series.

So let's focus on the Paper Mario series for now. There are a lot of games in the series. We can't possibly talk about Bowser's appearance in everyone. I think we've only made one podcast about one of these games. So, yeah, we need to make more about the series. But, yeah, six games. But these RPG series are notable because they give Bowser the most characterization. because Mario can't talk, a known character has to do most of the talking,

and it's usually Bowser in these games. And that's where so much of the humor comes from. That is where, honestly, the Jack Black version of Bowser originates from these games, this depiction. Like, the guy who puts on a fearsome face, but deep down he has serious self-esteem issues and is kind of incompetent and not nice to his minions. And also always talking to Kamak or Kamak, too, for support. that yeah i so i i'm a big paper maria fan too i really when the first game came out i enjoy that bowser was the primary villain of it because uh while i also love super mario r pg and it's

fun that bowser becomes a teammate for you i liked that paper maria was a true this is a real mario r pg and you're fighting bowser like you would in a mario r pg as opposed to in the actual super mario r pg the joke is you beat bowser in the first ten minutes they're like see this is what a Mario RPG would be like if you were just fighting Bowser. Yeah, and it turns out that I played all of these games, but I don't remember the stories, usually. And usually in these games after the

first one, so a Bowser primary antagonist in the first game, but then every successive game, it's usually some greater evil from another dimension or space comes down, and tricks Bowser or Bowser works with him and he's double crossed, but Bowser, no matter what, is always humiliated.

These are just real, like, Bowser humiliation fetish experiences. If you want to see Bowser being embarrassed publicly constantly, you've got to play the 11 Mario RPGs that exist. In the first two games, I would like to point out, it is not Kamek, it's not Kamek. I always want to call him Kamek, but obviously it's supposed to be Kamek. It is a different character. It's Kami Kupa, who is like, what if Kamek was like a mean old lady and sort of like a mother-in-law figure for him? And it's never explained exactly why Kamek, why the Magic Kupa is female in those first two games.

But they have a really good banter because she has a bigger personality. than Comack had at that point. And then they stopped using her for reasons I don't understand. And regular Comac inherited some of her personality traits. And now we got the weird version of this in the Mario movie. But I really like this old lady, Kupa Witch character that they introduced for just the first one and a thousand year door.

That has to be why I'm always confused of thinking like, yeah, Comac is a mean old lady, like it's a witch. And I was like, wait, no, it's a guy. in a lot of the versions of it. Even when it's just comic as the guy character, he has a lot in common

with Comey and Kotake from Zelda who are like Gannon Dors old lady nannies. They were really stuck on that for a period and then they moved away from it. I don't know why. The Crone character, for lack of better word there. Yeah, I think it was...

Surrogate mom, yeah. Yeah. I think it was Nintendo, you know, getting things more on brands saying let's stop doing weird spin-offs of characters why can't it just be comic why can it just be a cupa you know right um but i like when they could still have a little more fun with the ip back then i i really love in all the paper mario games that like they because mario is a silent protagonist and and uh they really play

into that that the other regulars have to you know be up for it like peach even in the first game it's like here's a lengthy peach sneaking around sequence to maybe bake a cake or something And then it's like, well, what's Luigi? Well, Luigi's an even bigger joke of like you talk to him like for a second every act. And then he's like, I'm a big loser. This is the joke. And then you start having the cutaways to Bowser once. He's not the main antagonist, all the later paper Mario's.

And yeah, I was just looking at up the Bowser intermission sections in Thousand Year Door. I remember how cool those were the first time I played it because I was ready for there to be the Peach segments because I knew like they were in the first game. they'll do them again. But then when I got, the Bowser intermissions came and it's like, oh, cool, I'm playing as Bowser. And then they're parodies of the first Super Mario Brothers stages. Like, it's so great to see like him. Bowser walked through the Paper Mario version of 1-1, you know?

Is that in Super Paper Mario or a Thousand-Year Door? Because I was looking up. It's expanded in Super Paper Mario, but it is in the Bowser Intermission sections in a thousand-year door too. Yeah. In Super Paper Mario, he's just one of the party members. So you can play as Bowser throughout any stage in the game And it's because it's Mario Luigi Peach and Bowser And that that was a lot of fun

I actually really like Super Paper Mario But I feel like I'm in the minority there I wasn't a big fan of it I'd like to give another try But again, Nintendo won't let me buy it a second time Right And I was looking up So we're not going to go over all the plot descriptions of these games

But this is how weird the plots got And how displaced Bowser was So the description for Super Paper Mario is the first two sentences It opens with Count Bleck abducting Bowser and Princess Peach and forcing the two to marry

The Union as foretold by the dark prognosticus summons the chaos heart etc etc and a lot of it's funny because it is a parody of what JRP's were like at the time

but it is so great that the characters that we grew up with are caught in this parody Yeah that's I both both of the Mario RPG series have something to

parody of what Japanese RPG tropes are. I like though, I liked when Paper Mario stuck more to being an RPG until Super is, and I liked Super Paper Mario, but it was where I started to feel like, all right, turns are, turns are out here. Like, you're not going to be allowed to just have a real game. I am hopeful with the re-release coming of Thousand Year Door that maybe it indicates that a real Paper Mario game will happen again. Yeah, again, it turns out.

be very excited yeah people do like turns they don't really want to play with stickers or whatever else you want to invent right i liked 12 hours of stickers after after that though i was getting a little tired of the stickers i couldn't last that long oh drew go ahead i said the music was good yeah best part of that game before we move on for paper mario there is a very small bowser astersteris that i want to point out so um in paper marie one and two mario gets little buddies who are all enemies like recognize well mario enemies but they're like wearing a hat or something because they're a specific character and in two one of them is this character named flurry who's like this weird cloud woman who has the hair of ludwig von kupa

and the face of wendyo kupa and she's like a big curvy thing kind of looks like a ghost and back in the day when like we were seeing the first screenshots of this new game that was going to come out we didn't know these characters were people were like that's his wife that's the ghost of Bowser's wife, obviously, and people really bought into the fact that this character was Bowser's dead wife as a ghost joining Mario's party, because she looks remarkably like Ludwig and Wendy together, and

we were excited that a game was going to explore Bowser's marital status in some sort of way. Obviously, his wife died of a disease or something. She's not that at all. She's like just a random cloud woman, and she's not like a character type that exists anywhere in Mario. And I like to think that this was Nintendo specifically

fucking with us, because there really is no reason for them to design this female character to look as if she might be Bowser's wife other than just to fuck with us. And I always found that very funny. I never used her because I found her design to be too creepy. She looks weird. She looks weird. She doesn't look like

everything else looks like some. I guess Vivian is a original character also. But like everyone else is like a character you recognize as a Mario character. And then you have this character that looks like a Kupa, but she's not. It's very odd. Perhaps it's a distant relative of Mallow from Mario RPG. A different cloud person.

Yeah. I know. I think you recently did a bunch of You crack the books on Mallow recently, Drew? Mallow's name is a pun that only makes sense in Japanese. Yeah. You've really, you've illuminated a lot of stuff. You know, also when I talk about Sticker Star, you don't have to play the game listener. But look up the song Berto sings in Stickersar. That's like my favorite Berto moment ever.

I love that moment. Yeah, the whole soundtrack rules. And I bought a 3DS for that game that I ended up really disliking. But, hey, the series survived and I like Origami King. please please people be kind moving on to Mario and Luigi the series so like the Paper Mario series

it's basically about Bowser humiliation usually teaming up with some greater evil who exploits him because he's a big sucker so yeah there's a lot of these games I want to focus on the pinnacle of this series inarguably I don't think anyone would disagree and if you do disagree I don't really care that much

but we're going to talk about Bowser's inside story because I think it's the only game to include Bowser in the title I mean, if you want to say Super 3D Mario World plus Bowser's Fury, I guess that counts But this is, it's up front, it's up front Right. Yeah, no, I love

I love the whole Mario and Luigi series Bowser gets funnier each game And I think it was very smart of them By the third game that they Decide the real star of this game Is Bowser like it is It is after Bowser was The villain of the first game

But then not the villain Because then it's like no, it's the Bean Lady Who's it? And then in two, then it's, you know, more evil mushrooms than it's time travel. Then finally in three, they're like, fine. He's the hero because we can write jokes for him. And I actually prefer his characterization in these games to paper because in paper he's just such like a loser. Like he's just such a loser.

In this, he's more like a stupid jerk who keeps losing. And then he's like, hey, shut up. I'm not listening to you. No, you're right. He's a homer. Yeah, yeah, like a slightly drunk home. You're totally right because I think by this point they figured out A, you're playing these games for two reasons.

One, you love Bowser, two, you hate the Italian people, and you love to see them mocked. And this series does a great job at both, showcasing Bowser and making fun of that language they speak. What is that? Atzal the tutel abedo. Oh, yeah. No, it's some of my favorite Martinet gibberish.

I love those. Yes, me too. I mean, Bowser's inside story is so great because he, takes over the game. And Alpha Dream, so sad they no longer exist because they were told you've got these two screens are like, cool. One stomach's the guts and one screen is the guts, one screen is the overworld. And you're going to switch between them all playing. Brilliant use of two screens.

And the way this, you know, function is in the story, Bowser is tricked into eating something because he's stupid. By Fawful, the villain from the first game. He unhills Mario and Luigi, so on the bottom screen, you have side-scrolling gameplay within Bowser as Mario and Luigi. On the top screen, you have overhead traditional RPV viewpoint as Bowser, and they both play differently, although they both have turn-based battles. But the big appeal of this game, you know, it's a very well-made RPG, but they have these Bowser kaiju fights where you turn your DS in book mode, as they called it, and you fought castles with a giant Bowser. And yes, they made you blow in the microphone, but these battles were so cool, I can forgive that one instance of making you blow into the microphone.

I remember blowing you that microphone on public transit and feeling very self-conscious while playing the game. Yeah, it's great like it's a Godzilla fight against a meek. Like, it's so much fun. It's such a clever thing with Bowser. I also love all the lines. When Bowser learns there inside him, he's disgusted by it. He's like, they're walking around inside me.

It's gross. Yeah, the scale is very weird Because Bowser doesn't get bigger You just get smaller It's sort of like a fantastic voyage kind of deal And that Mario and Luigi Have to power up Bowser from the inside By like, you know, punching his bones

Or like, hey, restart his heart or whatever And also the game is awesome Because Fafel is a great villain As well Fafel is great And that's another thing that I like About those Mario and Luigi games Is that they realized they'd created something really good

And they kept bringing him back But I guess I guess we won't see again, because we don't have those games anymore, unfortunately. It was great that by 2003, we were all savvy enough to recognize Fafel's dialogue is a parody of badly translated dialogue, and we were all there on the same page. We had played enough badly translated games to get it, and I like that they were confident enough with that choice to not explain it to us. I wonder how his dialogue reads in the Japanese version, like, if he also has like an effect

in that version, too, I've never looked into it. I'm going to assume. I've always wondered. Yeah, I'm going to assume there's a Legends of Localization article about that, but I can't be sure without checking. I would say, and another my favorite things I got to do in the Games Press was when I got to interview him once. But the localizer at Nintendo Treehouse, Nate Bildorf, who was the key writer of the American English versions of these games. Like he loved, you could tell how much he loved writing these Mario Luigi games and putting in so many great jokes into it.

Every character talks perfectly with their own distinct comedic voice and joke to them. And obviously, the script and scenario from Alpha Dream and the original writers in Japanese, that's there. I'm not saying he made it funny. But localization is a huge part. And one of the most difficult parts of localization is maintaining humor and making things funny. And Bowser is written so, so funny. Some of my favorite bits in it are when he, in Insights. story, his rival in the whole game is mid-buss, who already is a stupid character, is like,

he's called mid-boss because it's a joke out of mid-boss. He's obviously not your final enemy, and he's, like, dumber than Bowser. And so it's like Bowser talking to a guy who looks like him, but is even stupider. Yeah, this game is great. I have such good memories of it, and they remade it, unfortunately, far too late for the 3DS. And it's very telling. I felt justified in my beliefs about this series because they remade the first game. They didn't remake the second game, and they remade the third game.

And I did not like that second game. I barely made any headway into it. But unfortunately, they remade the third game for the 3DS, and they brought it out in America in 2019, which means unless you bought it digitally or have a copy, you are going to be spending a lot of money because I swear to God, every 3DS game released after 2016. The cart is $5,000. Really? I'm exaggerating, of course, but I missed one of the latent games, and I was.

and I was toying around like, well, how much would this cost for me to buy this 2017 Leighton game? And I swear I could find a loose cart for $300. So I just thought, well, I am going to pay the $40 that the 3DS e-shop wants me to pay because it's going to be closing soon. You can't do that now, though. No, I think five years ago, and I bet it goes for even more, I remember selling, I had an extra copy of Rhythm Thief,

and I think I sold that for like $140 back then. Like it was, though I'm part of the problem, too. I did buy this game, but I didn't play it either. Even though it is my favorite Mario Luigi, it's my favorite Mario RPG. And even I didn't play it. I bought it, but did not play it. Yeah, I think this and Thousand Year Adore are tied for favorite Mario RPG for me. And, God, maybe even the Super Nintendo game.

Can three things tie for the first number of the first place? Sure. Why not? Well, though, you know, I, sorry. I think another reason I didn't play it was that the new story content was Bowser junior, I believe. You know what? And all that stuff in these games is like an optional mode that you play separately. It's not

like content they added. And you know what? I only played the optional modes in the first remake and it's not good. But thankfully, it's a separate entry on the title screen that you have to opt into. But I will say one thing I learned about Alpha Dream, the RIP closed in 2020, is that

they had very strange origins in that they originally started as a construction company staffing agency called AlphaStar and someone spun that off into Alpha Dream and Alpha Dream, the name of the company is a reference to Final Fantasy. So Final Fantasy Alpha Dream. Oh, wow. I never thought a pun.

Damn. Yeah. So the first time I learned that. So, yeah, fun facts for everybody out there. Have either of you ever played that tomato-based RPG that's like a predecessor for Mario and Luigi made by Alpha Dream? No, tomato adventure. I think it's been fan translated for a very long time now.

And I hear it's simply, like, pretty good, and with Nintendo's oversight and funding, they were able to make a really good game with Superstar Saga. Okay, that makes sense. But that's why the first Mario and Luigi game is full of bean people, because they still have vegetables on the brain from tomato adventure. Oh, interesting. Yeah. Yeah, it makes sense. We're going to wrap up here with just a few other minor Bowser appearances. Again, we can't list them all.

If we missed any, I do want to hear, like, what are some of your favorites that we might not have gotten to in this 90-minute discussion? But so in part one, we went over like Bowser and Mario Card. That's really the first playable Bowser period. Mario Party, where he is an antagonist, only playable in a variance in the Wii U version of Mario Party. Mario Sports Games, original Mario RPG. So what else is there? Henry has included something, Bowser competing against Eggman in the Olympic Games. Well, I guess him in general competing for Olympic gold in all the Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games games that have come out in the last.

decade and that you I was just watching a I linked to a video of his appearances over the years and you just can watch a watch featured in it one of the strangest ones is that Bowser like all the characters can compete in Olympic sports including the the horse riding ones and so it's him riding a realistic horse yeah I'm waiting until they add I guess it would be I'm waiting until they add a ballroom dancing to those games games, then I'll play them. But I also thought it was funny because it's him, you know, it's him in Eggman in the same game and they both have similar like 90s name change issues. Like I, I think now, thanks to Jim Carrey, I think he actually will be Robotnik more regularly in America. I think Eggman has been defeated as his popular American name and maybe now that Yuji Nakka is in jail and can't change. it um he's under house arrest that's right but but yes i i was just thinking about like oh yeah he's bowser's cooper and robotnik is egg man and which which one counts but uh he's he stayed bowser they could not

convince they got a lot of super mario brother super show into the illumination film but they did not get to call him king cup including the the goddamn theme which honestly the best part of that movie. I just love too in that movie. Nintendo fought for so long to be like, they're not plumbers, they're not from Brooklyn. They're not plumbers, not from Brooklyn. Start of the movie. Plumbers from Brooklyn, call

us. Yeah. But it brought me back, like, why, like, this is suddenly canon again. We had the weird Miamoto statement, like, they're not plumbers. The toads can choose their gender, like all of these statements that were being revealed around the 2010s, but then they recond some of that stuff.

Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. Because Hollywood told her to do it. They're just making it up off the top of their heads in an interview. Well, you're telling me Hiral Historia is a lie. I can't believe it. Bob did an entire article on that. I wrote several articles on that awful book. Oh, that's right.

So, yeah, more Bowser appearances. I was like, what was Bowser up to in Hotel Mario, the unreleased CDI game? Well, he's just a stock sound effect from a sound effects album. So nothing's going on there. He kidnapped Mario in the edutainment game. is missing, Luigi is denied a boss fight. It's probably for the best because they reused a lot of Mario

graphics for these games, but because in Mario World Bowser's in that clown copter, there was no clean Bowser sprite of him just standing around. So they had to redraw him and it looks bad. It looks really bad.

I'm going to look it up now. I've never seen it before. I want to look it up as soon as we're done. Yeah, the original graphics of Mario's missing. I don't know what Nintendo was thinking. What deal with the devil they signed to make these entertainment games, but it's a blot on their almost perfect record. And yeah, I mean, in Wonder, Bowser, there's not really a big new thing for Bowser. I mean, yeah, he gets

like new mystical powers and also loves songs and things to he, honestly, Bowser's thing in Mario Wonder is he gets too high. Like, he, and he freaks out. It's true, it's true. He's, like, always know your dose and, you know,

make sure you meet your dealer ahead of time, make sure they're cool. Bowser said these wonder seeds ain't shit And they took too many Common mistake I'm looking at the Mario's missing sprite And it is extraordinarily unpleasant I was not prepared for how ugly it would be

That's that's that's really Because it's right next to like the Super Mario World Sprite for Luigi And it just looks like vomit Oh that's absolutely It's real bad This is the era in which Nintendo was like Why don't we license out the character So we got the CDI games

Which now there's like a tribute to the Zelda CDI games out for consoles and PC now I forget what that game is called I saw that yeah and yeah Mario will teach you how to type all of the Mario can go missing and you can learn about state capitals things like that and then they quickly

like just drew everything back in like no no no mistake mistake quality control and everything a few other Bowser appearances he's in wrecking crew 98 like a puzzle game I really really love it mixes wrecking crew with like matching matching puzzle games

he is the final boss in that he goes into construction very briefly in that series, in that single game, rather. And my last entry, oh, Drew. He's not the villain I care about in that game. No, no. It's all about good old, well, I'm not going to say his name because, oh, wait, Spike. You can see, yeah, you can't say his name now because they fixed it. That's right.

That's right. And he's in the movie. The second he appeared in the movie, I was like, well, I know Drew's happy at least for this moment in the film. Yeah. His name is Spike and his favorite team is the Cleveland Guardians. There never were, there never were other names for these things. and also Bowser final boss in DDR Mario Mix

And I see Henry has added another final thing What's going on here, Henry? You've been to Universal's Nintendo theme park And Bowser has prominent placement all over that place Yeah, I believe Drew and I have both been to the Hollywood one I've not been to the one in Osaka Or and soon there'll be an entire even bigger part of the Orlando Epic Universe.

Nintendo's going to be part of that. But yeah, Bowser, if you ought to see a in-person giant Bowser statue to scale, like in Mario Kart games, you can see that in person there. And tons of other cool Bowser stuff and Bowser merch. And currently, you can take the Bowser Fireball Challenge and eat a extra spicy, a spaghetti plate with a comes with a fun Bowser. puff pastry that looks like him. What do you get if you eat the entire

plate? Well, whether you eat it or not, you do get to take home a Bowser plate. I should have fucking grabbed that. I have that plate. We went with friends, and I was like, I can't pay $30 to take this challenge.

They paid the $30 and then like, hey, you're going to have the plate. We don't want the plate. I haven't been to the theme park, but I retweeted a very 20. Oh, my wonderful husband brought me the plate. Live plate. I mean, it's a cool plate.

I like it. It's good design. You know, I haven't been there, but I did retweet a very funny tweet. It's somebody flipping off the Bowser statue and saying, I can't believe we still have statues of this piece of shit. That's really good. Never forget what he did to us. Please continue. When Henry says it like, yeah, you get to look at the big Bowser statue.

You get to look at it a lot because it's the line for the Mario Kart ride wraps around. So you also get really tired of the Bowser statue because you're like, oh, we're still in mind. It's not moving. I could never be tired of that. I love seeing it. Every angle I want to. No, it's a lot of fun to walk. The ride itself is a fine ride.

It's fine. But the the theming, I mean, yes, as I walked around it, I was like, wow, wow. And being in Bowser's Castle, same deal. So yes, but you can eat. There's more than a few Bowser foods, but I wanted to share the Bowser themed plate that I got from the Fireball Challenge there. And we did cover Bowser's many. voices in the first part of our Bowser exploration but Henry did have

in the notes here that you know kids love that Jack Black Peaches song and you know good for Jack Black I don't like the movie but he seems like a cool guy and he is a content maker just like us now so you know how the mighty have fallen

down to our level but I'm sure he's still very wealthy oh well yeah I mean I love I love Jack Black does what he what he feels like he wants to do and I like that he's you know he he's got a big scruffy beard he's not controlling he's just letting it go out there and yeah also

that uh i mean yeah his peach's song is like first take mid jack black like we've heard jack black pump out a song like this in eight seconds that's funnier and yet children of today who weren't born when school of rock

came out like they they love the peach of song it has hundreds of millions of views on youtube they children were sad it was not nominated for an Oscar. He'll probably sing it at the Oscars, right? I don't know. If it's not nominated, he might not sing it. I don't know.

I was going to say, you know, these kids were so young, they could not enroll in the school of rock. They were infants. And now Henry has a Bowser hat on. My husband also brought that into... That's clashing with your Mario shirt. I know. But yes, my husband also brought in like, oh, yeah, we bought this Bowser hat, too, at Nintendo Land as well. You know, I'm looking at the YouTube...

results for Peaches. The number one link is to the illumination posting of that, and it's at a hundred and three million views. I don't know what the metric is for what a lot of views is on YouTube. That seems like a lot to me. It's a lot. It's not like a billion like Lady Gaga, I guess, but it's a lot. But then you see the live action one that Jack Black is in a Bowser costume. I think that one's at like 60 or something. I'm looking at the, yeah, so Gungum style is five billion. So, you know, that's still a mighty mountain to scale. But who can capture the magic of Cy? Surely not Jack Black. That's a stiff challenge. But yeah, I'm sad, though, that that Peach's song is going to define Bowser for a long time in the mainstream. Like, that is more many, many, many more people know about Bowser singing his Peach's song than we'll have played Bowser's inside story. So, yes, that was our exploration of Bowser.

We will be back in 20 years to discuss that 20 years. a bowser. Hopefully it's good for him. I trust it will be. Um, so we'll go through plugs now. I'll talk about retronauts up front here. So yes, uh, retronauts is fan supported. If you want to support retronauts, uh, please head on over to patreon.com slash retronauts and sign up at the $5 level. And when you do, you can have immediate access to, uh, over four years worth of exclusive full length bonus episodes. Uh, that is, I think nearly a hundred to date. And we started this in, uh, January of 2020. So if you have not been part of that tier, you've missed two episodes a month for four years now. So please check that out. And when you sign up at the $5 level,

you also get a weekly column and podcast by Diamond Fight. So there's a lot waiting for you. If you like listening to us talk about all video games at patreon.com slash retronauts. And I believe that we are on Twitter and Blue Sky as at Retronaut. So please follow us there. Let's go over to Drew. Drew, you've got a great podcast. You've got a great blog. Let's hear about them. Thank you. I also, in case someone's listening to this, and they're thinking about chipping in for the Retronauts' Patreon account. I love hearing Diamond's columns be read. I look forward to those weekly, right?

Weekly, yes. Except for vacations and we're very mad at them about that. But that's for private discussions. It's nice to have bite-sized podcasts in my feed. So like, you know, 90 minutes is ideal, obviously. And three hours is nice to have every once in a while. But those columns are a quick listen. If you're just doing dishes or something, I look forward to them.

I have a podcast. It's called Gayest Episode Ever where I talk about gay episodes of classic sitcoms. I have three Henry episodes or two Henry episodes at this point? How many episodes do we have you for, Henry? Hey, man. Sarah Silverman. Nikki. Nikki. Yeah, Nikki. There we go.

So if you like going very deep on sitcoms, gayest episode ever.com. Then I also have a blog that's probably more relevant to people who are fans of retronauts and it's called Thrilling Tales of Old Video Games. And I did a big piece on how Tanuki Mario and Super

Marvel Bros. 3 actually changed the way people draw raccoons permanently in Japan, and that's why Tenukis have raccoon tails when they shouldn't normally. I did, based on the last Bowser episode, I did a deeper dive on the whole reason why Nintendo didn't rename Bowser to Kupa when they renamed Princess Toadstool to Peach, and I think it doesn't suck. And I'll probably write some more Bowser stuff based on this episode, because these recordings always give me a lot to think about. That's thrilling tales of old video games.com. I was just reminded of your really good burdo piece. because I saw the art for it

done by another Drew who's great Drew Green of you under Burdo's spell I guess I should say I actually haven't done that piece yet so that piece got commissioned and then he used it to promote commissions

but that piece is coming and it's going to do a long history of Nintendo in Japanese and English gendering Berto and it's going to be the merriest, gayest thing I've ever done Yes I'm going to say I forgot that hasn't officially come out yet my bag. I love your podcast

Drew. I also really love your video game writing because in our time that we live in when venture capitalists have destroyed every website, I just miss sitting down with a blog and reading a blog and you really bring me back to the time, the distant time of, I don't know, the late 22,000s maybe when you can actually still do that. So it's great. I think it's going to come back. As so many people are losing jobs that I think they're going to resort to blogging as a means to like exercise the writing demons they have. But if enough people do that and the blogs don't suck, I think we could monetize them in the way that we used to be able to back in the day.

Blogging might come back. Fingers crossed. I hope so. I hope so. And Henry, how about you? Well, me and Bob also do a bunch of podcasts on the Talking Simpsons network that Drew has been on a number of them. But yes, we do Talking Simpsons where we go through every episode of the Simpsons, one at a time, super in-depth. Drew is going to be on one very soon, another one where he's being tokenized for a gay episode and also we had one

I'm very proud of it we did last month we had on Rebecca Sugar for one of our longest ones ever to talk about Selma's Choice that was a really great one and we also do the What a Cartoon podcast

where we cover an animated series not The Simpsons each month and an animated movie as well so check out Talking Simpsons and What a Cartoon wherever you find free podcasts and we're also Patreon supported and at patreon.com

slash Talking Simpsons you get a new episode of us talking about Futurama and King of the Hill each month two and are super long and when I say super long I mean six hours what a cartoon movie podcast we just covered Porco Rosso next month we're going to be

covering Disney's Chicken Little so it's the highs and the lows of animated feature films and as for me I've been the main host for this one Bob Mackie you can find me on Twitter and blue sky's Bob Servo and that is it for another episode of Retronauts.

We'll see you next time and remember he who coops and runs away lives to Coop another day. You know, Oh, Oh, Oh, Oh,

Oh. Thank you.