How Super Mario's most iconic power-up was inspired by magic mushrooms...
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I don’t remember the first time I heard someone joke about Mario getting high in Super Mario Bros. by eating all the mushrooms he finds, but it certainly feels like that joke is old as Super Mario Bros. itself.
If you hear that joke when you’re 12 or 22, you’ll likely treat it like some kind of incredible revelation that changes the way you look at the Super Mario Bros. franchise. At some point, though, the gag becomes yet another example of someone trying to apply an edge to a kid-friendly product by making some kind of barely believable suggestion that the whole thing is actually about something slightly darker. It’s a funny thing to joke about, but it starts to get a little more awkward when someone treats that theory as the absolute truth.
Do you know what’s really funny, though? It turns out that the old joke about Mario getting high on mushrooms may not be quite as ridiculous as you might think it is. Actually, the origins of Super Mario’s mushrooms are as confusing and enlightening as the average trip on so-called “magic mushrooms.”
https://www.denofgeek.com/games/is-s...gic-mushrooms/