Back in the early ’80s, when Nintendo and Shigeru Miyamoto were giving the world the brilliant platformer Super Mario Bros., we doubt the topic of Mario’s junk even came up. He was just a tiny bundle of pixels, he ate mushrooms and flowers, he jumped on stuff, that was all kids cared about.
But as those children have grown up, as graphics technology has advanced, and as Nintendo has revealed just what’s underneath those overalls to some degree, people have wondered, do the Mario Bros., you know, have junk? Nintendo appears to have accidentally confirmed that, and the internet immediately figured out the exact length of Luigi’s mushroom.
It starts with the upcoming Mario Tennis Aces, out June 22nd for the Switch. The game itself, from the team behind the Mario Tennis and Mario Golf series of games, looks pretty good. But one promotional image got attention thanks to Luigi’s tight shorts.
If you look closely, Luigi, ah, has a bulge there. And, not only that, the image has enough scale elements that a Tumblr user determined that, if it’s in scale, Luigi at rest is 3.7 inches long.
Needless to say, the internet had some opinions:
https://twitter.com/9_volt88/status/974692663336292352
https://twitter.com/PizzaGiorno/status/974684705743306752
The current 'articles' going around about Luigi and his, YOU KNOW, have reduced my faith in humanity by approximately 7.6%.
— Thomas Whitehead 🇺🇦 🔜 Wrigley Field (@ThomasBW84) March 16, 2018
Nintendo, for its part, quickly removed the art in question. But, once you put it on the internet, it’s there forever. At least adults got an answer to a burning question, but at what cost to our collective cultural innocence? At what cost, we say?
(via AV Club)