Halloween Hodgepodge

Download the Halloween Album, Phantasmal Patchwork!

Salutations, Scuttle Bugs, on this frosty Halloween evening. There's no more fitting time to hang up your Tanooki suits, kick your feet up, and listen to some spine-chilling scores! Amassed here is an anthology of unique and essentially overlooked treasures that all come from spooky situations in Mario and company's vast expeditions. Follow the link above to snag a pack of fifteen neatly arranged masterpieces, plus two surprise tracks!

Tracklist:

1. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - The Sword Descends and the Stars Scatter
2. Super Paper Mario - Before Merlee’s Mansion
3. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - Ghostly Encounter
4. Mario Party Advance - Shroom City (Horror Area Building)
5. Tetris Attack - The Place Where Evil Sleeps
6. Wario Land 4 - Crescent Moon Village
7. Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars - The Dungeon is Full of Monsters (Kero Sewers)
8. Mario Party - Slowly, Slowly
9. Mario Party 4 - Mystery Train (Boo’s Haunted Bash)
10. Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door - Riddle Tower
11. Paper Mario - Approach to the Mansion
12. Paper Mario - Boo’s Mansion
13. Mario Party 9 - Battle with King Boo!
14. Wario World - Mirror Mansion 1
15. Donkey Kong 64 - Creepy Castle (Catacombs)
16. Super Paper Mario - River Twygz Bed (Reversed)
17. *OBAKE OMAKE* rooD raeY-dnasuohT ehT :oiraM repaP - Gloomy Glitzville

Hope you all had a hair-raising holiday! Happy Twilight Trails to you all!

You Know You're A Mario Nerd When, Volume I

You see the badly drawn head of King Koopa in the clouds on the drive home.

You're bored at work and you imagine what it would be like if Rudy the Clown became your new coworker.

You drew your own Yoshi characters in elementary school and still draw new ones in college.

You can sing "Medamayaki" by heart.

You made your own custom Mario Party boards and player tokens.

You made a Pipe House out of cardboard and doll toys.

You hear Mario-game-specific instruments and melodies in unrelated songs. (Wario Land 4, or am I crazy?)

You had Luigi as your imaginary best friend when you were a child.

You see that all soundtracks for a certain Mario game online have missed a song so you make a recording of it yourself.

You have a stuffed penguin named Tuxie.

You have a stuffed dolphin named Stuffy.

You have a red, orange and tan stuffed snake named Hizza.

You spent unspeakable amounts of time copying and pasting Japanese characters from The Mushroom Kingdom's "Mario in Japan" section into Google to find obscure character art and merchandise.

You rewrote the whole Mario Kart 64 instruction manual into a notebook when you were young.

You imagine characters in sitcoms and movies as various Mario characters.

You ate a Luigi face sandwich with star buns.

Your mom yelled at you because you left the TV on at Seaside Town (or other locations) and turned the volume up to act as a music player back before you had an MP3 player.

You also held your Game Boy Advance up to your ear to listen to the sweet tunes of Mario Kart: Super Circuit before bed.

You played Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the first time and it was torture to go to school because you couldn't hear the awesome music and you didn't know it by heart yet.

You then spent all day trying to remember most of a song and ended up making crappy fan art of Peasley instead.

You have Mario shirts, pants, bed sheets, blankets, bags, wallets, and jewelry.

You still listen to Mario cassette tapes and CDs you made at least ten years ago.

You have used "Something Suspicious" and "E-Mail from X" (or Ice Land) as your ringtone.

You met your true love because of Mario.

Your true love gave you a question mark-shaped ring.

You want specific Mario songs played at your wedding.

Golden Oldies Station: Scary Beach House Edition

Welcome again to the Golden Oldies Station! Today's edition will be covering a wide range of genres. Whether you want to just relax before bed or get up and dance, we've got something for your Mario-music-craving self!

1. Luigi's Mansion - Main Theme [Funk Remix]

This piece is sensationally smooth and cool. The voice clips of Luigi thrown in are a very nice touch. I found myself bobbing my head along to this one!

2. Yoshi's Story - Yoshi on the Beach [Big Band Remix]

This is a very cute and soothing remix, expertly performed live. The light and airy sound is a perfect complement to the adorableness that is Yoshi's Story. I think this is a great track to play in the background when you're in the mood to relax and drift away to the beach in your imagination!

3. Super Mario 64 - Bowser's Road [deadmau5 Remix]

This is a more hardcore mix than the others. It is made in the style of the house music producer deadmau5. I really enjoy the dancy feel of this remix and the energetic atmosphere it provides.

Thank you for listening to this edition of the Golden Oldies Station! Catch us next time for more Mariorific remixes!

Bundled with Free Expansion Pak

After a long hiatus, I have decided to continue my adventure in the Mario fandom by starting a Mario-themed Tumblr blog. I will be submitting rare or interesting Mario-related pictures and videos there. It already has over one hundred posts, and I will continue to post there until I run out of material! Click here to enter Supper Mario Broth! I will post at this blog again someday, when time is more manageable, but for now, I hope you enjoy this mini-blog! See you later, Chuckolators!

Puzzling Discoveries

In my bouts of rummaging around for rare Mario info, I have found two fascinating pieces of art that appear to be uncirculated. These pieces of art are illustrations from Japanese jigsaw puzzles. Click the images to see them in full size!

This Super Mario RPG puzzle displays a plethora of characters - every party member, the main members of the Smithy Gang... even the Royal Bus Driver and a Rat Funk! I really love the exciting composition and the bright coloring on this piece of art. I wish I could see it in person.

I do not know if these puzzles are official merchandise or not, but nonetheless, the art is of supreme quality! Again, lots of characters are depicted - the Snorkel Snake, the Dragon and the Air Bag are my personal favorites. I wish that some day someone will find these treasures, scan them and share them with the world.

That wraps it up for today! Catch you on the Flipside!

A Tale In Murals: This Art is the Pits

Have you ever wished to see the murals from Super Paper Mario's two Pits of 100 Trials Respectively unobstructed? Those Game-and-Watchy doors and floors block the view like some sort of Blooper ink at all times, preventing you from seeing the beautiful paintings beneath. From beginning to end, the walls catalogue the hiding places of the Pure Hearts - sadly seen too late in the game to be a mysterious foreshadowing, but at least being a nice retrospection into your adventures. Just click the images to view them at full size.

Here are Flopside and Flipside alongside the first Pure Heart. It's intriguing how the player never sees Flipside from a distance during normal gameplay, which makes this the only place one can see the cities' overall shape.

Fracktail, guardian of the second pure heart. Nothing special, you'd think, until you realize the blue side is actually his front and he has his neck bent a harsh 90 and head turned a painful 180 degrees for this image.

Merlee and her mansion are featured in the third mural. One has to wonder, are the characters depicted here really old, or are the murals recent?

The fourth Pure Heart is in Fort Francis... wait, no, it isn't! It was inside Tippi all along! Is the castle a special location Tippi had to reach in order to release it or are the murals just that good at guessing where the hero would get the heart?

Squirpina XIV, the queen of Squirpia, with her Squirpy subjects. What happened to the other aliens besides Squirps, her son? Outer Space holds many mysteries...

King Croacus and his Floro Sapien minions dominate this piece. Again, inconsistencies with the timeline, as this is obviously the latest king, however he's not thousands of years old as we can presume other keepers to be ...or is it? The colors are way off from any of the kings, so this might be a deeper riddle than it appears.

Sammer's Kingdom is all topsy-turvy in this painting. Strange how none of the fighting elements appear here, even though the chapter is as much fighting as Mario Kart is driving. Maybe the mural is making a statement about pacifism? Or maybe this just looked prettier.

For the final mural before fighting Shadoo, Jaydes and Grambi present the last Pure Heart. Ironic how Jaydes' outfit is made out of spikes pointing up, and Grambi's design consists of elements pointing down. A way to show duality in a very subtle manner.

And as a bonus, here's the floor of the dungeons, visible if you flip into 3D. It's tileable and makes for a great desktop background, among other things. That's all folks!

Golden Oldies Station: Waluigi's Dance Stadium Edition

It's time to tune in to the Golden Oldies Station! Take a listen to these hand-picked musical pieces. This edition includes scarcely-known remixes from various corners of the Mario fandom.

1. Mario Kart DS - Waluigi Pinball [SNES Remix]

This remix of the fan favorite from Mario Kart DS is a charming recreation in Super Mario Kart style, using the original SPC soundfont. The style is pulled off magnificently, and combines one of my favorite Mario Kart songs with nostalgic bliss!

2. Hotel Mario - Title Theme [Dance Remix]

This funky remix of the infamous song from Hotel Mario is full of pep and life. It'll make you want to get up out of your seat and do the fat, off-model Mario!

3. Wario Land 3 - Golf Mini-Game [Stadium Remix]

This last remix is interesting, to say the least. It takes the antsy song from Wario Land 3 and gives it a more refined sound. The tense melody is quite humorous and keeps me on the edge of my seat.

And that's all for this edition! Hope you enjoyed it, and see you next time!