The 'Shroom:Issue 225/Pipe Plaza

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Director's Notes

Written by: Zange (talk)

Shroom225 Zange.png

Hello and happy December everyone!! Crazy to think that it's nearly 2026... Anyways, I hope you've enjoyed the festivities of our space-themed issue so far! Given the nature of Pipe Plaza, there's not a ton of sections this month to fit the theme BUT we do have a few that managed to work! So please enjoy those, along with the rest of what we have to offer here this month!

Not sure if this is true for anyone else, but I feel like I have just been nonstop busy since Thanksgiving and it's kind of the worst! Part of it I'm chalking up to the fact that my birthday happened between then and now, but I have no way to explain the rest of it. Kinda hoping things calm down after the holidays are over because it would please me greatly if they did ^^;;

Waluigi Time (talk) has written a space-tacular edition of LEGO Look this month! Trig Jegman (talk) has also written a bonus edition of NIWA News! Additionally, the rest of those Pipe Plaza sections you know and love are here as well!! Don't forget that you, too, can always send in an application for a section of your own creation! Just head to the sign up page to get started!!

One last thing from me and I'll let y'all get to reading...

Congratulations to Waluigi Time for being the fourth 'Shroom writer to reach 500 sections!

Section of the Month

Congratulations to our winners! Tying for gold we have Waluigi Time (talk) with Awards Analysis and Trig Jegman (talk) with NIWA News! Rounding us out at third is MightyMario (talk) with Poll Committee Discussion! Thank you to everyone who votes for their favorite sections as well.

PIPE PLAZA SECTION OF THE MONTH
Place Section Votes % Writer
1st Awards Analysis 4 33.33% Waluigi Time (talk)
1st NIWA News 4 33.33% Trig Jegman (talk)
3rd Poll Committee Discussion 3 25.00% MightyMario (talk)
News and information
NIWA News
Trig Jegman (talk)
Stay up-to-date with the latest happenings from the NIWA wiki network!
read more
Mario Calendar
GPM1000 (talk)
Find out all about this month's Super Mario releases.
read more
To-Do Tracker
Camwoodstock (talk)
No clue what to do? Join the fun and see what's been done!
read more
Poll Committee Discussion
MightyMario (talk)
The best analysis of the polls around!
read more
Awards Analysis
Sparks (talk)
Awards may have come and gone, but let's talk about the results!
read more
The 'Shroom Report
Waluigi Time (talk)
All the latest writers and all the milestones of the current ones.
read more
A Section of Muppetational Origins
Zange (talk)
I will now introduce to you one of the most chaotic Muppets of all time!
read more
What's in a Campaign?
Shoey (talk)
It wasn't a bot, was a bot lobster!
read more
LEGO Look
Waluigi Time (talk)
To brickfinity, and beyond!
read more

NIWA News

Written by: Trig Jegman (talk)

This little installment is generally unplanned. That said, I have enough interesting things to cover to write about it.

New Member

Logo for Wiki Mario (Kirby Wiki FR)

Wiki Kirby, the French Kirby Wiki, joins NIWA as the fourth French-speaking site and 42nd site in the organization. Check out the sites today!

Major developments

Our winners for the 2025 NIWA Cross-Wiki Week are ShadowKirby and Storm Aurora. Congratulations! We look forward to seeing everyone again for the 2026 Cross-Wiki Week.

Major new game releases:

  • Kirby Air Riders
  • Metroid Prime 4: Beyond / Metroid Prime 4: Beyond – Nintendo Switch 2 Edition

Wario World has also seen re-release on Nintendo Switch Online. This is a great opportunity to get some new images for it!

A word on retirement

Those with an eye on what I've been up to have probably noticed that I've been slowing resigning from a lot of different NIWA sites. Starting in January 2026, another two will be entering the fold, with me departing from Inkipedia and MiiWiki. The era of "Trig Jegman is everywhere" has unfortunately begun to end. Difficulties across splitting time and some existing health issues worsening have made it so that I am no longer able to serve wikis in the same way that I have done in the past. Ultimately, I intend to leave most NIWA platforms from editing entirely, except the two sites that I am directly responsible for running (WikiBound, F-Zero Wiki) and StrategyWiki.

I've been editing wikis for just under eleven years at this point, circa February. That's almost enough time for someone to be old enough to edit wikis themselves which is terrifying, and for the last six years I've been staff of multiple different wikis. It's been a time of firing on all cylinders, constantly, 24/7. Bringing things up to date, making certain elements consistent, and doing a better job at internal documentation...just a small sample of my hopes and goals. I've done my best to attract editors to sites, particularly smaller, more niche franchises, and give them a form of editing community that otherwise didn't exist in the past. Ultimately, any success I have found in taking charge of these sites is because of the communities surrounding them, and for that I could not be more grateful to every editor that I've worked with, be them frequent or sporadic. Any change helps, after all!

Some activities are bigger than others. Being able to directly call out companies like FANDOM or Wikidot and actually instill changes to those platforms has been a once in a lifetime opportunity. Not everyone gets to stare the entire FANDOM community board of directors in the face and tell them to get their shit together. In a similar vein, not everyone gets to shut down serial plagiarists that steal the hard work of others for themselves. These sorts of things would not have happened to just any editor or staff member—I'm quite thankful that NIWA editors have trusted me to do these large-scale projects over the years.

But alas, time has not been kind to me or my efforts. I'm leaving behind a lot of loose projects and ideas for someone more capable to pick up and implement—including here. I'm hoping to also leave behind a large swarth of helpful resources and materials, some of which are yet to be fully and formally published. Working on these wikis over the years has unequivocally changed my life for the better. I can only dream that just maybe, it made some of yours better too. This isn't a permanent goodbye by any means, but I'll probably be a bit less present overall than I have in years past.

Still going to write these newsletters though, so you're not fully rid of me yet!

Thank you for the memories.

—Trig Jegman

This concludes this installment of NIWA News. For questions, comments, concerns, or suggestions, contact NIWA's Vice Coordinator Trig Jegman.

Mario Calendar

Written by: GPM1000 (talk)

Happy holidays, everyone! It is officially December, which makes this the final month of 2025! So, what better way to celebrate than to look back on the Mario games that have graced us in Decembers past? Welcome to the final Mario Calendar of 2025!

Region Abbreviations

Abb. Region
ALL All Regions (JP/NA/EU/AU)
JP Japan
NA North America
EU Europe
AU Oceania/Australia
SK South Korea
CHN China
UK United Kingdom

Console Abbreviations

Abb. Console
NES Nintendo Entertainment System
Famicom Family Computer Disk System
SNES Super Nintendo Entertainment System
N64 Nintendo 64
GC Nintendo GameCube
GB Game Boy
GBC Game Boy Color
GBA Game Boy Advance
DS Nintendo DS
3DS Nintendo 3DS
Switch Nintendo Switch
Wii VC Nintendo Wii Virtual Console
3DS VC Nintendo 3DS Virtual Console
Wii U VC Nintendo Wii U Virtual Console
VB Virtual Boy
G&W Game and Watch
64DD Nintendo 64 Disk Drive
MS-DOS Microsoft Disk Operating System
CD-i Philips CD-i
IQ iQue Player
NVS Nvidia Shield
ACPC Amstrad CPC
ZX ZX Spectrum
Coleco Colecovision
TI-99 Texas Instruments TI-99/4A
  • December 19
  • December 31

Well, this is my yearly opportunity to remind everyone just how interesting and sparse December releases are after Christmas! We get plenty of releases right up until Christmas Eve, and then the rest of the year is pretty much empty. Just goes to show how much Nintendo relies on the holidays to sell their games -- once the holidays are over, they have no motivation to immediately crank anything else out!

I also want to draw your attention to "Yoshi's Crafted World: Das Quiz." There's no page on the wiki for it, so I did a little bit of my own research. It seems like it was a German quiz about Yoshi's Crafted World when it came out, and answering the quiz questions would enter you in some sort of raffle. It's still up for anyone who wants to play it, though I can't imagine that's many of us.

Anyways, thank you SO much for an excellent 2025, and I can't wait to see you all in 2026! Happy holidays, and I hope you all have a wonderful new year :)

To-Do Tracker

Written by: Cam / Tori / Cecil / Claire / Macy (talk)

Happy Holidays! This year has been... Like, 5 years, for us, but we're not complaining. It's been quite a blast seeing how this place has grown in the past year alone, with probably one of the best Mario Awards seasons... Ever, watching proposals shake up and reshape the wiki, and seeing some surprising articles become feature-worthy.

And at some point, we got promoted to Patroller during the whole shebang, and we don't even think that's set in yet mentally! For as long as this year felt, genuinely, this place has made it feel... A little less overwhelming, for us. (We're probably some of the only people on this planet who could find working on wikitable syntax "zen" in any capacity.)

But enough about us! For the big Christmas issue, we didn't want to just do the same-old-same-old. We can't exactly make these tables very festive, but we'll give the most devout fans of data a little treat this time around, with a fancy-pants full-year analysis on top of our monthly one! That's right, we're giving you a double feature!

Also, if you're a frequent contributor to the wiki, and don't usually read this section, one, hi! Two, we'd highly suggest at least reading the full-year analysis. It's like 11 issues in 1 in there.

Note: All dates here were taken fairly late at night in EST; around 1-3 AM EST.

November & December To-Do Items
To-Do Item Nov 12, 2025 Nov 19, 2025 Nov 26, 2025 Dec 3, 2025 Dec 10, 2025 Dec 17, 2025
Spotlight focuses 1 2 1 1 1 1
Ongoing TPPs 11 11 9 11 10 9
Unimplemented Proposals 30+ 30+ 30+ 30+ 30+ 30+
Unresolved Discussions 253 250 250 251 261 266
Construction Projects 133 132 131 131 136 139
Rewrites Needed 158 158 161 160 164 167
Sourcing Issues 19,354 19,301 19,203 19,138 18,929 18,822
Stub Articles 803 805 803 801 812 839
Wanted Articles 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+
Requested Deletions 13 13 14 13 14 14
Suggested Moves 65 63 66 65 65 66
Suggested Merges 70 70 71 71 70 70
Suggested Splits 68 67 68 68 70 69
Deprecated Templates 25 18 N/A N/A N/A 560
Duplicate Arguments N/A 1 N/A N/A N/A N/A
Missing Romanizations N/A 1 N/A N/A N/A N/A
Unknown Meanings N/A N/A N/A 1 1 1
Image Quality 3,985 3,986 3,987 3,990 3,988 3,968
Images Needed 685 689 687 678 676 671
Media Needed 452 455 455 460 467 469
Media Quality 1 1 1 1 1 1
Unused Files 100+ 100+ 100+ 100+ 100+ 100+
Files To Be Used 21 21 21 21 21 21

For some observations for how the numbers have progressed, and some potential targets:

  • This month was (comparatively) slow for Talk Page Proposals, hovering consistently around 10. Despite this, not a single dent was made in Unimplemented proposals, as it maintained its streak of being around 30-to-40 throughout.
  • Sourcing issues has hit possibly its first huge milestone, finally going below the 19k mark! ...It's still at 18,822 entries, but that's progress! (Though, tragically, Articles with unsourced sections from last issue has stayed with the exact same 3 remaining pages.)
  • Requested deletions stays hovering around 13-to-14. Some of these require proposal before they can be deleted, so, if you're feeling up to the task, by all means, it would be nice to see some of these cleared out!
  • Moves, merges, and splits end the year basically neck-and-neck with one another, hovering around 65-to-70 each.
  • It's time for another round of Deprecated templates, and, boy, is it a doozy. Due to a recent revamp of footnote syntax, the Footnote template has got to go... And the over 500 pages that use it have to change accordingly.
  • Tragically, we did not get our Christmas Miracle; Media Quality stayed pat at 1 file remaining. The Koopa General, much like the item he's based on, can't help but target 1st place... Even when it's him. There's always next year!
  • We end the year with 21 Files marked for future use, and all month, none of them have moved an inch. If you're one of the folks responsible, the new year is a great time to help take these files marked for future use, and make them presently used!

...Normally, this'd be where we leave things. But!

Yearly Round-up

As we mentioned in the opening, we've been collecting this data for (just under) a full year by now. So, we thought it'd be fun (and potentially insightful) to compile up how things have progressed; from January 1st, all the way to December 17th, and trying to get as close to a quarterly, by-season basis as we can get it.

Also, for the sake of clarity, this is also excluding more "volatile" categories which frequently have 0 entries and occasionally get 1-3 new entries that last for a day or two. Sorry for anybody that was curious how many Math Errors there were.

Note: All dates here were taken fairly late at night in EST; around 1-3 AM EST.

2025 To-Do Items
To-Do Item Jan 1, 2025 Mar 26, 2025 Jun 25, 2025 Sep 24, 2025 Dec 17, 2025
Unimplemented Proposals 15+ 20+ 30+ 30+ 30+
Unresolved Discussions 282 288 269 291 266
Construction Projects 260 150 105 131 139
Rewrites Needed 514 112 134 155 167
Sourcing Issues 19,771 19,650 19,892 19,540 18,822
Stub Articles 238 582 678 768 839
Wanted Articles 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+ 1000+
Requested Deletions 15 7 0 1 14
Suggested Moves 51 56 62 59 66
Suggested Merges 66 75 64 62 70
Suggested Splits 19 24 45 64 69
Wanted Categories 50+ 0 0 0 0
Deprecated Templates 1,240 320 0 36 560
Image Quality 3,992 3,879 3,859 3,898 3,968
Images Needed 816 756 726 728 671
Media Needed 245 198 303 427 469
Media Quality 10 9 5 2 1
Unused Files 500+ 200+ 100+ 300+ 100+
Files To Be Used N/A N/A 17 19 21

For a year-wide analysis:

  • Media Quality is definitely the category that shrunk the most without being fully emptied out... But that's mostly because it went from 10 to 1. That's, on average, just under 1 file a month being dealt with.
  • The fact this year was so busy in terms of proposals shows in the unimplemented proposal quantity more than doubling. Plenty of these proposals are from active users, however, a few of them are from users who are either presently temporarily blocked, or permanently blocked; either way, we'd highly suggest working together to wrangle these in the near future!
  • Sourcing Issues has remained the absolute goliath of the year; despite this, it has slowly, but surely, experienced a chip in its armor, going from almost 20k to just under 19k. With the addition of a new channel in the Discord for foreign language wikis, as well as general foreign language affairs, time will tell if this starts to decrease faster in the next year!
  • The most "meh" category of the year has got to be Wanted pages... Which is a Special Page, meaning we can't actually get a full read on things. Because of this, all we can tell you is that it's still over 1,000 pages.
    • By this token, as of writing, all 1,000 of the pages being asked for are linked to at least 500 times (thanks to navboxes), but only an esteemed 136 of them are linked to more than 600 times. Only 2 pages breach not only 1,000, but 1,200 links; that would put both of these two at a roughly 3% chance of being linked on a random page!
    • Both of these got to these heights by being linked to in either very dense, or very popular, navboxes. Second place, Clock hand, is in the navboxes for Super Mario 64, Mario Kart 8 Deluxe, Mario Kart DS, and even Platforms. The most requested of all in this is, of all things, the Crazy grandpa from a Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars advertisement, a page that is linked to 1,373 times (and we guess we just made it 1,374!) Being a part of both a super-dense RPG's navbox and the Humans navbox, quite possibly the most populated navbox of all, would definitely bring those numbers up. One would have to be crazy to let these pages go un-created for another year!
  • Back on track, a few success stories; Wanted Categories was, in contrast, completely eliminated relatively early in the year, and stayed down. Rewrites sort of had a success, but that was mostly by virtue of re-sorting through it, and determining what needed a rewrite, and what was merely a stub article. Deprecated Templates was cleared out not once but twice, but it's looking like it's ready for round three with the recent deprecation of the Footnote template! And, while nobody was looking, a fourth of the Images Needed were captured.
  • Moves and merges generally stayed fairly close to one another, but splits... Ho, nelly. In terms of percentage, it's the single largest increase across the year, going from just under 20 entries to well over triple that. It's only mitigated somewhat by the fact that "well over triple" is still only 70-or-so pages. Now, if you want the largest increase in terms of additional pages...
  • The single most dire category is, as one might have come to expect if they've followed this column, Media Needed. Nintendo Music releasing right alongside a slew of recent proposals to increase music coverage have caused a relatively small category that was once hovering around 200-something items, to skyrocket to over double that, and it's closing in on 500. If there was one category we would love to see more interaction with, it would be this one!

Poll Committee Discussion

Written by: MightyMario (talk)

Hello, and happy holidays/Merry Christmas from the Fifteenth Poll Committee! It's also my birthday month! Let's analyze some polls, both from Sparks, our committee's biggest fan of My Little Pony!

What is your favorite Bros. Attack in Mario & Luigi: Brothership? (Sparks (talk), November 9, 2025)

What is your favorite Bros. Attack in Mario & Luigi: Brothership?

I have not played Mario & Luigi: Brothership. 45.67% (760 votes)
Clockout Blow 12.26% (204 votes)
Hatch Me if You Can 8.47% (141 votes)
I have no opinion. 7.15% (119 votes)
Red Shell 4.63% (77 votes)
Max-Mix Vortex 4.33% (72 votes)
Bomb Derby 4.15% (69 votes)
Zapperator 3.67% (61 votes)
Conductor Connector 3.55% (59 votes)
Yoo Who Cannon 3.19% (53 votes)
Jump Helmet 1.62% (27 votes)
Green Shell 1.32% (22 votes)
Total votes: 1,664

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has recently celebrated its 8th anniversary. Who is your favorite playable character in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle? (Sparks (talk), November 23, 2025)

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has recently celebrated its 8th anniversary. Who is your favorite playable character in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle?

I have not played Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. 41.17% (688 votes)
Mario 13.76% (230 votes)
Luigi 9.87% (165 votes)
Yoshi 7.06% (118 votes)
Rabbid Peach 5.33% (89 votes)
Rabbid Luigi 4.97% (83 votes)
Rabbid Mario 4.85% (81 votes)
Rabbid Yoshi 4.19% (70 votes)
Princess Peach 4.01% (67 votes)
Donkey Kong 2.99% (50 votes)
Rabbid Cranky 1.80% (30 votes)
Total votes: 1,671

Analysis

What is your favorite Bros. Attack in Mario & Luigi: Brothership?

A Yoshi hatching from its egg during Hatch Me if You Can in Mario & Luigi: Brothership
Yoshi's Unexpected Appearance, anyone?

Since Brothership is already a year old (wow time flies fast!), we thought it was due time for a poll centered around one of the series most notable aspects: Bros. Attacks! Surprisingly, the top option was taken by people saying they haven't played Brothership, must be a really powerful Bros. Attack I'm not aware of… I haven't played it for myself either, but one day I will!

Jokes aside, Clockout Blow was considered the favorite Bros. Attack with 204 votes, followed by Hatch Me if You Can with 141 votes. After the people with no opinion took fourth, the classic Red Shell took fifth with 77 votes, the Max-Mix Vortex in sixth, and the one I can never get the timing down on: Bomb Derby, placed seventh.

Zapping into eighth was the Zapperator, and ninth had the Conductor Connector. Lastly, the three remaining and returning Bros. Attacks: Yoo-Who Cannon, Jump Helmet, and the Green Shell, took the last three spots respectively.

Personally, I have a love for Hatch Me if You Can because of Yoshi, and it's also nice to see Yoshi assisting in an attack instead of being an extra jump or having to catch Baby Mario every five seconds.

Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle has recently celebrated its 8th anniversary. Who is your favorite playable character in Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle?

Mario and Rabbid Mario artwork for Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle
Mario was doing the whole multiverse thing before it was popular.

BWAAAAAAAAH!!!

Sorry, had to get it out somehow, but the Mario/Rabbids RPG that took everyone by surprise with how good it was, recently turned eight this year. Having made it up to the final boss, I can say that I have a preference to use the two Yoshis in my team due to how much damage they can deliver.

Shocked to see that the top option was again taken by the people that haven't played the game. At least Mario was the favorite, after all it is his game, no? (It's half-Rabbid, half-Mario, but his contract stipulates we credit him for the total game). His brother, Luigi follows behind in third place, with Yoshi (there's a lot of Yoshi this section, weird) taking fourth. The Rabbid characters all take the next few spots, just as they always stick together in times of need or poll-placing, with the Donkey Kong Adventure protagonists in the last places. I expect to hear Rabbid Cranky rant about this next time we see him.

Hopefully if we do a poll about the Sparks of Hope characters, the Rabbids will fare much better in placement.

Conclusion

That'll be it from me this time, we'll see you in 2026 with brand new polls and all the analysis you can read! Happy holidays, readers!

Awards Analysis

Written by: Sparks (talk)

YAY! I GET TO WRITE THE NEXT AWARDS ANALYSIS!!

Oh - - how long were you there? Hiya! You probably know me already, but just in case you don't, I'm Sparks, current 'Shroom Sub-Director and pony fan! It's been a few months since I've written Poll Committee Discussion, but now I'm taking on Awards instead of polls! Well, the Awards are still shown in poll format, but you know what I mean.

I have chosen three awards to go over in great detail: M4. Favorite Power-Up, M16. Favorite Mario Party Minigame and F3. Worst Level Concept. Of course, I like to have fun when I write my sections, and I can tell you right now that this will be a reading of high energy and plenty of exclamation marks. Oh yeah! This time, I won't bore you all with percentages, just the number of votes is enough.

Let's take a look at M4. Favorite Power-Up!

Archives

M4. Favorite Power-Up

M4. Favorite Power-Up

Tanooki Suit/Super Leaf 11.27% (296 votes)
Blue Shell (NSMB) 8.83% (232 votes)
Super Bell 8.11% (213 votes)
Cape Feather 7.92% (208 votes)
Fire Flower 6.89% (181 votes)
Propeller Mushroom 5.71% (150 votes)
Super Star (no motion) 4.99% (131 votes)
Double Cherry 4.87% (128 votes)
Penguin Suit 4.87% (128 votes)
Cloud Flower 4.26% (112 votes)
Mega Mushroom 4.26% (112 votes)
Total votes: 2,627

M16. Favorite Mario Party Minigame

M16. Favorite Mario Party Minigame

Booksquirm 9.91% (179 votes)
Bowser's Big Blast 8.74% (158 votes)
Shy Guy Says 7.69% (139 votes)
Dungeon Duos 7.19% (130 votes)
Hexagon Heat 6.92% (125 votes)
Face Lift 6.86% (124 votes)
Eatsa Pizza 6.64% (120 votes)
Slaparazzi 6.42% (116 votes)
Bumper Balls 5.92% (107 votes)
Camera Shy 4.81% (87 votes)
Total votes: 1,807

F3. Worst Level Concept

F3. Worst Level Concept

Autoscrolling levels 17.24% (372 votes)
Restrictively low timers 10.33% (223 votes)
Dark/low vision levels 9.27% (200 votes)
Search Party levels (SMBW) 6.86% (148 votes)
Automatic levels (SMM) 6.02% (130 votes)
Checkpointless challenges 5.79% (125 votes)
Cappyless/F.L.U.D.D.less missions 5.75% (124 votes)
Water levels 5.42% (117 votes)
100 Coin Stars/Shine Sprites (SM64/SMS) 5.38% (116 votes)
Roshambo Temples (PM:CS) 4.31% (93 votes)
Total votes: 2,158

Analysis

M4. Favorite Power-Up

We're kicking things off with an award I made a presentation for! The Super Mario franchise offers plenty of variety with its power-ups, although some are clearly better than others. I'll be looking at the top 11 (because there was a tie between 10 and 11) power-ups decided by 2,627 voters!

The 11th and 10th spots go to Cloud Flower and Mega Mushroom, each with 112 votes each! The Cloud Flower may be limited only to Super Mario Galaxy 2, but it's so much fun to create platforms while in the air. Who knows how far you could get if backflips and long jumps are incorporated? I'll also mention the (mostly) helpful wind in some moments to allow Mario to get by without having to do anything! I can see why it's so popular.

As for the Mega Mushroom, it's made more appearances across the series. Picking one up allows Mario and his friends to grow to gargantuan size and destroy everything they come across, including pipes! While it is rare, the excitement of being giant is an adrenaline-rushing experience that's fantastic while it lasts. It's unfortunate that the effect is temporary... Bowser wouldn't stand a chance if it lasts forever! Except if he also grows giant. Imagine the epic battle that'd unfold!

Next is the second and last tie of this poll. In 9th and 8th place with 128 votes each are the Penguin Suit and Double Cherry. The Penguin Suit is one of two power-ups introduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii, serving as an upgraded Ice Flower (won't cover that, sorry). Freezing those annoying Dry Bones is always nice, but sliding on the ice is even better! Breaking through Brick Blocks while you do so is even better. Not to mention penguins are super cute! Nintendo should include the Penguin Suit in a 3D Mario game. You could blend in with the penguins!

The Double Cherry is one of the most unique power-ups to date! Touching one will create a copy of whoever did so! There can be multiple copies around at the same time, so there's plenty of chaos to be had! It's like a multiplayer experience while playing single player! Additionally, the copies have the same existing power-up as the real player, so you could fill the screen with fireballs and boomerangs if you wanted to! We can't forget those platforms requiring multiple people to activate them. I'd like to see the Double Cherry come back - in power-up form!

Artwork of Invincible Mario from Super Mario Bros. Wonder with shadow.
Shining brightly in all colors of the rainbow is also great for parties!

In 7th place is the Super Star with 131 votes! I'm not sure what the "no motion" part means. Is it referring to that one moment in Mario & Luigi: Dream Team? I don't know. What I do know is that the Super Star is a classic! Like come one, it's been around since Super Mario Bros.! Taking down enemies while running at incredible speeds never gets old. You also gain an amazing rainbow look as you dash at high speeds! Heh, see what I did there? Like the Mega Mushroom, I wish this was permanent. Would've made the games too easy I guess.

The Propeller Mushroom is the halfway point, taking 6th place and earning 150 votes! The other new power-up introduced in New Super Mario Bros. Wii is understandably the more popular option, and there's evidence for that. How would you like it if you could fly with the shake of a Wii Remote/press of a button? Afterwards, you'll slowly spin downwards... nice! It definitely makes the platforming segments easy. There are also blocks that operate similarly to the Propeller Mushroom, so you can experience the joys of this power-up in several forms, including the 3D games.

We've reached the top 5! The Fire Flower is the next to talk about. Earning 181 votes, it's another fan-favorite classic that's been around since the very beginning. You gain the ability to toss fireballs that'll defeat enemies, melt ice, damage bosses, and so on! Sometimes it's just fun to see how far they go! Underwater? No problem! Fireballs will fry even the Cheep Cheeps in the sea. How exactly does that work? Doesn't matter as long as it benefits you!

Now we're at 4th place - with 208 votes is the Cape Feather! It allows Mario to glide (or even fly if you get a running start), and the ability to spin at a close range, making for a nice melee attack! Its usage extends to the Mario Kart games, allowing for vehicles to jump off the ground! It's even better during battles. This is a nice power-up, but it's overshadowed by a similar one introduced before Super Mario World... more on that later!

Screenshot of Super Mario 3D World.
The Super Bell is Purrfect for adventures!
Obtaining the bronze medal with 213 votes is the Super Bell! It gives Mario and his friends cat pajamas and allows them to scratch, climb, and dive all over the place! Even the characters speak in meows while they have this power-up, and even Bowser gains a cool cat transformation from one! Thank you Super Mario 3D World for bringing a cat power-up into the Mario franchise!
Meow meow!
/\_/\
(>^.^<)
((")("))_/

OK, I will now discuss the most unexpected result of this poll, at least in my opinion. Scoring 232 votes is the Blue Shell from New Super Mario Bros., not the spiky one from Mario Kart. Nobody likes the spiky Blue Shells. Despite only being available in one (mainline) game, the Blue Shell achieved the silver medal because of how versatile it is. Mario can break blocks, speedrun stages and even take down bosses with it, although obtaining one is trouble. It sure is worth it to find one though!

E3 screenshot of Super Mario 3D Land
With a Super Leaf, you'll gain a cool spin attack and the ability to glide! What's not to like?

And now, earning the gold medal with 296 votes is none other than... the Tanooki Suit/Super Leaf! It's basically the Cape Feather but more well-known. You'll gain the ability to glide (or fly if you play Super Mario Bros. 3) and spin your tail at foes, making it similar to the Cape Feather, but this time you have a cute tanooki outfit! The animal suit power-ups the cutest: penguins, cats, tanookis, and so on! Luigi becomes a fox instead of a tanooki, but it's only a (rather cool) aesthetic change. We'll see if the Tanooki Suit/Super Leaf wins next year!

M15. Favorite Mario Party Minigame

This is brand new award created this year! The Mario Party franchise contains hundreds of minigames spanning across 15+ games. This award received a total of 1,807 votes. Let's get the party started and see the top ten results!

In tenth place with 87 votes is the most iconic Mario Party DS minigame - Camera Shy! Players wander around a grass maze and must take pictures of all their opponents before they do! Taking a picture reveals your location on the minimap, and your camera must recharge afterwards, so taking constant photos is discouraged. As a bonus, the winner's photographs are shown before they celebrate! I agree that Camera Shy is fantastic and it makes great use of each player having their own screen on their Nintendo DS systems.

Taking ninth place with 107 votes is Bumper Balls! This minigame appears in five games, so Nintendo must really like this one. The concept of pushing opponents off the edge is simple, but effective. There are different environments at least, each with their own gimmicks, so it's not repetitive. Legend says this was one of the first minigames Luigi accomplished by doing absolutely nothing...

Slaparazzi
So much meme potential to be had here!

With 116 votes, the 8th place winner also happens to be my favorite minigame! Slaparazzi has players running to get their pictures taken by Koopa Troopas, but due to the competition involved, it's not an easy task. Those who are front and center will receive the most points. Because of the punching and positions characters can take during the pictures, most photos will turn out hilarious and provide good laughs for everyone! You may be able to create your own memes too... ooh! If only the players could smile when getting their pictures taken. Perhaps there could be a game with just photos of everyone being best friends without trying to hinder each other? Funny that another camera minigame reached the top 10, right?

Oho, this next one's a treat for all who play it! 7th place belongs to Eatsa Pizza, winning 120 votes! Have you ever wanted to eat a pizza 50 times your size with a friend helping you? Eatsa Pizza has got you covered! It's a fun button masher but also a challenge to see if you can eat the entire half first! I bet those large pizzas taste magnifico! Are you hungry for pizza now? Sadly I never played this one...

With 124 votes, Face Lift gets 6th place! Those who enjoy moving Mario's face in Super Mario 64 will find delight that the experience is now an official minigame. In addition to Mario being in it, there's also Luigi, Princess Peach, Yoshi, Wario, Donkey Kong and even Bowser! Winning is nice and all, but sometimes it's better to see how ridiculous you can make everyone look. You have to agree on that! Can you get a perfect score?

Halfway there through this award! Hexagon Heat is next with 125 votes. In this minigame, everyone rushes to the safe hexagon while the others are lowered into lava. As the minigame goes on, the speed of the hexagons (and music) increases, upping the intensity. The question is, is the Toad with the flags helping the players by letting them know where to safely go, or is he giving commands to enemies off-screen? Maybe he's the mastermind behind it all!

In 4th place with 130 votes is a minigame from Mario Party 4 - Dungeon Duos! Two teams of two must work together to make it out of the dungeon. Along the way, they must perform various tasks like opening gates, jumping pipes and even pumping up a hot air balloon! There's plenty of variety here, and that's a good thing! Playing this minigame is always a fun experience. Do you think you can beat your record? May the pipes be kind to you!

Shy Guy Says in Mario Party Superstars.
Never disobey a Shy Guy's orders! NEVER!

Oh yeah! Taking the bronze medal with 139 is the one and only Shy Guy Says! Essentially Simon Says but with a Shy Guy, players must follow his commands and raise the same flag as he does. Unlike Simon Says, failing to follow orders will result in players either being lost at sea or plummeting towards the ground from the stratosphere. Of course, the pace picks up as the game goes on! It's a minigame everybody likes, and it makes sense on why Shy Guy Says is seen throughout the franchise. It's even referenced during a Shy Guy's attack in Mario & Luigi: Brothership!

The silver medal belongs to Bowser's Big Blast! Earning 158 of all the votes, it makes sense why it's here. RNG minigames are usually heavily disliked, but Bowser's Big Blast is an exception! Thanks to its fast-paced gameplay and suspense, this minigame is how a chance-based minigame should be. Even if you lose, it's funny to watch your character fly towards the screen. It's a shame Bowser's Bigger Blast is a massive disappointment, but thankfully the OG (and best version!) is the one to come back. Bowser should use more bombs modeled after his likeness.

Endless Booksquirm from Mario Party Superstars
With endless pages comes endless knowledge... and pain.

And now, for the first place winner! With 179 votes, Booksquirm earned the gold medal. This minigame is a survival-based one that has players fitting through holes in a giant book's pages to avoid getting squished. Booksquirm's yet another minigame that gets more intense and intense as it goes on! Would you try to find holes away from your opponents, or do you try to push them out at the right time, securing a win? There's even an endless version if you wanna see how long you can last... go for it when you have a chance!

F3. Worst Level Concept

We're two thirds of the way there! I've gone over two Mario Awards, so it's fitting that I analyze the results of a Fail Award! What are some of the worst types of levels throughout the Mario franchise as a whole? Let's look at the top ten results decided by 2,158 voters.

Starting things off with 10th place are the Roshambo Temples from Paper Mario: Color Splash! They've earned 93 votes, which is just enough to reach the top ten. Do you like rock paper scissors? You probably won't after playing Paper Mario: Color Splash. There are eight Roshambo Temples to complete, each one having three opponents to go off against. If you win, you'll get a boatload of coins and a rare card. The problem is obvious - RNG. As someone who's beaten all of these stupid temples, I can confirm they're awful. Why did Nintendo (or was it Intelligent Systems?) think these were a good idea? Thank goodness Roshambo Temples are optional and don't have to be completed to move on. If you're casually playing the game, DON'T do them!

Alright, 9th place goes to 100 Coin Stars/Shine Sprites from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, earning 116 votes! I can't speak from experience, but I can see why 100 Coin Stars/Shine Sprites are here. It doesn't help that each "world" has one, and sometimes there's barely enough coins to complete the objective. The Purple Coin missions are similar, but they're much easier to accomplish as they have missions dedicated entirely to them. It makes sense why they're no longer around. Hopefully they never come back!

Sunken Treasure from Super Mario Galaxy
Why does Mario have an air meter just for the 3D games?

In 8th place with 117 votes, we have the always infamous Water Levels! Water levels are always frowned upon no matter what the game is, but that doesn't mean all of them are terrible. In any Mario game, characters move in slow-mo when submerged, making navigation clunky and awkward. In many of the 3D adventures, Mario typically has an air meter he must refill from time to time. What can I say? Pretty much everyone (myself included) prefers to stay on land! Makes sense.

In 7th place, here's another result that only deals with specific 3D Mario games - Cappyless/F.L.U.D.D.less missions! They got 124 votes, confirming that the players aren't fans of losing their special powers. The good news is that these sections are uncommon, but they're still frustrating whenever they do occur. In the case of Super Mario Sunshine, I've watched gameplay videos of tedious stages Mario had to get through without F.L.U.D.D., so yeah. Some of the hardest missions in Super Mario Odyssey are because of the inability to use Cappy, especially those on the Dark Side of the Moon. The bottom line is nobody likes losing their powers, especially if they have to overcome difficult challenges!

With 125 votes (just one more than the previous one!), Checkpointless challenges obtains 6th place! Getting through all the obstacles present in stages is difficult, but at least you have checkpoints to start from if you fail. But what happens when checkpoints are removed? That's when things get rough. Champion's Road and The Perfect Run are some of the most notorious levels that don't have checkpoints. Sometimes a stage's difficulty isn't the issue, but rather the length. Losing could result in so much time wasted.

We're at the halfway point! Automatic Levels from Super Mario Maker (and its sequel) are next in line, earning 130 votes. The Super Mario Maker games allow players to submit all sort of levels filled with creativity. Of those courses are automatic levels, which focus on the stage "transporting" Mario to the goal without the player having to do anything. I think these stages are cool, but people just wanna play levels instead of watching them, y'know? That's what YouTube is for!

Elephant Luigi in the level An Empty Park? in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.
Elephant Luigi subjected to play one of the worst Mario levels ever created in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Snatching 4th place with 148 votes are the Search Party levels from Super Mario Bros. Wonder! Unfortunately, not everything in the game was wonderful. Wonder houses four Search Party levels; to beat these stages, players must find all five Wonder Tokens. Said Wonder Tokens are hidden and require people to think outside the box to get to them. The problem is, the solutions are usually ridiculous. The "An Empty Park?" and "Pipe Park" stages are the worst of the four; the former is all about hidden blocks while the latter has pipes everywhere. I get these are meant for multiple players, but they're just irritating when playing alone.

With 200 votes, the bronze medal is awarded to Dark/low vision levels! We all like to see where we're going, but not when the conditions are the opposite. These stages discourage speeding through them (not a problem if you're not a speedrunner) and instead force players to take their time so they don't accidentally fall into a pit or something equally disastrous. I do want to point out that it's not just caves that do this! It'd be a nightmare if there were maze stages that took place in the dark. Could you imagine?

With 223 votes, the silver medal belongs to Restrictively low timers! When I play through a stage, I take my time to make sure I uncover all the secrets it has to offer. That's the case most of the time, except for when I have to deal with the levels with short timers. Not everyone wants to be a speedrunner! Low lowers force players to get through them as fast as they can, whether they like it or not. There's still one more level concept that's worse, but just What could it be?

This is what happens when several of these nominees are combined - you get an absolutely nefarious level! Well, maybe Wario isn't involved, but still. Image credit goes to Xiahou Ba, The Nasty Warrior!

Here we go! With 372 votes, the worst level concept winner is - drumroll please - Autoscrolling levels! Did you expect this one to get the gold medal? Well, autoscroll levels are present in many mainline Mario games. They prevent the players from adventuring at their own pace, and usually they're super boring, At least the short timers made the levels exciting! Autoscrolling stages are always a bore and take FOREVER to get through. It makes sense why they earned the top spot!

And that wraps up my Awards Analysis contribution for the Poll Committee! What Awards that will be discussed in January's issue are a mystery, but Hooded Pitohui will be the one to lecture you all on whatever he chooses! May your final days of 2025 bring you joy and merry, and enjoy the Holidays and New Year celebration!

The 'Shroom Report

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Space: the final frontier. These are the reports of the newspaper The 'Shroom. Its eighteen-year mission: to explore strange new worlds, to seek out new life and civilizations, to boldly write what no writer has written before!

That felt a little cheesy, but I'm committing to the bit. There's your space theming for the month. Thanks as always to Meta Knight for keeping up the spreadsheets, and without further ado, here's the goods on Issue 224!

For new readers or anyone needing a refresher, please open the box below.

​
  • First-Time Writers lists everyone who wrote their first section for The 'Shroom in the previous issue.
  • New Sections lists recurring sections that started their run in the previous issue. This includes returning sections that previously went inactive.
  • Guest Sections lists one-off submissions from the previous issue.
  • Milestones covers certain section numbers reached in the previous issue. Writers are mentioned for every 10 sections written in a team and every 50 sections written overall, teams are mentioned for every 100 sections, and The 'Shroom itself is mentioned for every 500 sections. Additionally, established writers are mentioned the first time they contribute to a particular team.
  • Most Sections Written lists the current all-time record holders.
First-Time Writers
Writer Section
BigBoom1946 Star Ratings
New Sections
Section Writer
Digital News Shoey (talk)
Star Ratings BigBoom1946
TV Tomorrow MightyMario (talk)
Guest Sections
Section Writer
News Flush ClawgripFan9001
TV Tomorrow ClawgripFan9001
It's aMAZEing! Meta Knight (talk)
Kingdom Rush Alliance DLC Review - Wukong's Journey Sparks (talk)
Super Ninelevendo Entertainment Reviews Ninelevendo (talk)
Milestones
Writer Milestone
Camwoodstock (talk) 10 Pipe Plaza sections
Hooded Pitohui (talk) 170 Strategy Wing sections
Technetium (talk) 10 Main/Staff sections
Waluigi Time (talk) 100 Palette Swap sections
500 overall sections
Most Sections Written
Team Writer Number of Sections
Main/Staff Henry Tucayo Clay (talk) 142
Fake News Waluigi Time (talk) 175
Fun Stuff Shoey (talk) 165
Palette Swap FunkyK38 (talk) 214
Pipe Plaza Yoshi876 (talk) 128
Critic Corner Hypnotoad (talk) 219
Strategy Wing Hooded Pitohui (talk) 172
Overall Yoshi876 (talk) 747
'Shroom Trivia
The main page's side banners have only been swapped out on rare occasions. A holiday design exclusively for December issues was used from 2015-2021, and special banners were used for Issues 183, 211, 219, and 225, plus April Fool's in 2017 and 2019.

A Section of Muppetational Origins

Written by: Zange (talk)

(once again I would like to thank the Muppet Wiki for being a valuable resource of information and images!)

Hello and welcome back to a new edition of ‘’A Section of Muppetational Origins’’! This is Zange, and I am here to tell you all about the origins and history of another wonderful Muppet. Last time, we covered the count to end all counts, Count Von Count. This month is my birthday month, so to celebrate, we’re covering my favorite Muppet: the resident weirdo of The Muppet Show, Gonzo the Great! This pick does also tie into the space theme for the issue, but more on that later. It wasn’t intentional, I’ve had this planned since before we decided we were doing a space theme, but hey it works out!

I can just tell, this one’s destined for great things…!

Gonzo’s origins can be traced back to the 1970 TV special, The Great Santa Claus Switch. In this special, an evil magician named Cosmo Scam tries to replace Santa Claus with the help of his band of henchmen, a group of monsters known as Frackles. In one scene of the special, a Frackle with a very recognizable nose pops out of a cigar box to hand Cosmo a cigar. The Cigar Box Frackle would make cameos in various projects throughout the early 1970’s, including some brief appearances in The Muppet Show: Sex and Violence.

During the development of The Muppet Show, writer Jerry Juhl came up with an idea to have a character in the show who performed terrible acts but considered them to be a high-class artform. Jack Burns, the original head writer for The Muppet Show, took this idea a step further, by saying this character should perform "these crazy acts like eating a tire to 'Flight of the Bumblebee!'" (which is the exact act that Gonzo would perform in the first episode filmed for the show) Thus, the character of Gonzo was born.

Dave Goelz has performed Gonzo since 1976, but he originally started out building puppets in The Muppet Workshop. Goelz had performed a number of background characters since 1974, but was promoted to Principal Muppet Performer with the beginning of taping for The Muppet Show. When it came time to assign new characters, Gonzo was given to Goelz. Jim Henson picked the puppet for the Cigar Box Frackle out of a collection of various background puppets and gave it to Goelz for the character. You may be wondering why I’m telling you this bit of background on the performer as opposed to strictly staying to the history of the Muppet, but there’s a very good reason for that: Gonzo evolved as a character as Goelz got more confident in his performing ability.

In season one of The Muppet Show, Gonzo was a bit of a sad character, with multiple influences playing into this. First, the puppet itself. The original Cigar Box Frackle puppet had very downcast and sad eyes, and did not have adjustable eyelids or any other mechanism to be able to show different emotions or facial expressions. Second, the writing. Jerry Juhl wrote Gonzo as a character with low self-esteem, which made for a bit of a clash in what the character was supposed to be versus what we actually saw in that first season. Finally, Dave Goelz’s performance. Due to both the writing and sad appearance of the puppet, Goelz found it easy to fall into playing Gonzo as a depressed character, mimicking his own feelings when it came to performing. Goelz felt like a misfit amongst his fellow performers which, in turn, led to Gonzo becoming a bit of one as well. However, near the end of filming for the first season of The Muppet Show, Goelz (as Gonzo) had to shout the line “No!” for a scene. He did one take, after which Jim Henson told him to go bigger with it. Goelz responded in the next take with a rather exaggerated “NO!”, earning his first laugh from the crew members. I would consider this a very pivotal moment for Gonzo’s evolution, as it led to a number of changes being made for the character.

See, doesn’t he look so much better here?? Extended arm aside ^^;;

Beginning with the second season of The Muppet Show, the original Cigar Box Frackle puppet was no longer used for Gonzo. Instead, Dave Goelz built an entirely new Gonzo puppet that included less sad-looking eyes, as well as a mechanic that allowed him to move Gonzo’s eyelids. Additionally, Goelz and Jerry Juhl wanted to rework the character to be less sad, and more zany and manic. Jim Henson allowed this, and the change in writing combined with Goelz’s increasing confidence allowed Gonzo’s personality to begin shifting to the daredevil we know and love today. Also in the second season, an adlib by Goelz in one episode inspired Gonzo’s fondness of chickens. I don’t mean as food, I mean in the romantic sense. Gonzo was auditioning live chickens for a dancing chicken act in this particular episode, and as one of them walks away, he makes a comment about how the chicken has nice legs. This evolved further in later episodes and ultimately led to Gonzo having a canonical relationship with Camilla the Chicken, one of many chicken Muppets initially used as background characters. To this day, they’re still happily together. Good for them!

You may be reading this evolution of Gonzo as a character and still be left with one vital question in your head: what exactly is Gonzo? Well, the answer to that question is a bit complicated, and has actually changed a few times over the years. In 1981’s The Great Muppet Caper, there’s a scene in which Kermit, Fozzie, and Gonzo are shown being shipped to England in crates. Kermit and Fozzie’s crates are labelled “Frog” and “Bear”, respectively, while Gonzo’s crate is labelled “Whatever”. For nearly two decades, “Whatever” would be the answer given to anyone asking about Gonzo’s species, with a number of movies releasing after The Great Muppet Caper having characters refer to Gonzo as a “whatever” within them.

Space Girl is out, Space Whatever is in.

In 1999, Muppets from Space released, and revealed that Gonzo was an alien from outer space. (told you this would tie back in with the space theme!) In the years immediately following, various Muppet media and merchandise really leaned into the whole “Gonzo is an alien” thing, with the video game Muppet RaceMania even having Gonzo’s vehicle be a spaceship! However, this aspect of Gonzo’s character was quickly retconned and abandoned, with Dave Goelz even stating in interviews and live appearances that Gonzo’s identity as an alien was something they did just for Muppets from Space.

Gonzo being known as a “whatever” became the standard once again, but there were also instances of Gonzo being referred to as a “thing” being thrown into the mix. Most of these instances are self-referential, suggesting that even Gonzo doesn’t entirely know what he is.

This brings us to the Gonzo of the present day. Dave Goelz still performs Gonzo to this day, and that will probably remain true for as long as Goelz is able to do it. It is interesting to think about the personality shift this character has experienced, as without it we likely wouldn’t have the iconic Gonzo performances that we know and love today, like his role as Charles Dickens in The Muppets Christmas Carol. It will be fascinating to see how or if Gonzo will change once another performer is given the role, whenever that may be. Until next time, keep believing and keep pretending!

What's in a Campaign?

Written By: Shoey (talk)

Hello and welcome back to What's in a Campaign?, a section where we take a look at various competitors from the hit show Robot Wars. Last month we looked at one of the ultimate one-hit wonders in robot history, Aggrobot, a robot that somehow defeated Razer, the greatest robot in the pre-reboot era. This month we're going to be looking at a, quite frankly, better and more lobster-themed robot. That's right. We're looking at the Series 4 run of Thermidor 2.

WiaCampaign1-225.jpg

Built by David Harding, Ian Harvey, and Eli Kirkpatrick, Thermidor 2 originally appeared in Series 3 under the name "Thermidor". Unlike Thermidor 2 though, Thermidor was essentially just a lobster-themed pushbot. It only had a tiny amount of success, winning its first battle against Plunderbird's successor Plunderstorm before losing in the second round to (eventual heat winner) Scutter's Revenge in the second round. For Series 4, the team decided to rebuild the robot and try something new, though they still kept the lobster design with claws at the front of the robot. I think those claws are technically considered crushers! I think. Legally they're capable of grabbing ahold of a robot, but if I'm being honest, I don't think those claws have ever actually done so. But hey, maybe I'll be proven wrong! Getting back to the tweaks, for a weapon, instead of a generic pushbot, the team decided to convert Thermidor 2 into a CO2-powered panel flipper. For décor, the flipper sports an angry face to intimidate its opponents.

Able to flip a ton (literally), the flipper is one of the better flippers in the field. Unfortunately, I do think the claws, while a great aesthetic touch, do hold the flipper back. The problem with the claws in my opinion is that they make lining up flips so much harder. If you make a wrong move, the claws are going to push your opponent away, leaving you much less room to get under your opponent. But the claws do put the finishing touch on the whole lobster gimmick they've got going on, and without the claws, what are they? Some sort of angry freak??? The claws themselves were spring loaded - BECAUSE OF COURSE THEY ARE! They drilled a ton of holes in the claws to help make weight, which is a pretty common thing in the early wars. Powered by two 750-watt Bosch motors with a good top speed of 15mph, Thermidor 2 suffers on defense. Sadly, the armor on Thermidor 2 was actually downgraded for weight reasons from the 3mm aluminum armor used on the first Thermidor, being replaced by 1mm aluminum armor. But luckily for Thermidor 2, it's Series 4, so there are only so many robots that can actually damage you!

As a reminder, all pictures are sourced from the fantastic Robot Wars Wiki. If you'd like to watch any of these fights, a video has been provided with timestamps provided in the section.

Having not been seeded after its Series 3 performance (which I suppose is a little bit of a surprise because it feels like everything in Series 4 got a seed), Thermidor 2 qualified through the battle qualifiers by defeating Generation X. That victory saw it placed in Heat G. In its opening battle, Thermidor 2 faced off against newcomer Kronic the Wedgehog and the number 13 seed Gravedigger. Thermidor 2 starts the fight by driving right into the flipper of Kronic, but luckily Kronic doesn't have the best flipper (yet), so Kronic does little other than barely lifting up Thermidor 2. Gravedigger then charges in under Kronic, but their lifting arm doesn't seem to be working, which is too bad for them because I don't think Kronic can self-right! Thermidor 2 spins around, looking for someone to attack, but it's having a problem. Because it's two-wheel driven, its front keeps lifting up, meaning it can't get under anything. Kronic takes advantage of this, getting under them and driving them into the wall before ramming them repeatedly. Thermidor 2 manages to get away and tries to go on the attack on Kronic, but again its flipper lifts off the ground and it's unable to even come close to flipping Kronic.

Finally it's over!

A whole lotta not much happens in this fight. Gravedigger's weapon is broken, Kronic's flipper isn't very good, and Thermidor 2's flipper can't stay on the ground! Thermidor 2 manages to get to the back of Gravedigger, but, spoiler alert, nothing comes of it because, again, the flipper is off the ground! Kronic somehow manages to get stuck on the undescended pit, but luckily for them, Thermidor 2 rams them off of it. Gravedigger gets under Thermidor 2, but the lifting arm isn't' working, so it's a waste of a good ram! Thermidor 2 and Kronic then ram into each other and, hey, this time Thermidor 2 manages to flip up Kronic! They don't topple them, but, hey, it's a start!!!

The three robots drive around until Kronic gets under Thermidor 2 and pushes them into the wall. Meanwhile, I'm starting to get antsy and wondering if I made a mistake picking Thermidor 2. In the process of pushing them, Kronic manages to bend one of Thermidor 2's claws! Kronic then manages to get under Gravedigger and, in what's actually a pretty sick little move, manages to get the front of Gravedigger stuck on top of the arena wall. This allows Thermidor 2 to finally get its flipper involved. Thermidor 2 then flips Gravedigger onto its side, mercifully ending what might be the longest and most boring match I've ever covered!

In the second round, Thermidor 2 faced off against the number 29 seed (because, again, if you have 32 seeded robots in the 96-robot tournament, things are gonna get bad!) Dreadnaut XP1. Unfortunately for Dreadnaut XP1, they're still broken down super bad after their first-round melee. See, despite moving after Warhog broke down (Dreadnaut also broke down, but after Warhog was eliminated), Sir Killalot completely unprovoked and entirely unnecessarily attacked Dreadnaut after the match.

Dreadnaut put out of its misery

During the portion of the fight I don't usually cover, that is, the post-match, House Robots attack the defeated robots for entertainment shenanigans. In Dreadnaut's post-match, Sir Killalot picked up poor Dreadnaut and spun it around, causing the shell of Dreadnaut to come off and completely messing up Dreadnaut's internals, leaving them limping in this fight. Stuff like this is the reason why the House Robots were so disliked by the competitors. It's so unnecessary. Dreadnaut wasn't eliminated; they weren't going home. And, like, yeah, Dreadnaut probably wasn't going to get much further, but they should have still been given a fair chance. Instead, Dreadnaut is barely mobile for this fight and Thermidor 2 manages to flip them over within two flips, punching their ticket for the Heat Final.

In the Heat Final, Thermidor 2 again faced off against Kronic the Wedgehog, a robot who, quite frankly, thoroughly dominated them in the previous melee. The Heat Final starts (9:22) with Thermidor 2 attempting to close its claws around Kronic, which, spoiler alert, doesn't work! The two spin around each other until Kronic manages to get under Thermidor 2, but it can't flip them before Thermidor 2 escapes. The two robots then meet face-to-face (literally) and both launch their flippers. They both miss, but I think this technically counts as an attack for Thermidor 2 since they manage to get a little impact on the flipper of Kronic.

Lobster face > Wedgehog face

The two robots then meet face-to-face again, with Kronic trying to flip at the front of Thermidor 2. This quickly proves to be a mistake, as Thermidor 2 launches their flipper while Kronic's panel is up, causing the face of Thermidor 2 to pierce through the flipping panel of Kronic! Thermidor 2 then pushes Kronic away, but Kronic keeps on the attack by getting to the side of Thermidor 2 and lifting it up. It's only a small lift, but it gives Kronic the chance to drive Thermidor 2 around. Kronic places Thermidor 2 on the ground and the two robots spin around each other, each looking for an opening. They ram into each other face-to-face again, and this time Kronic gets the advantage, flipping up Thermidor 2 for those sweet aggression points. It follows up by pushing Thermidor 2 into the arena wall where Shunt waits to sort of barely glance Thermidor 2's claws with its axe

Kronic's beautiful face came right off!

Kronic and Thermidor 2 again meet in the middle of the arena, where Kronic attempts to flip Thermidor 2. Unfortunately for them, I think Thermidor 2's flipper going through their own weakened it, because their flipping panel catches the claw of Thermidor 2 and comes right off! That apparently counts for massive damage points for Thermidor 2. This reduces Kronic to just attempting to beat Thermidor 2 as a rambot, and, tbh, Thermidor 2 is kind of getting its ass kicked by the flipperless Kronic, lol. At this point, if the fight went to the judges, I'd give it Kronic, not gonna lie.

Unfortunately for Kronic, Thermidor 2 manages to get a flip (more like a lift) at the back of Kronic, which I think causes something to break. The TV edit is really weird. All of a sudden, Kronic starts spinning, and by "spinning" I mean that they spin like two times and then the House Robots come in and kill them. My guess is this is a "TV edit condensing things" issue and that Kronic was really spinning in circles longer, because otherwise it looks like the House Robots really jumped the gun. Regardless, Kronic is declared immobile, sending Thermidor 2 into the Series Semi-Final.

In the Series Semi-Final, Thermidor 2 faced off against the 19 seeded Pussycat with its custom-built sawblade - the only sawblade in the history of Robot Wars to ever cause damage to an opponent! Thermidor 2 starts the fight off (15:39) hot, flipping Pussycat right onto its side(?). Figuring out the terminology is a little tricky because Pussycat is pyramid-shaped, so it can work in any direction. Regardless, Thermidor 2 starts off strong. Thermidor 2 keeps on the attack by pursuing Pussycat, who is trying to get back on its main wheels. Thermidor 2 gets under them and lands a massive flip, actually sending Pussycat in the air! Thermidor 2 follows this up by immediately getting to the gap between Pussycat's main body and where the custom-built sawblade is located, once again heaving Pussycat into the air!

Thermidor 2 taking it to Pussycat!

And the flips just don't stop! Pussycat attempts to get its sawblade into the fight, but in the process drives right on top of Thermidor 2, who wastes no time throwing Pussycat high in the air, sending it bouncing off the ground! Pussycat just has nothing for Thermidor 2, who is skillfully dodging the blade and again gets to the side of Pussycat to again send it spinning with a flip. Unfortunately, while these flips are impressive and scoring aggression points, they aren't exactly damaging Pussycat. Finally Pussycat manages to go on the offense, sending Thermidor 2 on the run. Unfortunately, Thermidor 2 runs into the Refbot while fleeing, allowing Pussycat to get its blade right into the claws and exposed tire of Thermidor 2.

Thermidor 2 does manage to quickly get back on the offensive though, whipping around to the side of Pussycat and throwing them over. Thermidor 2 attempts to keep up the pressure, which unfortunately results in Pussycat cutting into the face of Thermidor 2. Thermidor 2 manages to attempt another flip on Pussycat, but I think it's starting to run low on CO2, and unfortunately for Thermidor 2, that's pretty much a death sentence for them. You can already see that even with the few attacks they've taken at this point, they have all sorts of cuts and scratches in their armor (which, remember, they had to downgrade for weight purposes).

Thermidor 2 post-stabbing

It really sucks, because if they just had more CO2, then I think things would have been really different. There are multiple times where Pussycat literally drives up the flipper of Thermidor 2 and is just cutting up the face and top of Thermidor 2. Earlier in the fight, Thermidor 2 managed to punish the tactic by throwing Pussycat high in the air. But without CO2, Thermidor 2 can't really do much of anything. It's like Thermidor 2 is getting shanked! Pussycat is hitting every part of Thermidor 2, cutting up its sides, claws, top, flipper, and tires. It's like if somebody turned death by 1,000 cuts into a Robot Wars fight. Except, to their credit, Thermidor 2 doesn't die! They make it to a judges' decision, but with how heavily damage is weighted and with how much Pussycat just dominated the last minute of the fight, Pussycat is declared the winner and Thermidor 2 is sent home. It's a noble loss, though, with Thermidor 2 leaving only after giving Pussycat everything they could handle and having quite honestly their best match at the right time!

Thermidor 2 would go on to be probably the most boom-or-bust robot in the history of Robot Wars, and we'll talk about them a few more times, I'm sure. But let's go over a few of the highlights!

Highlights:

  • Becomes the first robot to ever throw two robots out of the arena in one fight during its Extreme 1 Mayhem Match.
    • Even more impressively, those robots are Series 4 Grand Finalist Stinger and former What's in a Campaign? star Behemoth.
  • Defeats Chaos 2, Bigger Brother, and Wheely Big Cheese in the Extreme 1 Flipper Frenzy to become the best flipper in Robot Wars.
    • Now, this is only because they all decided to only attack the House Robots and Matilda killed the other three, but, hey, it still counts as a victory!
  • Finished Runner-Up in the Extreme 2 Annihilator, losing to Kan-Opener in an all-time classic fight.
  • Made the Series Semi-Final in Series 7.

Lowlights:

  • Lost in the first round in both Series 5 and 6.
  • Broke down in the first round of its Annihilator in Extreme 1.
  • Was beaten in one hit in its Series 7 Semi-Final match against Typhoon 2.
  • Is the face of sexism in Robot Wars.

Thermidor 2 is truly one of the most peculiar competitors in Robot Wars. It was always capable of reaching great heights. It truly did reach those heights at times, having a number of notable moments and reaching two Semi-Finals. But it was also capable of just completely falling apart like it did in the first round of Series 5 and 6. Still, Thermidor 2 was one of the most memorable designs through the classic wars and was one of the best examples of a team going with a theme while having it pay off.

Like I said, this won't be the last time we talk about Thermidor 2, because it's really one of my favorites from the classic wars! That's all for this month! Join me next month when I look at another robot!

LEGO Look

Written by: Waluigi Time (talk)

Hello there, 'Shroom readers! Welcome to LEGO Look, the section where I occasionally take a non-exhaustive look at a character's history as a LEGO minifigure. If you liked it last time, good news, it's back! If you didn't, you should probably keep scrolling, unless Zange put this at the bottom of the page in which case you should vote in SOTM and then go read Critic Corner or something. Last time I looked at Darth Vader for the villains themed issue, and in the interest of keeping things varied, instead of doing another Star Wars character, today I'll be looking at Buzz Lightyear! To infinity and beyond!

The original Buzz minifigure. Still holds up pretty well, all things considered.

Buzz was naturally introduced in the first wave of Toy Story sets in 2010, released to promote the then-upcoming third film. He had four specialized parts here - his head, chestplate, helmet, and wings. Aside from one set based on the climax of Toy Story 3 that put dirt stains on him, this figure was used for all of Buzz's appearances in the original run. You can't see it in the picture, but for some reason they also decided to print underneath the chestplate, even though you'd never see it once the figure is assembled. I guess that makes it more versatile if you want to use it for other things? I actually don't know if the percentage of the piece that you're printing on has any noticeable impact on production costs, LEGO budgets are complicated.

The 2016 minifigure! It's all downhill from here.

The original run of the Toy Story theme was pretty short-lived, and Buzz wouldn't show up again until the first Disney-themed Collectable Minifigure series in 2016. This version was pretty similar to the original, bringing back most of the specialized parts, but this time around his head was replaced with a standard minifigure head. This change has since been carried forward to other Toy Story minifigures, and has proven to be somewhat controversial with fans, but I think it makes sense. The Toy Story gang obviously isn't human, but characters like Buzz and Woody are at least designed to appear so, and with LEGO's design standards, you'd pretty much have to make a special head piece for just about any cartoon character at that point. Honestly, I don't think many people would be clamoring for special heads for these guys if not for the fact that they did originally have them in 2010, but who knows. Anyway, the other notable change was taking advantage of better printing techniques and a higher budget for Collectable Minifigures to add arm printing and make his legs a lot more detailed. The part of the torso print that would normally be covered by the chestplate was removed for this version only.

The 2019 minifigure, depicting Buzz after his failed knee replacement surgery apparently.

The Toy Story theme briefly returned in 2019, now promoting the fourth film, featuring a Buzz minifigure that was basically a budget version of the one from 2016. First of all, the arm and side leg printing were removed (although the torso print blocked by the chestplate came back for some reason). The front leg printing was based on the last version, but they ruined it! Look at it! Why is his kneecap all the way at the top of his leg? That's not where it goes! I don't really know why they made this change, it doesn't make any sense! And while it's not an intentional change (I hope), his skin tone tends to appear a lot more washed out because LEGO seems to have a lot more trouble printing light colors on dark colors these days, for some reason. Despite all this, there is one tiny upgrade in that the Star Command logo on his chestplate is now a little more detailed.

The Lightyear versions. Normally he has a full body but it's the same as the full space ranger suit so we don't need to visualize it here.

You may have spotted the pattern by now that Buzz usually shows up when there's a new Toy Story movie, so you can probably guess that he disappeared again until a wave of sets for Lightyear in 2022. Obviously, this version of Buzz is a lot different visually, so we pretty much start over with a brand new design. His chestplate and wings both got new pieces, the wings now being a single piece instead of two identical ones, and the chestplate no longer having connections for a helmet piece. He also uses a lighter shade of purple than the original Buzz, which... doesn't really make sense? The original color works well and isn't noticeably different in Lightyear - if any color change was to be made, I think he could've used a less vibrant green. The cynic in me says that they saw the poor printing quality before and instead of doing anything about the process itself just gave up and used a less-fitting color. But before you start thinking this section has too many opinions and should be in Critic Corner, let's get to the rest of the facts! Each set comes with a head with his flight cap removed and hair exposed, and there's also an orange flight suit variant.

The latest and greatest?

Buzz's latest appearance was earlier this year, in fact, in a set to commemorate the 30th anniversary of Toy Story. And this one, um, uh... If the 2019 minifigure was a budget version, I don't know what you'd call this. This version retains the lighter shade of purple from the Lightyear figure, and the awkwardly misplaced leg printing from the 2019 figure, but they completely removed the toe print that every other version of him has had, along with his belt so that the lines on his legs could go all the way onto his hips now? I don't know why they did this? I'll be totally upfront, if I sound extra bewildered it's because I haven't really taken a close look at this minifigure until I decided to write this section, so these are basically my first impressions you're getting live right now. It also uses the newer Lightyear parts for the chestplate and wings instead of the original ones developed for the Toy Story version... which this is. Now, here's the thing - LEGO generally only stores the physical molds for parts that are out of production for a certain amount of time before destroying them, and at that point if they want to bring it back it basically costs as much as making a brand new part, so this is almost definitely a cost-cutting measure where the Toy Story molds were no longer available but the Lightyear ones still were. But it just adds more to this figure being kind of a mess all around, and speaking of being a mess, the torso printing is a slight modification of the 2019 version to add the purple straps that are no longer on the piece, so the portion that was previously hidden by the old chestplate part now awkwardly sticks out the bottom. I can at least understand the cost-cutting measures taken, but there's several really weird decisions here.

So that's Buzz Lightyear in LEGO! Kind of an interesting contrast with Darth Vader from last time, who I didn't really have any thoughts on since he was just getting upgraded over time (individual preferences for older designs aside, of course). Unfortunately, this one shows that a character being brought back doesn't always mean they're going to be done better than last time, or even as good. Poor Buzz got hit with the double whammy of trying to cut corners and just changing things that were fine before. I suspect we'll see him again, especially with Toy Story 5 coming out next year, so who knows what will happen next.

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The 'Shroom: Issue 225
Staff sections Staff Notes • The 'Shroom Spotlight • End-of-the-Year Awards • Poochy's Picks • Director Election • Credits
Features Fake News • Fun Stuff • Palette Swap • Pipe Plaza • Critic Corner • Strategy Wing
Specials Constellations • Space Jams • Sparks Tier List • Tragedy and Farce: A Marx-Inspired Reading of the Super Mario Galaxy Games • An Investigations Retrospective • Curse of the Lich Yard
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