Item Box

Item Boxes are boxes in the Mario Kart series. Item Boxes look like ? Blocks but are transparent and often multi-colored, and in more recent games they have a iridescent checker board pattern. When a character passes through them, they will get a random item. These blocks also appear in Mario Tennis and Mario Power Tennis. They have appeared in all the Mario Kart games, except Super Mario Kart where they used ? Panels.

In the Mission Mode of Mario Kart DS, the player's task occasionally is to destroy a certain amount of Item Boxes (which often contain Mushrooms to give the driver a boost). There are also Fake Item Boxes and Double Item Boxes.

The name Item Box has another meaning in the Mario Kart series: It is also used for the small box at the top of the screen which shows the player his current item. In Mario Kart: Double Dash during the Grand-Prix mode, there are lots of item boxes appear and some are moving directly such as Mushroom City, Peach Beach, and much more. While in split-screen mode except for Battle Stages, item boxes are brighter and some of them are fewer than before. In Mario Kart Wii during the Grand-Prix, Vs., and WFC modes, there are many item-boxes display without spinning question marks, while in split-screen mode, the question marks are moving like a spin. An Item Box appears in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, as a sticker. It increases ice attack power by eight. The artwork shown in the sticker is from the Mario Kart: Double Dash!! version of the Item Box. They will also appear in Super Mario Galaxy 2, in the same style of a spinnig box, only that instead of having a question mark inside, they have pictures of a Bowser face, a Coin, and 1-Up Mushroom in its sides.