Zip Toad
- “You're cool, baby... but I'm cooler!”
- —Zip Toad, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door
Zip Toad is a famous movie star with an ego who is one of the suspects in the investigation on board the Excess Express in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door. Zip Toad's name is a pun on "ZIP code". He is in room 001 on the Excess Express. However, it turned out that Zip Toad was actually Doopliss in disguise, hired by Beldam of the Shadow Sirens to bomb the train in a "sticky, yummy, gooey mess" in an effort to prevent Mario and his comrades from reaching the Garnet Star in the Poshley Sanctum, and frame him for the crime. With help from Pennington, Mario and his team foiled their plans. When Mario and his team set out to find the last Crystal Star, the real Zip Toad sends him an e-mail, containing a picture of the actor in front of a window. In the e-mail, Zip Toad commends Mario and his team for stopping the Shadow Sirens' plan and clearing his name, and tells him that he was going to film a movie in Toad Town called On Golden Toad 2. He also reveals more about his movie career by quickly mentioning another film that featured him: The Toad Warrior.
- !
What's up, super-sleuth! I heard you uncovered my impostor! You're the best, man, seriously!
See, when you get to be as big a star as Zip Toad, these sorts of things happen all the time. It's the biz.
But, man alive! For a no-name like you to brave danger and find my impostor! Reminds me of a younger, yet less successful, me.
Yeah, so as for me, I'm headed to Toad Town to film my next leading role: The soon-to-be hit film On Golden Toad 2. It'll be huge.
I hear you're on an adventure or something, so I'll leave you with a line from my last flick, The Toad Warrior: "You're cool, baby...but I'm cooler!"
Best of luck, kid!
The Super Star
The Real Zip Toad
Tattle
Goombella can use Tattle on Zip Toad only while he is Doopliss in disguise.
- "I KNEW I knew him! That's Zip Toad, the movie star! Women go NUTS for him! Y'know, he's hot and all, but he seems pretty stuck up about being famous. I guess all celebrities are kinda like that. It's too bad, 'cause I kinda liked him..."
Names in other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning |
|---|---|---|
| Japanese | トロン Toron |
Possibly derived from Japanese adverb「トロトロ」(torotoro, sluggishly or dawdling) |
| German | Star T. |
|
| Italian | Toadivo |
From Toad and divo, the Italian word for "VIP". |
| Spanish | T. Zip |
Zip Toad |
Trivia
- Jr. Troopa from the first Paper Mario (in his form which includes both wings and a spike) can be spotted in the background of the picture accompanying Zip Toad's e-mail.
- Some of the movies that Zip Toad has been in are nods to movies in real life. For example, The Toad Warrior is a parody of The Road Warrior.
- Zip Toad has a few parallels with Linda Arden, the fictional actress from the 1934 English detective novel Murder on the Orient Express. Both are celebrities, and both were involved with impersonation in some capacity. In Arden's case, she entered the Orient Express under a different name ("Mrs. Hubbard"). In Zip Toad's case, Doopliss disguised himself as the Toad celebrity in order to subvert Mario's efforts to collect the Garnet Star.
