Deathmatch Listoff: Best Places to visit in the Mushroom Kingdom

It’s been a heartwarming experience to watch the Mushroom Kingdom evolve into a bustling society these last two decades. Who could have known, when an Italian imagined by Japanese cultural relativists was taken to a strange pipe-filled world to battle “goumbas,” that this world would expand to a landscape of classy soccer arenas, major-league racetracks, scintillating sexual mores, and technological marvels that include a road made of rainbows and an orbiting arena.

Not I. I’m still pretty sure Nintendo should have died about twenty years ago, when they came out with that weird-ass robot and its spinning discs. But thankfully no. And now, in this here 2007, we are free to debate the femininity of Waluigi, the harem of toad-men Princess and Daisy keep in tow, and of course, the engagement between Yoshi and Birdo (I mean, have you seen the size of her ring?...Birdo’s the she, by the way...at least I hope so).

Anyhoo. Deathmatch Listoff Go Now Die!

4. The Coin Clouds From Super Mario Brothers 3
So a raccoon tail and you can fly, eh Mario? All right then. But, logically, you must get a feather first to grow said raccoon tail. And then you’re off, up out of the screen and into an arrangement of strange clouds, where money can be plucked from the air itself.

I like it. I’d enjoy hanging out a bit up here to watch the action below. This was back before the mutual treaty of cooperation that allowed sporting ventures between the likes of Mario’s faction and the clan of Bowser. This is old war stuff—hammer brothers shredding bitches, goumbas idling lazily (like their Italian namesakes), turtles caught shamelessly in the crossfire. And the cloud environs look plush and inviting, godlike if you will. I miss old-school Mushroom Kingdom.


3. Donkey Kong Stadium: Mario Baseball
A stream in center field. Giant barrels shot at you as as fly balls descend. Listless crocodiles that latch on to fielders and prevent them from diving. Brilliant. I have a soft spot in my heart for the Donkey Kong family. Maybe it’s their pre-speech methods of communication, or their brute intolerance of evil.

Regardless, if I were to visit, I’d enjoy an inning or two in the infield, as to avoid a barrel to the dome. Then I’d retreat to the strange tree house down the left-field line and light a huge blunt, hoping that my superhuman control of fire wouldn’t send the monkeys screaming. The jungle environs in the distance, by the way, look delightful. Much better than Wario’s desert ballpark just down the way.


2. Orbital Lizard Stadium: Super Mario Strikers
I’d enjoy the ride here as much as the environs themselves. Who’s the best space pilot in the Mushroom Kingdom? I’m gonna go with those goalie lizards introduced in Mario Soccer, though Petey Piranha, he who flaps his leaf wings and drops bombs to right field, would be a close second.

I like the fanfare that Mario Soccer brings out. All the flashing lights, streamers, and Bacchanalian excitement that seems almost Spanish in its revelry. I wonder if Bowser’s ever thrown someone out of an airlock. I could see it.


1. Wario Stadium: MarioKart N64
The Mushroom Kingdom, like Europe and Southeast Asia, has a troubling history of totalitarianism. I mean, they went from pipes to space travel in like a decade and a half. Shit's gonna get crazy. Insurgent, if you will.

So at one point in this struggle toward modernity, Wario conquered a bunch of smaller peeps and proclaimed himself Supreme Leader. How do I know this, you ask? From his stadium.

Besides the sad, slave-like members of his audience (probably promised food in exchange for their attendance), besides the rustic dirt track that obviously betrays a crippling fuel shortage, and besides the cage-like subservience of Likitu, beginner of races—besides all these things, the ultimate mark of fascism here is the enormous, blue-tinted images of Wario himself, the state and leader intertwined with cultlike energy.

I’d rate him a cross between Mussolini and Kim Jong Il. Though I would say that his evil knows limits, unlike Waluigi, who definitely kills hookers.

In conclusion, I would like to visit this place the most because I would enjoy beating up on bitches with Wario, both of us drinking fine wine and forcing court jesters to dance. In the Mushroom Kingdom, power is everything. You don’t go there for a leisurely vacation. You visit because you can humiliate semi-human entities—via fastball, corner kick, or red shell attack—without any consequences whatsoever.


(I may or may not have written this post on April 20th.)