Super Mushroom

The Super Mushroom is a power-up from the Mario series of video games. It is, traditionally, about the size of "regular" Mario, and has a white stalk below a red and white (originally red and orange) spotted cap.

It debuted in Super Mario Bros. for the NES/Famicom, and the powers it grants the player lent itself to the game's title. It emerges from flashing blocks marked with a '?' when they are bumped from below (a convention carried over from Mario Bros., where bumping platforms was the main form of attack). Upon emerging, it then begins to slide to the right (this was later changed in Super Mario Bros. 3, where depending on what side of the block was hit, the mushroom would head toward that side.) If the player catches it, they become Super Mario: it doubles Mario's size and allows him to take an extra hit. It also allows him to gain better powers, such as Fire Mario (shoot bouncing fire balls). Furthermore, Super Mario can break bricks, whereas regular Mario can't.

In some Mario games, it heals Mario and friends, such as in Super Mario RPG. In the Super Mario Kart series of racing games, it gives the player a short boost of speed.

It is said that Shigeru Miyamoto was inspired by the novel Alice's Adventures in Wonderland when creating this item. In the novel, Alice eats pieces of mushroom to change her size.

Because the mushroom is the most basic power-up, without which other powers can't be granted, it is occasionally used in the Mario series to denote basic rewards or easier skill levels. Winning three consecutive mushroom cards from the slot-machine goal boxes at the end of each level in Super Mario Bros. 3 will earn the player two extra lives, whereas winning three consecutive star cards will earn them five. In Super Mario Kart, the easiest tracks belong to the Mushroom Circuit.

Other mushrooms

The Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 2 (also known as Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels) features "poisonous" mushrooms which cause Mario to shrink, or "power-down". It was originally a brown palette swap of the typically red Super Mushroom, but in enhanced remakes of the game, it was given a different sprite. The only games since The Lost Levels to have poisonous mushrooms as items are Luigi's Mansion, Super Smash Bros. Melee and some Mario Party games. In Super Smash Bros. Melee Poisonous Mushrooms are brown instead of blue and 3-dimensional instead of 2-dimensional. In the Mario Party series, they were purple and limited the maximum roll on the dice block to 3 or 5, depending on the game and situation.

The 1-up mushroom featured in most of the canonical Mario games is a green palette swap of the Super Mushroom, and gives the player an extra life. They are usually found in hidden places.

In addition, a fourth type of mushroom called the Golden Mushroom appeared in Mario Kart 64 and Mario Kart: Double Dash!! as an companion item that, as opposed to giving the player a one-time speed boost as the super mushroom does, would allow the player to get a speed boost as often as they wanted during a set period of time. In Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, it was only available if the player chose Toad or Toadette. Golden mushrooms were also in the Mario Party series, and let players hit 3 dice blocks in one turn.

Reverse mushrooms appeared in Mario Party 2, and made players move backwards instead of forwards. Mushrooms with question marks on them appeared in the Battle Game in the Super Mario All Stars version of Super Mario Bros. 3, and would make the two players either switch positions, or, if one player was big and one player was small, it would make them switch sizes.

Blizzard Entertainment has parodied the super mushroom in its MMORPG World of Warcraft; one item available for purchase from vendors, the "Red Speckled Mushroom," restores a character's hit points and features an icon similar to the red mushroom from Super Mario Bros. 3 and later games.