As a meta joke, one of the visitable locations in the PC version of Mario’s Time Machine (absent from the NES and SNES versions) is the office of Software Toolworks, the development studio that made the game. Traveling there, Mario meets various employees of the studio, among them David Grenewetzki, seen in the screenshot, who was the lead of the Mario’s Time Machine project.
In David Grenewetzki’s office, three Mario-related items can be seen: a framed picture of the Mario is Missing box art, another framed version of Mario official art, and a unique Mario-themed mug.
Did I mention this year was the first time I watch Revenge of the Sith and could not believe I went this long without having watched such a masterpiece?
Top: a common urban legend surrounding Mario Kart 64 concerns this unique Thwomp in a cage on the Bowser’s Castle track, who appears to be green. The mystery of why a Thwomp would be caged, and his seemingly unique coloration, led to many players believing he had some hidden significance and could be instrumental to unlocking some secret functionality in the game.
Bottom: in reality, the Thwomp isn’t green at all. He is merely being lit with pure yellow light, which has the effect of making the blue appear green. This effect can be replicated in an image editing program by overlaying the Thwomp with a layer of pure yellow (#FFFF00) and setting the blending to “multiply”, which results in the exact same coloration.
It is likely that the reason players assumed the Thwomp was green was because the yellow lighting being entirely localized to the inside of the cage is highly unnatural (note the floor of the cage also sharply changing color on the other side of the bars). If the lighting in the entire room was yellow, or if the yellow lighting bled through the cage into the room in a more realistic manner, it is possible that the lighting-based nature of the Thwomp’s color would have been more apparent and the confusion avoided.
