Franchise: Yoshi

In May 1995, an interview with series creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Rare co-founder Tim Stamper about the development of Donkey Kong Country (DKC) was published in the magazine Electronic Games, conducted by game journalist Steven L. Kent. Kent later claimed on an episode of G4's docuseries "Icons" that Miyamoto was angry during this interview, channelling it into bitter criticisms of DKC's gameplay and the Western market's praise of its pre-rendered graphics, and that Stamper "sat there and took it, even though really the anger wasn't meant to be at Stamper". Miyamoto clarified in a 2010 interview with IGN that he did like the game despite these rumored criticisms, and that he worked closely with Rare and Stamper during development.

Years after the interview's publication, Kent would print an alleged portion of a later interview with Miyamoto in his 2001 book "The Ultimate History of Video Games", claiming that the anger had stemmed from "touchy" internal discussions regarding Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island. The hand-drawn crayon art style of that game was said to be a result of the alleged anger over DKC's graphics causing him to rebel against Nintendo's internal evaluation committee, who wanted Yoshi's Island to use pre-rendered graphics. Part of the Miyamoto quote reads:


Developers on Yoshi's Island have given less angered statements regarding the choice in art style over the years. Yoshi's creator Shigefumi Hino and game director Takashi Tezuka each claimed that it was done for sentimental reasons, as the development team believed that all video games from that point on would likely utilize 3D graphics. They decided to "fight back" in Hino's words by scanning in hand-drawn illustrations and manually editing them to be readable sprites, creating a unique art style intended as a bow-out for 2D graphics:


Since then, every game in the Yoshi series has taken on a deliberately different visual style, including hand-crafted assets and real-world materials, to set itself apart from the Mario series.

Shigeru Miyamoto wanted Mario to have a dinosaur companion ever since Super Mario Bros., but it wasn't thought to be possible at the time due to the technical limitations of the NES. He wanted to implement Yoshi in Super Mario Bros. 3, but again could not. Two power-ups were created to fill the gap - Raccoon Mario and Frog Mario. Co-worker Takashi Tezuka once speculated that Miyamoto's love of horse riding had influenced Yoshi's creation.

The sound effects Yoshi makes are noises made by Kasumi Totaka sped up.

According to Steven Universe creator Rebecca Sugar, the inspiration for the show's background color palettes comes from the level aesthetics in Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, due to its colorful atmosphere and also being one of her favorite video games at the time.

In 2016, a post was uploaded to Tumblr responding to a post claiming that "there is nothing wrong with Yoshi" by jokingly accusing Yoshi of committing tax fraud, which would become a running gag within Nintendo fan circles, and eventually a meme in 2018 with the bait-and-switch YouTube account SiIvaGunner posting soundtracks from a fake Yoshi Commits Tax Fraud game.

It would be discovered after the meme's peak of popularity that in 2011's Fortune Street, Yoshi is the only character in the game who asks to be exempt from paying taxes when a tax office is built. This means that while Yoshi is not guilty of committing tax fraud, he does attempt to commit tax evasion.

In October 2019, the Nintendo Versus eSports account posted a Super Smash Bros. Ultimate highlight tournament featuring Yoshi, and titled it "This Yoshi is no fraud", seemingly in reference to the meme.

The meme of Yoshi evading his taxes would also inspire the Turnip Boy series of games.

The sounds used for Yoshi's voice in Super Mario World were created by composer Koji Kondo by playing an orchestral hit keyboard preset and pitching it both higher and lower. This sound would go on to be used as Yoshi's voice in several of his appearances throughout the Mario series, even in some instances after Kazumi Totaka became his voice actor.