The game features an unused sixth hidden tape called "Herd of Mouth with Wooly the Sheep" that can only be accessed by exploiting the game. However, the tape is entirely comprised of Wooly sitting at a table while occasionally making minor gestures for ten minutes, suggesting that the tape was added purely to mess with exploiters.
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.
Despite being based on a children's movie and not being any more violent than its source material, Despicable Me: The Game recieved a 12 rating from PEGI in the UK for "violence". This could be because Gru's adopted daughters don't appear in the game, therefore he stays a villain for the entirety of the game and the violence could be seen as more questionable than if the game directly followed the film's plot.
Many fans and critics have noted similarities between the aesthetic of Pizza Tower and "off-model" 1990s cartoons such as Ed, Edd, n' Eddy and The Ren & Stimpy Show. Game creator McPig has claimed not to be a fan of those series and to have not been influenced by them, although he did still take influence from the more cleanly-drawn SpongeBob SquarePants, and an unclear inspiration from 1990s cartoons would still be cited on the game's Steam store page description.
Although King K. Rool's motivation for stealing Donkey Kong's banana hoard has never been officially confirmed, two theories have been brought up by former Rare employee Leigh Loveday: either K. Rool steals them because he likes bananas, or he wants Donkey Kong to starve to death so that K. Rool can occupy his treehouse.
The former theory is backed up by the instruction manual for Donkey Kong Country stating that the Kremlings steal the bananas for their rich nutritional value in potassium and Vitamin A, and by artwork drawn by Steve Mayles on Playtonic Games's Twitter page, which shows K. Rool sitting next to Gruntilda from Banjo-Kazooie on a pile of bananas while reading a book titled "101 Banana Recipes."
The latter theory is only supported by the game DK: Jungle Climber where K. Rool mentions how much he despises bananas.
Throughout the "Game Shows" episode of the animated series "The Mr. Men Show", the sounds that are made whenever Sonic collects and loses rings can be heard several times.
In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Mario and Luigi's family are prominently featured. This includes:
• Their Father, voiced by Charles Martinet (and bears a resemblance to Talon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time) • Their Mother, who previously appeared in "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" and is voiced here by Jessica DiCicco • Uncle Arthur, voiced by John DiMaggio • Uncle Tony, voiced by Rino Romano (and was coincidentally mentioned in live-action segment "Glasnuts" from the TV series "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!") • Aunt Marie, who's presumably married to Uncle Arthur • An unnamed niece, who's most likely Marie and Arthur's daughter, being a first cousin once removed that's referred to as a "(second) niece" • An unnamed grandfather, who's implied by the co-director Aaron Horvath to previously have been a boxer and wears an outfit similar to Luigi in the 1983 commercial for the Atari ports of Mario Bros.
Interestingly, all of the credited voice actors for the family are all of Italian descent to stay true to the family's Italian heritage.
According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the design of the family were based on character design sheets that former Nintendo illustrator Yoichi Kotabe drew decades before the film began production.
In the game files exists a beta version of protagonist Takayuki Yagami's design. This design was presumably an alternate plan in case the licensing agreement with Takura Kimura, the actor whose face inspired Yagami's design, runs out, or he gets involved in any kind of controversy.
The House of the Dead series, despite being featured quite prominently, has rarely been namedropped in SEGA crossover games.
In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Zobio and Zobiko's character bio shortens their debut as "HOTD EX" (despite games with longer titles such as Billy Hatcher & the Giant Egg and Alex Kidd in Miracle World not being shortened).
In Sonic & Sega All-Stars Racing, Sonic & All-Stars Racing Transformed, Sega Superstars Tennis, and Sega Superstars, all instances where a House of the Dead logo would be placed are instead swapped for a logo reading Curien Mansion in the same style as the series' logo.
Sega Heroes would be the game to finally break the trend, referring to the games by their title and with their original logo.
This may be due to the series being banned in Germany.
On the game's box cover, Kobe Bryant is seen wearing his Lakers jersey with the patch that was used during the 2000-2001 NBA Finals. However, Kobe is also seen wearing Nike shoes, most notably the Nike Air Zoom Huarache 2K4, which appears to be a mistake as Kobe Bryant didn't sign with Nike until 2003. The reason for the error is thought to be due to 2K Sports having a contractual obligation between the Bryant estate and the Nike brand.
An uncredited Charles Martinet voices a few of the characters in this game, including Gex. Fans believe the likely reasons for being uncredited was the game's crude humor and the similarities of some characters’ voices to Luigi, as Nintendo likely wouldn't appreciate hearing crass dialogue coming from Charles’ Luigi voice in a non family-friendly Xbox game.
In the episode "Never Koop a Koopa" from the animated series "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3", King Koopa wears a red cape towards the end of the episode, giving him a passing resemblance to King K. Rool. However, this is purely coincidental, as King K. Rool debuted four years after this episode aired in 1990, and in early concept art from around this time K. Rool looked much different. Incidentally, the cartoon version of King Koopa shares K. Rool's similar habit of wearing thematic costumes, and Bowser and his Koopa Troop would take up the Kremlings' usual role of stealing Donkey Kong's banana hoard during the Subspace Emissary story mode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
The title screens of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Sonic (a character known for his super speed) posing and waving his gloved hand inside of a ring lined with stars and a ribbon banner at the bottom, could possibly be taken from the logo of the 1981 anime "Dr. Slump" and its speedy protagonist Arale. It should also be noted that the ring surrounding Sonic has giant wings protruding from its sides, which appear to reference the angel wings on Arale's cap that also feature in the intros to the anime and some of the films.
While it's not known if any Sega employees have commented on this connection, it was acknowledged in the form of a small cameo appearance where Sonic gets outrun by Arale in the 1993 sequel manga "The Brief Return of Dr. Slump".
In a 1996 interview with Shigeru Miyamoto published in Super Mario 64's first Japanese strategy guides, he revealed that Mario's running animation, speed and movements in that game were influenced by Arale, the main protagonist of the 1980 Akira Toriyama manga/anime "Dr. Slump":
"The area around his hips is a big "joint" that controls which way his body moves. We created all his movements from that point of origin: when he accelerates and inclines forward, when he turns and leans left or right, etc. So Mario sort of runs like Arale-chan, with the correct sense of weight in the body."
However, Dr. Slump's influence throughout the Mario series could trace back even further. In particular, his running speed and animation and the Racoon and Tanooki Suits from Super Mario Bros. 3, the Wing Cap from Super Mario 64, the Cat Suit from Super Mario 3D World, and even traits of Mario's happy cartoonish personality, his short stature and gloves, and blue-red-overalls color scheme bear enough similarities that they all could have been taken from Arale's appearances and other elements throughout Dr. Slump. Despite this, outside of Miyamoto's comment, these connections are not known to have been elaborated on by any other employee from Nintendo.
In late 2018, a trailer for the film's sequel "Ralph Breaks the Internet" premiered on TV as part of Disney Channel's "Movie Surfers" series. The first half of the trailer used almost 40 seconds of cutscenes from the 2012 Wii game based on the first movie, and used unreleased higher quality renders of these cutscenes rather than the compressed footage released in the game. This trailer also features a noticeably bad, ad-libbed narration from an unknown actor portraying Ralph; this actor does not sound like the original film's actor John C. Reilly, nor the soundalike actor used in the Wii game and commercials Brian T. Delaney. Considering the overall confusing cheapness of the trailer, it's not known why the show's producers chose to use unreleased HD renders of these cutscenes instead of footage from the first film, which they had to have had access to and would have matched the visual quality of the film's sequel better.
According to page 74 of the official Nintendo Power Player's Guide, Conker refers to Rodent as "Private Milquetoast". Whether this is Rodent's actual surname or not, Milquetoast is slang for a meek or timid person, which describes Rodent’s personality.
In 2019, a YouTube user by the name of MickeySerbia posted a now-deleted video showing that Sans' voice grunting was most likely sourced from a snippet of Patrick Star saying "maybe it's the way you're dressed" in the SpongeBob SquarePants episode "Something Smells"; specifically, the grunt comes from the "ay" in "maybe." This information was further popularized when the SoundCloud account UNDERTALE OST: Recreated made and published the same discovery later that year, independent of MickeySerbia. While Toby Fox did not comment on the discovery, waveform comparisons between the SoundCloud post and Sans' voice grunting shows that the two are nearly identical apart from a slight delay in the former.
The Elephant Fruit power up is possibly based on a real world fruit known as "Dillenia indica", commonly nicknamed the Elephant Apple, which the power up is called in the Dutch, French and Portugese translations of the game.
The Coolmath Games website has often been noted for a severe lack in mathematics-related content. The title of the website has often been theorized to have been chosen in order to bypass school browser filters - however that is not the case, instead it was named that as a spin-off of the Coolmath website, which was math-themed.
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.
Although King K. Rool's motivation for stealing Donkey Kong's banana hoard has never been officially confirmed, two theories have been brought up by former Rare employee Leigh Loveday: either K. Rool steals them because he likes bananas, or he wants Donkey Kong to starve to death so that K. Rool can occupy his treehouse.
In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Mario and Luigi's family are prominently featured. This includes:
In the game files exists a beta version of protagonist Takayuki Yagami's design. This design was presumably an alternate plan in case the licensing agreement with Takura Kimura, the actor whose face inspired Yagami's design, runs out, or he gets involved in any kind of controversy.
The House of the Dead series, despite being featured quite prominently, has rarely been namedropped in SEGA crossover games.
In the episode "Never Koop a Koopa" from the animated series "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3", King Koopa wears a red cape towards the end of the episode, giving him a passing resemblance to King K. Rool. However, this is purely coincidental, as King K. Rool debuted four years after this episode aired in 1990, and in early concept art from around this time K. Rool looked much different. Incidentally, the cartoon version of King Koopa shares K. Rool's similar habit of wearing thematic costumes, and Bowser and his Koopa Troop would take up the Kremlings' usual role of stealing Donkey Kong's banana hoard during the Subspace Emissary story mode in Super Smash Bros. Brawl.
The title screens of Sonic the Hedgehog and Sonic the Hedgehog 2, with Sonic (a character known for his super speed) posing and waving his gloved hand inside of a ring lined with stars and a ribbon banner at the bottom, could possibly be taken from the logo of the 1981 anime "Dr. Slump" and its speedy protagonist Arale. It should also be noted that the ring surrounding Sonic has giant wings protruding from its sides, which appear to reference the angel wings on Arale's cap that also feature in the intros to the anime and some of the films.
In a 1996 interview with Shigeru Miyamoto published in Super Mario 64's first Japanese strategy guides, he revealed that Mario's running animation, speed and movements in that game were influenced by Arale, the main protagonist of the 1980 Akira Toriyama manga/anime "Dr. Slump":
According to page 74 of the official Nintendo Power Player's Guide, Conker refers to Rodent as "Private Milquetoast". Whether this is Rodent's actual surname or not, Milquetoast is slang for a meek or timid person, which describes Rodent’s personality.
The Elephant Fruit power up is possibly based on a real world fruit known as "Dillenia indica", commonly nicknamed the Elephant Apple, which the power up is called in the Dutch, French and Portugese translations of the game.