Not Another D&D Podcast - Super Mario Adventure Book: Pipe Down! (w/ Adam Conover)
Episode Date: March 15, 2024The LoreLords are joined by Mario Master Adam Conover and also Another Guy for a reading of the Super Mario GameBook, "Pipe Down!" Can they survive their puzzle-drenched trip to the Mushroom ...Kingdom? Or is Princess Toadstool doomed to Ball for all eternity? Click play to find out!Be sure to listen to Adam's podcast, Factually! and check out his Youtube Channel as well!CREDITS:Sound Mixing and Editing by Trevor Lyon8-Bit Book Club Theme by Emily AxfordSee Privacy Policy at https://art19.com/privacy and California Privacy Notice at https://art19.com/privacy#do-not-sell-my-info.
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Goodbye, sweeties. Game, game, we made a podcast about that book.
Welcome to 8-Bit Book Club,
the only book club that makes you dumber.
Dumb, dumb.
We are your Lore Lords, Brian Murphy,
Emily Axford, and Caldwell Tanner,
and we've got two very special guests today.
First off, less excited about him,
Jake Hurwitz.
Why would you say that?
How would you introduce any guest this way?
That was rude.
Start with the bad and we'll get to the good.
You know what?
We're gonna go ahead and edit that out.
No, keep it in, keep it in.
And then of course we've got certified Mario Lord.
You know a lot about Mario.
Mario lover, Adam Conover.
It's a me, Adam.
Very good. Yeah, Mario genius I Adam Conover. It's a me, Adam. Very good.
Great.
Mario genius, I believe is what it says on your resume.
Yeah, I have Mario on my shirt.
Yeah.
There he is.
Yeah, do you wanna walk the audience through your outfit
just so they know how committed you are?
Sure, there's only two pieces.
Okay, okay.
What about all the Mario tattoos?
Really stretch it out, really stretch it out.
I should get some Mario tattoos, actually. I have no tattoos. Do they make Mario jeans? Really stretch it out, really stretch it out. I should get some Mario tattoos actually.
I have no tattoos.
Did he make Mario jeans?
I wanna wear some Mario jeans.
I've been hunting for them.
Yeah.
Mario jankos?
They make overalls for sure.
With like a little jump man on the butt pocket.
That would be so sick.
This shirt, for those who can't see it,
this is a Uniqlo X Mario collab.
Hell yeah.
It's got a little Mario emblem
where you would see the little IZOD crocodile, but it's a little pixelated
Mario and then the entire shirt is covered with
pixelated Mario things.
These look like the official pixel grids, by the way.
Like the official pixel maps.
That's why it's a collab.
This is the official.
And Uniclo's not gonna get sued.
This is official, official.
And let me tell you something, I missed it when it first
came out and then I went to a Crossroads trading company
in LA and I saw it and I was like, I must cop.
Because I remember this limited edition collab
and you know, people don't know what they have here.
Like, this is, and I wear it everyday.
Did you say that to the person as you checked out?
You guys don't know what you're selling here.
You climbed into the display.
Luckily I'm gonna relieve you of this treasure.
I'm gonna go flip this shit, all right?
We went to Super Mario World at Universal Studios
pretty quickly after it came out,
and Adam was legitimately kind of starstruck by Mario.
Yes.
And we waited on line to meet Mario.
I know you're not the real Mario, but you know him.
When I- Where's the associate?
When I'm confronted with a character actor in a big suit, like it
makes me legitimately nervous.
It does feel like you're meeting an actual celebrity.
Yeah.
Do I pose to them?
Which eye do I look at?
Your face is so big.
Look at the mouth.
That's where their eyes are.
I turned to a five year old, Lisa, my girlfriend was like, do you want to get
your picture with Martin?
I was like, that's okay.
Could we wait a little? Yeah, okay, I'll get it.
That's her.
I went to Disneyland with Sue a few weeks back
and she was making fun of me nonstop
because we went to the Star Wars area
and I just whispered to her, that's the Mandalorian.
I didn't even mean to, it just escaped my mouth
being like, holy shit, it's him.
Just Mando at the bar trying to eat five times.
Hey man, my break's 10 minutes,
can you stop bothering me?
I'm with my family, dude.
Big fan of your work, sir.
May I shake Grogu's hand?
Your kid's really crying over there.
All right, so we've got a bunch of Mario game books here from the early 90s.
We're going to let Adam choose live on air, not that suspenseful for you at home because
you're looking at the title of the episode.
Suspenseful for us though.
You see what he chose.
Unless we want to just put like question marks there.
I think that would be bad for the downloads.
At the very least you're going gonna see how the sausage is made.
Yeah.
Adam, you wanna describe what you're looking at?
I'm looking at four Nintendo adventure books.
Three of them are Pringles special edition,
which came free with two cans of Pringles.
That's so crazy.
Pringles X Nintendo collab.
Yeah.
If you get a used Pringles edition,
you should get some used Pringles too.
These are not used. I had to buy two cans of Pringles edition? You should get some used Pringles too. These are not used.
I had to buy two cans of Pringles for each of these books.
Okay.
We are arguing.
I had to really argue with the Pringles rep
because they did not want to give me these books.
They said that is a very old deal.
The books aren't good.
They've gone bad.
What's crazy about these is three of these,
I remember checking out of the public library.
Really?
Yeah, which is, I don't know why I needed a library card
cause if you just have Pringles, you can get the books.
The Pringles man looks like Mario.
Just like an American Mario.
That must have been like what the Pringles PR person is.
Holy shit.
Oh my God.
I never thought of that.
The Pringles man is a Mario relative.
Okay, Jake, you're officially a gamer now.
Really?
Welcome.
Can I get a different intro?
Welcome to the show, Jake Hurwitz.
So I even told Caldwell when we were looking at these
initially that I remembered one from my childhood
named Just Desserts and you said that one's too rare.
Extremely rare, cannot find.
Wow.
Really?
These are like 50 bucks each minimum on eBay.
Yeah. Oh yeah, I meant to mention that guys
We are in the red
Spin all of our company money on Mario books
So we got one that says by the way, these all have the Nintendo seal of quality on them
Which has me know in the 90s meant everything so many good regular Nintendo games another interesting thing
They're all by Clyde Bosco except for one.
Oh.
Interesting.
Oh, Matt Wayne did rendering.
Clyde Bosco did the rest.
Interesting.
Wrote a 50 page long choose your own adventure book.
It's hard to do, I'll say.
So we've got Double Trouble where we've got two Luigi's
and two, what do you think, that's Lemmy Koopa or Iggy Koopa?
Oh gosh.
I think that's...
Lemmy C.
These are the ones that are hard to tell.
Lemmy C.
Oh, that's Lemmy Koopa.
Yeah.
No, wait.
Oh wow, it is hard to tell.
That might be Iggy Koopa.
That's Iggy Koopa.
Two of the Koopas.
Let the Pringles gamers see.
Where's the Koopa?
Well, the one with the red hat is Mario. Jake, you're not a gamer anymore, sorry. You're the ones that are telling us. Where's the Koopa? Well, the one with the red hat is Mario.
Jake, you're not a gamer anymore, sorry.
You're the ones that are.
Who's this lizard guy?
We've got Brain Drain, where Mario and Luigi
are looking at Yoshi, who seems to be locked up in prison.
Whoa.
Yoshi looks mean in that one.
Yeah, Yoshi's a hearty criminal.
Yoshi has a troubling power, which
he can put anything in his mouth and turn it into an egg.
So like if he turned evil, it's very concerning.
We got Dinosaur Dilemma,
which is a very generic sort of cover.
Yeah. Okay, not speaking to that.
That one just looks like the cover of Super Mario.
And then the one that I'm most curious about, I feel like,
is called Pipe Down.
Pipe Down.
You know that phrase kids love to hear their dad shout, here's the Mario version
of it. But what intrigues me about this is on the cover we've got Princess Peach
slam dunking a basketball. Which I've never seen her do in a single Mario game.
And Mario and Luigi look concerned about it. They're like, ooooh!
Oh they want her to pipe down. Pipe down from all those ducks.
It's a problematic early 90s book.
They're trying to start their own NBA team.
Right.
And they don't want a woman to play.
And also, some of the pipes are pipe organ pipes,
which is kind of surprising.
Oh.
Wow, look at that.
I think this is all going to fold together.
All right.
I select pipe down.
I also don't.
I did not check this one out of the library when I was a kid.
The others, I think I did. So this one's going to library when I was a kid. The others I think I did.
So this one's gonna be new to me.
So this is fresh.
All right.
Oh my God.
The way you just folded the cover over backwards
gave me a heart attack.
A Mario relic.
It could rip off.
Yeah.
I did feel the
Impressions relic.
The integrity of the book
really altered after I did that.
I forgot what I had in my hand.
I've had so many Pringle cover stands I've done that before. Well, part of the reason that I'm the reader is I did that. I forgot what I had in my hand.
Well, part of the reason that I'm the reader
is because I have so little respect
for the source material that I can read it very fast,
which I know it's not good for the integrity of the book.
All right, Princess in Peril.
The Mario Bros dash up, leaning against a rock,
tired, confused, bedraggled is Princess Toadstool.
The sinister music has stopped playing, for now.
I've tried and tried, but these magic sneakers won't come off. What's the princess?
Can't stop slam dunk doesn't even want to be falling this is like what's going to happen
Yeah, this is the cold open. This is the cold open
Suddenly the music begins to play once more before she could say another word. She's the spell seizes her again
She grabs the her basketball and begins to dribble away.
Stop her, cries Mario.
He and Luigi race after Princess Toadstool.
Finally, Luigi is within arm's reach of her highness.
Just as he reaches out to grab her though,
she drops straight down into a large opening
in the desert sand.
Luigi is moving too fast to stop.
She was dribbling in the sand?
Impossibly. That's how good she is.
That's how good she is. Luigi is moving too fast to stop. She was dribbling in the sand. That's how good she is. That's how good she is.
Luigi is moving too fast to stop.
So he jumps right over the hole into an even larger one.
He wails as he plummets into the darkness.
What will happen to Mario, Luigi,
and Princess Toadstool now?
It's up to you to make the decisions
that will get them past the pitfalls of this adventure.
This is dark.
She's compelled to play basketball by an evil song.
It's like the fairies who, in lore, they'll say,
oh, fairies came and people had to dance.
They were forced to dance until they died.
All right, I forced her.
She's been forced to ball.
She's been possessed by a hoop dream.
Oh, I forgot.
Forced to ball.
I forgot one of the things about
these books is that they always write a letter up top from the
Mario Bros. Oh, we have to. Yeah, but it says good luck
driplessly yours signed off by the Mario Bros. Does it say
driplessly yours in this one? It says always at the end of
everything because of course they're plumbers. So they're
driplessly yours because they solve all your drips. Yeah. A
lot of the early Nintendo writers
really fixated on the plumber thing.
Oh yeah, they're all about it.
Much more than Nintendo.
Nintendo was just like, he's a plumber, I don't know.
And then everyone else who created
the extended Mario universe was just like,
and they're fixed, they've got wrenches.
He loves pipes, he hates clocks.
It's all, they like Drano, I don't know.
They have butt cracks. I want you to focus on how much shit he's dealing with
on a day to day basis.
They're all the cool magic stuff.
Yeah.
Okay, so there's a whole letter that explains to us
how adventure books work.
We think we know.
But we do get an item.
The Mario Bros now have the waiting boots.
Turn to page 79.
Oh wait, wait, you'll see a box like the one below.
This is what I get for skimming.
All right, should we pause and grab a notebook
or something like that?
No, we can remember.
All right, ready everybody?
Okay.
I mean, we're adults.
We should be able to remember.
We're adults.
You're just starting to jot shit down, dude.
Enjoy your Pringles.
We're adults reading a children's book.
How hard could it be?
Okay, yeah.
Guys, my hand is stuck in the Pringles too.
All right.
It's a shoe polisher, Princess Toadstool shouts gleefully
of the 67 presents she's received so far.
This is the first one that isn't a pair of shoes.
Finally.
Whoa.
Like the classic Doug episode.
What?
This is, wait, an Emily Axe for a 90s poll?
Did you just do a 90s poll
that we don't know the reference to that you do?
You guys don't remember in the TV show, Doug?
I remember Doug.
Yeah. When his love interest,
Patty Mann is correct.
Everyone was getting her some kind of sports ball.
They were getting her a beat ball.
Beat ball. And then he makes a wrap.
And then she's like, she gets too many beat balls.
And then he like, he's worried that his is bad because it's not a beat ball. But then she's like, oh, my many beat balls. And then he like, he's worried that his is bad
because it's not a beat ball.
But then she's like, oh my God, it's a beat ball rack.
Wait, but isn't it like something else?
It's supposed to be something else.
And then she thinks it's a beat ball rack.
It was supposed to be like a shoe rack.
And he's like, why did I do this?
It's so stupid.
Wow, interesting.
Okay, wow.
Wow, awkward.
Can you skim back and see if this has inspired
by that classic Doug episode?
Inspired by the Doug episode that would come out two years later.
Beatball.
Yeah, beatball.
Doug takes place in kind of like a parallel universe where like sports are, everything's
a little different in Doug.
Yeah.
Like they don't have McDonald's, but they have a Honker burger.
They have beatball.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Check out me and Jake's YouTube show, The Pringles Gamer. We dive into Doug for the Honker burger. They have Beat Ball. Yeah. Check out me and Jake's YouTube show, The Pringles Gamer.
We do.
We dive into Doug for some reason.
All right.
All of our friends have come to celebrate the 99th birthday
in fungus years of the heir to the throne of the Mushroom
Kingdom.
Toad, the royal mushroom retainer,
has decorated the great hall of the royal palace
with glittery ribbons and plastic palm trees.
Wooster, the chief mushroom assistant, I guess from the cartoon?
Wooster?
Wooster?
That sounds vaguely familiar.
There was a period where they used to try to name the toads.
They would give them their own names.
Now of course we know that every toad is named toad.
We know that there is one toad.
So they were trying to Koopa the toads.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because of course there's Iggy Koopa, there's... I guess. We can just kind of tell. So they were trying to Koopa the toads. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, because of course there's Iggy Koopa,
there's Lemmy Koopa.
I guess you just got Vaughn Koopa.
Now you've just got Toad and you've got Toadette.
That's it.
It's just like a binary.
Yeah, and Captain Toad.
And Captain Toad.
And Toadsworth.
They're all named Toad.
Yeah, Toadsworth.
Remember him?
Yeah.
Yeah, he's pretty cool.
Wooster, the chief mushroom assistant,
has made sure the palace floors are more spotless than ever
and has baked a huge chocolate cake
All the great fungus nobles have descended from their mountain bungalows to join in the festival
Hell yeah, it's gonna be a red wedding. What's happening?
With a chainmail under your shirt toadsworth you're playing Reigns of Castamere
8-bit mini version of
Cast of your wife. You're playing the 8-bit MIDI version of
Rinchy Cast.
The group of kids coming to just fucking kill everyone.
They're all in bed.
Cooper sends his regards.
And of course, Princess Toadstool would never throw
a party without inviting her two dear friends,
those fearless defenders of the Mushroom Kingdom,
the Mario Bros.
Gee, big brother, whispers Luigi,
wiping a glob of chocolate frosting
from his bushy black mustache.
What?
Oh, you got something on your mustache make it off for you
he's wiping it from his own mustache no I'm doing it for him I'm self-inserting
oh okay in there yeah alright as just someone who's in love with the Mario
brothers sure will Tanner is in this I called us in the book as a party goer in
love with my hope the princess unwraps my present soon Cal Caldwell says. What did you get her, Mario asks.
Some shoes, answers Caldwell.
Me too, says Mario.
So far, Princess Toadstool's 99th birthday party
has gone off without a hitch.
That's why Mario and Luigi aren't able
to enjoy themselves completely.
I have a question, Adam.
Is this surprising to you to find out
that she's 99 years old?
In fungus years. In fungus years.
And okay, so what are fungus years?
Could I get some clarity on that?
I don't expect that.
Is she gonna die?
Is she gonna die?
I mean, it's almost been unclear,
especially at this point,
if Princess Toadstool is a person or a mushroom.
Or a fungus.
Well, she's 99 years old in fungus.
She's 99 years young.
Wait, why is she still a mushroom?
Also, wait, fungus lives for a long time.
Why does there-
Yeah, so why would, that's what I was saying.
No, hold on a second.
Hold on a second, I'm sorry.
If fungus years work like dog years, right?
The way dog years work is your dog is like 10 years old,
my dog is actually 70,
because they're gonna die soon.
So what they're saying is even though Princess Toadstool
looks like a 25, 28 year old woman,
actually she's 99 years old. She's about to die.
Whoa.
She's at the end of her life.
This is her last birthday.
That's why everyone's trying to get her such nice stuff.
Such nice shoes.
We're all trying to find the shoe
she's gonna be buried in.
All right, in the history of the Mushroom Kingdom,
no one has ever thrown a party
that the evil Koopa Clan hasn't tried to wreck.
Keep on your toes, Mario whispers
to the younger, skinnier plumber.
Those terrorist turtles are bound to crash
this party sooner or later.
Whoa.
Whoa.
Guys.
Okay, this was many years before.
Many years before.
Yeah, many years before.
Terrorists were just kind of fun at the time.
Terrorists were like Bruce Willis fought in the movies.
They were just dropped.
They were far away.
They would just drop terrorism into Mario books.
Yeah, well, keep off my toes, snaps Luigi.
You're stepping on my foot.
He pushes his brother to one side.
Both plumbers are ready for action.
Mario has brought his lucky penny along with him.
His lucky penny?
Is that a thing?
No.
OK, so we have a penny.
We have our wading boots. We have our waiting boots.
We have our lucky penny.
I'm keeping an inventory in my mind.
It's a perfect steel trap.
I'll never forget these guys.
Don't give that guy a notebook.
I remember we've watched for different
8-bit book clubs and stuff.
We watched the Mario show,
the Super Mario Brothers Super Show,
and Mario has catchphrases that just do not
pasta power and stuff like that.
So I think that's just one of those things.
Just like Mario, I guess has a lucky penny.
Okay.
I mean, if I was writing like an auxiliary product
for like Super Nintendo for like the Mario brothers,
I would be hoping that Shigeru was gonna like read that
and be like pasta power.
That's brilliant.
He's gonna say that now.
Yeah.
Okay.
So as lucky, he's lucky.
He's got his lucky penny along with him
and is armed with his strongest plunger.
Loves being a plumber.
See, this is again, plunger never used by Mario,
but they just feel they need to put it in.
They have to.
Luigi has also brought a plunger,
some waterproof matches and a monkey wrench.
Again.
Waterproof matches?
That's kind of cool.
Is that a real thing in real life?
Uh-huh. Yeah, yeah, right.
I wanna buy some and just light them under my faucet.
For lighten farts.
Just then, several mushroom servants
make their way through the crowded hall.
One is handing out small bags of shiny coins,
and others carrying trays of balloons,
noisemakers, fishing nets, and other party favors.
Grab one of the toys, Louis. Party favors, yeah, fishing nets. Yeah, sure. It's all these Mario themes, dude.
Come on, keep up. Grab one of those toys, Luigi advises as he pockets a small bag of coins.
That's not a toy. That's not a toy. You're stealing cash. I'll take some money.
That was my wallet. We might have to catch a Koopa or make some noise.
Solve the puzzle on the next page
to find out which party favor Mario grabs.
Choose one of the three wrapping paper patterns.
Circle all of the numbered boxes
that are decorated with that pattern.
God damn it.
Here we go.
Then arrange the boxes in numerical order.
Oh my gosh.
Yes.
Nobody gets a notebook.
Letters?
Nobody gets a notebook.
Spell out the item that the plumbers will have
to help with their adventure.
Okay, so.
Do a New York Times cryptic Crawford puzzle.
Oh wow, it's pristine.
It has not been solved.
Okay, so directions are on the previous page.
Oh my God.
We might need a pencil.
I'll grab one for you.
You're just choosing one thing.
Okay.
So the patterns are stripes, star, polka dot.
Okay, I'm gonna select stripes. Okay, I'm going to select Stripes.
Okay, while we do the puzzle, we'll do a sidebar.
Just Gavin about Mario with...
Jake and Adam.
With Jake and Adam.
I'm a guest too.
Yeah, Jake, who's your favorite Mario character?
Gotta be the man himself, Mario.
Oh.
All right, that adds up.
That's good.
Mario. All right, that's good.
We're calling her Princess Toadstool in this book,
but what would she go on to be known as,
or what was she originally known as in Japan,
and then in later iterations
of the American releases of Mario games,
what was Princess Toadstool's name?
Peach.
You got it.
All right.
All right. all right!
Why don't you grill Adam?
Let's see if he's faking it.
Where was the first time she was referred to that,
by that name in the United States?
In the United, Denver.
Hahaha!
Mario 64?
Mario 64, correct.
When she writes a letter to Mario to open the game,
and she says,
Peach! Yeah, she goes, Princess Toadstool, Peach.
And I remember at the time going, who the fuck is Peach?
Yeah, it was confusing.
This is her name?
Oh, okay, you gotta get with the program.
Her name's Peach now.
And also the internet was, I don't know,
it was way harder to search back then.
So you didn't have an answer for that.
She just said Peach at the end
and you just had to live with that.
Yeah, oh, that's her name.
Okay, yeah.
64 was the first time I played Mario actually.
What?
Wow.
What?
I had a Sega when I was a kid, not a Nintendo.
I know, but we were all born in it.
You let a Sega kid in here?
Yeah.
Are you kidding me?
Surely you must have had a cousin.
He's gonna beat us up.
They're so scary, Genesis kids.
They're always like shouting
and running around and giving you dead arm punches.
That really was me as a kid too.
They're playing Altered Beast, weird game.
They're playing that one game
where the guy is made entirely of balls.
Oh, Vectorman.
Vectorman.
That game fucking rules.
I'll admit, I was a Sega kid.
I had, well, I had, obviously I had the original Nintendo
and then I had Sega and then I feel like it was like
kind of the first time retro gaming became a thing
is like kids suddenly started to like,
like old Super Nintendo games
during like the PlayStation slash like N64 era.
So I went back, I like bought a Super Nintendo off my friend
for like 20 bucks or something like that
because he just didn't want it anymore.
Okay, do you have a solve for the puzzle?
The first five letters are noise.
Okay, it's a noisemaker.
Okay, so we've got a noisemaker.
We're gonna call it. We assume.
Mario Bros collect 10 coins, turn to page 50.
I'm writing it down on a notes app,
so I've written it down.
Is that okay, Jake?
I mean, I remember everything from Mario,
but some people need a notes app thing for sure.
Okay.
Hey, look at this Princess Toadstool cries
from among the tremendous heaps of ribbons,
cards, envelopes, and wrapping paper.
She holds up a pair of bright red basketball sneakers.
Oh yeah, we haven't even gotten into the thing.
Wow, we haven't gotten anywhere.
I fully forgot.
I got so distracted by the puzzle
that I forgot that the princess is gonna ball. Yeah
She's gonna cross us over. She's so norm core. She's got some sweet Nikes. She's holding a big Starbucks in it
Okay, so I'm gonna skip ahead a little bit
But essentially no one will admit to the fact that they got her the magic basketball sneakers
Oh, does she like them and she like?
Oh she's POMPED
She's saying I I love them.
She's like, who got these?
And everyone's like, not me.
And everyone's like, not me.
And that means suspicious.
Yeah, that means it's a koopa.
Drop us into that moment.
Yeah, okay.
So then Yippee, she yells,
lacing up the high top sneakers.
I can't wait to wear these to the Royal Gymnasium.
Anyone for a game, a pickup?
Classic peach, absolute classic peach.
Remember, I'm 99 years old.
Yeah, I'm 99 years old.
But I'll be breaking your knees. This might be my last game. My bones are made of mycelium wait a
minute wait a minute now I remember the king commune with the fungus with the
fungus hive we are one my subjects. They are my siblings. My kin. Alright, everyone stop joking around. I reproduced by spore
propagation. Too far. She's hot. Okay. So, uh the princess
thinks that her dad got it for her, uh the king but he uh he
goes, oh wait, I forgot. Now, I remember. Here's the birthday
present I got for you. He reaches behind the throne and
pulls out two orange basketballs. Sorry, I forgot to wrap them, he says.
What a dick.
Can I just say, this is like one of the prime sins
committed by Extended Universe Mario stuff
is they always need to postulate a king toadstool.
Yeah.
There's no king toadstool.
Wait, isn't there a king toadstool in Mario 3?
No, those are the kings of the individual Mario,
you know, like World 1, World 2.
Yeah, dumbass.
That's the king of that world,
and he's been turned into a dog.
But Princess Toadstool is the ruler
of the entire Mushroom Kingdom.
It's a matriarchy.
But these fucking Americans are like,
Princess, there must be a king involved somewhere.
Yeah, fuck that.
And we have seen this in the different adventure books.
For some reason, there's a king, and he's just like very forgetful. He just forgets stuff. That's kind king involved somewhere. Yeah, fuck that. And we have seen this in the different adventure books. For some reason, there's a king
and he's just like very forgetful.
He just forgets stuff.
That's kind of his characterization.
All right, so wait, okay.
Just then, Strangier music begins to drift into the hall.
It's very soft at first.
Then it grows louder and louder as if it's getting nearer.
Princess Toadstool starts to dance.
I feel like these cursed shoes are,
we're mixing, this is a hat on a hat.
This is too much. This is a shoe on a hat. This is too much.
This is a shoe on a shoe.
They make you dance, they make you slam dunk.
Right, they play music.
What's happening, she says, looking a little alarmed.
As the music grows even louder,
the princess begins to jog in place.
This really is fairy circle shit.
They're making her exercise.
Then she starts jumping up and down.
Finally, she picks up one of the king's basketballs
and begins to dribble around the great marble hall.
She likes it. Go, Grandma.
This is the most insane thing.
Okay, so she's dribbling and leaping high into the air,
totally out of control.
Arrgh, she's scuffing up the marble floors.
Wooster moans.
You got to.
Fuck up, Wooster.
If I.
Wooster, you fucking nerd.
If I.
Someone get a buffer.
She's in pain.
If I ever say, help me, I can't stop dunking.
Disregard.
Disregard.
Even if you're scuffing up your floor.
Yeah, no, we're going to tour you around the country and sell tickets.
Okay, so she's dribbling away, shouts Toad.
So she's dribbling away.
We have to solve the puzzle for a clue what the plumbers should do next.
Look at the two groups.
Okay, so there's a puzzle.
God damn it. Solve the puzzle for a clue.
The puzzle mistress is ready.
The plumbers should do next.
Look at the two groups of basketballs below.
Which group is exactly the same as the top group?
Okay, this seems easier.
Under the correct choice, you'll find some advice
about what the plumbers should do next.
They just gotta close her down, get big,
get under the rib.
Yeah. Draw the charge. Tell them to draw the down, get big, get under the ribs. Yeah.
Draw the charge.
Tell them to draw the charge.
Draw the charge.
We might want to risk a foul here.
Really?
Yeah, a strategic foul.
Oh.
Maybe we tie the shoelaces together.
Let's push her down.
I think I see a difference.
This one's just an eyeballer.
Run after the princess.
OK, let's do it.
It's either run to the shoe vault
or run after the princess. Run after the princess is the correct thing run to the shoe vault or run after the princess, run after the princess.
That's the correct thing.
You need to solve a puzzle to know
that when your friend is in distress, you run.
We've read some of these game books.
There was one where we should have left our friend behind
to die because it turns out
that they can just save themselves.
Who can know the mind of a gamer?
Every game book is trying to teach you conflicting morality.
Yeah, no, they're not trying to teach you anything.
The world is a gray!
Okay, if the Plumber should follow Princess Toadstool,
turn to page 86.
I wonder if this is the book that got Clyde Bosco fired
and Tom Wayne then took over.
I think this is the first one in the series,
the first or second.
So I think this was like five.
Oh no, it's number five.
Oh, okay.
Yeah, I was gonna say the princess dunking,
that feels like we're running out of ideas.
We're at the bottom of the barrel here.
We gotta make 14 more of these things.
Glyde, can you come into my office?
Yeah.
Mario and Luigi charge out the window after the princess.
They tumble into a border of pricker bushes
a few feet below.
Ow, ouch, ow, crumbles Luigi. God, perfect characterization.
Luigi save me. I fell too. Ow, ow. It's me, Caldwell.
Okay. Hold me.
Caldwell, you don't have to help. You can stay inside the party.
You're leaving me to die?
No, it's just a pricker bush, man. You're fine.
Mention me on the next page.
You keep putting icing in our mustaches.
You stole a bag of my coins, Luigi.
All right, so she's starting to run towards the desert.
The plumbers race after her past the odd floating
boxes and metal cubes.
We get it.
They're in Mario.
She has dribbled even further ahead of them.
Maybe we should check out the shoe vault Luigi says
I don't want to get sand in my plumbers boots
If you think the plumber should stop following the princess and head back to the palace turn to page one
Well giving us a second opportunity should keep chasing turn to page 13. I think we keep chasing. Yeah, we can
We are the kind of heroic friend
who's exactly as Adam says,
sees someone in distress and runs to their game.
But on the other hand,
sand in the plumber's boots
is pretty annoying.
That does sound bad.
Yeah, but at the same time,
the last puzzle,
I mean this is bad game design.
It is bad game design if now we have to go backwards.
Logically, this is the dumbest move
because we've like run away from the castle,
we drew the Pricker Bush and then we're like,
let's go back.
Like she's gonna get further away.
It told us to follow her, did it not?
Or did we already do that?
We already did that, so we're onto a new thing.
And we found, we basically just,
there's some goof-em-ups about them falling out of the,
I think- There's gonna be magicem-ups about them falling out of the-
There's gonna be magic boots back in the shoes.
This is a moment though where the book is asking you,
how much do you trust your puzzling ability?
No, I think it's just bad game design.
I think it's also, it's Luigi suggesting this
and Luigi is our renowned coward.
So I think-
Yeah, Luigi's like, I don't fucking care
about the princess, that's your girlfriend,
I don't care. Are they officially dating? Mario and Luigi, Luigi's like, I don't fucking care about the princess. That's your girlfriend. I don't care.
I was literally dating Mario and Luigi.
It's like it's not Mario.
Luigi and Caldwell are officially.
Yeah.
No, yes, Mario and the princess are like, it's a it's a will.
They won't take just picturing Nintendo releasing an official statement
being like, yep, it's incest.
Yeah.
All right, we're moving on.
We're going to chase.
Make a fast break, Luigi Mario cries.
We're losing her.
Plumbers resume their mad dash after Princess Toadstool
passed the end of the brick road over a hill
through a field of snapping piranha plants
and onto the hot, dry, sandy plains
of the Koopaahari Desert.
I think we're catching up.
This is- Is this a location?
I hate this.
Oh!
Just destroying lore.
Where parts of the Mario, of the Mushroom Kingdom
are named after Earth locations, like no.
I mean, could you argue that like the Mushroom Kingdom
is like a reflection of our world?
They're like overlapping planes of existence and that's why they aren't.
No, it's its own place.
They aren't.
No, I'm sorry.
I'm sorry.
It's just lazy writing.
It's like this person has no...
Who wrote this?
Clive?
Clive Bosco, yeah.
Clive Bosco has no affinity for the Mushroom Kingdom.
He doesn't understand.
Dude, careful what you say about Clyde, okay?
Yeah.
Clyde?
Clyde or Clyde?
He was given very little to work with.
I mean, when did this book, when was this published?
I'm guessing like 1993.
I would almost think earlier.
You think so?
I think it's-
He had very little to work with at the time.
Yeah.
I think this is probably going off
Super Mario Brothers Super Show.
Yeah. Mm-hmm. Brothers Super Show. Yeah.
Lord, 1991.
1991.
1991, that's pretty early.
So Mario 3, I believe came out in 1990.
We're very, very early.
And so he doesn't have a ton to work with
in terms of stuff being built out.
Yeah, yeah.
And so they're just filling it in
with generic nonsense.
Yeah, okay. So tweeter birds jump down a swoop down from the air and start grabbing at our heads batten down the hatches
Tweeter birds, that's what it says tweeters. They look like that
Mario 3 those are from Mario 2. Yeah, but they don't know they don't swoop, don't they bounce? Oh yeah, okay.
They're wearing masks.
Yeah, they're wearing masks.
They're like Shy Guy style.
All right, batten down the hatches says Mario.
Let's try to get through this without too many scratches.
Carefully the plumbers make their way into the field
of bouncing, twittering flightless birds.
Mario.
Bouncing?
Adam's correct.
Adam, I almost called you Mario.
The greatest compliment anyone's ever given you.
Choose any four tweeter birds, circle them,
then use a ruler.
What?
We can do it straight enough, it's fine.
And draw a straight line out from every toe
on each of those tweeter's feet.
Pass it to the president.
The lines should continue
until they reach the end of the page.
Dad, pull over.
I have to get these lines straight.
I need a ruler.
Can you imagine how devastated you'd be
as like a six-year-old being like,
mom and dad, do we have a ruler?
And then being like, shut up, quiet.
Imagine being a parent like, oh, I'm like,
yeah, really impressed.
What are you working on?
Like your math homework or your science or something?
I'm trying to draw lines between tweeter birds, mom.
Go away.
Get out your protractor and draw a perfect circle
with using Mario's mustache as the center point.
Yeah.
And every intersecting.
M's using a different game book as the center.
Wow, resourceful.
Just like Clyde intended.
Buying both of his books.
Oh yeah.
This is like advanced geometry.
You're having to like find the intersecting points here.
We have to find out if it touches Mario and Luigi,
I believe.
If any of the lines, and I just got a foot that touches,
that touches Luigi.
Okay, so he's dead.
So it's page 65.
Page 65? Okay, yeah.
If any of the lines touch Mario and Luigi,
turn to page 65.
Puzzle Mistress, you've killed Luigi.
You killed Luigi.
Why Puzzle Mistress?
I didn't mean to.
Scrooge!
A buffalo-sized tweeter comes crashing down
on Mario's head
Stars dance in front of the unlucky plumber's eyes. He reels dizzily and feints
Oh my god in the desert
Too much blood loss
Awhile later he wakes to find himself slung over his brother's shoulder as they travel up the dark pipe to their Brooklyn
Plumbing shop.
He came up.
What?
Mario's too sore to move.
What?
His brother says, I'll have to take the leg.
Luigi looks battered and bruised and in a very bad mood.
I don't want to talk about it, Glass Luigi.
When the older plumber asked about what happened,
but don't worry, I'm going to get you home
and nurse you back to hell.
Is this what it says in the book?
The princess is dead.
The only, blood loss was the only thing I had
and everything else is from the blood.
I'm sorry, but just the idea that, okay,
so the idea that they are plumbers in Brooklyn
who are transported to the Mushroom Kingdom.
Through a dark pipe.
Through a dark pipe.
In Mario canon, it's often that way, but not always. Sometimes they just
live there. Sometimes they started in Brooklyn and they're
transported in the new Mario movie. They start in Brooklyn.
Yeah, that's fine. But the idea that they just at will go
through a pipe back to Brooklyn I have never heard before.
Let's go home. They escape. Yeah, they gave up plane. Let's go home, they escape, yeah they gave up. You wanna go like hit up like Union Pool or like,
we could go to, you know.
We could go to the Barclays Center and catch a Nets game
like in between fights with Bowser.
When are our Sleep No More tickets?
I just wanna make sure that I let Peach know.
Oh Mario groans but he doesn't argue.
So he's just willingly going to be nursed back to health.
Being nursed back to health by Luigi is sure to involve
a lot of foul tasting medicine,
not to mention the world's worst recipe
for chicken soup game over.
Oh!
Wait, so in this universe that we just created,
Princess Peach is eternally balling?
Yeah, forever.
She's got to be, she unwillingly hops out into the desert
and we're like, oh man, we're going
to have to eat chicken soup, this sucks.
So I think this is a classic bad game design of the Nintendo
game books, which is I think we were supposed
to go back to the shoe thing.
Or did we make a wrong choice with the tweeter bird?
Em was right in the tweeter bird thing.
I think though it was choosing four random birds
and I think that I didn't realize
that I was supposed to try and choose ones
that I thought wouldn't.
Oh.
So puzzle master fucked us.
Okay, can we just like go,
can we just assume that Emily did a better job?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's just assume that I chose once.
If none of the lines touch either plumber,
turn to page 115.
I thought it was supposed to be a random thing.
Hey, we're moving fast.
Yeah, let's not question the puzzle mistress, everybody.
Yeah, everyone fucking relax.
Order to have.
All right, page 115.
All right, whoosh, three birds go sailing past Mario's ear.
Luckily, none of them makes contact.
Look out, little brother, he warns Luigi
as a huge tweeter rockets towards him.
Luigi ducks, yikes.
I'm just gonna start calling all birds tweeting.
It really is a good phrase.
And instead of saying flying,
you say the tweeters are rocketing around.
Oh geez, these tweeters fucking crapped on my car.
Beautiful day, Susan.
These tweeters are really rocking it.
Rocking it around.
Tweeters bouncing?
Yeah, watch out for the straight cats.
They might rock it out of tweeters.
Excuse me, sir.
Are you Canadian and sighting deep Mario lore
that has since been retconned?
By the way, I got some of your mail the other day.
I opened everything.
Didn't seem to have more in.
So this character is a stereotypical Canadian.
All right.
OK, so after a few miserable minutes
of crawling, dodging, and dashing, Martin and Luigi
are finally in the clear.
The princess, however, has disappeared completely.
Music seems to have stopped to ragged circles in the sand
to lead off into the distance,
but there is no sign of movement on the horizon.
Hmm, says Mario scratching his chin
and studying the trails in the sand.
These could be dribble marks.
Dribble marks.
Dribble marks, again, she's dribbling in the sand.
That's fucking sick.
It just makes me think of a different verb.
Yeah, a substance.
Yeah, she's just.
Hey there, NAD polls.
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That's it for me.
Enjoy the show and beware the bwangler.
She's so excited about all of her issues.
Okay.
Well, here we go.
We've got a mystery.
Yeah, Luigi answers,
or they might be giant turtle footprints.
Ooh.
What?
Okay, so what are the prints?
Are they dribbles?
Or are they turtle footprints?
Or are they turtle dribbles?
Are they turtle sexual oils too?
Are they giant turtle footprints?
Are turtles?
Are they turtle oils?
Do turtles have a perfectly round foot?
I don't think so.
I think there's gotta be at least.
I think a turtle would be more of a, you know, a trail.
Yeah, they're dragging a whole lot.
No, they don't drag on their belly.
They can lift up.
Well, I guess turtles have strong pullers.
Turtles are a koopa.
Yeah, that's true.
Yeah, they can slide.
Come on now.
Remember the last time we tussled
with those horrible Hammer Brothers?
Those terrorists.
We lost one of our best bilge pumps.
They're really going into the plumbing stuff.
Just the plumber shit.
What?
What six year old wants this?
I love all of you.
Who wants this?
Dad, what's a bilge pump?
And the dad just, I don't know.
Yeah, nobody knows.
I don't fucking know.
Mario.
You guys are dads.
What's a bilge pump?
I think it's for a boat.
Yeah, you're right.
Sure.
I don't see, this is even the author of this doesn't know what he's writing. What's a bilge from? I think it's for a boat. Yeah. You're right. Sure.
I don't see this as even the author of this
doesn't know what he's writing.
What is a pump?
Unless, but plumbers probably get a lot of work
with the septic tanks of houseboats.
Oh yeah.
True.
They're always backing off.
Especially the sea plumbers.
There's those regular ass plumbers.
There could have been one on one of the airships.
All right, just then Luigi's quick eyes detect
something moving among a cluster of yellow rocks
about 50 yards to the left.
Shall we investigate big brother?
He asks.
I don't know, says Mario.
If we don't find the princess soon,
she might be out of bounds for good.
Oh, nothing like making a pun for somebody
that you think is gonna die.
I mean, it doesn't make sense.
Luigi's like, should we investigate some rocks?
It's like, we don't need to be doing a side quest. I mean, it doesn't make sense. Luigi's like, should we investigate some rocks? It's like, it's a, we don't need to be doing side quests.
I saw something move over there.
Yeah.
Should we leave?
Brother, focus.
Yeah.
Probably.
I got sand in my shoes.
There's some stuff in some rocks.
I would rather be doing anything else.
Right.
You're constantly trying to leave Luigi.
When you play the games,
because when we do these adventure books,
they do use Luigi as a coward to hold Mario back.
Is that true when you play the game too?
He's-
You got it, yes.
We're often trying to rescue Luigi or find Luigi.
You know, Luigi is a, he is a coward.
The characterization is real.
Luigi's mansion, he's always scared of ghosts.
Younger brother?
Yeah, I think so.
Yes, I believe he's the younger brother.
Okay, that's cute.
But it is true that, you know, Mario has almost no character whatsoever. He's a complete cipher, he's the younger brother. Okay, that's cute. But it is true that Mario has almost no character whatsoever.
He's a complete cipher, he's blank.
Luigi is frightened, and that's the only thing
we know about him.
But you can't ever truly be brave unless you are frightened,
so Luigi's arguably the braver Mario.
Whoa!
Luigi Hero are, think about it.
Okay, solve this puzzle for a clue about who or what
is hiding among the rocks.
Fill in all the shapes containing the numbers
divisible by three.
Mario's like, we don't have time for the puzzle.
We have to go.
Well, luckily this one-
Mario, list prime numbers quickly.
This one has been filled out.
This one they've got and I've checked it.
They're divisible by three.
Okay, and the puzzle goer before us, Troy, age nine,
is very smart, so.
No, they got it, they got it for sure.
It's a crown.
If you think the plumbers should follow the trail
through the Kupahari Desert, turn to page 68.
If you think they should check out the group of rocks,
turn to page 79.
So we wanna keep following the princess
because we got a crown.
That would be, that's the suggestion.
Right. Yes, yes.
Technically it says solve the puzzle for a clue about who or
what is hiding among the rocks.
Oh, okay.
Does that suggest there's a crown among the rocks?
Oh, does that suggest that that's the
Rocks? Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Let's go to the rocks.
Okay. Okay.
Maybe maybe you're
We're gonna go play with some rocks.
I wonder if this was just confusing wording.
I've, I feel like I don't trust these.
Or maybe we're going to get an injury on the crown of our
head. Oh, that makes sense.
Yeah, that actually really adds up.
Yeah, I think so.
Or maybe the princess herself is hiding in the rocks.
That's what I'm wondering.
I bet she's, oh yeah.
Yeah, cause it's got the crown.
It says what's hiding in the rocks.
That's the wording.
So we have to take this book on its word.
We're trusting you, Clyde.
We've never been burned by an adventure book.
Yeah, never ever.
Okay, all right.
So we think the crown is there or the princess is there.
We're going to the rocks.
We're going to the rocks.
Page 79, the Plovers decide to check out the rocks
before following the tracks in the sand.
Even before they reach the cluster of large yellow stones,
they know who the mysterious figure is.
Lending against a rock, gasping for air,
tired, confused, but draggled as Princess Toadstool.
Yeah!
Okay, Clyde, okay, Clyde.
I'm sorry, I'm sorry for bringing some of our game book baggage
against you, cause this is actually all right.
Everything is done.
It's like the time you use the word bedraggled,
but that's fine.
This is buttoned up.
That's on your editor, Clyde.
This is buttoned up.
Okay, sinister music has stopped playing for now.
This is turning out to be the worst birthday party ever.
She wails as soon as Mario and Luigi reach her.
That's fair.
It is probably her last. She's 99.
Oh, she's had a lot of birthdays and this one's the worst. Yeah, I can't even imagine.
Okay, um, I've tried and tried but these horrible sneakers won't come off. The princess
wails. She turns to Mario. Did you find my boots? She asks. Boots? The older plumber replies. All
this trouble and you want another pair of shoes? Uh's beginning, she's a girl, she loves shoes.
My special magical boots, explains the princess.
They belonged to my great grandmother.
She used their powerful magic to help the Mushroom Kingdom.
She died when she was 101.
Yeah, oh no.
That was back in the old wild days
when there were monsters even worse than the Koopas.
Now I keep the boots in a glass.
Wait, there's like deep lore here. What do you mean worse than the Koopas? Monsters worse than the Koopas. Now I keep the boots in a glass shoe box. Wait, there's like deep lore here.
What do you mean worse than the Koopas?
Monsters worse than the Koopas.
Sorry, this is deep.
Whoa, Mario prequel?
Yeah, we don't get that deep.
Now I keep the boots in a glass shoe box
in a vault deep below the palace.
Were we supposed to be?
Yeah, I think we were.
We almost went to the shoe closet,
but not this shoe closet.
Okay, okay.
And you think these boots will help you
out of this mess?
I don't know, Princess Toadstool sniffles.
I've always thought I would need them someday.
And now that her words trail off
and she begins to sob loudly.
Oh God.
Gee whiz, princess, don't cry.
We'll get your boots for you.
Just tell us what they look like.
Drying her eyes, the princess looks up and opens her mouth.
Suddenly the music begins to play again.
Before the princess can say another word,
the spell seizes her.
She grabs her basketball and begins to dribble out
into the desert.
No, honestly, it doesn't look that miserable.
Yeah, it seems fine.
It's an amazing image to picture a princess dribbling
into the expanse of the desert.
Every time she dribbles the ball,
it just stops dead in the sand.
It doesn't bounce at all.
This is David Lynch shit, I love it.
So I'll just puzzle for a clue that will help Mario
find the princess's boot.
There are 10 different shoes hidden in the word search.
They go up, down, across, backwards, and diagonally.
Circle them, the leftover letters will spell out a place
where you might find the queen's old boots.
Okay, so this person did some of them.
We have the word sandal, ski, flat.
They didn't get flat, but flat is a type of shoe.
Yeah.
Loafer, wedgie, this person.
A wedge. A wedge.
A wedge, I would think.
It's W-E-D-G-I-E.
Do you think that that's?
That must be, maybe it was something in the 90s.
I don't know. Sneaker.
Wedgie? Maybe it's an Australian shoe.
Oh, slipper.
Uh-huh.
Wing tip.
Okay, and then I think it's the letters
that are left over is-
It's A-R-O-D-E-A-O.
A rod.
A rodeo.
A rodeo.
A rodeo.
A rodeo.
A rodeo.
Oh, cause it's a boot.
A rodeo.
Great, turn to page 44.
Okay.
Cool.
So we solved the puzzle.
So we solved the puzzle.
I think rodeo will come into play.
Okay.
Mario and Luigi race after Princess Toadstool.
Each time the basketball bounce against the sandy ground,
it kicks up a small cloud of yellowish dust.
The sound of a basketball bouncing on sand
sounds like it'd be really nice, right?
Oh.
Pss, pss, pss.
Yeah.
Okay.
Luigi's moving too fast to stop.
They're chasing her.
So he jumps right over the hole.
This is the cold open.
He wails.
He tumbles down into the darkness for a few seconds
and lands.
Everyone's wailing in this place.
Everyone fucking wails.
And lands on his knees.
The whale they saw.
And lands on his knees in a mound of soft, moist sand.
Ooh.
Oh, that'd be great for building a sandcastle.
This is where everyone's pissing.
Yeah.
This is the piss sand.
Yeah.
The castle drains to here. That was a pretty smooth landing because of all the piss sand. Yeah. The castle drains to here.
That was a pretty smooth landing because of all the piss,
he says, and nothing brushing himself off.
Then Mario comes crashing down on top of him.
Watch where you're plunging, shouts Luigi,
angrily picking himself up off the table.
He just like sometimes they toss in a plumbing word.
We can put in a sump pump right here
and drain this whole thing.
I just think we're not reminding kids enough
that these plumbers mostly deal with shit.
Oh yeah, says Mario.
Do you think I liked landing on you?
You're lumpier than Bowser Koopa's head.
They have like a not a good dynamic.
No, they're yelling at each other.
This is the first time that Bowser has come up.
Yeah.
In the entire book.
So it literally says here,
after standing in total darkness for a few minutes,
arguing about whose fault everything is,
they finally decided it's all Bowser Koopa's fault. With that settled,
Luigi takes his pack of waterproof matches from his overalls pocket.
I'm sorry. Clive is out of pocket calling him Bowser Koopa.
That has never been his name. Yeah.
I think they're trying to make the transition
to Bowser.
Yeah.
I listened to, yes, that's true.
In Japan, he was Bowser the whole time.
In the US, the early translations were King Koopa.
We're calling him Koopa.
And then around this time, Nintendo starts being like,
no, he's Bowser, that's his name.
He's Bowser, King of the Koopas.
It sort of became King Koopa is his title.
Yeah.
So it's like how like you're like the Duke of Windsor or something.
Yeah, exactly.
Charles the Duke of Windsor.
Bowser, King of the Koopas.
Yeah, makes sense.
OK.
Well, I knew a kid who thought that he tried to convince me.
I don't remember in Mario, when you're fighting Bowser,
you can fly over the edge of Bowser's battle arena
and there'll be another Bowser.
Like, sort of like when you go to a warp zone,
like you go outside the bounds of the stage,
there's another Bowser, and a kid tried to convince me
that one of them was King Koopa and one of them was Bowser.
And I was like, you're fucking stupid.
So do you think that-
What was your explanation, though?
I don't know why there was a second Bowser,
but they were both Bowser.
It was not that one was-
I don't know dude.
Did he teleport? Did he teleport?
I don't know.
That kid is a senator now, right?
Yeah.
Yeah.
All right.
Okay, so they're trying to figure out where to go.
The two plumbers are now standing in a deep sandy crater.
There's three different tunnel openings.
There's no sound of the princess, the madly bouncing
basketball or the eerie mysterious music.
Where to next?
Your guess is as good as mine.
I'll flip my lucky penny, but it has only two sides.
Let's try this way then, Luigi says as he strikes
a second flickering match.
The two plumbers trudge off into the dim sandy tunnel.
I'll flip my lucky penny, but it only has two sides?
Because there's three tunnels. Right. So for some reason I'll flip my lucky penny, but it only has two sides?
Because there's three tunnels.
Right.
So for some reason we're using a lucky penny.
The weirdest thing in the world is to point out.
Point out.
Point out.
Oh, sorry.
Okay.
Sorry, this is from the upside world where I'm a plumber
and their coins aren't spheres like yours.
I guess my head cannon here is that Mario,
this is literally the one penny,
the only possession he has from Brooklyn.
Although again, it's established
that he can go back whatever they want.
He can just go back, right.
He can just go back if he gets really hurt.
This was the first penny he ever made.
It's kind of a Scrooge McDuck thing.
He fished it out of a piece of shit in a toilet.
Yeah.
Okay, you'll need a penny.
Start in the center space and follow any of the three arrows.
Whenever you reach a circle,
use the pennies to check if the circle
is exactly the same size as the coin.
What the fuck?
I thought I was just gonna have to flip stuff
and it was 50-50.
I had to craft a D4.
No, you need a penny.
Actual goddamn penny.
I'm gonna have to search my home for a penny.
Mom, do you have a penny?
We're just gonna have to eyeball this
and see if we think it's a penny size, because I don't wanna look for a penny. Mom, do you have a penny? We're just gonna have to eyeball this and see if we think it's a penny size
because I don't wanna look for a penny.
No one has pennies anymore.
Not a single person listening to this podcast
has a penny within 100 feet of them.
I think that if I looked, I bet I would have a penny.
Okay.
Do you guys want me to find a penny?
Yeah, go find one.
Whenever I see them on the street, they look lonely.
Okay, all right, so we might have a penny here.
Whenever you reach a circle, use a penny to check
if the circle is exactly the same size as the coin.
If it is, follow the arrow next to yes.
If the circle is not the same size as your coin,
follow the no arrow.
When you reach the box at the end of your trail,
match the symbol on the box with one of the symbols
at the bottom of the page.
Try to tell you where to turn it.
Clyde was on one.
I know exactly how big a penny is.
Okay.
I love that Mario's like, I got a lucky penny.
I can flip it.
You, and then it's like, okay, get your penny,
but you're not gonna be flipping it.
Okay, yeah.
So, okay.
So there's a picture of, this is really some Mario three
shit. There's a picture of a flower, picture of a star,
and a picture of a mushroom.
And we can end up at one based on our penny stuff.
I have a penny.
Wow, she's got a penny.
Em's got a penny.
She's like the worst Ouija board ever.
Okay, so we start, oh God, which way do we wanna go?
All right, so let's go one, two, or three.
You guys have a preference?
Three. Three, yeah.
Okay, so we're gonna go three.
The biggest number.
Wow, okay.
So we're going to three.
Yes or no?
Okay, that is absolutely the same size as the penny. So we're going to three. Yes or no. Okay. That is absolutely the same size as the penny.
So we're going to pick yes.
Eyeballing this. We didn't need the penny. Wow. I don't know.
That looked a little big to me for a penny. Okay. So yes.
Yeah. Okay. That one's smaller than a penny. So no, we go down here.
That is smaller than a penny also. So that's no. That is same size.
So that is yes.
That gets us to a star.
Cool.
Oh, this seems so complicated until we got the penny.
Yeah.
Once we got the penny, everything really,
once we listened to the instructions
instead of trying to blow past them for quick content.
Let's see the year on this bad boy.
1993.
Wow.
Whoa.
This penny hadn't even been made when this book came out. Wow. Whoa. This penny hadn't even been made when this book came out.
Wow.
Yeah.
Really makes you think.
And that's a 30 year old penny.
We've reached the star man.
We're gonna turn to page 58.
Mari and Luigi walk along for some time.
Gradually their eyes get used to the dark,
which is a good thing because Luigi's running out
of waterproof matches.
What if we have a really stinky shit?
All right.
Then they hear the music.
What if we need to light a fire?
Yeah. Okay, they start to hear the music. What if we need to light a fire? Yeah.
Okay, they start to hear the music,
their surroundings, however, have slowly been changing.
I wasn't paying any attention, says Mario.
When did it get light,
and when did the walls get to be so round?
In fact, the plumbers are now walking
through a big long tube.
Oh.
They begin to pass more and more side branches
as they follow the music.
The round corridor swerves to the right,
and then to the left.
The plumbers walk through several chambers
that have four or five openings leading away from them.
Finally decide to rest in a small chamber,
blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.
By this time, the puzzled plumbers can no longer tell
where the music is coming from.
"'Wait a minute,' says Mario.
"'He taps one finger against a wall,
"'causing a clear metallic twang.
"'Then he points to a round steel rimmed opening
"'in the middle of the floor.
"'We're in pipe world.
And I know where else we are, says Luigi.
I got to turn to Adam.
Pipe world ring a bell?
Okay, it actually does.
Okay.
Isn't that so refreshing?
Isn't that world seven?
It's world seven of Mario three is pipe world,
which is surprising because you think every world
is pipe world, but it's literally almost every surface
in pipe world is made of pipes. it's literally almost every surface in pipe world
is made of pipes.
This is where all the pipes come from.
Yeah, I guess the genesis of pipes.
This is the nexus of all pipes.
This is where pipes begin and end.
If pipes are like an invasive vine, this is where they were planted.
It's a jungle of pipes.
There's piranha plants everywhere.
So there were several non-choices where it was just like,
they're lost, turn to page nine.
They're lost, turn to page seven.
So I've just kinda skipped ahead.
At last, the plumbers turn a corner
and enter a square chamber
with three large pipes sticking out of the floor.
The music becomes louder.
Now we're getting somewhere, says Luigi.
He starts to climb into the center pipe.
Wait, cries Mario.
Remember rule number one of the plumbing academy?
Oh!
Yes.
You got to sneak first.
Look before you leak.
We're leaking.
Rule number one of the plumbing Academy is don't just drop trowel and piss anywhere.
You have to look at where you're peeing to make sure it's in the toilet.
That must be why there was such a specific wet spot
in the desert because everyone is following.
And they're looking and they're all pissing
in the same place.
They don't have Plumber Academies in the Mushroom Kingdom.
So they're just peeing everywhere.
They don't have the reverence for the toilet that we have.
There's so much moisture in this book.
There's leaking, there's wet sand.
Dribbling.
Yeah, okay
Okay, everybody. I have an early theory by the way, okay, then noisemaker
Which we don't know if we have a noisemaker
We just solved the beginning of it and got noise, but the noisemaker could drown out the organ
What do you think the music that's playing is is it it like, it's an orchestra or it's a organ?
I think it's a waltz for sure.
It's gotta be a waltz.
Yeah, spooky waltz.
Or it's the Space Jam soundtrack.
Oh, it's the Space Jam.
I was wrong.
Played on an organ.
Okay, if Luigi has the basketball, uh-oh,
turn to page 108, definitely does not have the basketball.
All right, we have to choose left, center, or right pipe.
Right pipe.
Right pipe.
You're giving that right pipe.
You know what I mean? That's definitely what the author wants. or right pipe? Right pipe, right pipe. You're giving that right pipe.
That's definitely what the author wanted you to think.
OK, this one looks very promising. Mario says he and Luigi drop into the right hand pipe.
They find themselves on a long metal catwalk.
It leads them through an enormous cavern of pipes that twist about in every direction.
The mysterious music grows louder. Look, Mario shouts, pointing to a cluster of pipes that twist about in every direction.
The mysterious music grows louder.
Look Mario shouts, pointing to a cluster of pipes
that hang above their heads.
Instead of metal, many of the tubes are made of clear glass
and they're filled with coins.
Whoa, wait, glass tubes?
Pennies.
Yeah, glass tubes.
This predates the one for the Wii U.
Super Mario 3D World is hard.
But also thinking of that, where there's clear pipes
that have coins in them and you sort of go into them
and you go down like a little track kind of,
like and you collect the coins as you go.
And this is the Clyde original.
They stole it from Clyde.
We were being hard on Clyde before,
but like Clyde has been robbed.
Well, he pitched a lot of lore
and it seems like only one.
Uh-huh, yeah.
One got through.
Adam caught it ahead of time
when we were looking at the covers
that the pipes look like pipe organs
because as they look at it,
so they-
That's the music, that's fun.
Luigi uses his pipe wrench.
Help me pick these up.
Luigi orders Mario.
Okay.
As Mario helps his brother gather the coins
that didn't fall,
he notices something strange
about several of the metal pipes that are overhead.
The mysterious notes aren't coming through the pipes anymore.
The pipes themselves are making the music.
Different pipes are ringing with different tones.
This is a giant pipe organ, Mario declares, and all the pipes making the music are leading
straight down.
One of the largest musical pipes is only two feet from the catwalk.
Follow me, cries Mario.
He jumps from the catwalk, hugs the pipe and slides down towards the floor of the cavern.
Wait up, Luigi calls, jumping after him.
I totally team Clyde, by the way, like the pipes
turning into pipe organs.
Pretty clever.
You know what? This tweeter is rocketing.
This is this is a cut above.
My tweeter is rocketing.
My tweeters are absolutely rocketing.
My tweeter is rocketing as well.
All right.
Solve this puzzle to find out how many coins the plumbers collect.
Start at the catwalk.
My tweeter is sky high.
All right.
Start at the catwalk and follow the trail.
When you reach a set of arrows, and follow the trail when you reach a set
of arrows.
Choose a direction when you reach a star.
You are done.
Okay, it's been solved.
Everyone rest assured.
I got this.
Sure.
I got this.
Thanks, Troy.
If they collect 10 to 50 coins turn to page 28.
That's 10 to 50 10 to 50.
That's what it says.
Wow.
What a range.
There's less than 10 more than 51 and 10 to 50.
I just followed the ones that was already there
and it was 42.
Boy, it's a good thing this stuff was here to break our fall.
What did they fall onto?
They find Martin and Luigi slide down the cold metal pipe
rapidly gaining speed, slow down, Luigi calls.
I can't.
Two plumbers.
It's a bunch of flushed condoms.
The two plumbers zoom down to the bottom of the pipe
and crash into a giant mound of flushed condoms.
Boy, it's a good thing this stuff was here to break our fall. The flush condoms
says Mario, but really you shouldn't be flushing condoms says Luigi. That's plumber school
rule number two. Look before you leak, don't flush condoms. If you're drippling it, don't
flush it. It's okay to flush a fresh condom. Okay. No, it's not.
I think it's the suction.
I think it's the suction.
This is like the educational part at the end of the Mario Brothers Super Show.
It's like, hey kids, we had a lot of fun today, but remember, don't flush your condoms.
It's bad for the environment.
If you know anybody that's flushing condoms, call this number.
Oh, I'm sorry, Mario.
I didn't know. Okay, so they actually fall in a giant amount
of crumpled paper balls.
And somebody says, get out of here.
I'm now picturing Luigi being like,
like always jerking off into a condom.
It's easy clean up.
It's easy clean up.
Ah, yes, this is where all of the Mushroom Kingdoms
cum tissues end up.
Get out of here, a deep scratchy hoarse bellows.
Oh yeah, oh yeah, someone's jerking it in there.
Murph is so mad, he's trying to get to the end
of this book so bad.
Which Koopa jerks off the most is the gross question.
Wait, that's a really good transition
to see back on it.
Well, it's gotta be Bowser Koopa.
That's why he's the king.
It's Bowser.
All right, you're standing on-
So what is the king of?
You guys done?
Never.
Why am I in trouble?
Merv's mouth got so tiny and angry.
You're standing on my fourth symphony.
Mario and Luigi look up and freeze with terror.
A few feet away perched upon a high stool
is Ludwig von Coupa.
Oh!
Oh, shit.
Ludwig looks awful.
He's wearing a tuxedo jacket and a white bow tie splotched
with orange juice stains.
Sure?
Right.
In front of him are several giant rows of Oregon keys.
I don't know how you two got here, E. Graus,
but you're interrupting my rehearsal.
About 10 yards away, a large stage has been set up
in the cavern.
On one corner of it, a string quartet of four piranha plants
are trying to scratch out a weak rendition
of the organ tune that the plumbers
have been following all day.
A basketball court has been crudely drawn
in the center of the stage,
still wearing the red high-top sneakers,
Princess Toadstool is dancing helplessly
underneath a basket.
There's a lot going on here.
Where we've got loads of books.
I just want two books.
Two different books.
Yeah.
Well, he wanted to do a trilogy, and they wouldn't let him.
They made it all in one.
He clearly had ideas for approval.
Ludwig von Coupa is a classical music Coupa, obviously.
But he's not a basketball Coupa.
That adds up.
No.
Well, they're like, how do we add 90s radness to it?
Right.
Like, Clyde pitched it, and he's like, all right,
Ludwig von Cooper.
Shaquille O'Neal shows up.
I am excited to find out though,
like what her endlessly dunking, how it's benefiting them.
Has she dunked yet?
I think she's just been dribbling all over the place.
She's had nothing to dunk upon.
She's just crossing people over and that's it.
All right, yeah, we'll see.
She's just breaking ankles.
Fundamentals.
Your Highness calls Mario, Mario the Princess. Okay. She's just breaking ankles. Fundamentals, fundamentals. Your Highness calls Mario.
Mario the Princess Cries Weekly.
Quiet snaps Ludwig.
She's working for me now.
I couldn't get anyone to play or listen to my music.
Not even my Koopa sister and brothers.
So I've had to do a little recruiting
to gather my performers.
Oh, he's a kid.
So he wants to play basketball and work on his music.
He has a lot of interest.
He's got hobbies.
He said to his sisters and brothers,
would you play basketball while I play organ music?
And they said no.
All right, well, it's gonna add up.
Ready?
We will now play for you my latest ballet,
Dribbling Beauty, starring Princess Toadstool.
Oh no.
No.
No.
No.
Ludwig, no.
That really paid off.
That game absolutely paid off.
That fully rocketed my Twitter.
My Twitter is balance.
Oh, it's in the stratosphere.
Dribbling.
Dribbling beauty.
All right, so they all start playing.
The plumbers stand frozen with horror
watching the performance.
There's no denying it.
She's dribbling.
The ballet is terrible.
What should we do, Whispers Luigi?
Solve this puzzle for a clue.
Study the picture on the opposite page carefully.
Circle all the balls that you think will land in the baskets.
The letters on these basketballs spell out
what the plumber should do next.
While you do this, can I just say,
there's such a simple solve to make this make sense,
which is their organ music is played at basketball games.
Yeah, that's why I was thinking.
They're organ players.
Look who could say I always wanted to play
the charge music for the Chicago Bulls.
And I created a basketball arena so I could do that.
So I could be the cool basketball organ player,
but no, instead he made a ballet about.
I actually don't hate a basketball ballet.
Basketball ballet is really something.
Amazon board, unfortunately.
For the halftime, imagine.
It's just like a whole different set of basketball players
come out and they're doing like a beautifully choreographed
basketball dance.
It's really nice.
I mean, that would be a great ballet.
It would.
OK.
Space Jam the ballet.
Yeah.
Also, Adam, if it helps, it's called dribbling beauty. I think what actually happened here is that Nintendo really wanted that glass pipe idea.
So they just like had to keep entertaining Clyde's other ideas.
They're like, okay, yeah, yeah, yeah.
He can have like a Pringles can except for a pipe.
That kind of interesting.
Holy shit.
That's why they partnered together.
Yeah, because Pringles is a pipe.
Whoa. Whoa.
Okay.
A pipe of chips.
So unfortunately I solved the puzzle
and it is use the boots
and we absolutely don't have the boots.
Yes.
So it says if the plumbers have a box of boots.
Do we have to go all the way back?
No, no, no, no.
We're gonna ride this out.
We're gonna ride this out.
Okay, so there's three options.
If you think the plumber should attack Ludwig von Koopa
during the page 16.
Yeah, dude. If you think that if the plumbers have a box of boots and you think they should open them out during a page 120.
Attack. If you think the plumber should wait and watch the rest of the performance. Oh, oh yeah.
We don't have a box of boots. We do love the performance. Do we want to watch or do we want to attack?
Dribbling Beauty is going to get so wet and wild and I want to see it all. I'm in the splash zone.
What do you guys think?
It would be, if we just talked about how much we liked the concept of Dribbling Beauty, we gotta see it.
I wanna see the whole thing.
Unfortunately, we do have to just watch it.
I think the second we stop enjoying Dribbling Beauty, we attack.
Yeah.
The second we can't enjoy Dribbling Beauty, the second we lose our way as artists.
Yeah. Unfortunately, that's not an option.
Oh my God. It's not an interesting game over.
We can actually just watch the show.
Okay, Ludwig plays a dozen more notes
that are about as musical as a grocery store cart
tumbling down a flight of stairs.
Wow.
So he just likes music, but he sucks.
Wow.
Did he play music in other games?
Or like, is this a revelation that he's bad?
No, he's just like, he's sort of a Koopa avatar
of Beethoven.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Ludwig asks how the show was.
Luigi and Mario have some attitude and say that it's bad.
What?
This is a child trying to learn.
Yeah.
Yeah, well, that's not good enough, Ludwig snarls.
With both hands, he plays a droning cord
on the great pipe organ.
Instantly, two sandbags drop from the ceiling.
They fall on Martin Luigi, knocking them unconscious.
What?
Oh God.
Uh oh, we have to go back to Brooklyn.
That's concussion, dude.
That's concussion.
Sometime later, the plumber's awake.
What happened?
Ask Mario Grogli.
They are now wearing size 13 ballet slippers
and have frilly tutus over their plumber overall.
No!
No!
This is perverted.
Yeah.
A strange force field keeps them from moving
as they stand upstage from Princess Toadstool.
Helplessly, she trots around the court twice.
Then she stands and spins the basketball
on her index finger.
Okay, turn to page 55.
Imagine putting on a pair of sneakers
and you can spin a basketball on your finger.
It's a classic magic sneaker.
Okay, so Ludwig von Koopa is going to keep them
in the show for a nine year long tour.
Wow, that's great.
Nine years, Mario and Luigi and Princess Toadstool
all scream in horror at the plumbers have released
the cowboy boots, turn of age 77.
There's so much shoes stuff that we did.
We really needed to go to that ball game.
It wanted us to go back.
They tried to tell us twice.
We just do it.
No, but they told us not to originally.
Size 13 ballet slipper.
I could live in that.
If I had to give Clyde one note,
it would be to not give us a puzzle
that says to not go to the shoe room
and then tell us.
We obviously had to go to the shoe room.
We definitely needed to go to the shoe room
and just collect a bunch of shoes.
Yeah, just go shopping.
All right, turn to page 16.
If you don't have the cowboy boots with a crunch,
Ludwig cracks his scaly knuckles.
Then he sits down in front of the Oregon.
Five, six, seven, eight.
He shouts and begins to play.
Mar and Luigi begin to hop and twirl along with the music.
How embarrassing Mario grumbles.
Sure, if the plumbers have the Starman.
Turn to page 84, we do.
We have something.
We got it because we got it in the maze.
Remember? I got the Starman. If you remember the Mario cartoons, Turn to page 84, we do, we have something. We got it, we got it in the maze, remember?
I got the Starman.
This is, if you remember the Mario cartoons,
Mario Super Show, Mario Brothers 3, Mario World,
almost every episode ended with them going like,
star power!
Oh yeah.
And like going invincible and destroying all the Koopas.
So this is, this has got to be the moment.
Mario grabs the Starman, got it, he whispers.
Immediately his body changed with the energy invincibility
with his newfound strength.
He spins around twice in time with the music
and leaps off the stage,
breaking free of the evil melody's hold.
I'm dribbling.
But he's still in a tutu.
Yeah.
Uh-oh, says Ludwig as the plumber races towards him.
Mario reaches the organ and knocks the turtle from his stool.
Don't touch any of those controls, Ludwig screams.
Hmm, says Mario, spying the two knobs above the keyboard.
I wonder what these things do.
Solve the puzzles.
So many puzzles.
When Mario pulls the lever, the gears will start to turn.
That will make the pointer move.
Figure out which sign the pointer will point to.
This is a missed puzzle.
And you'll stop Mario from making a big mistake.
All right, so we have to choose if Mario will spin the knob
left or right, or will pull the knob left or right.
Figure out which sign the finger will point to
and you'll stop Mario from making a big mistake.
Okay.
We've edited out some of our puzzle solving,
but Adam figured it out that we should not pull
the left knob.
Well, Adam said the same thing.
I agree.
Em said that.
Right, right.
Adam said the way Em really guessed. But Adam confirmed it. Em actually did it. I said it said the same thing. I am. I am also. Adam said what I am going to guess.
Adam confirmed.
Adam actually did it.
I said it with more confidence so you believed me.
No, it wasn't that.
It was Adam solved the puzzle and I just picked a random one.
I eyeballed it.
It wasn't random.
It just wasn't intensely.
I think you got it intuitively.
You just looked at it and the whole gestalt sort of came to you.
You were eyeballing. All right, so. Just like my princess. You were dribbling. Okay so we want to pull the knob on the
right because we don't want to pull the left knob. Okay. Okay so page 72. Mario reaches up and grabs
the knob on the right. Don't touch that Trix Ludwig. I guess that means I should the plumber says. He
chuckles and pulls the lever towards himself. It slides out of its socket and comes loose in his
hand. Suit yourself then the turtle composer says cheerfully.
Immediately a gigantic nozzle swings down from the high chamber ceiling
and stops directly over the plumbers head.
Squawking and howling a horrendous horde of cheap cheeps and tweeter birds
showers down on Mario. Turn to page 65.
Maybe I was wrong.
Maybe I solved it wrong.
Scrooge! a giant, whoa!
We got the tweeter ending again.
What?
Scrooge, a buffalo-sized tweeter comes crashing down
on our end.
Oh no!
We get taken back and nursed.
We get nursed by Luigi again.
It was faked.
We've been playing for like an hour and a half.
We just got freaking tweetered again.
It always comes back.
It always ends with Luigi's shit chicken soup.
We're dead.
I'm saying that it didn't end with the nine year twink.
All right.
We were, we were.
I'm so sorry.
We'll go back.
I was very confident.
And I was really not confident,
but then I got confident once you were confident.
I guess literally I just don't know how gears work.
Yeah.
I thought I did.
We'll go back to the gears on the Patreon.
That's what we'll do.
It's not surprising that two writers
looked at a mechanical picture and didn't understand
how it worked.
We were not built for this.
No, we're no Troy.
You know, who knows?
Sometimes these game books also just, like,
because you solved a puzzle wrong four puzzles ago,
or because we didn't have the cowboy boots,
we couldn't possibly win this.
I'm wondering if we should go all the way back and do a shoe closet.
Yeah, we gotta go back to the shoe closet.
I think we need to do that initial choice.
Instead of following her, we go to the shoe closet.
I wanna see what the right answer is
of the one we just did.
Well, we will continue reading the game book
over on the Patreon, so check that out.
Patreon.com slash nadpot, that's N-E-D-D-P-O-D,
don't sing.
Yeah.
And we'll be joining us over there.
Adam, thank you for joining us.
You have anything you want to plug?
Oh my God.
I mean, I do a podcast called Factually on a YouTube,
YouTube channel.
Go check me out there.
Yeah.
Right on.
Check out Adam.
YouTube.com slash Pringles gamer.
Now I'm going to create that.
Right on.
Don't you also stream video games sometimes?
Sometimes on Twitch, not as much as I used to.
Put a lot of time into the old YouTube.
Yeah, okay, cool.
All right, we'll take another crack at this.
You can follow us on social media
that we may or may not use,
at stagemerc3me and at collegecaldwell,
at asteridgedemilion, at jakewardsisjake,
and you can tweet about the show using hashtag NADpod,
that's N-E-D-D-P-O-D.
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I think maybe I vaguely remember that.
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Thank you all so much for listening.
We will be back next week with another episode
and a short rest after that.
So be on the lookout for that.
Thank you so much to all of our benevolent council
of elders and all of our Patreon subscribers.
And of course, all of our listeners
we'll catch you all next time.
That was a hate gum podcast.