Following the announcement of New Super Mario Bros. Wii at E3 earlier this year, there was a certain amount of trepidation around two of the playable characters, the blue Toad and the yellow Toad. Some felt they must be placeholders for cooler characters, while others wondered if they would even get names (and still others would go on to name them on their own).
And as the release date came, it seemed there would be nothing to distinguish these two Mushroom Kingdom residents from the rest of their brethren, save for their distinctive two-toned style of dress.
But then, Destructoid stumbled upon an interesting tidbit at the New Super Mario Bros. Wii launch at Nintendo World in New York City:
Somehow we got on the topic of the new playable Toads in NSMB Wii, and how I wondered if they ever had names. He said that from what he’d been told, they did have nicknames amongst the NSMB Wii development team, but that they weren’t official. I retorted that from what I’d been told, Mario was originally called Jumpman, and that the Mario name was at first just a nickname based on the character’s resemblance to a janitor that worked at Nintendo. This meant that in the Mario-verse, nicknames can lead to big things.
…”janitor?” Kind of surprising he wasn’t laughed off right there, but anyway:
Of course, I asked what the nicknames were. He told me to turn the camera off. Then, with an extremely serious face, he whispered in my ear, “The yellow one is called Ala-Gold, and the blue one is named Bucken-Berry.”
Now, I don’t know if this guy knows what he’s talking about or not, but I don’t care. From now on, the yellow Toad is Ala-Gold, and the blue Toad is Bucken-Berry. Case closed.
…and there you have it. I guess. “Bucken-Berry” and “Ala-Gold?” I wonder if the guy was just messing with Destructoid, or if this is for real. Then again, he did say the names were “unofficial” and “internal,” so it could be possible.
What do you think? Is anyone going to start calling them “Bucken-Berry” and “Ala-Gold” now?
