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Princess Peach is still on the hunt to find her dream plumber frog.
After all, Nintendo clarified that the iconic video game character isn’t dating anyone that lives in the Mushroom Kingdom—including her long-rumored boyfriend, Mario.
“Princess Peach and Mario are good friends,” the video game company wrote in a July 25 statement, “and help each other out whenever they can.”
Indeed, Mario has been Peach’s knight and shining armor since the franchise debuted in 1985. For over four decades, he has traveled through various obstacles to save her from his arch nemesis Bowser, who frequently kidnaps Peach in order to profess his love to her. And at the end of many missions, she thanks Mario with a kiss on the cheek.
While their connection is notable, there have been moments where the princess has left Mario in the friendzone.
In 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey, the plumber once again used his powers to crash Bowser and Peach’s forced wedding. After defeating the dragon-like turtle, Mario—who wore a white tuxedo and top hat—seemingly tried to propose to Peach with a flower. But overwhelmed and disinterested in the entire scenario, she declined his offer and left in a hot air balloon.
This isn’t the first time Nintendo has dealt with fans shipping their beloved characters. In fact, The Legend of Zelda’s Link and Zelda have been sparking romance rumors for decades, and Patricia Summersett—who voices Zelda in various video games—addressed everyone’s fascination with their budding chemistry.
“Looking at the overall relationship between Link and Zelda over the ages, I personally love the ambiguity and that if there is something there, it’s left to us,” she told The Gamer in May 2023. “I guess in my own life, I can respect and celebrate relationships that aren’t conventional.”
Meanwhile, the game’s creator Eiji Aonuma echoed a similar sentiment seven months later.
“I don’t think that Zelda is a type of game where the development team says, ‘This is what Zelda is, this is what the story is, this is what the game is,’” the 62-year-old told IGN in December 2023. “I will leave it to everyone’s imagination.”
Keep reading for more surprising facts about animated characters…
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Hello Kitty Isn’t a Cat
Many fans were left purrrrrfectly confused after this revelation.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” Jill Cook—an executive at Sanrio, the company behind the character—explained to Today in July 2024. “She’s actually a little girl born and raised in the suburbs of London. She has a mom and dad and a twin sister Mimmy who’s also her best friend. She enjoys baking cookies and making new friends.”
While the news may have surprised some, Cook wasn’t the first to share this insight. As a matter of fact, Christine R. Yano—a professor of anthropology who penned the book Pink Globalization: Hello Kitty’s Trek Across the Pacific—had also previously confirmed that Hello Kitty isn’t a feline.
“Hello Kitty is not a cat,” she told the Los Angeles Times in 2014. “She’s a cartoon character. She is a little girl. She is a friend. But she is not a cat. She’s never depicted on all fours. She walks and sits like a two-legged creature. She does have a pet cat of her own, however, and it’s called Charmmy Kitty.”
Other fun facts about Hello Kitty? According to Sanrio, she is five apples tall, weighs three apples, was born on November 1 (making her a Scorpio) and dreams of being a pianist or poet.
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Goofy Isn’t a Dog
Gawrsh! Did you know this fact?
Bill Farmer, who’s provided the voice of Goofy for decades, explained why the Disney character can talk while Mickey Mouse’s pet Pluto can’t.
Goofy is “not a dog, but he’s a canine,” the voice actor said on an August 2024 episode of Popcorn Podcast with Leigh Livingstone and Tim Iffland. “So it’s kind of like a wolf is not a dog but it’s a canine—same thing. Goofus canis, that’s what he is. Or, he’s a MOG—he’s a man-dog.”
However, Pluto, he added, is a “regular dog”—a blood hound as it turns out.
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Squidward Isn’t a Squid
You’ll want to get to the (bikini) bottom of this discovery.
SpongeBob SquarePants‘ creator Stephen Hillenburg once revealed that Squidward Tentacles is actually an octopus—not a squid.
“This is Squidward the Octopus, SpongeBob’s grumpy next-door neighboor,” he shared in the 2005 Case Of The Sponge ‘Bob’ video resurfaced by BuzzFeed. “I like the octopus for this character because they have such a large, bulbous head, and Squidward thinks he’s an intellectual so, of course, he’s going to have a large, bulbous head.”
But if you’re wondering how Squidward can be an octopus when he has only six legs instead of eight, Hillenburg had an answer for that, too—noting “it was really just easier for animation to draw him” with fewer tentacles.
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Blue From Blue’s Clues Was Originally an Orange Cat
Break out your handy dandy notebook and jot this one down.
“One of the things that nobody knows is that Blue was originally a cat,” the show’s co-creator Angela Santomero said in the 2006 special Behind the Clues: 10 Years With Blue resurfaced by Mental Floss. “First his name was Mr. Orange and then we’re like, ‘Uh, maybe Mr. Blue.'”
But according to the special, Nickelodeon was already working on a series about a cat—leading animators to toss out the original idea and redesign Blue as a dog.
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Doug Was Almost Named Brian
Now this really isn’t funnie, er, funny.
But as it turns out, Doug Funnie from the cartoon series Doug was almost named Brian. As for what led to the change?
“I just thought Brian was too fancy of a name,” Doug creator Jim Jinkins told HuffPost TV in 2014, “So, I geared it down, and started calling him Doug. If you think about what that sounds like, it sounds incredibly average, and that’s what I was trying to do: express from that point of view.”
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Boo From Monsters, Inc. Isn’t Her Full Name
This fact is so good it’s scary.
In Monsters, Inc.: An Augmented Reality Book, the name of Boo—the little girl who accidentally ends up in Monstropolis and befriends monsters Mike and Sulley—is revealed to be Mary Gibbs, according to BuzzFeed. And if the name sounds familiar, it’s because it’s the real-life moniker of the actress who provided the voice of Boo.
Need more proof? In the movie, there’s actually a scene where Boo is sorting through some of her drawings and fans can spot the name “Mary” scribbled at the top of one of the pieces of paper.
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Minnie Mouse Has a Longer Moniker
Speaking of names, while Mickey Mouse’s girlfriend is often called Minnie Mouse, according to the BBC, it was revealed in 1942 that her full name is actually Minerva.
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