So long, "gay Bowser" - fans lament the loss of Mario 64's most famous line in Super Mario 3D All-Stars
Bye!
Mario's famous "gay Bowser" line isn't in Super Mario 3D All-Stars' version of Super Mario 64 - and fans are waving a sad goodbye.
In the original N64 masterpiece, Mario shouts "so long, gay Bowser!" as he chucks Bowser in the final boss fight. Here's how it sounds:
Fans spent years trying to work out what the dialogue was going for - or even if it was being heard correctly. Time passed, the line became a meme, and we all moved on.
Until April 2019, when Charles Martinet, the voice of Mario, took to Twitter to insist Mario is saying "so long kinga Bowser!", but no-one bought that. A fan restoration published in July 2020 makes it sound even more like Mario is saying "gay Bowser".
As reported by Kotaku, Mario doesn't say "gay Bowser" or anything of the sort in the Mario 64 that's in Super Mario 3D All-Stars on Nintendo Switch. Instead, Mario says "buh-bye!" as he throws Bowser. And, it seems, that's because Nintendo has emulated the Super Mario 64 Shindou Pak Taiou version for the collection.
The little-known Super Mario 64 Shindou Pak Taiou version was released in Japan in 1997, a year after the original, and includes some key differences. One of these is Mario says "buh-bye!" as he throws Bowser, and that's apparently because Bowser is known as King Kooper in Japan, and so the "gay Bowser" line had to be replaced.
As you'd expect, there are plenty of people lamenting the loss of the "gay Bowser" line. So long, gay Bowser, you could say.
Come on then, what's Mario really saying in the original? If we can all agree Martinet isn't saying "gay Bowser", what is he saying? So long, dear Bowser? So long, king Bowser? So long-a Bowser? Or is he actually saying so long, gay Bowser? Answers in the comments.