495 Words About: Onions, Bombs, Potions, and Turnips in Super Mario 2
Long before I ever heard the words Doki-Doki Panic, and before I watched the Videogame Historian’s video, and well before I read Jon Irwin’s entry in the Boss Fight Books series, I knew that Super Mario Bros. 2 was weird.
I knew this because I could pull onions out of the ground and throw them at shy-guys and birds.
Mario could always throw objects, whether it be Koopa shells or fire balls, but these objects required power-ups like a fire-flower or interacting with an NPC such as stomping on a koopa troopa. In Super Mario Bros. 2 however I could position Mario, Luigi, Toad, or Princess Peach over a bushel of grass, grab the stalk, and withdraw it from the earth before lifting it over his head. From this point the sprites would hold the turnips, onions, bombs, and sometimes a magic potion while running around and dodging enemies.
This, was weird.
It was weird because I couldn’t perform this action in any Super Mario videogame.
I played Super Mario Bros. 2 on my parents’ copy of Super Mario All Stars for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System(SNES), which is important because that cartridge allowed me the chance to compare every Super Mario Game that had been released up to that point. Clouds, mountains, stones, cacti, bushes, and blocks were inanimate objects that could be stepped on, but that was the extent of the interface options available to me. The interface systems of every game reinforced a clear message: grass and plants were only decoration.
As soon as I pulled an onion out of the ground, I wanted to uproot the earth beneath my digital feet.
I spent hours replaying the same levels, partly because I wasn’t (maybe still aren’t) good at video games, but mostly so I could pull every bushel of grass from the ground to see what I could actually find. Most of them were turnips (with faces) or else thin onion stalks. But even these altered my perception of what was possible in a Super Mario videogame.
Platforming was no longer the only verb. I could change the world. There were secrets accessible everywhere and all I had to do was pull the right stalk of grass.
It’s not uncommon for videogame developers producing a series to adjust their interface systems game to game. Most companies simply adjust the aesthetics of their menu screens and alter their color palette (Call of Duty and any and all Madden Football games being a wonderful example). Super Mario Bros 2 for the Nintendo Entertainment System(NES) is unique because the developers created (or actually borrowed) an entirely different interface. This created a unique game that, decades after its original release in 1988, is still remembered as “that weird one” by fans who wondered at the absence of Bowser, Koopa-Troopas, and Goombas.
Mario could still jump, but he could also throw an onion while leaping from the sky.
And, dude, it was fun…and really weird.
Joshua “Jammer” Smith
5.18.2026
Like what you’re reading? Buy me a coffee & support my Patreon. Please and thank you.