Mario Kart 8

What was once a fairly drab highway in its original form on the Nintendo 64, Toad’s Turnpike in Mario Kart 8 is a neon-draped trip through the bustling urban part of the Mushroom Kingdom that hardly ever appears in the main Super Mario games. In the background, the tall, bright buildings and illuminated billboards of Toad City can be seen.

Less of a racetrack and more of a busy, multi-lane highway, Toad’s Turnpike has a calm nighttime atmosphere. Or at least it would be calm if it weren’t for the constant threat of traffic, which means that every lap on this course rarely plays the same. In truth, karts probably shouldn’t drive on a public road, but that hasn’t stopped Mario and his pals.

If you collide with the traffic as you’re racing along the highway, you’ll fly into the air a little – but at least the vehicles can’t run you over. A few cars have surfboards on the roof racks, making for impromptu jumps, and some of the larger trucks have Dash Panels and glide ramps you can take flight from to fly over other vehicles. There are also some anti-gravity sections along the walls, allowing racers to drive on them and avoid the traffic on the road.

Lots of the vehicles have ads on them to keep an eye out for. For example, there’s a truck with ‘Shell Cup’ on the side – that’s the Cup this track is in. You might also see a Toad City sightseeing bus and a truck transporting Moo Moo Meadows milk. There’s even a truck advertising Mario Kart 8 itself.

Despite the name of Toad’s Turnpike, this track was not actually a turnpike in its original iteration in Mario Kart 64. This is because its Japanese name (which translates simply to ‘Toad Highway’) does not mention a turnpike at all. But its English name did end up coming true in Mario Kart 8, when a toll service area was added to the side near the starting line (though there still aren’t any booths).

But where is all the traffic coming from? And how does it exit? Aside from the Toad Services near the start/finish line, which don’t exactly look like they lead anywhere else, there are no openings for merging traffic to enter or leave. Everyone on this track is just driving around this figure-8 highway loop forever and ever and ever…

Since this track is called Toad’s Turnpike (and it takes place in Toad City), I thought I would take this opportunity to talk about Toads. It should be noted that Toad is both the name of a species and the name of a particular character. Toads are running around everywhere in the Mushroom Kingdom, but there is also one particular Toad (the one we see most often, with the red-spotted head) who is also called Toad, which can make things confusing sometimes.

Players were first introduced to Toads (and Toad) in 1985, with the release of Super Mario Bros. for the NES. They were described as peaceful inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom, most of whom had been turned into various items such as Boost Bricks and even horsetail plants by Bowser during his attempt to take over the land. With Princess Peach being the only person capable of reversing the effects of Bowser’s magic over the Toads, Bowser soon kidnapped her as well. This prompted Mario and Luigi to arrive to try and stop the King of the Koopas. After defeating the false Bowser within every world’s castle, Mario would find and release a captured Toad, who would then utter the now-famous phrase, ‘Thank you Mario, but our princess is in another castle’.

In the English translation of Super Mario Bros., Toads were initially known as ‘Mushroom Retainers’ – with ‘retainer’ being another word for ‘servant’. Very catchy. Of course, nobody called them Mushroom Retainers; they were usually called ‘Mushroom People’. So, for Super Mario Bros. 2, Mushroom Retainers were given a new English name: Toads. This was inspired by the word ‘toadstool’, which is used to describe many types of mushrooms, particularly those featuring umbrella-like caps and stems. Toad’s Japanese name, meanwhile, has remained the same throughout the years. It is Kinopio, which is a combination of the Japanese word for mushroom (kinoko) and Pinocchio. Together, they roughly blend together to form the meaning of ‘a real mushroom boy’.

But what of Toad’s mushroom bulb? Is that his actual head or simply some sort of hat? People debated this for years until Super Mario Odyssey producer Yoshiaki Koizumi stated that it is indeed part of Toad’s head. Of course, this has just raised more questions. What’s inside his head? Cartilage? A giant, bulbous brain? Is it spongy and soft, or hard and smooth? The debate within the Mario fandom rages on.

Next time in our Mario Kart series, we’ll be looking at the first track in the Flower Cup: Mario Circuit.