Boos are easily one of the most familiar enemies in the Super Mario games – cartoonish ghosts that are best avoided instead of tackled head-on, typically because they can’t be killed without power-ups. Their signature quirk, of course, is that they’re shy, only chasing the player if he or she is facing in the opposite direction. The explanation for this has a surprising connection to a designer’s personal life.
The first appearance of Boos traces back to 1988’s Super Mario Bros. 3, when they were actually referred to in the English edition as “Boo Diddleys” – a riff on the famous rock musician Bo Diddley. Since they really have nothing to do with Diddley, they later became just “Boos,” and have appeared in virtually every Mario game since. They even took a starring role in the Luigi’s Mansion games, serving as an obvious hook for a horror-themed spinoff.
Boos were conspicuously absent as enemies from the last flagship Mario game, 2017’s Super Mario Odyssey. Although, they’ll almost certainly be back in the next big title, since they’ve made appearances in other games in the meantime, including even papier-mâché form in Paper Mario: The Origami King. No matter their iteration, they’re perhaps best known for being shy.
Mario’s Boos Were Born Out Of Trouble
A Boo’s shyness was born out of friction between designer Takashi Tezuka and his wife, according to fellow designer Shigeru Miyamoto, who once explained the story in a Nintendo Power interview cited by The Guardian: “Mr. Tezuka got an idea about putting his wife in the game,” said Miyamoto. “His wife is very quiet normally, but one day she exploded, maddened by all the time he spent at work. In the game, there is now a character who shrinks when Mario looks at it, but when Mario turns away, it will grow large and menacing.“
It’s perhaps unsurprising that Tezuka would be in trouble for spending most of his time at work. Crunch has been a long-standing problem in the game industry, sometimes demanding that people work 60-plus hours per week in order to hit a launch window. Developers have been gradually improving their approach to the matter, but labor abuses are still grabbing headlines – former Rockstar producer Dan Houser infamously claimed that some developers worked multiple 100-hour weeks to finish Red Dead Redemption 2.
Unfortunate origins aside, Boos are too popular to abandon. The only enemies arguably more sacrosanct in Super Mario canon are Goombas. Still, it’s pretty interesting that this is how Boos and their shyness got their origins.
Sources: Nintendo Power/The Guardian
