Mario Kart

Mario Kart is a popular racing series developed by Nintendo. Release of each game is met with a worldwide increase in profanity, mostly due to those goddamn spiky blue shells.

Image by Senor_Taco.
Image by Senor_Taco.

Just The Facts

  1. Mario Kart is perhaps the most awesome racing series ever created by man.
  2. Mario Kart is perhaps the most infuriating, make-you-want-to-punch-the-shit-out-of-your-friends-and/or-little-sister racing series ever created by man.
  3. This combination has made Nintendo a hell of a lot of money.

Cracked on Mario Kart

Ah, Mario Kart. We all remember sitting on the couch, revving our go-kart engines, engaging in some pre-race shit talking while holding down the accelerator too long, resulting in a burnout and a prompt throwing down of the controller and a "Fuck it, I hate you all, I don't want to play this damn game!"

The Characters

Mario Kart was one of the first games to stumble upon the idea of taking characters from different games and throwing them all into one game so that we could finally prove, once and for all, that Yoshi was a WAY more badass dinosaur than Bowser. So the next time you're playing Smash Bros., take a moment away from beating up the Ice Climbers and pay homage to Mario Kart... and then curse them for being the forerunner to crap like Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games.
Mario and Sonic at the Olympic Games
What the hell?
As the series grew, so did the list of characters. Of course, some were awesome characters that should have been added a long time ago, while others were detritus from recently created Nintendo titles, e.g. Rosalina. And of course, we have the characters that we just can't seem to get rid of, no matter how many times we've a) refused to use them, b) used them for green shell target practice, or c) sent death threats to the game developers.

The Items

Most people in their early twenties would agree that Mario Kart was where their affinity for cursing grew and developed into something verging on psychopathic. And the cause of it all was the floating "?" Block that doled out a random weapon that each of us could use to screw our friends over, often to the point where they either cried or threw their controller at our heads while we laughed maniacally. Some of those coma inducing items:

Lightning - Your about to make that giant jump to win the race at Wario's bizarre arena dirt track when all of the sudden your screen flashes, you spin out, shrink, and get flattened into a tiny pancake after getting run over by a CPU. This one wasn't even all that satisfying to dole out because of the high pitched little song that came with it, especially when compared with...

Star - It's like driving a gay tank down the middle of the Macy's Day Parade. We all love being invincible, and we all love the ability to go really fast, but the best part was the awesome disco track that went along it.

Red Shell - You shoot it, it hones in on the nearest target and tries its very hardest to please its master by fucking up said target.

Green Shell - Red Shell's inbred, drunk driving cousin.

Banana - An at first useless and then useful and ultimately obnoxious item. The day we realized we could fling bananas forward was perhaps the greatest days of our adolescence. It quickly went downhill when we realized that we had to dodge those bananas like everyone else. Why bananas would make a car spin out was a mystery, but when one of our friends flew off the course and fell into lava/water/empty space due solely to our discarded fruit condom, we couldn't help but pause the game for a brief but well deserved victory dance.

Blue Shell - Fuck the Blue Shell.

Blue Shell Giving the Finger