The truth will always surface. Indeed, it would seem that in it’s early days, the relationship between Yoshi and Mario was not a tender one. According to the creator of Yoshi, that the former plumber had a rather nimble hand towards our friendly dinosaur.
In November 1990, the young owners of the Super NES and a copy of Super Mario World discovered a cute little green dinosaur serving as a mount for the mustached hero. Created by Shigefumi Hino, the brave Yoshi did not take long to conquer the hearts of players and become one of the mascots of Nintendo.
Unfortunately, these said young gamers were unwittingly witnessing a tragedy. If one could innocently think that Yoshi and Mario were cooperating hand in hand to kick Bowser’s ass, we were actually witnessing an abusive relationship. Indeed, for Yoshi to stick out his tongue, Mario hits him on his head.
“A lot of players think Mario is pointing a finger forward and saying ‘go’ so that Yoshi sticks his tongue out,” Shigefumi Hino explained in an interview on Nintendo’s official website. “But what I drew at the time was a Yoshi sticking out his tongue in surprise after being hit by Mario.”
Fortunately for our little Dinosaur, his relationship with Mario has improved since then. And if Mario starts to get violent again, Yoshi can always get his sweet revenge in the arenas of Super Smash Bros. games!!