Internet sleuths are busy chewing on, digesting, and reporting on every single morsel of The Super Mario Bros. Movie trailer that dropped mere hours ago, and there’s one particular detail that caused the ears of people who enjoy the occasional session of Roblox to perk up.
In the scene depicting Mario, Peach, and Toad crossing a bridge, only for Mario to end up with a Cheep Cheep sucking on his face with the determination and ferocity of a face-hugger in the Alien franchise, Mario and Roblox fans alike picked up on the use of the death sound bite from the latter game:
The above Twitter user wasn’t the only person who thought this, with our confirmation bias being backed up by a few other tweets:
Before you go out and scream “Nintendo ripped off Roblox!” from the rooftops and begin wishing for the Mario publisher to get a taste of its own DMCA-flavored medicine, you should know that the Roblox ‘oof’ sound effect has a storied history, and doesn’t actually originate from the wildly popular video game. That’s a whole other can of worms, which if you’re so inclined, is cracked wide open in a surprisingly entertaining feature-length YouTube documentary by hbomberguy.
Whether it’s an intentional homage to another popular video game franchise, or just a cheaply acquired sound effect asset, there is little to no doubt in our minds – the Roblox ‘oof’ features in The Super Mario Bros. Movie.
Mario and his companions will be racing to theater screens on April 7, 2023. While reception to Chris Pratt in the titular role remains lukewarm at best, there’s a lot of love out there for the cinematic debut of Princess Peach and Donkey Kong.