GEEZ!
While the whole Internet is currently losing its mind over Luigi's...
*ahem* warp pipe... in Mario Tennis Aces,
I'm here to remind you that this isn't the first time Mario games have featured anything... south of the border.
Lest we forget this, uh... geologic structure from Mario Kart: Double Dash!!,
right there on the sandy shores of Peach Beach.
You'll never power slide under that arch the same way again.
[Game Theory intro]
Hello, Internet! Welcome to Game Theory,
the show that everyone erroneously presumes is meant for kids,
despite the fact that we talk about murdered children every other episode!
But today we're breaking from tradition and going back, way back to the earliest days of this show,
to a time when I had much more questionable taste in episode topics.
To a time six years ago, when I -jokingly- promised to make up for the boobs episode with a video like this.
And yet... here we are. 2018 and a legitimate topic being discussed online
is Luigi's... short bulge. It's true.
If you hadn't heard, in mid-March Nintendo released promotional images from Mario Tennis Aces,
specifically one of Luigi.
Immediately - and I mean IMMEDIATELY -
the Internet noticed that there were some weird shadows hanging around in Luigi's undercarriage
when normally, it's just a whole lotta smooth sailling down there.
Was this just awkward rendering with new hi-res lighting effects?
Or was there more to it than meets the eye down there?
WHO KNOWS WHO CARES
It's time to jump to conclusions and immediately start measuring.
Tumblr user Forttoate raced in and, using the tennis racket in Lugi's hand as a guide,
immediately deduced that Luigi's... Power Shroom... measured in at 3.7 inches or 9.4 centimeters in length.
And... can I just say this again...
It is SCARY how fast the Internet turned their attention to the crotch of this sexless video game character.
Now, you might be asking yourself, "Why the heck am I even talking about this?"
And... well, that's... a really good question, actually.
It's something I'm left to ask myself literally every single day.
But as the Internet's pioneer of pixel measurements,
whenever someone online starts rattling off the heights...
or in this case, lengths... of Nintendo characters, I'm called in like a nerdier version of Snopes.
And let me say this:
If we're looking to determine whether Luigi's manhood is more of a Shy Guy or a Giga Bowser,
there's a bit more work that needs to be done here.
So in honor of April Fool's Day,
while all the other channels are just coming up with some stupid clickbait video or lame prank,
I'm gonna do the same thing I always do: overthink and overanalyze,
but this time it's on something that's even dumber than normal:
Coming to an accurate conclusion on Luigi's little Wiggler.
Let's start by looking at the work that Forttoate did.
Now this may come as a surprise to you, but over the course of the past 214 episodes,
I -may- have made the occasional teeny-tiny mistake or slightly silly assumption.
Hey! Get- get out of here, Wario!
You too, Sonic. I even gave you a longer stride length, so you don't have ANY reason to complain.
But thaking chances, making mistakes and getting messy is all about learning, growing,
and recognizing those same pitfalls later in life.
And the one thing I know for certain at this point
is that you can't presume that the world of Mario is using standard-sized... anything,
let alone standard-sized tennis rackets.
And this is exactly where Forttoate's math goes a little off the rails:
by assuming that Luigi is holding a normal-sized racket.
NOPE. When you're dealing in the Mushroom Kingdom, there is only true ruler that we can go by:
Mr. Sociopath himself, Mario Jumpman Mario.
You see, as loyal theorists probably know by heart at this point,
Mario has a canon height of 155 centimeters or just over 5'1''.
This means that if we can get Mario next to anything in this world, we can measure it pretty darn accurately.
And since we're analyzing a tennis game, what better game to compare the heights of the Mario brothers
than Mario Power Tennis?
It's a game where we get plenty of shots of Mario alongside his brother,
including my all-time favorite Mario moment.
And if you think that's bad, I found a Mario moment that tops it.
But, uh... more on that one later.
Using pixel-precise measurements from a variety of different cutscenes throughout the game
as well as this image of the standard Mario height chart,
we can determine that Luigi is on average 12% taller than Mario,
putting him at a whopping 1.736 meters or 5'8''.
Yeah... it's not really that tall.
Now here's where the fun part really begins.
Using those updated numbers, we can apply our updated and canon approved pixel ruler
to the Petey Piranha in Luigi's pants.
By measuring out the length of the bulge as indicated by the shadow on his shorts,
it gives us a length of 10.85 centimeters or 4.3 inches.
It's definitely a bit more Mega Mushroom than the Internet was leading us to believe,
BUT WAIT, it doesn't end there!
Because we actually have to adjust the way that we're handling Luigi's one-eyed Cobrat.
...handling his one-eyed... oh. Ooo, hey. Probably could have phrased that one a little bit better.
You see, there's a scientific standard for measuring ye olde dinglehopper,
and it involves beginning the measurements at the pubic bone.
The pubic bone is protected by the mons pubis, a layer of skin and adipose tissue -
the scientific appropriate word for "fat".
In general, women have a thicker mon than a man's mon, but none can compare to a Pokémon.
Since our measurements are from the outside of Luigi's mons pubis,
and... in fact, from outside his pants as a whole...
we gotta factor all those numbers into our calculations.
Now, men typically have a half inch of this adipose tissue
to be added on to whatever you can see on the outside,
which gives us a total length of 12.168 cm or over 4.8 inches for Luigi.
Oh, and by the way.
Congratulations to all you fellows out there who know you're going to try this at home after the episode ends.
Don't pretend that you won't.
Just be happy that now you know it's scientifically appropriate
to add on a half inch to your ruler measurements.
Men of the world, rejoice! It's like getting that last bonus star. For your pants.
But before you go running off with your tape measures, we're not quite done with Luigi yet.
The last thing we got to do is subtract a total of 3 mm from the measurements we just took
to account for the thickness of typical gym shorts and whatever underoos Luigi's sporting down there.
That leaves our final total at 11.858 cm or 4.66 inches.
Ta-daah! Mom, are you proud of me?
Wait, I hear your rumblings in the comments. You- you want more.
What? We calculated the length of Luigi's little Goomba.
I'm scarred enough from staring my childhood heroes in the crotch for the last three hours.
What else do you want from me?!
You... you... you want to know... what?!
Oh. Ohhhh. It's the BIG ticket you're interested in.
When Luigi's flying down on the Rainbow Road of love, what's going on when he's revving it up to 150 cc's?
Geez, this is a man's private information! I should send you out of this video right now!
But since you asked, I was curious too, so of course I did the calculations to see if Luigi would still measure up.
Or if, when it counts, his manhood just ends up being in another castle.
It turns out that there's a massive variation in the length of your pocket rocket
when it, in fact, chooses to blast off again. And we know this when we say that
guys are either showers - out there like a Chain Chomp for the world to see -
or growers - the Shy Guys of the anatomical Mushroom Kingdom.
Now, Luigi could fall into either camp, so we won't be able to pin down an exact number,
but we will be able to get the range here.
Both growers and showers end up getting bigger in, um... preparation for the final boss,
but for some, that 1-UP mushroom just makes a bigger difference, so to speak.
For showers, on average, they're putting on an extra 10% in length,
which means that at the very, VERY least, Luigi's achieving 5.13 inches,
but - lucky Luigi - 79% of men are growers,
which means statistically, he's likely to get even more Star Power out of his big moment.
Growers gain on average 50% length,
which - boy howdy! - means that Luigi's looking at a total of 6.99...
ah, heck, let's just round it up to 7 total inches or 17.78 centimeters,
well above average according to the British Journal of Urology study last year
that found that the average length of a man's disco stick is about 5.2 inches.
It's, uh... it's no wonder that Daisy sticks around.
So there you have it. Add this one to your fan wikis.
The official size of Luigi's plunger goes from a floppy 4.6 to a firm 5.1 on the low end, 7 on the high.
Now, I know those numbers may seem a little flaccid, but throw me a bone here. Calculating this was a hard one.
But call me Viagra, because I'm still going strong.
Because there's one final question I'm sure you all have on your minds:
How does Mario compare?
Unfortunately, the promo art from Mario Tennis Aces
doesn't have as many suspicious shadows in Mario's pants,
meaning we can't go through the exact same level of calculations here.
Fortunately for us, though, we wouldn't need to anyway,
because Mario hasn't been shy to be seen naked in his past.
And I'm not talking about some questionable DeviantArt pages at the Rule 34 website,
I'm talking in an official Nintendo release.
You don't belive me? Then feast your eyes on the official Nintendo manga simply titled "Super Mario",
but known amongst fans as "KC Mario", published way back in 1989.
Volume 1 covers part 1 of the Super Mario land saga,
with Mario fighting off the villains of Sarasaland led by the evil alien Tatanga.
On page 52, we see Mario get bitten by a Fish Bone, only to get sent out of his overalls,
and then turning the page... there he is, page 53, waving his pants in the air like he just don't care,
and in the process, we confirm two things.
One, that Mario apparently isn't just a plumber, he's going full commando.
And two, that Mario doesn't got himself a lovely bunch of coconuts.
In fact, Mario's big toe is bigger than his dangling Hammer Bro.
I ran the numbers because of course I did, and Mario's little cannoli clocks in at around 2.5 inches,
6.3 centimeters, and... to be quite honest with you, that's me being EXTREMELY generous with those numbers.
And maybe, just maybe, this stupid episode by some miracle turned out to explain
a lot more than I initially anticipated about this franchise.
With a size difference like that, it's no wonder Mario is aggressive, mean and dismissive of his brother.
He's jealous. Not only does Luigi has the superior jump, he's also apparently got the superior lump.
It may also explain Mario's hero complex:
He may not be feeling too super in the sheets, so he resorts to being super on the streets.
And who knows? It may even explain Peach's continued avoidance of her poorly proportioned plumber.
A former theory of mine guessed that she winds up with Luigi in the end anyway.
So there you have it!
Luigi, the super-powerful half-a-billionaire who winds up with the girl and has an enormous
(Yoshi!)
Man, looking back at all my theories on him, Luigi really does come out on top.
But hey, that's just a theory! A game theory!
Aaaaaand cut!
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Now if you'll excuse me, I need to go watch some cat videos to serve as eye bleach.
I've been staring WAY too long at the undercarriages of Nintendo characters.
If you're interested in any of our past theories on the Lord of All that is Luigi,
click that eye icon in the upper-right hand corner of the screen for a full list.
And I'll see you all next week for something that's probably a little bit more mature.
...probably.