So Long, Gay Bowser

About

"So Long, Gay Bowser" is a misheard voice line uttered by the protagonist Mario during boss fights in the 1996 platform video game Super Mario 64. In early September 2020, it was revealed that a port of the game created for the Nintendo Switch removed Mario's voice line from the battle with Bowser.

Origin

During several boss fights in Super Mario 64, players must grab the antagonist King Bowser by the tail and spin him around several times before tossing him into a bomb (shown below). With each toss, Mario can be heard saying "So long, King Bowser" in an Italian accent, which many have misheard as the line "So long, gay Bowser." On August 17th, 2005, YTMND user Wizard created a page titled “So long, gay Bowser!“, featuring a GIF of Mario throwing Bowser along with audio of the voice line playing in the background.^[4]

Spread

On May 26th, 2010, YouTuber SergeiEisenstein uploaded a video titled "So long, gay Bowser!", featuring an edited gameplay clip of Mario repeatedly throwing Bowser while uttering the line in the boss fight (shown below).

On August 1st, 2011, GameFAQs^[1] member me4554 submitted a post titled "Does Mario really say 'so long, gay bowser'?" to the Nintendo 64 forums. On November 16th, 2013, Tumblr user ryderremade^[3] posted a photograph of a gravestone with the name "Bowser" engraved along with the caption "so long… gay bowser wipes tears" (shown below).

On February 18th, 2014, a greentext story about a child murdering a cat by throwing it against a wall while yelling "So long, gay Bowser!" was posted on 4chan (shown below). On June 29th, 2016, Redditor Somethingfishy4 posted a screenshot of the 4chan green text story to /r/greentext,^[2] where it received upwards of 1,300 points (95% upvoted) and 50 comments prior to being archived.

Super Mario 3D All-Stars Removal

For the release of the Nintendo Switch compilation Super Mario 3D All-Stars, the port of Super Mario 64 included in the game removed the voice line from Mario's battle with Bowser.

However, this is due to Nintendo using a different version of the game. In 1997, Nintendo Japan released an updated version of the Super Mario 64 called "Super Mario 64 Shindou Edition." This version retains the American voice acting and brings some changes like bug fixes, compatibility with the accessory Rumble Pack and some voice clips that were not present in the original Japanese release of the game but were added to the international release. In Japan, Bowser is known as クッパ (Koopa) and not Bowser, so the line wouldn't make sense to the Japanese players and it was replaced by the line "Bye Bye." Super Mario 3D All-Stars uses this version of the game.

Search Interest

External References