Here baby Melodie shows off her very extensive knowledge of game characters. So amazing. So cute.

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It all starts off innocently enough, but when you start mixing franchises in your video game-inspired holiday gingerbread cookies it can only end in tears.

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...it'd sound a little something like this. If you thought you'd get through 2008 without seeing the words "Django Reinhardt" and "Super Mario Bros 2" in the same post, sorry, you were dead, dead, wrong.

The Original Plumber [growabrain]

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Easy! Take a t-shirt and apply the Bape sub-label Baby Milo. That's eighty bucks already. You're almost half way there. Next, make it exclusive to the members-only online store Nigo's Favourite Shop. Finally, add Japanese import mark up and you've easily reached $US175. The designs, featuring artwork from the Bape branded Nintendo DSs released earlier this year, may not be spectacular enough to warrant nearly two-hundred bucks in t-shirt purchases, but it's not outrageous for retailers to ask this much money.

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Lots of people call Mario "Italian", but they're either falling back on creaky old racial stereotypes or just plain guessing. Mario may be of Italian descent, but he and his brother are from Brooklyn. They're American. And as such are as eligible to vote as any of you other non-incarcerated American adults. With Election 2008 now upon us (well, you), who is Mario Mario throwing his support behind? Here's a hint: it's not John McCain.

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They're not monsters. And they sure don't appear in monster movies. They're yokai, fodder for Japanese folk tales, and they sometimes do appear in video games. Just in time for Halloween, authors Hiroko Yoda and Matt Alt have a book called Yokai Attack! on the creatures, and just to show how pervasive yokai are in Japan, Alt has quickly drawn up a list of some in-game yokai. Here's a sample:

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Or, to be more precise, puts the Mickey into Mario, in this figure by Dave Bondi, which actually has zero Disney/Nintendo involvement whatsoever. We know, we know, it's another pretentious "urban vinyl" figure, but the sheer horror of seeing Disney's and Nintendo's flagship mascots thrown in a bucket together makes it worth a closer look. *looks closer*. Oh, the horror.

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Both wear some of gaming's most impractical outfits, according to GamesRadar. Actually, the news here is that vampy sex costumes account for only 2 of the 9 making the list, and women account for a total of four. Considering GamesRadar's track record on the subject, this counts as enlightenment. They point out that Arthur in Ghosts 'N Goblins goes scanty-pants more frequently and for more gratuitous reasons than Ivy of Soulcalibur, although I guess 8-bit graphics of the day couldn't incorporate realistic ball-sway or pec jiggle to make this truly a case of gender-agnostic sexploitation. Anyway, there's booby in this (including Kratos' moobs), so I've done my job. (Sorry Maggie). But yeah, a plumber's getup is absolutely not fit for the hostile vacuum of space.

Gaming's Most Impractical Outfits [GamesRadar]

Nintendo's put Mario in games, tons of games. And back in the day (man, I hate that phrase), they put him in cartoons and a crummy live-action movie, too. And with an Animal Crossing feature animated film hitting Japanese movie theatres last year, that might mean Nintendo is thinking of doing a Mario movie. Er, no says the character's voice actor Charles Martinet:

I would absolutely love it, if they did that. I don't anticipate that, though, because... Mr. Miyamoto is a genius, he really knows... not only the ins and outs of the entertainment value of Mario, and these characters that he creates... but he knows sort of what he wants to do with them. I don't think he really wants to create a cartoon series for TV or other... DVDs, or that sort of thing, because the value for him is in the games... I think. You know, I can't really speak for him. But you know, if he changes his mind and he says "You know something? I want to make a cartoon," I'll be jumping up and down.

Hopefully saying "It'sa me" over and over and over again.

Charles Martinet Celebrates 15 Years of Wario with Kombo [Kombo via Go Nintendo] [Pic]

If you're looking for something to do with your Wednesday night's wee hours, perhaps the pasting together of dozens of pieces of paper to form a DIY Mario cap will do the trick. This is papercraft not for the faint of heart, but one of the rare wearable pieces of video game papercraft that we've seen in our travels on the internet. Should you have the patience to download the PDFs and the printer ink to power through, be sure to tip us with your creation. We'd love to see the soul brave enough to take this project on.

Mario Cap Papercraft [Paperkraft via BoingBoing]