Apparently, Toad's Mushroom Hat Isn't A Hat After All

Have you ever wondered about the giant mushroom on Toad's head? You know, the one that sits atop his flat top that we've presumed is a hat? Well, it turns out that if you've been thinking it was a hat all along, you were wrong... very, very, very wrong.

In a recent developer talk on the Nintendo YouTube channel with Mr. Yoshiaki Koizumi, the producer on Super Mario Odyssey, gamers were able to ask some questions and Nintendo posted Koizumi's response to those questions. One of them was about whether or not the giant mushroom on Toad's head was a hat or not... and here's what Koizumi had to say...

It's a shame that he doesn't explain to us the actual physics and physiology of Toad's mushroom head, mainly for a couple of reasons. You see, first of all we've seen Toad take the mushroom off a few times. In the old cartoon, we saw the chrome dome of Toad when he took off the mushroom, which had become soaked with his tears. He began wringing it out in order to dry it off.

There's also been a few videos about whether or not Toad's mushroom is a hat or his head, so much so that there have been short documentaries about it, investigations, and even lots of evidence-based, biological examinations done on the whole thing.

Well, Dorkly's deep dive into the topic of Toad's anatomy in a nine minute video actually explained a lot about the little fungi. We learn that, in the Mario Strikers game when he gets electrocuted, the bulb on his head is... empty. So, there's no skeletal framing inside the bulb and it's not attached to his body by any matter.

The Dorkly delving also attempted to discount the old television show and live-action films as any evidence relating to Toad's physiognomy. Instead the piece points out that even in Super Mario 3D World when Toad gets power-ups and changes form, either it's replacing his head or he's squeezing the bulb into the hat.

As some of you may have noticed in games like Captain Toad and Super Mario RPG, some of the Toads and Toadettes have hair coming out from under the bulb, which also led some people to believe that the mushroom bulbs are simply... hats.

However, we now know that that isn't true, and that, apparently, the mushrooms are part of the Toad physiology. A lot of people also agree that the giant mushroom bulb is part of Toad's head.

It's a disturbing thing to think about when you consider that it's sometimes removed, stitched or damaged, which kind of makes you question what the heck is in there. Or more importantly... do we even want to know?

It appears that the question was raised more and more as the Super Mario franchise went HD and people began scratching their own noggins about Toad's mushroom situation. Well, now you know.