We all remember these guys.

Ah yes the Koopalings (aka Koopa Kids). First making their debut in Super Mario Bros. 3. Never mind where they came from as Bowser has no wife though a series of theories have erupted ranging from being Peach's offspring to test tube babies to magically appearing, these guys showed up as mini bosses of the 7 worlds Mario traversed on his way to stop Bowser. They seemed to become a staple of the series.

After SMB3 the koopalings appeared in the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon though given different names and altering their appearance. (who knows why but then again in the cartoons, Bowser was Green and looked nothing like the game character). Then they also appeared in my favorite game of all Time Super Mario World. Though they did go on to appear in several spinoff games such as Yoshi's Safari for the short lived SNES Super Scope as well as they appeared in several "abominations" to the Mario series such as Mario is Missing and Hotel Mario. But after that, we didn't see them for some time and Nintendo acted like they never existed especially when you consider how ludicrous the rosters of the Mario Party and Sports games got. Did anyone see the roster for Mario Super Sluggers? Red Yoshi? or how about Mario Kart Wii with such memorable characters as Baby Daisy. Really if those series were so hard up to get more females on the sports roster, why not Wendy Koopa? Then again the Paper Mario games have plenty of characters that could be used in those games and they're passed up too.

But for whatever reason the koopalings went missing with no explanation. Most fans just assumed that Mario killed them or they ran away from home but whatever the case, they weren't around anymore. Then came Super Mario Sunshine and he appeared....

We were introduced to Bowser Jr. and I'm sure we all were like. WTF? When did Bowser have another kid? What happened to the other seven? Though I always though BJ was Bowser's clone, you know, like Mini-Me and after that the Mario series felt they should shove him down our throats instead. I don't think anyone likes him and I think I included him on my Top Ten Worst Mario characters list because when we saw him we figured the Koopalings were gone forever.

So you can imagine the surprise in 2003 when we booted up Mario and Luigi Superstar Saga and towards the end of the game we got to battle the Koopalings. I kept wondering where they'd been all this time, but they were there, but once again after that, they were gone again. Perhaps Superstar Saga was just offering some fan service because if you recall, it was the first time in a while Luigi had been active in a Mario game after being MIA in Mario 64 and Sunshine and only appearing as an NPC in the Paper Mario games. (I didn't like Luigi's Mansion.) Luigi has since been given more worthwhile roles in recent games but the Koopalings have had no such luck.

Until now (at 0:17)....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qNI2yimhzec

Yes Nintendo has ressurected them again for New Super Mario Bros. Wii I figure if the game follows the same setup then Bowser Jr. will be the midway fortress boss as before with each Koopaling being the boss of the level as opposed to the first game that used some huge version of a standard enemy.

2 notes. Is it me or is Morton doing steroids? And Iggy's hair went from rainbow colored to green. Still many Mario fans like myself missed the Koopalings and hope this isn't their only appearance in the near future.