The Super Mushroom, originally called the Magic Mushroom,^[1] is a well-known fictional mushroom power-up item from the Mario series of games. Introduced in Super Mario Bros., the Super Mushroom causes Mario, Luigi, or another character to double in size upon collection. This gives them the ability to break Brick Blocks by bashing them from below and allows them to withstand an additional hit from an enemy or obstacle before shrinking back to their regular size.^[2][3]

The Super Mushroom is usually a red cap with white spots, though it was originally a yellow mushroom cap with red spots. They also sport a pair of eyes,^[4] a change first introduced in Super Mario Bros.: The Lost Levels, where the Super Mushroom was one of the few assets not transferred over from the original Super Mario Bros. The Super Mushroom is based on the real-life Amanita muscaria, which also has a red cap with white spots.^[3]

At first, the Super Mushroom appeared in just the 2D installments of the Super Mario series, not appearing in titles such as Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine, but it does appear as a power-up item in Super Mario 3D Land and Super Mario 3D World, with both games reusing a lot of mechanics of the 2D Super Mario games. The Super Mushroom has a few lookalikes, such as generic mushrooms in games like Super Mario Bros. 2 as well as the Dash Mushrooms in the Mario Kart series that give the user a brief speed boost.

During the development of Super Mario Bros. by Nintendo, the idea for the Super Mushroom arose when Mario's sprite was deemed too large. When developers decided to shrink Mario, this led to the concept of an item that could make Mario grow.^[5]

The Super Mushroom was listed by UGO.com at first place in their list of "The Top 11 Video Game Powerups".^[2] Conversely, Comic Book Resources listed it at number 10 in their "Super Mario: 10 Greatest Power-Ups, Ranked".^[6]

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