Debut: Super Mario Bros. 2
Wow! Now that’s a big image! At first I was a bit skeptical about this image’s quality because it was clearly not transparent, but once I clicked it... wow! Hoopster taking up a whole lot of my screen!
Hoopster is quite a wonderful bug, if it can be called a bug at all. It’s a bit strange that we’ve gotten to the point that we can see an orb with lots of legs and instantly think “well that’s a spider!”.
...but, even if we allowed cartoon spiders to have only one segment, is Hoopster really a spider? It has 10 legs! This here is a decapod! One that decided “Funny claws? No thanks! I’d like more legs, please! And I also want to cling to vines and have nothing to do with the water!” which is a strange request, but it’s not hurting anyone, so don’t be mean to it.
Still, though, I’m gonna call it a bug. We already call any small arthropod a bug when that label only truly belongs to the Hemiptera, so let’s go all the way! Crabs are bugs! Also, hot dogs are sandwiches, and Smuckers Uncrustables are dumplings!
Well, I’ve run out of sprites of Hoopster to use as paragraph separators, so time to actually talk about the topic of this post again! In the Super Mario Bros. Super Show, they appear with a striking resemblance to their in-game versions, which shouldn’t really be something we have to celebrate, but need I remind you all of Nipper Plant? They may only have eight legs here, but I don’t blame them for not wanting to animate ten. I’m shocked they did eight at all, honestly! Behold, an arachnid!
See this book? Don’t be fooled by its fun alliterative title. It implies Hoopsters are beetles. It cannot be trusted.
And finally, the Japanese manuals liken Hoopster to a soccer ball, and the English manuals, to a basketball. Are... are you sure about either of those? I guess a soccer ball kind of makes sense with the spots, but they had to localize it as a basketball since Americans don’t know what a soccer ball is. Please do not use Hoopster as sports equipment.
No! Bad Mario! Put Hoopster down and stop terrorizing that poor, real man with your distressingly enormous body!
