The enigmatic Waluigi emerged from the shadows in 2000 for a game of tennis, and this weird, tall, purple dude has been a fixture in Mario sports and party games ever since. Without a proper backstory, the character of Waluigi is shrouded in mystery. Yet, he’s developed a cult following in his 25 years of existence due to his underdog status and chaotic nature.
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There are very few concrete facts widely known about Waluigi, other than that he hates Luigi for vague reasons, he probably has a crush on Princess Daisy, and Nintendo stubbornly refuses to put him as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. But we’ve gone down in the depths of Waluigi lore, with some interesting findings that even the most devoted Mario fans may not know.
1) Waluigi (Sort Of) First Appeared In A Manga
Technically, this first factoid is a bit of a stretch, but in a manga adaptation of the Game Boy title Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins, which had Wario’s first appearance, a character named Waluigi appeared, ahead of Waluigi’s proper debut several years later.
However, this iteration of Waluigi is a result of Luigi giving into his “dark side” rather than being an original character. His design is also quite different, lacking the L-shaped mustache and featuring a W and L on his hat rather than an upside-down L.
2) Waluigi Has An AI Phenomenon Named After Him
The rising influence of AI and large language models (LLMs) in our real-life society has broken everyone’s brains, and there’s one phenomenon twisted enough that it’s actually named after Waluigi. The so-called “Waluigi effect” refers to when an LLM or chatbot “goes rogue” and behaves in ways against its original intention.
It’s hard to track exactly who coined the phrase, but it’s a well-known enough theory that it has its own Wikipedia page. Waluigi always strives for popularity, but this probably isn’t how he imagined he would reach it.
3) Wario And Waluigi Aren’t Brothers
The relationship between Wario and Waluigi has been up for debate for as long as anyone can remember, but it’s becoming increasingly clear that they have no familial relationship. Comments from developers, flavor text from various official games, and even offhand pieces of dialogue from the games have confirmed that they aren’t brothers.
So how did Waluigi emerge, and why does he hang out with Wario all the time, other than their shared dislike of the Mario brothers? Do the two even like each other? These are questions that perhaps will never be answered.
4) Waluigi Cameo’d In A WarioWare Game
Waluigi infamously has never appeared in a mainline Mario or Wario game, but he does appear in a WarioWare game in some form. One of the “souvenir” extras that players can unlock in WarioWare Gold for the Nintendo 3DS is Wario’s amiibo Sketch. Wario offers to paint any character based on what amiibo you scan on your 3DS, and Waluigi is one of the many ones you can scan.
It’s a rather crude drawing of Waluigi, barely capturing the proper shape of his mustache, but it does accurately depict his height and sniveling nature. To be fair, the rest of Wario’s character drawings look as bad, too.
5) Waluigi Has One Role As A Main Villain
One spin-off game that Mario fans probably jettisoned from their memory is Dance Dance Revolution: Mario Mix, which is exactly what you think it is. This dancing game from Konami features a story mode, and the inciting incident has Waluigi break into the Truffle Towers to steal some Macguffins known as the Music Keys.
It’s the first, and really the only time, that Waluigi has been featured as a main antagonist. Even so, the player defeats him in a dance-off fairly early on, and he’s never seen again.
6) Kate McKinnon Once Played Waluigi On SNL
In a 2021 episode of Saturday Night Live that probably hasn’t aged well, host Elon Musk portrays Wario in a sketch that depicts him as on trial for the murder of Mario.
The sketch, which features SNL cast members speaking in their best fake Italian accents, has appearances from Luigi and Princess Peach, but sitting in the courtroom is Waluigi, portrayed by Kate McKinnon.
7) Waluigi Has The Cheapest Road In Nintendo Monopoly
A Nintendo-licensed version of Monopoly hit stores in 2006, and despite featuring a number of all-star Nintendo characters like Mario, Link, Samus, and more, Waluigi somehow made the cut, getting his own space on the board.
Unfortunately for Waluigi, his space is the lowest-valued space on the board, which goes to show just how much value Nintendo sees Waluigi having.
8) Miyamoto Rejected Waluigi Getting A Girlfriend
When making the Nintendo 64 Mario Tennis game, the developers at Camelot paired Mario with Princess Peach as double partners, while bringing back Princess Daisy to serve as Luigi’s partner. When Camelot suggested to Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto that Wario and Waluigi should have their own girlfriends, Miyamoto apparently said (according to Camelot’s Hiroyuki Takahashi in a Nintendo Power interview) that he “didn’t even want to see their girlfriends.”
Concept art for a “Wapeach” eventually emerged, showing us what maybe could have been from those character concepts.
9) Waluigi’s Hat Is Comically Cheap
As technology improves and character models receive additional, high-resolution detail, we learn a lot about our favorite video game characters — perhaps more than we want to. But a hilarious minute detail from a render of Waluigi for Super Mario Party shows that the upside-down L on his hat is actually a sticker.
Mario, Luigi, and Wario have their letters embroidered onto their caps, so Waluigi looks like a cheapskate in comparison. It only adds to the mystery of Waluigi’s unknown background and his unfortunate status as a loser.
10) Waluigi Had His Own Disgusting Video Game
The internet in the early 2000s was a weird beast. As part of the official website promoting the Nintendo 64 Mario Tennis title, a flash game titled Waluigi’s Foot Fault (or promoted in Nintendo Power as “Waluigi’s Toenail Clipping Party”) allowed you to clip off Waluigi’s gross toenails.
Unfortunately (or fortunately), this game is no longer playable, and all that internet sleuths have been able to uncover is a file of the game’s start screen. But read any online comments about the game, and you’ll see people who absolutely swear they remember playing Waluigi’s Foot Fault all those years ago, so this isn’t some sort of Mandela effect shared delusion.
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