Yoshi

File:Yoshiwalk.jpg

Yoshi is a dinosaur that first appeared in the video game Super Mario World. Following it, comes Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island where Yoshi rescues Baby Mario, and helps reunite him with Baby Luigi. Yoshi also helps Luigi find Mario in Mario is Missing. Yoshi then became popular, as he was in such games as the Mario Kart series, and the Mario Party series. Yoshi's first starring role was in the game Yoshi, a puzzle title. In more recent games, starting with Yoshi's Story, Yoshi has been voiced by Kazumi Totaka who incidentally also composed the score to Yoshi's Story. Yoshi is also the star of Yoshi Touch & Go and Yoshi Topsy-Turvy.

Television, film, and comics

An animated series followed Super Mario World, called by the same name, and was similar in plotline to the previous series, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, except with a different setting. The show featured Yoshi as a regular character, voiced by Andrew Sabiston (who later provided the voice of Diddy Kong in the Donkey Kong Country cartoon). The cartoon portrays Yoshi with the personality of a very young child, and, therefore, he speaks like one. He is often afraid of many things that young children would be afraid of, such as ghosts and water (perhaps predicting how Yoshi, in Super Mario Sunshine, can't stand water, literally). This may be based on his reactions to attacks by enemies in Super Mario World (he runs off when hit and will even run off of a cliff if Mario fails to chase after him) and/or the fact that Yoshi refuses to enter Ghost Houses or Koopaling castles. Interestingly, his design in the show changed over time to better match his video-game design.

Due to its early cancellation, Yoshi was not featured in the Super Mario Bros. comic books published by Valiant Comics. However, he managed to appear in the Nintendo Adventure Books, which were somewhat based on them. There, his dialogue consists of words that rhyme with "orp", as he does not speak English there like in the cartoon. He also features prominently in the Super Mario Adventures comic serial printed in Nintendo Power. There, his dialogue consists mainly of his own name. (Incidentally, he talks this way in most Mario games since Yoshi's Story in 1998.) According to these comics, Yoshi is the Chairman of the Dinosaur Chamber of Commerce, who is searching for a group of missing Yoshi Villagers whom Bowser has captured. Yoshi also appears in the critically maligned Super Mario Bros.. In the movie, Yoshi took the form of a realistic animatronic dinosaur, very much like a smaller version of Jurassic Park's velociraptors, instead of a live-action animated character. Although extremely different in appearance than its video game counterpart, it still shares some resemblance with a long tongue, friendliness and courage. He is also downsized to the point that he could not support Mario at all