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Lemmy Koopa (Hip Koopa in other media) is one of Bowser's eight children. Despite being the second oldest of the Koopalings, Lemmy is the smallest of all of Bowser's children. Lemmy is often associated with childish traits due to his stature and personality.
He is well recognized for his multicolored mohawk, crossed eyes, and affinity for circus balls. Lemmy's main color representation is orange and yellow, though his color scheme consists of various bright colors. His special abilities deal with bouncy balls; Lemmy balances atop a ball in most appearances.
History
Super Mario series
Super Mario Bros. 3
Lemmy's debut was in Super Mario Bros. 3, where he and his siblings aided Bowser in his attack and conquest of the various lands of the Mushroom World. Lemmy attacked and conquered Ice Land, stealing the Magic Scepter of the land's king, subsequently turning him into a seal; Lemmy turned the king into a Monty Mole in later versions of the game.
Like the other Koopalings, Lemmy was found and battled in the cabin of his Airship; unlike his siblings, however, Lemmy would ride a rubber ball around the room during battle. He also used his stolen wand to generate more rubber balls. Being jumped on the head three times defeated Lemmy, allowing the player to reclaim the Magic Scepter of Ice Land's ruler.
Super Mario World
After the events of Super Mario Bros. 3, Lemmy next appeared in Super Mario World, aiding his family in their attack on Dinosaur Land. Lemmy inhabited the Vanilla Dome in a castle, where he guarded a kidnapped Yoshi trapped in an egg.
In his battle, Lemmy wouldn't attack directly, instead he would simply pop out of Warp Pipes in his chamber. Along with two Lemmy look-a-like dummies, he would pop out of the pipes, sometimes sideways and sometimes bottom-first. Avoiding the fake Lemmys as well as a bouncing Podoboo was a necessary part of the battle as well. Lemmy's head or bottom needed to get stomped on three times, forcing him to come out of the end of his Warp Pipe, sending him into the lava below.
New Super Mario Bros. Wii
Lemmy, along with the rest of the Koopalings, reappears in the game New Super Mario Bros. Wii as a boss. Lemmy now sports an orange shell and a ponytail in this game, he is also shown with his beach ball, last seen in Super Mario Bros. 3. In this game he is notably smaller even than his younger brother, Bowser Jr.. He is the boss of World 3.
His stage for both tower and castle is the same: ground made up of ice which makes movement hard due to its slipperiness. There is also a pit in both ends of the stage.
Before battling him, Lemmy is shocked by seeing Mario but does a back flip on his ball to regain confidence, ready to fight.
At the World 3, tower, Lemmy uses his scepter to conjure a ball and bounce it towards the player(s)' character(s). While the ball doesn't inflict damage, should it touch the player character, it does push him towards the edge of the ledge and into a pit if the character does not jump over it. When he gets stomped on, his ball 'falls through the ground' and Lemmy pulls into his shell then slides across the floor, trying to hit the characters. When he rises again, he generates a new ball and increases the number of balls he sends out to the player by one. Up to three balls are sent out to the player to knock him down the pit. Once defeated, Lemmy retreats from his tower by jumping to his castle.
Upon meeting him there in the castle, Kamek will appear and enchant Lemmy's ball, making it massive. Lemmy once again resorts to trying to knock the players into the pit with his smaller balls, but this time the players need to jump and bounce off the balls he sends out to reach and jump on him. When he gets hit two times, the ball Lemmy stands on further increases its size for additional difficulty to damage him one last time (one jump from a ball he conjures is still enough to reach him). Upon being defeated again, Lemmy falls offscreen and the players receive a key which allows Mario to pursue the airship that Princess Peach is captured into World 4.
In the tower battle, if the player(s) fail to hurt Lemmy he will begin to ride on his circus ball trying to ram the player(s) into a nearby pit. but in the castle battle, if the player(s) has yet to stomp on Lemmy when he finishes conjuring all the balls he send out, he will bounce with his own ball to the other side of the stage which pushes the player(s) if contact is made with the ball. The best method to avoid getting pushed is to run past the gap when the ball is in the air. After that, he continues to send out some balls.
Lemmy survived the battle, however, and was seen along with the other Koopalings getting Bowser back up, only to have Bowser's castle fall on top of all of them.
Super Mario anime series
Lemmy, as well as his siblings were featured in the Super Mario anime series, a set of three Japanese OVAs. In the Mario retelling of the story "Momotaro", Lemmy and his siblings appear as minions of Bowser, aiding him in abducting Princess Toadstool. In "Shirayukihime" (Snow White) Lemmy and the other Koopalings appear as Bowser's minions once again; Lemmy ends up being beaten by Mario.
Cartoons
In The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, produced by Nintendo in association with DiC Entertainment, Lemmy was renamed Hip Koopa and would often hang-out and pull pranks with his brother Hop Koopa, whom he was twins with. In the continuity of the cartoons, Hip and Hop were the youngest Koopalings, and were portrayed as six-year-olds, while the rest of the Koopalings were in their teens. Like many stereotypical twins, Hop and Hip would often share their sentences by either speaking in unison or finishing each other's lines. In the cartoons, Hip had thinner hair than Lemmy, a large overbite, one spike on his shell, and didn't appear to have a lazy eye.
Publications
Lemmy also appeared in the Nintendo Comics System and Nintendo Adventure Books; out of all the Koopalings, Lemmy appeared the most times in Nintendo Comics System. He was depicted with low intelligence, using too many bombs to blow up a pipe when trying to help Bowser blow up the Mushroom Kingdom's main water pipes in "The Buddy System". Ironically, Lemmy was the only one who could understand Larry's picture-only dialogue. He is also a big fan of Dirk Drain-Head.
Lemmy also had a prominent role in the White Knuckle Scorin' comic. Bowser, being illiterate, gets Lemmy to read a spell for him, which Lemmy eagerly agrees to do because he wants to show off the reading skills that he learned from Princess Toadstool, but he ends up reading the wrong spell. Later, Lemmy helps the good guys by telling them to attack Bowser by throwing Mecha-Koopas at his head.
Lemmy was also featured in the Super Mario Adventures comic. Here, he aided Bowser in his plot to marry Princess Toadstool.
Mario is Missing!
Though Lemmy doesn't appear in Mario is Missing!, it is mentioned in the PC version of the game that he did indeed travel to Earth with Bowser and his siblings; instead of aiding Bowser in his plot to melt Antarctica, Lemmy decided to play in the snow and ice.
Super Scope 6
In LazerBlazer - Type A: Intercept mode of the game Super Scope 6, Lemmy, along with Mario, makes a small cameo in the game. Lemmy can be seen occasionally riding a missile in the game, and if players blast him out of the air, they will either recover a miss or gain points.
Yoshi's Safari
In Yoshi's Safari, Lemmy once again aided his family in attacking another land. This time, Bowser took over Jewelry Land, and gave Lemmy a magic gem to guard, and custody over Grass Land.
In his battle against Mario and Yoshi, Lemmy would ride in a large mech resembling a humanoid Koopa Clown Car equipped with five cannons. After sustaining heavy damage from Mario's Super Scope, Lemmy would lose the use of his center cannon and begin to hop around the battlefield; eventually, after being damaged some more, Lemmy's mech would explode, flinging the Koopaling over the horizon.
Hotel Mario
In Hotel Mario, Lemmy and his siblings aided Bowser in his plot to steal away Princess Peach and to hide her in several hotels which the Koopa family had taken over in the Mushroom Kingdom. After his brother Larry is defeated by Mario and Luigi and his hotel explodes, Princess Peach is flung into the clouds and into Lemmy's High-ate Regency Hotel, where Lemmy takes possession of her.
The battle was located in "Lemmy's Sky Hideout", and the Koopaling attacked Mario by throwing paper planes at him while flying to different hotel floors using a helicopter pack. To defeat Lemmy, Mario would need to close all the doors in the area. Once Princess Peach is rescued, Lemmy would attempt to chase after her, Mario and Luigi, only to be blown away with his hotel by a large fan activated by Mario.
Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga
Template:MLinfobox After several years of absence, Lemmy made a return appearance in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. After hijacking Bowser's Castle and using it to attack Beanbean Castle Town, Bowletta employed Lemmy and his siblings (except Bowser Jr., who was conspicuously absent) to guard the various halls of the castle.
When first encountered by Mario and Luigi, Lemmy would try to confuse them by disguising Goombas as himself; in order to engage in battle with Lemmy, Mario or Luigi would need to hit him, not a copy, with their hammer.
Once in battle, Lemmy would attack by creating more Goomba copies of himself and shooting fireballs at Mario and Luigi. However, he was eventually defeated by the bros.
Character Description
Lemmy's skin tone is the same as most of the other Koopaling's, having the same yellow and tan skin complexion, as well as a green head like most other Koopalings. The distinguishing features of his skin are the two orange bars on the left-side of his head. He also has a three-ribbed, padded stomach and padded feet. His mouth is turtle-shaped, as the bottom center of his top lip rounds down with the shape of his nose, and his lips curve up at the edges; it is similar to that of a Hammer Brother's. He has large, oval eyes that tend to look crossed as well as appear in the opposite direction.
Lemmy's head is large and oval-shaped as well, looking almost disproportional to his small body; his unorthodox appearance is complimented by the fact he balances atop a rubber ball most of the time. Lemmy is actually the smallest of all Koopalings, which has led many to mistakenly believe he is the youngest as well; Lemmy is the second oldest, only younger than Ludwig.
Lemmy has a very wild hairstyle unalike to the other Koopaling's. He has a multi-colored, mohawk, that goes from yellow, pink, blue, yellow, pink, to blue. It ends in a long ponytail that fades from yellow to orange at the tip.
Lemmy is portrayed wearing very few items of clothing, even compared to his siblings. He wears the same metal, spiked cuffs the others do, but he also has his own shell design. His shell is orange, lined with a white encasing, and the multiple, short spikes are circled with light green rings. In Super Mario Bros. 3, and in his Super Mario World artwork, his shell is shown to be green.
Development
Lemmy has undergone a relative amount of changes to his design over the course of his appearances.
Lemmy was originally depicted with a mohawk that had colors going from pink to blue, red, yellow and then green. This mohawk sometimes was colored with another streak of pink instead of red, and the the green streaks always took up the back three spikes of the mohawk. Depending on the game and the artwork, it could differ slightly, but it wasn't until Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga that it was depicted with just yellow, pink and blue in color; it was also depicted the same way in his unused sprites for Super Princess Peach. This is slightly the same as in his newest design where the mohawk itself only goes from yellow to pink and then blue with the addition of his ponytail that blends into orange at the tip.
The two stripes on the left-side of his head were originally on both sides of his head due to the sprites being mirror images of one-another regardless of what direction they were facing; even in earlier artwork the stripes are shown on either side. The stripes were also colored pink, but are now orange to match his shell color.
Like his siblings who had green shells Lemmy's was given a unique color, orange. And aside from the spikes being updated to an off-white color they were also given yellow rings. Not much else has changed aside from his snout being given a new shape with the transition into 3D.
Personality and Traits
Lemmy is said to retain a childlike innocence about him, despite being the second oldest of the Koopalings. It is mentioned in the various manuals and guide books of games that Lemmy is exceedingly immature, preferring to clown around instead of committing crimes and conquest; this is proven in Mario is Missing!, where he simply plays in the cold and snow instead of helping Bowser in his plan to flood the Earth. It has also been stated Lemmy would rather join the circus than try to destroy Mario, he is already clownish in how he loves balancing on top of his rubber ball (it is even rumored that he learned to do this trick before walking). He seems to have a passion for the cold and ice as he was the ruler of Ice Land, as well as guardian of World 3 of New Super Mario Bros. Wii, and he decided to play in the snow when he traveled to Earth. It has been stated that he relies on gadgets (which could have been built by his more intelligent siblings, Ludwig and Iggy). His helicopter pack from Hotel Mario may be an example of this dependance. In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, he is shown to have a high-pitched voice.
In The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, Hip is more mischievous than truly evil on most occasions, and preferred to simply play pranks instead of cause havoc; though several episodes, such as "Life's Ruff", showed him capable of causing real chaos.
In Nintendo Comics System, Lemmy was somewhat childish and unintelligent, and seemed more keen on simply helping his father and trying to gain his appreciation then actually causing evil. Like Mario and several of Bowser's minions, Lemmy also had an obsession with the plumbing based hero Dirk Drain-Head and could somehow understand Larry's picture-only dialogue, while no one else could at all. In Nintendo Adventure Books, a continuation of Nintendo Comics System, Lemmy was portrayed as somewhat crazed in demeanor and much more menacing on some occasions.
In the Super Mario Amada series and Super Mario Adventures, Lemmy's personality was, more or less, identical to those of his siblings, with no real differentiating quirks or attributes.
Powers and Abilities
Lemmy Koopa seems to prefer using circus balls when combating his enemies. His primary ability with his wand is to make balls appear out of thin air. In fact, he can balance on his ball better than he can walk. Lemmy tends to use the icy floors and pits in his boss fight to his advantage, so he can force his foes into sliding off of cliffs, making for a somewhat tricky battle.
Special Abilities
In both Super Mario Bros. 3 and New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Lemmy utilizes his magic scepter to generate rubber circus balls, in numbers up to three (even more in his New Super Mario Bros. Wii rematch), creating great difficulty for the Mario bros. He was also seen spinning like a top in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga like his younger brother Iggy, but with an added twist. Lemmy was shown with the ability to summon Goombas disguised as clones of himself.
Standard Abilities
Like his sister Wendy, Lemmy usually has a battle tactic that is unique compared to his other siblings. Instead of firing magic blasts from his scepter, Lemmy instead creates circus balls; it has yet to be revealed if he is even capable of firing magic blasts, or simply chooses not to. Other than that, his abilities seem normal compared to his siblings, as he is seen walking and jumping in his Super Princess Peach sprites, and breathing fireballs in his appearance in Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga, as well as spinning inside his shell for offensive and defensive purposes in New Super Mario Bros. Wii.
Official Profiles and Statistics
Bio from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 Writers Bible
While the rest of the Koopalings are in their teens, Hip and Hop are bratty six-year-olds. These twins don't go anywhere without one another, and are always finishing each other's sentences. Silly and dumb, goofy and bumbling, they are always lost, and have probably forgotten where they were going anyway. They flunked Koopergarten. They wouldn't be a threat to the Marios and the princess, if it weren't for the fact that they have the most powerful Magic Wands, and are easily manipulated by Bully and their other siblings.
List of Appearances by Date
| Title | Description | Original Release Date | System/Format |
|---|---|---|---|
| Super Mario Bros. 3 | Boss NPC | Japan: October 23, 1988 |
NES |
| Super Mario World | Boss NPC | Japan: November 21, 1990 |
SNES |
| Mario is Missing | Non-Playable Character | North America: 1992 |
PC |
| Yoshi's Safari | Boss NPC | Japan: July 14, 1993 |
SNES |
| Hotel Mario | Boss NPC | North America: December 31, 1994 |
CD-i |
| Super Mario World | Boss NPC | Japan: December 14, 2001 |
GBA |
| Super Mario Bros. 3 | Boss NPC | Japan: July 21, 2003 |
GBA |
| Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga | Boss NPC | North America: November 17, 2003 |
GBA |
| New Super Mario Bros. Wii | Boss NPC | Australia: November 12, 2009 |
Wii |
Gallery
Screenshots
- SMW LemmyKoopa.jpg
- LemmyNSMBWIIRematch.PNG
Official Artwork
- LemmyNSMBWii.png
Quotes
- "How far can Mario go? I hope he doesn't make it this far. Dad has many complicated tricks waiting for him in the Dark Land. I've even heard about some new weapon that dad's been making." - The Super Mario Bros. 3 manual (page 34)
Names in Other Languages
Trivia
- Lemmy was supposedly named after Lemmy Kilmister, the lead singer and bass guitarist of the English heavy metal band Motörhead.
- Lemmy was originally going to appear in Super Princess Peach, although he was taken out of the final game with the rest of the Koopalings.
- Mecha-Koopas generally have a face that is similar to Lemmy's.
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