Journalism is about asking tough questions—questions we don’t want to ask because the answers to them might be more than we can handle.
I know this, so I wasn’t surprised by the chilly, if not outright antagonistic, response I got from my colleagues here at Jezebel when I asked them to think about which Mario Kart 64 character sounds the horniest.
“This sounds like a great blog for maybe later,” former Jezebel senior editor Joanna Rothkopf wrote in Slack, knowing full well that she’d be gone in less than a week. “Quite the blog,” staff writer Megan Reynolds quipped derisively, while social editor Ecleen Caraballo wished “good morning” to “everyone but Harron Walker who is trying to ruin my childhood.”
I had asked a question that no one had wanted to ask, much less know the answer to. Before long, I started to think they were right—that the question of, “Which Mario Kart 64 character sounds the horniest?” is a question better left unanswered. And then a brave angel of truth and light, our deputy editor Julianne Escobedo Shepherd, slid into my DMs to let me know she supported me and my vision. Thank you.
So here they are in order of least horny to horniest.
8. Yoshi
Michete, a musician from Seattle, recently tweeted that Yoshi has “big hole energy,” which I generally agree with, just not in the context of Mario Kart 64. Yoshi’s Story? Where he’s humming and grunting like he forgot his poppers in the piss trough? Sure. But not here. Not Mario Kart 64.
7. Peach
Peach sounds horny adjacent but not quite horny itself. She sounds like she’s spiraling after the fact as she thinks back in horror at what her horniness hath wrought. I mean, just listen to her! She’s not having a good time!
6. Wario
Wario wants to fuck, sure, but more than that, he wants you to think that he fucks. Based on this audio, I’m just not convinced! His “heere I gooo…” just sounds like “I’m a big fat virg who happens to be able to drive.” When he says “Fire!” all I hear is “girls pee out of their butt.” I’m not totally buying it, however much he wants me to.
5. Mario
Consent is sexy, and so is communication, but Mario takes a little too long to get into it, you know? He’s in his head! It’s like he’s so worried about being a good male feminist that he doesn’t even hear me when I tell him to choke the shit out of me. Still, there is a legibly horny arc to his voiceover, however stilted it might be.
4. Luigi
Luigi wants to have a good time, and he knows how to make that happen. He’s like the lawful good of Mario Kart 64 horniness. His horniness might not be the showiest pony at Moo Moo Farm, but that doesn’t mean it can’t kick.
3. Toad
Toad floods your mentions until you finally mute him. He hangs a mirror on every wall of his bedroom so he can watch himself dab while plowing you from behind. Girls call him the blue shell because he’ll never let you cum first. We might not like how horny Toad is, but that doesn’t change the indisputable fact that he is, in fact, very, very horny.
2. Donkey Kong
A sex-wanting stream of consciousness. Sixteen seconds of pure, unadulterated wanting to bone. If corpora cavernosa could talk, this is what they would say: Je suis Donkey Kong, et le horniness suis-je.