Lego’s newest retro art piece is a 1,215-piece Super Mario World homage

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  The Lego Mario & Yoshi set is an homage to 1990’s Super Mario World. [credit:
  The Lego Group ]

Nintendo and Lego are at it again—they’ve announced another collaboration today as a follow-up to the interactive Mario sets, the replica Nintendo Entertainment System, the unfolding question mark block with the Mario 64 worlds inside, and other sets besides.

The latest addition is an homage to 1990’s Super Mario World, Mario’s debut outing on the then-new 16-bit Super Nintendo Entertainment System. At first, the 1,215-piece set just looks like a caped Mario sitting on top of Yoshi. But a look at the back reveals more complex mechanics, including a hand crank that makes Yoshi’s feet and arms move and a dial that opens his mouth and extends his tongue.

Most of the Mario sets have included some kind of interactive moving part, even if it’s as simple as the movable mouth on the Lego Piranha Plant. Yoshi’s mechanical crank most strongly resembles the NES set, though, which included a CRT-style TV set with a crank that made the contents of the screen scroll so that Mario could “walk.”