Petey Piranha

"When you got it, flaunt it! Step right up and strut your stuff! People tell you modesty's a virtue, but in the Mushroom Kingdom, it can hurt you!"

– "When You Got It" by Mel Brooks, from The Producers.

"Now, I'm not a great intellect, but the metaphysical leap from admiring the flower to shooting a man in the head because he doesn't like the flower is a leap too far. So... I know it's easy."

– Edgar Ross, Red Dead Redemption.

"Gurgle."

– Petey Piranha.

Introduction

Petey Piranha is a fictional character from the Super Mario video game series published by Nintendo. He is a mutated piranha plant, a predatory plant enemy found throughout the series, albeit partially humanoid with flower petals lining his head like a lion's mane. The character first appeared in Super Mario Sunshine as a boss fight and has since become a recurring playable and non-playable character in titles such as Mario Kart: Double Dash!!, New Super Mario Bros., Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Party Superstars. According to his character bios in several Mario games, Petey is a loyal minion of Bowser, and his unique abilities that include spitting goop and flying with his leaf-like arms—as well as his Japanese name "Boss Packun"—suggest that he is the leader of all piranha plants. It remains unknown why the leader of mindless man-eating plants frolics about in a tiny spotted diaper.

In the Burkehead Realm, Petey lives as a minor celebrity and gay sex symbol, as Samuel Burke considers him to be his favorite Super Mario character. In Burke's words:

"I genuinely think that Petey's an interesting character, or at least as interesting as a Mario character can possibly be. In my opinion, Mario characters are rarely anything more than goofy caricatures, especially compared to most Sonic characters from Sonic Adventure to Sonic Heroes. They're all little more than mere concepts, but Petey has always been a little different. The fact that he's implied to be the grand leader of all piranha plants but prances around and acts clumsy like he's right out of a Zucker Brothers movie for some reason makes him stand out as both especially bizarre and surprisingly lovable. It's a shame that he's supposed to be a villain, 'cause he's ten times more intriguing than any of the main cast. You go, Petey. Strut that spotted diaper."

Due to his admiration for and emotional connections to Super Mario Sunshine and Mario Superstar Baseball while growing up playing the Nintendo GameCube, Petey is both his personal favorite character from the franchise and an easy source of comedy for him, although he argued with his father Greg for at least five years over the pronunciation of his name. Greg made fun of his son's constant insistence that it's pronounced "Petty Piranha" by telling a story about heading to work in the morning and finding Petey walking down the street. When he called over, "Hey, Petty!", Petey turned in his direction and spoke in an unexpectedly deep, intimidating pitch and smoker's cough, "THE NAME'S PETEY!" before walking onwards. Sam has since used the proper pronunciation.

Description

Petey is a tall, heavy piranha plant that stands at least ten feet over Mario's height and has a red-colored head covered in white spots that's several times larger than his body. Orange flower petals form a "lion's mane" around his head, and between his thick, segmented green lips are pointed shark-like teeth. His body is relatively small and pear-shaped, his arms are flat, fan-like leaves, and his legs are short and cone-shaped. Over his lower half is red underwear with white spots, which matches the pattern and color scheme of his head. His bizarre bodily proportions and tiny legs make moving about on the ground especially difficult, although he can flap his leafy arms to propel himself forward. Instead, he prefers to fly overhead by flapping his arms, as seen in titles like Super Mario Sunshine and New Super Mario Bros., and hopping upwards to impressive heights, as seen in his Super Smash Bros. Brawl boss fight.

Personality-wise, Petey is prone to acting out violently against heroes like Mario and Luigi, especially when provoked in such ways as being woken up from his slumber. Otherwise, however, he is normally portrayed as excitable, flamboyant, and childlike in attitude, skipping and dancing about joyfully after emerging victorious, such as scoring a goal in Mario Strikers Charged or hitting a homerun in Mario Superstar Baseball and Mario Super Sluggers. Certain character moments and plot points also indicate that he's also extremely clumsy, which is possibly demonstrated to its greatest extent when he accidentally shatters the roof of the Bianco Hills windmill before his boss fight in Super Mario Sunshine. He nervously looks to either side and up at Mario before the roof crumbles, clearly expressing his fear of what's about to happen.