The Toad at Super Nintendo World in Universal Studios Hollywood seems like he’s done putting up with people’s bullshit. Since his mascot meet-and-greet debut at the theme park in the summer of 2023, people have been visiting Toad and asking him to dance as part of a viral trend. In the videos, Toad looks cute as he wiggles his butt to the song, “rock your hips” by 310babii & Saweetie, but now it seems like he’s sick of the trend. Video recordings show that the aggrieved character has started charging at people when they ask him to dance — and somewhat aggressively, I might add.
For the most part, the mushroom people are known to be a docile race in the larger Mario world. They live out their quaint lives in the Mushroom Kingdom and seem to have a permanently positive demeanor. The Toad at Super Nintendo World has a brimming smile permanently sewed onto him, but now I worry about all the pain behind the smile.
People weren’t exactly messing with Toad. In the trend, people would record videos of going to his meet and greet. Once they walk up to him, visitors would dance by wiggling their hips and waving their arms around in an effort to get Toad to dance as well. For a while, he danced along and went with it, as you can see below.
The bit was harmless enough, but it seems like now Toad has had enough. A video posted in August shows someone who appears to be a park employee saying that Toad was sick of dancing. The person says, “please do not ask Toad to dance guys, he’s not dancing.”
Since then, Toad been expressing increasingly aggressive and cagey behavior. In one video, we can see the adorable mascot charge at a person after they try to dance with him, and in another, he trolled a person by going in for a handshake and then faking them out.
In certain circumstances, it just looks like asking to dance makes him sad. In the below videos, he walks over to one side and turns away from the visitors — poor thing!
It seems like Toad might still dance with some people, but it just depends on if he’s up for it or not. In another video, we hear a visitor ask what appears to be a park worker if it’s alright to dance with Toad. The employee responds, “If he dances with you, fine.” The Toad ended up turning away from the people that wanted to dance and the employee adds, “He’s very shy.”
From the looks of it, there is no real concern of anyone doing anything untoward to the little guy. The videos and photos show that Toad always has park employees to watch over him when he does meet visitors. People aren’t messing with him with the dance, but imagine being the attendant to Princess Peach and people just bug you because of a viral trend on TikTok. At a certain point, I’d imagine you’d want it to be over. So while he might remain physically safe from the antics of the world, it looks like no one, not even the wonderful Toad, can evade the hell of viral internet trends.
Source：https://www.polygon.com/theme-parks/453929/toad-mad-dancing-trend-super-nintendo-world
