Taco Bell Predicted Mario And Star Fox Crossover Nearly 30 Years Ago
The upcoming Super Mario Galaxy Movie will feature the first on-screen meeting between Mario and Fox McCloud outside of the Super Smash Bros. video game franchise. Interestingly, this crossover appears to have been inadvertently foreshadowed nearly 30 years ago through promotional materials.
In 1997, Taco Bell ran a Nintendo 64 promotional campaign that featured both Mario and Fox McCloud together in artwork. At the time, the pairing was simply a fun marketing choice with no deeper significance—it was two years before the original Super Smash Bros. game would even introduce the two characters as playable fighters.
A social media user recently rediscovered the vintage promotional art and shared it online, humorously pointing out the coincidence between the 1997 Taco Bell campaign and the upcoming Galaxy Movie’s crossover. While there is no indication that the filmmakers were influenced by or aware of the decades-old promotional material, the discovery has delighted Nintendo fans who appreciate the quirky connection between gaming history and modern media releases.
The moment highlights how Nintendo’s roster of iconic characters has intersected across different media and promotional campaigns over the decades, and how unexpected connections can emerge when examining the company’s vast archive of gaming and pop culture history.