It took all the brain power
at Nintendo to think up of a commonly used
African-American name. Some of the choices were: Tyrone,
Muhammed, Tia. Out of the three they came up with,
the esteemed Nintendo panel agreed Tyrone had a
nice "ring to it". Mario became the brown
Tyrone, Toad was Muhammed, and
Princess Toadstool to Tia.
The developers then delve
into Ma..er- Tyrone's personal description. Tyrone's
new job was to be that of a famous rap 'MC', but what '90s
rapper do you know wears a plumbing hat? (And no, ol' dirty
bastard while high does NOT count.) Thus, to save the hard
working U.S. Nintendo Team, it was decided that the character's
job would change to a hard-working social worker
(read: a plumber).
Next, since the afro look
was definitely in style back then, it was decided to be
drawn onto Tyrone.
Now that the heroes were
created, the enemies were next. The developers were getting
anxious at this time of the project and just decided to
paint all the minor characters a brownish color which also
corresponded to minorities.
All the game's characters
were completed. The Team then started on the drug-free plot
and added the famous drug slogan "Just Say No"
into SNB. King Koopa A.K.A "Drug
lord Dinosaur" shot joints and cigarettes outside
of his mouth instead of fireballs. Toad's speech
was changed to emphasize drug awareness. (Other subtle changes
include blinking "NO" screens which were
added to play at the completion of each level.)