Nintendo’s long-running musical easter egg has been found in Mario Kart World
Totaka’s Song has been hidden in Nintendo games for 35 years
The latest incarnation of Nintendo’s long-running musical easter egg has been found in Mario Kart World.
Totaka’s Song is a short 19-note melody created by Nintendo sound designer Kazumi Totaka, which has been hidden in many of the games he’s worked on for the past three and a half decades.
The first known occurrence of Totaka’s Song was in Game Boy title X back in 1990, and since then it’s been found in 24 separate Nintendo games.
Now the 25th known version has been found in Mario Kart World, and as with many versions of Totaka’s Song it can be found by waiting in a certain place.
As spotted on Reddit by user charizardtelephone, Totaka’s Song appears in Mario Kart World if players move the cursor to Yoshi on the character select screen and wait.
After a while – though it can be hard to make out due to the background music – Yoshi can be heard humming Totaka’s Song.
Totaka’s Song in Mario Kart World
byu/charizardtelephone inmariokart
Having Yoshi hum Totaka’s Song is particularly appropriate, given that Totaka himself has provided the voice of Yoshi since 1998 game Yoshi’s Story and continues to do so to this day.
It’s also not the first time a Yoshi has hummed the song. If a Mario Kart 8 track has a Yoshi standing in the crowd at the side of the track, driving over to them will make them quietly hum the song.
Other notable examples of Totaka’s Song have appeared in Pikmin 2, Luigi’s Mansion, Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins and The Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening.
Every Animal Crossing game also features the song, where it can be found if players give K.K. Slider a song request and ask him to play K.K. Song. The K.K. Slider character is also based on Totaka (in Japan the character is known as Totakeke).
