suppermariobroth:Sprites for an unused train engineer or conductor Toad, found in the data of Paper
Sprites for an unused train engineer or conductor Toad, found in the data of Paper Mario. While the game does feature eight various Toad characters that are in charge of the game’s two trains, all of them use recolors of the same basic sprite with a head shape that much more closely resembles a generic Toad. Interestingly, the engineer of the Excess Express in Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door resembles this unused design.
One reason why this Toad could have possibly been scrapped is his whistle-blowing animation. The frame in the bottom left in particular shows his hat being raised up, revealing that he does not have the typical Toad mushroom cap underneath. The most recent official statement regarding the Toads’ mushroom caps comes from Super Mario Odyssey director Yoshiaki Koizumi, who stated that they are part of the Toads’ bodies and should not come off.
As the only official media that depicted Toads’ mushroom caps being removable were the DiC Mario cartoons, which were made without the oversight of Nintendo of Japan, it is likely that these were always intended to be part of their physiology by the franchise’s creators; as such, this engineer Toad was possibly scrapped due to violating some internal design guidelines.
Seems to me like they missed the perfect opportunity to create a new race of Toad-like beings called “Daots” who are the same in every way except they aren’t mushrooms.
