Let’s play hide-and-seek!
- by Alana Hagues
If you’re looking for a little bit of lightness this holiday season for you and the kids, then hopefully you’ve been saving up a bunch of those It’s Me, Mario! shorts. Nintendo has been sharing these on its family-friendly Play Nintendo YouTube Channel since August 2025.
Episode 5 dropped overnight and features Mario with Yoshi and Toad, who are playing a simple game of hide-and-seek. Mario must find both of his friends, who have found devious places to keep themselves out of the plumber’s eyesight.
And look, we’re extremely partial to stop-motion animation, but Yoshi and Toad look particularly adorable; we love the little Super Mario World nod with the trees and the fruit, and Toad is… well, Toad! He can hide in some pretty easy places in the Mushroom Kingdom.
All five shorts have some lovely little callbacks to the Mario series as a whole, so while the kids might delight in the lovely colours and animations, parents (or grandparents, or uncles, aunts — whoever!) can get all nostalgic. You can see all five currently released episodes in this playlist.
The It’s Me, Mario! shorts are actually designed to promote the My Mario range of toys for young children, which were released in Japan back in August this year. A selection of these are coming to the US in 2026.
Are you a fan of these stop-motion shorts? Will you be grabbing some My Mario products next year? Let us know in the comments.
Alana has been with Nintendo Life since 2022, and while RPGs are her first love, Nintendo is a close second. She enjoys nothing more than overthinking battle strategies, characters, and stories. She also wishes she was a Sega air pirate.