Scripulous Fingore

About

Scripulous Fingore refers to an internet hoax claiming that in the files for the video game New Super Mario Bros. on the Nintendo DS is an unused ghost enemy named "Scripulous Fingore" that Shigeru Miyamoto refused to explain the origins of for mysterious reasons. The hoax, similar to and likely inspired by January's Gumbly hoax, began on Twitter in April 2021, inspiring various pieces of fan art and fake screenshots depicting Fingore.

Origin

On April 23rd, 2021, parody Twitter^[1] page @CutVideoGame, which poses as a page that posts cut content from video games, posted, "In the files for New Super Mario Bros. (DS), there's a fully coded, unused ghost enemy referred to as "scripulous_fingore". When asked about the enemy in an interview, Miyamoto disregarded the question, seeming unusually upset." Attached are two images; one showing Fingore in-game about to poke Mario, and one showing its 3D model (shown below). The post gained over 20,000 likes and 3,800 retweets in four days.

Resemblance to Gumbly

That day, Twitter^[2] user @madjackrabbit commented, "wait a fucking minute" and a photoshopped image of The Simpsons family next to Gumbly (shown below), a made-up character who became the subject of a similar hoax in January 2021 as users photoshopped him into various Simpsons media, claiming he was always there. Fingore and Gumbly share many notable similarities, including the shapes of their mouths and their attached eyes.

Spread

The Fingore post inspired memes about the character that day. For example, on April 23rd, Twitter^[3] user @IsannKeket commented on the original post with a video edit of the character saying, "It was you! You are the cringe ass nae nae baby of legend," using audio from Saltydkdan^[4] garnering over 70,000 views, 5,900 likes and 1,000 retweets in four days (shown below).

The post also inspired a number of original fan art that day, including an original sprite in the style of Yoshi's Island by Twitter^[5] user @Hilltop_Heights, and a digital drawing by Twitter^[6] user @DoodleDox (shown below, left and right respectively).

On April 24th, Twitter^[7] user @BowserJrPlush commented a Friday Night Funkin' rap battle edit depicting Fingore vs. Miyamoto under the original post (shown below).

Many users made posts about Fingore as if they uncovered him in the files of other Super Mario games, keeping the hoax going. On April 24th, Twitter^[8] user @pynnion posted, "did some digging in the wii u mario maker and found sprites for scripulous_fingore in each style, funnily enough his code is all intact, implying that this character was meant to be revived with the maker series?" along with two photoshopped screenshots showing Fingore in Mario Maker (shown below).

On April 25th, Twitter^[9] user @AKoolKoopa posted, "Fun fact: Some unused content in Mario 64 DS suggest that Scripulous_fingore was intended to be a boss, but was cut for unknown reasons" along with a photoshop adding Fingore to Super Mario 64, garnering over 4,100 likes and 570 retweets in two days (shown below).

On April 26th, Twitter^[10] user @JokerTony612 uploaded a video showing a preview of their first Friday Night Funkin' mod adding Fingore as an antagonist, set to the song "Overworld" from New Super Mario Bros. (shown below).

On the same day, Twitter^[11] user @bros_ellis posted, "So weird seeing everyone so surprised at that unused Fingore enemy from New Super Mario Bros. when it was a very common unused enemy in a lot of other old Mario games!" and a number of photoshops of Fingore in various Mario games, garnering over 2,900 likes and 560 retweets in a day (shown below).

On August 10th, 2022, YouTuber^[12] DAK0TA! posted a video showing Scripulous Fingore raising his finger and wagging it, captioned, "nuh uh," garnering over 468,000 views in six months (shown below).

Various Examples

Search Interest

External References