Toad, known in Japan as Kinopio,[a] is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo's Mario franchise.

A prominent red Toad serves as one of Princess Peach's handlers and appears consistently as a supporting character in the franchise.

When Mario Kart for the Nintendo Game Cube was revealed to be Mario Kart: Double Dash on April 23, 2003, Kiyoshi Mizuki actually wanted to make Toad one of the selectable characters from the beginning, but after thinking about Toad's own partner, they could not come up with any specific one suitable as a partner for this sort of tandem ride.

[7] In February 2018, Yoshiaki Koizumi confirmed that the mushroom on Toad's head is part of his body, and not a hat.

[8] Toad and his race of mushroom people made their debut appearance in Super Mario Bros. where they play a minimal role in the game.

In the American Super Mario Bros. 2, Toad got his first individual appearance and was given a bigger role as one of the four playable characters.

[citation needed] The sequel Luigi's Mansion 3 also features multiple Toads assisting E. Gadd, all of whom have been captured and require rescuing.

In Super Princess Peach, Toad is kidnapped earlier in the game along with Mario and Luigi by the Hammer Bros.

In Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story, a mysterious infection called "The Blorbs" causes the Toads to inflate to many times their normal size and roll around uncontrollably.

This is due to the fact that Nintendo's intellectual property (IP) team refrains them from creating new characters that could possibly interfere with the Mario universe.

[18][19] In Super Mario Bros. Wonder the Yellow and Blue Toads return as playable characters, in both single and multiplayer.

[27] Captain Toad appears in all but three of Super Mario Odyssey's Kingdoms, rewarding the player with a Power Moon after they find him in each location.

[28] When reviewing Treasure Tracker, IGN's Marty Sliva called Captain Toad and Toadette "a pair of sweet, endearing characters that [they] genuinely wanted to root for", saying that personality details like Captain Toad and Toadette "cower[ing] in fear when they see a ghost, add a nice dollop of charm to the whole package".

Played by Mojo Nixon, Toad appeared as a street musician in the non-canon Super Mario Bros.

Despite this, the Goomba-fied Toad (portrayed by John Fifer) remains hating Koopa and still manages to help Princess Daisy escape and distract the other Goombas by playing his harmonica.

[citation needed] Toad also makes a cameo appearance in the Wii U version of Scribblenauts Unlimited, as a guest character from Nintendo's Super Mario series.

[2] He retains his loyalty to Princess Peach, but he now carries attire relating to Captain Toad including a backpack and a walking stick.

[34] He has appeared in much of the Mario merchandise in products ranging from toys to plushies and keychains,[citation needed] and is featured in Nintendo's board games such as being on the protagonist side in a Mario themed chess set[35] and being a purchasable character in a Nintendo-themed Monopoly game.

", was ranked one of the most repeated video game quotes,[38] and inspired a 2008 song by The Mountain Goats and Kaki King.

[7] The Toads in the Paper Mario series following the release of Paper Mario: Sticker Star have been heavily criticized for lacking their diverse characteristics found in previous entries and for replacing the cast of original fictional races the series previously had.