Tom Phillips
Guest
Voice actor Samantha Kelly discovered her 18-year tenure as Super Mario characters Princess Peach and Toad was over on Nintendo Switch 2 launch day — when Mario Kart World released without her in it.
Kelly might not be a household name, but she has featured as Peach and Toad in more than 70 games for Nintendo DS, 3DS, Wii, Wii U and Switch since Mario Strikers Charged released in 2007.
From Super Mario Bros. to Luigi's Mansion, Mario Kart to Super Smash Bros, Kelly has provided the voice for two of the Mushroom Kingdom's biggest roles — including when her characters took centre stage, such as in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, or last year's Princess Peach: Showtime!
Kelly's vocal talents have extended beyond Nintendo's own titles, to appearances by Peach and Toad in games made for Nintendo systems by other companies, such as Ubisoft's Mario + Rabbids series and Sega's Mario & Sonic at the Olympics series.
And even beyond the world of video games, Taylor has voiced the characters for the interactive Lego Super Mario toys, within Nintendo's Super Nintendo World theme parks, and (as other Toad characters) in Nintendo's billion dollar grossing Super Mario Bros. Movie.
But you won't find Kelly in Mario Kart World's credits. And after fans spotted her name was not present, the actor has now confirmed her time as Peach and Toad is over.
"Thank you for so many years of friendship and joy," Taylor wrote in a message to fans on Instagram. "I'm sad that it's over, I truly would have wanted to voice Peach and Toad forever. Nintendo let me know yesterday that they decided to recast these roles.
"I'm grateful that I got to do these voices for so many years. Peach and Toad are such strong and beautiful characters that I pray they live forever no matter who voices them. So much love <3 #princesspeach #toad"
Nintendo has become increasingly strict when it comes to sharing information found in the credits of its video games ahead of time — to the extent that it frequently refuses to acknowledge the developer of its games prior to their release. (This is the situation currently with the upcoming Donkey Kong Bananza, demos of which have already been publicly played at Switch 2 hands-on events.)
Kelly's situation here feels like a bizarre extension of this, where the information that she was not in the credits — because she had been replaced — was held back even from her until Mario Kart World was launched.
Currently, it's unclear who does voice Peach and Toad in Mario Kart World, and presumably in other Mario games going forward.
Eagle-eyed Nintendo fans have spotted another veteran voice actor also missing from the Mario Kart World credits: Takashi Nagasako, who has voiced Donkey Kong for 21 years, since 2004's Mario Power Tennis. In this case, fans have noted that Koji Takeda, who voiced DK in the Japanese version of the Super Mario Bros. Movie, is listed — suggesting that in this case, Nintendo has aligned the video game character's grunts with the Japanese voice of his big-screen counterpart.
IGN has contacted Nintendo for comment.
Of course, this isn't the first time recently that Nintendo has replaced one of its veteran voice actors. Charles Martinet, the colourful actor who voiced Mario, Luigi, Wario and Waluigi, was retired after almost 30 years in 2022. At the time, Nintendo said Martinet would continue to work with Nintendo as "Mario Ambassador," though Martinet himself later suggested he wasn't really sure what that meant.
Tom Phillips is IGN's News Editor. You can reach Tom at [email protected] or find him on Bluesky @tomphillipseg.bsky.social