What or Who is a BOOMER BILL?

By LUDWIG VON KOOPA - OK Boomer Bill.

Yesterday, I wrote about Zoomers. Today, I'm going to write about Boomers. (Though unlike the Generation Z demographic, Baby Boomers are a minuscule fraction of KoopaTV's audience, so I'll end up offending much less of my audience today.)

Specifically, I'm here to question the existence of the Boomer Bill. What's a Boomer Bill? Well, at first glance, it's a made-up variant of the Bullet Bill, only seen in the troubling collaboration between Nintendo and LEGO that KoopaTV has been covering for months. Indeed, today they announced, on top of the costume packs from last month, there will be ten total expansion packs. Note that the base product still isn't even out yet. Here's the full expansion set list, per LEGO press release: 

1. LEGO® Super Mario™ Guarded Fortress Expansion Set (49.99 USD/EUR) 
2. LEGO® Super Mario™ Desert Pokey Expansion Set (19.99 USD/EUR) 
3. LEGO® Super Mario™ Whomp’s Lava Trouble Expansion Set (19.99 USD/EUR) 
4. LEGO® Super Mario™ Piranha Plant Power Slide Expansion Set (29.99 USD/EUR) 
5. LEGO® Super Mario™ Boomer Bill Barrage Expansion Set (29.99 USD/EUR) 
6. LEGO® Super Mario™ Mario’s House & Yoshi Expansion Set (29.99 USD EUR) 
7. LEGO® Super Mario™ Toad’s Treasure Hunt Expansion Set (69.99 USD/EUR) 
8. LEGO® Super Mario™ Bowser’s Castle Boss Battle Expansion Set (99.99 USD/EUR) 
9. LEGO® Super Mario™ Thwomp Drop Expansion Set (39.99 USD/EUR, available only with select retailers) 
10. LEGO® Super Mario™ King Boo and the Haunted Yard Expansion Set (49.99 USD/EUR, available only with select retailers) 

On top of all of that, there's a gacha-esque set of character packs (or “blind bags”), where you don't know what's inside of them, but one 4.99 USD/EUR pack can contain one of:

1. Paragoomba
2. Fuzzy (the spiky black furry screaming things, not the guys that make you dizzy if you touch them)
3. Spiny
4. Buzzy Beetle
5. Bullet Bill
6. Bob-omb
7. Eep Cheep
8. Blooper
9. Urchin
10. Peepa

Honestly, not sure who'd want to keep dumping $5 hoping for one of those, unless they're an old Paper Mario fan hoping that one of them will become a partner in Paper Mario: The Origami King and have a unique hat and name and backstory or something. Unfortunately, it only comes with the buildable character (modeled after their official artwork) and an “action brick”, but you can pretend you're making a roleplay, I guess.

Going back to that list of ten expansion sets, one of those really stands out to me. All of these take direct inspiration from previous Super Mario games, be it Super Mario 64, Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker, Super Mario World, and others.

And then there is the Boomer Bill Barrage Expansion Set. See, there's no such thing as a Boomer Bill in a Mario game. There's the Bullet Bill. There's the Banzai Bill. There's the Bombshell Bill. There's a squadron of Torpedo Teds. There's even King Bill, named as such for its size and not for any position of actual royalty. 

Close-up of Boomer Bill.
Human hand isn't mine, but of just2good, who reviewed the set on YouTube here.

But no Boomer Bill. That's brand-new. What makes Boomer Bill unique is that it's not allowed to fly on its own, but it's instead perpetually attached to a spinning pole and trying to knock off Mario from his platform as Boomer Bill revolves around.

My best guess is that Boomer Bill just doesn't have the energy or durability to be shot out from a Bill Blaster due to being old and worn out, so the spinning pole is basically the Bullet Bill equivalent of a retirement home. A very dizzy retirement home, but at least it no longer has to deal with the effects that combustion can do to one's body.

I'm quite sure that Boomer Bill was formerly a Banzai Bill until it had to retire. Just look at the picture above and compare it to a young, vibrant, zooming Banzai Bill:

Me posing with two Zoomers.
(Banzai Bill to your left and Bowser Jr. to your right. Subsequently, they both got hurt.)

...You know, this WOULD make a nice Paper Mario partner backstory after all...

Anyway, my conclusion is that Boomer Bill is not a new species of Bill. Just an existing one. (Well, the set comes with two.) One that has existed for a long time, resigned to a retirement pole, and ranting to anyone who comes near them about how spoiled the younger Bills are. Sometimes they go out and vote to preserve fiscally unsustainable government payments to them.

Boomer Bill's still got it! You kids are just too lazy to beat Mario!
(Screen-capture also from just2good.)

 

Ludwig doesn't recommend you buy any of the LEGO Super Mario sets, due to the dangers they pose on the world. He hopes this is the last time anyone has to hear about them, and finds it quite presumptuous on LEGO and Nintendo's parts to develop such an extensive ecosystem of costumes, expansion sets, and character packs, all before a single LEGO Super Mario starter set has gone to market. All of that investment could turn out to be a flop, and Ludwig hopes it will be. Do you agree with him on anything in this article? If so (or if not), let him know in the comments section below!


You think this is presumptuous? LEGO and Nintendo have announced a kit for adults pining for NES nostalgia.
There will be even more Super Mario sets coming January 1, 2020, with more expansion sets and character packs, including a Poison Mushroom.