In some Mario Bros games Mario and Luigi have the power to transform into a Japanese raccoon dog (tanuki) and a Japanese fox (kitsune) respectively. In Japanese folklore the two animals are deceivers with sometimes malevolent designs on hapless humans. So I drew a picture.

Here's a choice excerpt from Wikipedia: "Kitsunetsuki (狐憑き or 狐付き; also written kitsune-tsuki) literally means the state of being possessed by a fox. The victim is always a young woman, whom the fox enters beneath her fingernails or through her breasts. In some cases, the victims' facial expressions are said to change in such a way that they resemble those of a fox. Japanese tradition holds that fox possession can cause illiterate victims to temporarily gain the ability to read. Though foxes in folklore can possess a person of their own will, Kitsunetsuki is often attributed to the malign intents of hereditary fox employers, or tsukimono-suji.

Folklorist Lafcadio Hearn describes the condition in the first volume of his Glimpses of Unfamiliar Japan:

Strange is the madness of those into whom demon foxes enter. Sometimes they run naked shouting through the streets. Sometimes they lie down and froth at the mouth, and yelp as a fox yelps. And on some part of the body of the possessed a moving lump appears under the skin, which seems to have a life of its own. Prick it with a needle, and it glides instantly to another place. By no grasp can it be so tightly compressed by a strong hand that it will not slip from under the fingers. Possessed folk are also said to speak and write languages of which they were totally ignorant prior to possession. They eat only what foxes are believed to like — tofu, aburagé, azukimeshi, etc. — and they eat a great deal, alleging that not they, but the possessing foxes, are hungry."

In one prefecture in Japan the tanuki is said to lead people to death by hanging. In the second Mario bros game released only in Japan there are sections you are lead into that can only be escaped by suicide.

So I drew a picture. The two deceiving animals leading folks into the mushroom kingdom growing on the other side of the outhouse pipe. Where else would plumbers be going? Note also that often in stories of Tanuki and Kitsune the decieved are rewarded with money that turns out to be a figment of their imagination. Mario Bros rewards players by collecting hundreds upon hundreds of coins that are absolutely worthless.