It really sounds like "Gay Bowser" doesn't it? Apparently, Martinet said it was meant to say "Kinga Bowser" but it sounds nothing like that

Was this just some bad Engrish in the translation or?

I always assumed it was "So long-a, Bowser!"

As a kid i thought it was "Surround me fountain".
But i'd say it's "So long, ey Bowser?"

Since I didn't know what "gay" was (or anything regarding sexuality) in 1996 due to being 6-yearss-old at the time, I also heard it as an Italianism: "So long-a, Bowser"/"So long, ey Bowser."

"So long, gay Bowser" wasn't a thing for me until GameTrailers.

I've always found it funny when people try to force a head canon into reality when it clearly doesn't make sense.

I don't fault anyone for "hearing" "So long, gay Bowser" but anyone who thinks it was supposed to sound like that is off their rocker.

Yeah, the crew at Nintendo sat down with Martinet and were like "Yeah, and this is the part where Mario calls Bowser gay, LOLZ"

Oy, my back!

I think it's just bad audio compression.

I believe Charles Martinet when he said it's "So long kinga Bowser." Some people have pushed back against him to say that's too many syllables, and I could believe that Martinet is misremembering (or they used a different take of the line) and that he actually says "king Bowser" without the "a," but one of those seems to be the clear answer.

I always heard it as "So long-a Bowser" as a kid.

I always thought it was “So long, King Bowser!”

@dareitus said:

Or a child (either mentally and/or literally) who thinks that pejorative gay jokes are still funny; same for "U R MR GAY" for Galaxy 1 and 2.