Princess Peach gets kidnapped a lot. There are few women with more kidnappings under their belt than her royal mushroom highness, with only Daphne from Scooby Doo immediately springing to mind. In the 24 years of her existence, the good Princess has been stolen away at least a dozen times by Bowser and his pals, and we've got the documentation to prove it.

Super Mario Bros.

Princess Peach's first appearance in a video game also marks her first appearance as a victim of kidnapping. No one is quite sure where and how Bowser took her, but took her he did. A mutant turtle thing of vast resources, he even set up several decoy castles to keep Mario and Luigi occupied while he had his way with her. Thankfully his way equated to leaving her in a room, waiting for rescue.

Super Mario Bros. 3

After a brief stint as a playable character in Super Mario Bros. 2, Peach was back to her being kidnapped ways. She initially sends out Mario and Luigi to halt her rumored kidnapping, but they ultimately fail, and Bowser gets his paws on her once again. At least she kept in touch.

Super Mario World

In Super Mario World, Bowser kidnaps Princess Peach again, only this time he does it using the power of the Super Nintendo. He parallax scrolls her away to Bowser's Castle for a lovely ride in the Koopa Clown Car.

Super Mario RPG

Special thanks goes out to our readers for reminding me about Super Mario RPG, where Princess Peach is indeed kidnapped by Bowser. Then she is kidnapped by Booster. She actually managed to get kidnapped twice in one game. Simply amazing.

Mario 64

While being entombed in a fresco in front of your own castle isn't exactly being taken away from everyone you know and love, we're going to go ahead and call this one a kidnapping as well, just for the sake of being able to include it in our list. You got a problem with that? Don't make us entomb you in a fresco kidnap you.

Paper Mario

Not content to merely capture the Princess this time around, Bowser actually kidnaps her whole damn castle. Paper Mario featured scenes where you could control Princess Peach, gathering intel necessary to facilitate her escape. If only Bowser had stuck to his original 'leaving her in a room to be rescued' plan she'd probably still be kidnapped today, giving birth to little half-mushroom, half-lizard babies.

Super Mario Sunshine

Speaking of half-mushroom lizard babies, in Super Mario Sunshine it's actually Bowser Jr. that kidnaps Princess Peach, having been convinced by his father that she is his real mother. How did this game get released without Fox News and friends pondering the suggestion of Princess/lizard coupling? Why can't I stop pondering it right now?

Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door

Who the hell are the X-Nauts? They're a species of alien led by one Sir Grodus who, despite our cultural differences, manage to work out that kidnapping Princess Peach is simply the right thing to do. Go X-Nauts!

New Super Mario Bros. (DS)

Unable to overcome his mommy issues, Bowser Jr. once again snatches Peach out from under Mario's nose in the New Super Mario Bros. for the Nintendo DS. He also raises his father from the dead during the story, which brings up the following question: If Bowser Jr. can reanimate the dead...wait, how the hell can he reanimate the dead?! I didn't say it was a good question.

Super Princess Peach

In this game, Princess Peach has to rescue a kidnapped Mario and Luigi. Obviously the whole thing was a dream.

Super Paper Mario

Back to the kidnapping! Princess Peach is forced to marry Bowser against her will (riiiiight) by the vile Count Bleck, which will somehow release the power of the Chaos Heart. Mario rescues her, she lures Bowser to the good side, and they all live happily ever after, never to be involved in a kidnapping plot again.

Super Mario Galaxy

Of course, if Princess Peach just happens to be in her castle when Bowser steals it and launches it into outer space, then that's something different entirely. You have to admire Bowser's logic though. If launching the castle into the sky doesn't work, just launch it higher. Epic fail, but brilliant.

New Super Mario Bros. Wii

Here we go again.

A reader rightly chided me for omitting mention of YMCK in my Pictobits review last month. That's YMCK, the Japanese chiptunes artist who I'd previously not heard of. And that's Pictobits, the Tetris-looking DSi downloadable exclusive puzzle game from Skip Ltd and Nintendo. It is played like you are using the stylus as a pixel-collecting and pixel-drawing eyedropper, and it is designed with pure love for the Nintendo Entertainment System. The blocks you clear gradually illustrate beloved sprites from the NES era.

And the music... the soundtrack is comprised of remixes from YMCK of classic Nintendo songs. I couldn't find an official issuing of the soundtrack, but you can check out more samples of the music associated with the YouTube clip above.

Pictobits is available in the DSiWare shop for 500 Nintendo points or $5 USD. Not a bad price for 17 remixes of classic Nintendo tunes, to say nothing of the game that you play while listening to them.

We got the link to this Flickr set, uploaded yesterday, but no explanation other than the location of the protest: Northampton, Mass., or so it said anyway.

I had a feeling Bowser is the kind of guy who supports a strong military. Of course, this is a funny picture in its own right. But once you make the sign, you gotta go wave it, and Bowser takes it downtown.

Here you can see Northamptonites wondering WTF a Tanooki suit is. Look, you can fly with it, you can turn into a statue ... never mind.

The protest culture in Northampton, Mass., must make San Francisco look like Pensacola, if three guys don't even bat a fuckin' eye at an anthropomorphic spiked turtle turtle picketing in front of a local bank.

Bowser Protest [Flickr, thanks Nick N.]

Too cute! Back in 2002, these Nintendo character bobbleheads were released. Yup, Mario, Yoshi, Luigi and Bowser were all immortalized as 17cm tall statues with giant heads that bobble. They even have the official Nintendo stamp of approval. Ah, 2002 was a very good year.

Kotaku fun fact: Crecente has a bobblehead in his own likeness. No, really. Brian Ashcraft

Nintendo Bobbleheads [GameSniped, Thanks Chilly!]

In Japan, parents spend meticulous amounts of time making "cute" or "interesting" bento lunches for their young children. There are numerous books that provide step-by-step instructions on how to do things like turn a sausage into an octopus and whatnot. The reason: By making lunch fun, parents think kids will clean their plates. Over at Danish-based website Bento Challenge, they set a theme each week, and folks create original bento lunches in that theme. Last week, it was pirates. This week? Games! They've only got a few up (hey, it's still Tuesday), but the ones so far are pretty impressive like that Bowser bento. No, wait. Really impressive. Brian Ashcraft

Bowser Challenge [LiveJournal, Thanks JL!]

Bowser Hates Mario Club [YouTube - Thanks Paul!]

1up is on the ball with some news about freshly-annointed members of the Brotherhood of the Smash:

Sakurai announced Bowser Jr., the "Celda" version of Link, and Ridely, the archenemies of Samus, would all be joining the cast of characters for the Wii release.

This makes sense considering Bowser Jr. has had more prominent placement in various Mario sports titles, as well as being his dad's right hand man in New Super Mario Bros., and the "Celda" version of Link was seen on GameCube and now on the Nintendo DS in The Legend of Zelda: Phantom Hourglass. Plus, with both Samus and Zero Suit Samus appearaning in SSBB, it makes sense her foe would get a chance to fight back.

Also announced were some cuts, including Young Link, the Ice Climbers, and Mr. Game & Watch. Farewell, my fallen Smash Brethren. Flights of angels sing thee to thy rest. Eliza gauger

SSB Brawl Roster Changes [1up]

UPDATE! This is bogus and untrue! See comments for more information.