You know how, in Super Mario World, Mario thrusts his hand forward to make Yoshi shoot his tongue out? Maybe you’ve thought all these years that Mario was punching his dinosaur pal in the head to make this happen. Well, that’s not quite the case, according to a new interview with the game’s design team — but punching Yoshi was the original plan.

“The idea behind the design is that when Mario punches Yoshi, Yoshi is so surprised that his tongue shoots out,” said Shigefumi Hino, the designer of Super Mario World, according to a translation by Twitter user Kyle McLain.

Geez, Mario; that’s kind of a dick move. It’s hard to call that out of character when Mario has the personality of cardboard, but the main thing that defines him is that he’s the ultimate good guy. A hero. A maverick. To be punching his trusty steed in the head for the duration of Super Mario World? Unconscionable.

Apparently Hino and the rest of the team at Nintendo thought so, too. They then changed the story: Mario’s not actually punching Yoshi. He’s just commanding Yoshi to extend his tongue with an assertively pointed finger. This became canon, as seen in official art dug up by the Supper Mario Broth blog a few years back.

It’s nice to know that Mario and Yoshi’s friendship wasn’t predicated on a whole bunch of punching. This should make us feel better about replaying Super Mario World on the Super NES Classic Edition, which hits retail tomorrow.