Since Merlin can make his way into pretty much any fictional universe, it’s not too surprising that he’d infiltrate the Mushroom World as well. At least, a character BASED on Merlin did. In the Paper Mario series, there’s a hooded and bearded prognosticator named Merlon, who provides advice to the plumber hero.
He has several relatives who also serve as fortune tellers: Merlee, Merluvlee, Merlow, and his inverse cousin Nolrem. They are related to the Ancients from Super Paper Mario, and are quite likely related to the Shamans from the original Super Mario RPG. Mind you, we have no idea what any of them look like under the robes, although Merluvlee is apparently…well, lovely.
Further confusing the matter is the statement that all members of the clan with the same occupation share the same name, so not every Merlon (or Merlee or Merluvlee) is necessarily the same character.
Interestingly, the Mario universe already had a Merlin character, in an unofficial way. I’m referring here to that old bugaboo, the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. As you may know, most of the cartoons were loose parodies of something or other, and one of them, “King Mario of Cramalot”, brought Mario and his friends into the faux-Arthurian kingdom of Cramalot to find the magician Mervin. (Yeah, I also suspect the writer was ten years old.)
After Mervin helps the team drive King Koopa out of the realm, he offers to let Mario stay on as king. Upon learning that the king has to be physically fit, however, the pudgy plumber gives the crown to Mervin and high-tails it out of there. Yeah, pretty dumb, but not without its charm, like most episodes of that show. We don’t learn a whole lot about Mervin, but we do know that he uses a battery-powered magic wand. I have to wonder if he’s also part of the Merlon clan, but doesn’t wear the body-covering robe for some reason. He also pretty closely resembles Waldo, another wizard from the cartoon series.
Okay, to be fair, there aren’t that many cheaply animated cartoon wizards who DON’T look like that, are there?
