Kooper (grocery store)

Kooper is a grocery store that has shown up in a few St. Clair Publications works related to Nintendo games.
Clearly fashioned after Kroger, while little of its actual history is currently known, some of it can be guessed. For example, it was likely founded in 1883 by a man named Kooper, in whatever equivalent St. Clair Publications has to Cincinnati in its Nintendo universe. It has roughly the same logo as Kroger, but in green, and even the same slogan, "Fresh for Everyone", while one of its appearances shows Kooper using similar design schemes to what Kroger has actually used in the past.
==Appearances==
===Mario Kart: Ancient Circuit===
Kooper is the second track in the Fire Flower Cup. Ads for Kooper also appear in numerous other tracks, most notably on Bob-Omb Crossing, Wii-U Sweet Sweet Canyon, Wii Moonview Highway, GCN Mushroom City, and DS Shroom Ridge.
===The World of Nintendo (1996 TV series)===
The Season 1 episode "The National Maul" featured a Kooper in the background. Also, a few other episodes mentioned Kooper; for example, in "Berry Blues" , after the second instance of Berries mysteriously vanishing from the Floaroma Meadow, Gardenia griped that the characters of the day "should just go to Kooper and get some more!"
===Yuki's Adventure===
 
The level "Fresh Local Produce" takes place in a Kooper. The exterior is fashioned after a 1980's "greenhouse Kroger", while the inside appears to use the "fake neon" variant of Kroger's 1990's interior design, showing only a produce and deli-bakery section. There are multiple green stand-up freezers and yellow chest freezers in the level (replacing the thin green/yellow pipes found in the original game).
The store does not appear to be very well-managed. In addition to the freezers, there appears to be infestations of Monty Moles and Pokeys everywhere, as well as carts and baskets strewn all over the place. Also, despite the store owner's threat to throw out anyone not wearing a mask and demands to make every customer undergo a temperature check, the truckload of Hammer Bros, Super Koopas, and regular Koopas found within are maskless without incident and you don't ever have to get tested; the store owner later admits that because the store is in the Koopa Kingdom, Peach's "Executive Order 69" doesn't apply to the store.
This is actually a plot point; at the level's Midway Gate, you encounter a Giant Red Koopa named Karen DiKoopellino who berates you for not wearing a mask and screams racist abuse at Yuki; Yuki, in turn, rips Karen's mask off, gets way up in her face, and screams ethnic abuse against "Italian Koopas" right back at her, claiming, in the process, that "Unova Shore" was actually a scientifically accurate portrayal of what all Metro Kingdomers and Unovans are like.
Karen promptly goes to the manager, who not only refuses to throw Yuki out, but even claims that Yuki's near-beatdown of Karen with a metal pole is in self-defense because Karen used racial slurs against her, in violation of "Chapter 7 Section 420". The level culminates in a miniboss fight against Karen.
In the very next level, "Shoe0nThumb's Fort", part of the level takes place inside a dark Kooper with Mechakoopas, Ninjis, and Lava Bubbles everywhere. The freezers are white here due to the level using the "underground" tileset as a base (where the thin pipes are replaced with bones). Karen is apparently June "Shoe0nThumb" DiKoopellino's mother, despite June being a Galoomba with blue shoes. The secret level "Buzzy Beetle Blitz" further reveals that Karen has a husband who's a Buzzy Beetle, named Karter DiKoopellino.
Category:Mario (series) Category:The World of Nintendo (1996 TV series) Category:Mario Kart: Ancient Circuit