Bob-omb first appeared as an enemy in Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. 2 in 1988 and became a staple of the Mario franchise across platformers, Mario Kart and Mario Party. The wind-up bomb's fuse sound and explosion were carried through later games with updated samples but the same cartoon timing. Clips of the effect spread on soundboards and in meme edits because the short fuse-to-boom arc works without context, letting creators mark an impending fail or explosive reveal in under two seconds.