The first appearance. Crazy! Made sure I grabbed a photo of the screen.
A couple of worlds later, there it is again. And it’s part of the background – it scrolls right along with it.
And the very next level after that, it appears again! I’m not sure, but I think Mario is trying to tell me something.
UPDATE: It turns out that this was a faulty cartridge. The first run of these had the error, and was since corrected. I have decided to hold onto my copy since it is so unique!