I was just messing around with some routes on 8-1 with the video sizes. I was on special, with my ghost on, and I jumped over the first pip with ease by stomping on the last goomba and then full jumping to get over the piranha plant.

After this I started up an any% run on which I got to 8-1. But this time I had my ghost off. I used all of my 3 lives trying to jump over the plant with no luck. I thought "damn this trick was so consistent just earlier, what happened?" And so I booted up 8-1 again with the intent of finding what I was doing wrong. And it turns out my ghost had manipulated the piranha plant's hitboxes so that I could jump over it.

My PB ghost was on the NES size (where the trick is possible) and even though the trick should be impossible on special, my NES PB ghost manipulated the plant's hitbox just enough that it let be do it.

Gonna be avoiding this but, thought it was interesting enough to share here.

Edit: slight correction, It's not impossible, just really inconsistent on special. I don't know if there are other parts in the run that get changed by this.