Its story begins in the 1980s, in the prehistory of video games! Since then, it has become the best-selling game series in the world. As he tries his luck on the big screen for the second time this April 2023, here are 16 anecdotes you may not know about the famous Mario.
If I tell you a big mustache, blue overalls and a red cap and add that he hops, do you recognize him? Yes, it is Nintendo’s mascot, Mario, the most famous video game character. A look back at some forty years of history.
Mario is in his forties
Mario is exactly 42 years old. He made his first appearance in 1981, in the arcade game donkey kong. The very first game Super Mario Bros. was released on September 13, 1985 in Japan for the Nintendo Famicom game console.
At the time, the releases did not take place simultaneously on all continents. Europeans had to wait more than a year and a half before seeing Mario land on their NES (Nintendo Entertainment System), on May 15, 1987.
Mario must not have had a mustache
The famous mustache and the red cap are only due to technical constraints: “I had a space of 16 pixels by 16 pixelswill explain its creator, the Japanese Shigeru Miyamoto. I didn’t have room for a mouth, so I made a big nose and added a mustache. Same for the hair, you couldn’t see it well so I put a cap on him.”
Mario had to be Popeye
The first Mario game, on arcade terminals, was originally supposed to be an adaptation of Popeye. For rights issues, Nintendo ultimately decided to modify all of the characters in the game in development.
Mario, hero or villain of the story?
In the 1982 game, donkey kong jr, Mario was introduced as the villain. The player had to help Donkey Kong Jr to free his father, captured by Mario.
It is only with Super Mario Bros. the character becomes sympathetic. Although… Voices rustle against him on the canvas, calling him a bloodthirsty killer of Goombas, adultery (he cheated on Pauline with Peach) and giving their preference to Bowser, one of the other characters in the saga.
Mario has changed his name
In his very first appearance in donkey kong in 1981, Mario was called Jumpman (the man who jumps), characteristic of his only power, to jump obviously. It was in 1982, in Donkey Kong Jr., that takes the name of Mario. Nintendo of America employees found him to bear an uncanny resemblance to the owner of their premises, Mario Segale.
Mario wasn’t always a plumber
Shigeru Miyamoto, its creator, thought from the start that a manual job would make his character more endearing. His first “official” job, in donkey kong, is a carpenter. It is only in Mario Bros, in 1983, that he will be presented as a plumber. But he also embodied a soldier, a demolisher, an arbitrator or even a doctor, an athlete, a penguin, a raccoon… Many people think that he is in fact… a gardener because of the version Super Mario Bros released on NES in 1987.
Mario has an official voice
Since 1990, a not quite American actor is the official voice of Mario, it is Charles Martinet. To be transparent, he is also Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, Baby Mario, Baby Luigi and Grandpa Champi. As his name suggests, Charles Martinet is of French origin. Cock-a-doodle Doo ! It’s him, Mario!
Mario sells a game every three seconds
It is the best-selling video game series of all time. Over 373 million copies sold worldwide since its release in 1985, which is a game sold every three seconds. From platform games, to karts and baseball, Mario has appeared in nearly 200 Nintendo brand video games.
Mario often plays the inlays
It has infiltrated several other franchises, like Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes where shooting Mario will cause the sound of a saga 1UP, the mushroom that gives extra life. In addition, Mario turns out to be a very good source of energy at this point in the game, but hush! We also see it in its great rival ZeldaIn SimCity or again in 1989, in Tetris.
He also became a recurring character in simpsons. He appeared in particular in the episodes Bart’s Brother Or Marge and her little thief.
Mario is the first virtual character to have a street named after him
Super Mario Bros Avenue is located in the suburbs of Zaragoza, in the northeast of Spain. It crosses the Space Invaders and Tetris avenues there.
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Mario was celebrated on Jimmy Fallon’s “Tonight Show”
The famous American presenter Jimmy Fallon has assembled the cast of the film Super Mario in the Tonight Show to sing a cappella the theme of the game.
Mario has his own amusement park
The Super Nintendo World opened in the spring of 2021 in a specific area of Universal Studios Japan, in Osaka (western Japan) and cost 484.5 million euros. This was followed by the opening of a second park in Los Angeles this winter. Nintendo plans to open a third in Orlando, Florida.
Its presentation in 2020 by the creator of Mario himself, Shigeru Miyamoto:
Mario was first adapted to the cinema in 1993
The first attempt at a film adaptation of the game, super mario bros, dates back to 1993 and has largely gone down in history as an absolute, yet emotional, nanar for fans. We note all the same in the casting Bob Hoskins who plays Mario, John Leguizamo (Luigi) or even Dennis Hopper (Bowser) and a production designer, David L. Snyder, Oscar winner for his work on blade runner.
Mario did porn
Mario was parodied in two porn movies Super Mario: Super Hornio Brothers And Super Hornio Brothers II, released in 1993. Outraged, Nintendo bought the exclusive rights to prevent distribution. Both films have since fallen back into the oblivion they no doubt deserved.
Mario causes a scandal in 2023
When fans discovered the first images of Super Mario Bros 2023, they were shocked! Super Mario’s physique has been retouched. Her plump buttocks have been replaced by a flat bottom. “Remember what they took from us” lamented a surfer, comparing the two versions of Mario, whose message was “liked” more than 570,000 times.
>> Bringing generations together, expanding the Nintendo empire: what are the challenges for “Super Mario Bros the movie”, the adaptation of the video game hero to the cinema?
A future evil Mario?
Do not panic, this is only a technical demo. Last summer, the Funkyzeit Games teams had fun with the Mario universe transformed by Epic Games’ new graphics engine, Unreal Engine 5. No colorful enemies, no rainbow roads and but a horrifying, blood-drunk version of Mario who takes pleasure in setting the surroundings ablaze with his famous fire flower.