Eel From Super Mario 64
Serge Moquin
Mario (/mɑːrioʊ/, /mrioʊ/) is a character from the Mario franchise and the mascot of Japanese video game company Nintendo. Created by video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario is an Italian plumber who resides in the Mushroom Kingdom with his younger twin brother, Luigi. Their adventures generally involve rescuing Princess Peach from the villain Bowser while using power-ups that give them different abilities.[23][24]
Mario first appeared as the player character of the 1981 platformer game Donkey Kong. Originally Miyamoto wanted to use Popeye as the protagonist, but was unable to acquire the licensing rights, leading him to create Mario.[25] Many elements of Mario's design were due to the graphical limitations of arcade hardware, such as a large nose, a mustache to accentuate his nose, and overalls to make his arms more identifiable.[26] Originally called "Mr. Video" and "Jumpman", he was renamed Mario after Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segale. Following his appearance in Donkey Kong, he would make cameo appearances in other video games before making his appearance in Super Mario Bros. (1985), a Nintendo Entertainment System game that started the Super Mario series. Charles Martinet voiced Mario from 1991 to 2023, before being succeeded by Kevin Afghani.
An established pop culture icon, Mario holds multiple Guinness World Records titles, such as "Most Prolific Video Game Character", "Longest-running Computer Game Character", and "Godfather of gaming". He has appeared in a variety of merchandise, such as clothing and collectible items, and people and places have been nicknamed after him. He has inspired a considerable amount of unofficial media.
Shigeru Miyamoto created Mario while developing Donkey Kong in an attempt to produce a successful video game for Nintendo; previous games, such as Sheriff, had not achieved the success of games such as Namco's Pac-Man.[27] Originally, Miyamoto wanted to create a game that used the 1930s characters Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl.[28][29] At the time, however, as Miyamoto was unable to acquire a license to use the characters (and would not until 1982 with Popeye), he ended up creating an unnamed player character, along with Donkey Kong and Lady (later known as Pauline).[28]
In the early stages of Donkey Kong, Mario was drawn using pixel dots in a 16x16 grid.[30] The focus of the game was to escape a maze, while Mario did not have the ability to jump. However, Miyamoto soon introduced jumping capabilities for the player character, reasoning that "If you had a barrel rolling towards you, what would you do?"[31][27] Continuing to draw from 1930s media, King Kong served as an inspiration, and Mario was set in New York City.[32][33][34]
Though the protagonist was unnamed in the Japanese release of Donkey Kong, he was named "Jumpman" in the game's English instructions[35] and "little Mario" in the sales brochure.[36] Miyamoto envisioned a "go-to" character he could use in any game he developed if needed, albeit in cameo appearances as Miyamoto did not, at the time, expect the character to become singularly popular.[37] To this end, he originally named the character "Mr. Video", comparing what he intended for the character's appearances in later games to the cameos that Alfred Hitchcock had done within his films.[38] In retrospect, Miyamoto commented that if he had named Mario "Mr. Video", Mario likely would have "disappeared off the face of the Earth."[38]
According to a widely circulated story, during the localization of Donkey Kong for American audiences, Nintendo of America's warehouse landlord, Mario Segale, confronted then-president Minoru Arakawa, demanding back rent. Following a heated argument in which the Nintendo employees eventually convinced Segale he would be paid, they opted to name the character in the game Mario after him.[39][40] A friend of Mario Segale commented: "My direct understanding and perception is that Mario Segale doesn't mind at all the fact that his name inspired such an iconic character, and that he shows humble pride in that fact in front of his grandchildren and close-knit adult circles."[41]
While it is implied by the title of the Mario Bros. series, in a 1989 interview, his full name was stated not to be "Mario Mario".[42] The first notable use of "Mario Mario" was in the 1993 live-action film adaptation of the Super Mario series, and was further used in Prima's official video game strategy guides, in 2000 for Mario Party 2[43] and in 2003 for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga.[44] In 2012, after Mario voice actor Charles Martinet stated that the character's name was, in fact, "Mario Mario" at the San Diego Comic-Con,[45] Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said Mario had no last name,[46] with which Miyamoto agreed the month after.[47] Two months after Iwata's death in July 2015, Miyamoto changed his stance, asserting at the Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary festival that Mario's full name was indeed "Mario Mario".[48][49] Mario can also be referred to as "Super Mario" when he acquires the Super Mushroom power-up.[50]
By Miyamoto's own account, Mario's profession was chosen to fit with the game design: since Donkey Kong takes place on a construction site, Mario was made into a carpenter; and when he appeared again in Mario Bros., it was decided that he should be a plumber, because a lot of the game is situated in underground settings.[22] Mario's character design, particularly his large nose, draws on Western influences; once he became a plumber, Miyamoto decided to "put him in New York" and make him Italian,[22] light-heartedly attributing Mario's nationality to his mustache.[51] Other sources have Mario's profession chosen to be carpentry in an effort to depict the character as an ordinary hard worker, making it easier for players to identify with him.[52] After a colleague suggested that Mario more closely resembled a plumber, Miyamoto changed Mario's profession accordingly and developed Mario Bros.,[28] featuring the character in the sewers of New York City.[53]
Due to the graphical limitations of arcade hardware at the time, Miyamoto clothed the character in red overalls and a blue shirt to contrast against each other and the background, making the movements of his arms easily perceptible.[54] A red cap was added to let Miyamoto avoid drawing the character's hairstyle, forehead, and eyebrows, as well as to circumvent the issue of animating his hair as he jumped.[28][22] To give distinctly human facial features with the limited graphical abilities, Miyamoto drew a large nose and a mustache, which avoided the need to draw a mouth and facial expressions.[55] Omitting a mouth circumvented the problem of clearly separating the nose from the mouth with a limited number of pixels available.[54]
Over time, Mario's appearance has become more defined; blue eyes, white gloves, brown shoes, a red "M" in a white circle on the front of his hat and gold buttons on his overalls have been added. According to an interview, Japanese character designer Yōichi Kotabe, who worked on redesigning characters in Super Mario Bros. (1985), revealed that Mario's M on his hat was originally the resemblance of McDonald's logo; Kotabe later changed the design of M and straightened its lines to clearly distinguish the difference.[56] The colors of his shirt and overalls were also reversed from a blue shirt with red overalls to a red shirt with blue overalls. Miyamoto attributed this process to the different development teams and artists for each game as well as advances in technology.[52]
Mario was voiced by Charles Martinet from 1991 to 2023.[57][58] When he crashed the audition,[59] the directors were preparing to close for the night, already packing up when he arrived. He was prompted with "an Italian plumber from Brooklyn"; when he heard the phrase, he immediately thought of a stereotypical Italian accent with a voice similar to that of a mobster.[60] He then assumed the voice would be too harsh for children, so he planned on using a voice of an older figure.[60] However, according to Martinet, the audition for Mario was the only time where his thoughts crashed and he spoke complete nonsense. After he was prompted the character, he babbled the following in a soft and friendly voice instead:[61]
"Hello, ima Mario. Okey dokey, letsa make a pizza pie together, you go get somea spaghetti, you go geta some sausage, I getta some sauce, you gonna put some spaghetti on the sausage and the sausage on the pizza, then I'm gonna chasea you with the pizza, then you gonna chasea me with the pizza, and gonaa makea lasagne."[62]
The voice he chose was derived from another voice role he used to play the character Gremio from William Shakespeare's The Taming of the Shrew.[59][63] Martinet kept speaking with the voice until the audition tape ran out; the clip was the only tape sent back to Nintendo, and when the director called the company he said he "found our Mario".[57][64] For the following years he would use the voice for an attraction at trade shows: small tracking sensors were glued onto his face, and he would voice a 3D model of Mario's head on a television while he remained hidden behind a curtain. When attendees would approach the screen, they could talk and interact with Mario.[59][57][65] The attraction was successful and would be used for five years until he was called by Miyamoto, requesting that he use the voice for a video game.[59]
His first official video game voice role would be the CD rerelease of Mario Teaches Typing in 1994, but his first major voice acting role was Super Mario 64. He received instructions on the types of sound clips needed from Miyamoto, and Martinet appreciated the fun tone of the game and later called Miyamoto a genius.[60] He has since also continued to voice other various Mario characters, such as Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi.[60] His time in the studio recording voice clips consisted of "45 takes of every sound [he] can think of", according to Martinet at a Q&A in Canada.[66] What time he gives vocals for the game varies, and according to him has ranged from three years before a game's release to one week. The amount of clips varies as well, ranging from one hour of audio to 20.[63][67] Martinet was recognized by the Guinness World Records for the most roles performed with the same character, at the time one hundred, and is the most of any video game voice actor.[68] As of January 2022, he has voiced Mario in over 150 games and has recorded 5 million audio files with the voice.[63][66] In an interview, Martinet said he wants to continue voicing the character until he "drops dead", or until he can no longer perform the voice accurately.[66] In August 2023, Nintendo announced Martinet would be retiring from the voice role of Mario,[58] though he would continue to promote the franchise as a "Mario Ambassador". Voice actor Kevin Afghani succeeded Martinet in Super Mario Bros. Wonder the following October.[69][70]
d3342ee215