Any video game enthusiast knows Nintendo's Mario, the famous red-shirted plumber who bravely quests across kingdoms to save his princess. Since his debut alongside Donkey Kong in 1981, Mario has featured in over 200 video game titles. His career as a prolific video game protagonist has made a deep and distinctive mark on popular culture as a whole.
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Despite his ubiquity, however, there are lots of details about gaming's best-known protagonist that many gamers just haven't learned. Mario has a long and storied history, and certain details might be changed, abandoned, or simply left undiscussed along the path of such a historic journey.
Though he's gone down in history for being one of the most famous figures in the industry, Mario didn't always have his iconic name. When he debuted in Donkey Kong, the red-shirted platform-scaling hero was called Jumpman.
After the game rose to popularity, Nintendo renamed the character Mario, allegedly after the landlord of Nintendo's United States base of operations. The change was due to Shigeru Miyamoto's desire for the character to be recognizable globally, which would require a more universally understood name.
Though some fans have attributed Mario's original moniker of Jumpman to being his middle or last name, Shigeru Miyamoto has confirmed that the character does not have either. The confusion is, at least partially, rooted in the live-action Super Mario Bros. film in 1993.
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In the movie, the brothers claim that Mario is their shared last name, as well as Mario's first name. Though many Mario fans have shunned the film adaptation for several reasons, its comedic moment surrounding the characters' surname carried on into the mainstream imagination.
Though it became Mario's first appearance, the concept behind Donkey Kong had initially been planned for a game based on the wildly popular Popeye cartoons and comics. When Nintendo couldn't acquire the licensing rights for Popeye characters and designs, they continued the game's development with original character concepts instead.
As a result, Bluto became Donkey Kong, Olive Oyl became Pauline, and Popeye himself became Jumpman, who would become Mario. Though Nintendo had hoped that the Popeye branding would lead their new game to success, Donkey Kong thrived on its own merits.
Another fact about Mario that changed after Donkey Kong was his profession. Since Donkey Kong took place on a construction site, Jumpman was a carpenter, so his job would fit the setting.
Since then, Mario has become widely known as a plumber due to the underground sections and many pipes included in 1983's Mario Bros. and beyond. Of course, now Mario's full-time professions seem to be 'princess rescuer' and 'sports player,' but plumbing was the best known of his career choices.
Gamers have always identified Mario by his iconic hat, mustache, red shirt, and overalls. However, what these fans may not know is that many of these aspects of his appearance were chosen due to artistic or graphical limitations.
Nintendo created his vibrant denim overalls and long red sleeves to differentiate between his arm and leg movements in a low-pixel environment. His mustache served much the same purpose, helping to keep his facial features distinct and conserve space. Mario's hat also assisted in the ease of his animation, as it prevented the need to animate any hair.
While Donkey Kong's popularity led to Mario's role as Nintendo's primary star and mascot, it wasn't an immediate transition. For a time, he was still connected to the Donkey Kong series rather than the star of his own. In Donkey Kong Jr., Mario took on the role of the villain and locked Donkey Kong in cages.
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The gameplay followed DK's titular son as he climbed and platformed his way through the levels to free his father from Mario's captivity. Though they have faced off competitively in many games since, Donkey Kong Jr. is the only title Mario features in that explicitly labels him as the antagonist.
Though Mario continues to appear with his iconic cap, it is possible to see him without it in certain circumstances. He sometimes removes it temporarily in cutscenes or official art. However, there is also a way to play as hatless Mario.
In New Super Mario Bros. Wii, Mario's hat disappears when the player has amassed 99 lives, the maximum the counter can reach. He appears in this style both on the map and in gameplay until the player loses a life, taking the counter back down to 98.
Though the Super Mario franchise became packed with sports and activity titles over the years, Mario's initial presence in such games was unintentional. Though the character is only referred to as Mario in certain editions, a character with almost identical features appeared in 1984's Golf for the NES.
Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's creator and designer, was directly responsible for designing Golf's character sprites. Thus, he used the same details from Mario's design that had made him easy to discern amongst the heavily pixelated visuals of the time.
A common myth among gaming fans is that when Mario jumps to break bricks above him, he's breaking them with his head. However, as confirmed by several artists and programmers at Nintendo, that isn't the case.
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In older games, it was harder to spot Mario's fist as he thrust it upward to shatter the obstacles, but it was still there. In more recent Super Mario games, the plumber's striking fist is much easier to see, which is how the controversy over Mario's brick-breaking methodology began.
Unsurprisingly, Mario's fame has gathered him and his series an abundance of accolades over the decades since his first appearance. As a result, Mario holds several Guinness World Records. One of the most impressive is his record as the world's best-selling video game character.
Mario's record was confirmed in September of 2020 by VGChartz, who recorded at that time that Mario appeared in 657,460,000 units sold. Mario even has several categories of records through Guinness, including the worldwide speedrun records for several Super Mario games.
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