Mario

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Mario (Japanese: マリオ, Mario), also known as Super Mario and originally Jumpman (ジャンプマン) in Japan, is a video game character created by Shigeru Miyamoto for Nintendo. He is one of Nintendo's best-known characters, and is considered by many to be the most well-known video game character in history, appearing in hundreds of games, many of them bestsellers. Mario first appeared in the 1981 Donkey Kong arcade game, while Mario's brother Luigi first appeared in Mario Bros., the arcade game. The Mario franchise has, as of 11 August 2005, sold 180,000,000 games (making it by far the biggest selling franchise in the history of video games).

Mario's full name is believed to be Mario Mario, while his brother's full name is believed to be Luigi Mario, thus making them the "Mario Brothers". (This is generally accepted as canon. According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the Mario Bros. movie, and the television series, their surname is Mario, but this has never been officially supported by Nintendo.)

Mario was named after the Italian landlord, Mario Segali, at Nintendo of America back when it was headquartered in New York. The current voice actor for Mario is Charles Martinet, though in the past he has been voice acted by Captain Lou Albano, Walker Boone and Tôru Furuya.

Biography

Little is known about Mario's history since games involving him tend to lack plot correlations, with the series instead depending mostly on re-occurring characters and locations to provide continuity. Despite his lengthy history Mario is in many ways an undeveloped character, with many details of his accepted biography having been created through a complex lore spawned from the imaginations of comic book artists, cartoon writers, and fans.

Officially, Nintendo producers have stated that Mario's biography is kept simple in order to make the character versatile, and reusable in many different games and situations. Mario is one of the most underdeveloped characters in the Mario universe however, with characters such as Bowser and Princess Peach having more complex and consistent back stories.

In his first appearance as Jumpman in Donkey Kong, all that was stated was that he was a carpenter. His next appearance in Mario Bros. changed his profession to plumber, which was more fitting with the pipe theme of that game. Here, Mario and his brother cleaned out the sewers of Brooklyn. This fact, in addition to both the cartoon series and the movie, led many to believe that Brooklyn was Mario's original home. Newer games and manuals, however, state that he grew up in the fictional Mushroom Kingdom. Some have suggested that the brothers were taken to the "Real World" at an early age, while others disregard it because it contradicts the other games and the Super Mario 64 guide which was written after Yoshi's Island.

Over the course of his many games, Mario has rescued a number of girls from kidnapping (including Pauline, Princess Peach, and Princess Daisy) and has become regarded as a great hero in the Mushroom Kingdom. There is no definitive timeline for the events in the various games, most of which could be placed in nearly any order.

Character development

Mario first appeared in the video game Donkey Kong as Jumpman. The game was surprisingly successful, and when the Nintendo Entertainment System was released, Mario was given the starring role in the revolutionary Super Mario Bros. game.

Mario's distinctive look is due to technology restrictions in the mid-'80s: with a limited number of pixels and colors, the programmers could not animate Mario's movement without making his arms "disappear" if his shirt was a solid color; they did not have the space to give him a mouth; and they could not animate hair, so Mario got overalls, a moustache, and a cap to bypass these problems. Mario's creator Shigeru Miyamoto has also stated when interviewed that Mario wears a cap because he finds it difficult to draw hair.

When Mario was first conceived, he looked, more or less, as he does today: a short, plump man with the trademark hat, brown hair, black mustache and overalls. He normally wears blue overalls on top of a red shirt, but such was not always the case. Originally, he wore red overalls on top of a blue shirt — almost exactly opposite what he wears now. The American Super Mario Bros. 2 was the first appearance of his modern outfit (the box had the red overalls-on-blue shirt, but the game itself had a blue overalls-on-red shirt); however, it was Super Mario Bros. 3 that standardized today's blue overalls-on-red shirt outfit. (Incidentally, the original Super Mario Bros. has neither in-game; Mario wears a brown shirt with red overalls).

Mario's outfit rarely changes, though he's known to change it on occasion if the situation calls for it. For example, in Super Mario Sunshine, Mario wore short sleeves instead of his usual long sleeved shirt, and could even forgo this entirely in favor of a more tropical shirt design worn over his normal shirt, which he always wore with sunglasses.

Miyamoto created many of the elements in the Mario world from ideas he had seen in other media. One of his most recognizable contributions to his Mario universe is the Super Mushroom, which would enlarge Mario until he got damaged by an enemy. This idea was derived from the "Eat me" cakes and "Drink me" potions in the Lewis Carroll story, Alice in Wonderland. The concept behind warp pipes, colored tubes which sometimes transport Mario to another area, was adopted from Star Trek.

The surname "Mario" (which would make his full name Mario Mario) was first used in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, and then in the 1993 feature film Super Mario Bros. This was meant to explain how both Mario and his brother Luigi could be known as the "Mario brothers". The canonity of this fact in the games is not yet confirmed.

Mario has taken on the role of mascot of Nintendo and has since been extensively merchandised. Mario's major rival was Sega mascot Sonic the Hedgehog who debuted in the early 1990s; the two mascots competed head-to-head for nearly a decade afterward, until around 2001 when a Sonic game showed up on a Nintendo console due to Sega's new third party status - thus ending a lengthy rivalry.

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Mario in Super Smash Bros. Melee.