Mario
Mario is a fictional character created by Shigeru Miyamoto in 1981, where he first appeared in the video game Donkey Kong on the Arcade's. Despite his lengthly 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, consistent, and unique back stories.
In his first appearance in Donkey Kong, all that was stated was that he was a carpenter who had to save Pauline from Donkey Kong. His third 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 Luigi 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 disagreed 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 women from captivity (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. 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.
First Appearance
Mario's name in other languages
Since Mario has appeared in so many countries, his name is translated into many languages. Here is a list of his name in other languages.
Chinese: 马力欧
Japanese: マリオ
Attention: Please add other languages to this page if you know it!!!!
