 1. Popeye was the first Mario, to start!
In his new video game Donkey Kong, Nintendo’s Shigeru Miyamoto’s first choice for the protagonist was Popeye. If you take another look at the design of the Donkey Kong video game, you may picture and place the antagonist Bluto as the barrel-throwing Kong and Olive Oyl as the damsel in distress.
Fortunately for all of us, Miyamoto (Nintendo) was refused permission to use the Popeye character; as a result, he went on to create Mario, a character that is familiar to us all.                                                                                   Â
2. Mario Italian BackgroundÂ
Mario’s Italian heritage wasn’t established until the 1983 release of Mario Bros. Since the game featured multiplayer, it was determined that Mario should have an Italian sibling with a name that was nearly identical to his. “Because Mario’s name was there, we asked the American team to come up with some Italian names, and Luigi was one of the candidates,” reveals Miyamoto. It was ideal because Luigi is a well-known name in Japan and it shares the same sound with the Japanese term for “similar.”
The game’s setting was New York’s sewer system, where Italian plumbers fought a variety of bizarre creatures that had invaded the system’s pipes.
3. Mario was The first video game to have a movie
In 1993, a live-action film based on the Super Mario Bros. series was released; however, both critics and fans were unimpressed. Nevertheless, despite receiving a mixed response, the film has subsequently developed a cult following among fans of the franchise.
4. What Led To Mario Iconic Outfit?
Mario’s appearance serves a deeper purpose, as Shigeru Miyamoto explained to ShortList: “. When you designed characters, you had a space that was 16 squares by 16, so creating a normally proportioned person just wasn’t fun. So I started with a really big face, and then decided to fill in the body. I couldn’t really design a mouth, so I made the nose big and covered it with a moustache. And we couldn’t really depict hair, which is why I put a hat on him.”
It also helped that Mario’s arms were a different color from the rest of his body thanks to the overalls, making it simpler to see how they moved.
5. The Mario brothers are twins
Mario and Luigi are actually twins, despite the fact that their height, physique, and behavior may give the impression that they are just older and younger brothers. Yoshi’s Island, a platformer from the Mario series, established this fact in 1995. In the game, a stork delivers the twins to their parents, only for them to be separated shortly after. Yoshi sets out on an exciting quest to reunite the baby brothers, showcasing the strong relationship that exists between the well-known pair.
6. The Mario theme does have lyrics
It might surprise you to learn that the Super Mario Bros. theme song has lyrics.
The lyrics for the well-known soundtrack by Koji Kondo were created by Takashi Tezuka, the designer of Super Mario Bros. Although it was talked about, they were never included in the game’s instruction manual. Here is an example of one of them.
Today, full of energy, Mario is still running, running
Go save Princess Peach! Go!
Today, full of energy, Mario runs
Today, full of energy, jumping!
Today, full of energy, searching for coins
Today, keep going, Mario!
Get a mushroom – it’s Super Mario!
Get a flower – it’s Fire Mario!
Goomba! Troopa! Buzzy Beetle! Beat them all!
Mario is always full of energy and strong!
7. Mario and Luigi started off as the same height
Mario and Luigi were the same height when they initially appeared, with Luigi being recognized by a different color scheme.
Luigi replaced the character Maa, who was taller than Mario’s foundation character Imajin, and was only made taller than Mario because Super Mario Bros. 2 used Doki Doki Panic’s character designs.
For Super Mario Bros. 3, Luigi oddly went back to Mario’s height.
8. The best selling Mario game
Super Mario Bros., released in 1985, has sold about 40.24 million copies to date, making it the most popular Mario game ever.
Even while the game’s inclusion in the NES console helped, it’s still a long way clear of the second best-selling game, New Super Mario Bros. Wii from 2010, which sold 29.09 million copies.
