The Birth of Super Mario
Super Mario has appeared in over 200 video games to date.
But history shows that Mario may have never existed in the first place as in his first game appearance, Donkey Kong, Mario (originally called “Mr Video” or “jumpman” in the original western manuals) was only created as Shigeru Miyamoto could not get the licensing rights to the protagonist he actually wanted to use for the game, Popeye. Miyomoto thought that Mr Video would be unpopular and planned to use him for cameo appearances.
Mario’s Name was changed to what we now know it after a Mr. Mario Segale who rented a warehouse in Washington to Nintendo in America and visited the warehouse during the development of Donkey Kong to collect overdue rent and publicly berated Nintendo of America president Minoru Arakawa. It's also noteworthy that the princess that Mario rescues in Donkey Kong is NOT peach, but princess Pauline..
Despite it being knocked back a couple of times in the past, Mario’s full name was confirmed by Miyamoto during the 30th anniversary festival. Mario’s full name is in fact Mario Mario, making his brother’s name Luigi Mario. This does however explain the name of the original game “Mario Bros”
In his first appearance Mario was not even a plumber but changed profession later on when he appeared in Mario Bros, in Donkey Kong Mario was in fact a carpenter.
Mario’s now famous red hat was only ever created so that Miyamoto wouldn't have to draw a hairstyle, forehead or eyebrows to make animation easier.
Since 1990 when he first voiced Mario in Super Mario 64 Charles Martinet has voiced everyone's favourite plumber. He arrived at the voice audition and was prompted with voicing “an Italian plumber from Brooklyn” he thought to himself to use an older mobster style voice, then realised that the young target audience would find it too harsh, then his thoughts allegedly crashed and he began to babble in a softer voice, and his first words as Mario?:
"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."
The rest, as they say, is history.