Some fun facts about Mario Bros

Shopping Guides

Product reviews

Published on Wednesday, 18 December 2019 11:06

Last Updated on 18 December 2019

Monica Costa

0 Comments

You sure know Mario. My 13 year old son has been a fan since he was very young. Not because I allowed him to play with the playstation but because he played every time he went to any play date. Mario Bros has to be the most recognisable character from a video game. If I can remember it, anybody does. After all, the chubby, moustache hero has won millions upon millions of fans over the past three decades to become the ultimate gaming icon. And not without a good reason for it, as it brings all that is needed to make a good game. As the gifting season approaches, I am exploring what makes Mario Bros so charming. 

In its many titles, Nintendo introduces elements that attract and conquer not only the hardcore player, but also the person who has only the slightest contact with video games. So much so that it is virtually impossible to find someone who has never played or is unaware of the Super Mario Bros series. 

You can easily find Mario Toys on online market. 

It’s a successful journey that started back 30 years ago. Originally released for NES on September 13, 1985, Super Mario Bros soon conquered the world and spawned one of the most lucrative and popular entertainment franchises, helping the gaming industry to lift itself after the 1983 crisis.

As a symbol of this new beginning, the friendly moustache has become synonymous with video games and, not surprisingly, has accumulated more than 200 appearances in its own games or special appearances. More than that, it still has a number of curiosities that few fans know about. Some facts are well-crafted – such as the fact that Super Mario Bros 2 is actually a modification of another title – but others are almost unknown facts.

And to honor this illustrious figure on this rather special date, we have separated some details about the hero to show that, in fact, you do not know Mario as well as you believed.

Started from Popeye

You certainly already know that the character’s first appearance was actually in a 1981 Donkey Kong game. However, what few people remember is that, in fact, this title that became Nintendo’s first big hit was to be a Popeye game.

The company was playing a game inspired by the cartoon and the idea was to get villain Brutus kidnapping the annoying Olivia Palito. So the sailor would have to go rescue his girlfriend while his rival hurled objects to stop him. The problem is that the company lost the rights to the character in the middle of the process and, in order not to have to discard all the work done so far, they made some changes. That’s how the brute gave way to Donkey Kong – heavily influenced by the movie King Kong – and Popeye eventually became Jumpman.

In fact, the hero’s own name has undergone several transformations. Although Jumpman’s story is well known, few know that he had other nicknames before that. Also during the development of Donkey Kong, he was known as Mr. Video and Ossan, which can be translated as “uncle” or “middle aged man”.

The name Mario was only later inspired by the owner of Nintendo’s United States office. Mario Segale went to collect the late rent and the company decided to honour him in his game.

 

Mario’s first girlfriend is not Peach

By the way, still talking about Donkey Kong, it’s quite common to see people say that the jumpsuit kidnapped Princess Peach in the game. However, she was only even appearing in Super Mario Bros, four years later. This means that the moustaches’ true love interest is different.

When Nintendo turned Popeye into an original game, Olivia Palito gave birth to Pauline, initially called only Lady. She is considered the hero’s first girlfriend and, although overshadowed by the Mushroom Kingdom princess, still makes some appearances in recent games. 

Super Mario Bros was only 32 KB

When the original Super Mario Bros came to Nintendo, it was a huge gameplay and even visual revolution. Even its 8-bit graphics drew attention because of Nintendo’s preciousness in creating that world and its small details. However, all this work did not occupy more than 32 KB. That’s right, that huge NES cartridge was used to hold a game that fit easily on a floppy disk. Just to give you an idea, this is smaller than the vast majority of images you find on the Internet and infinitely lighter than the save of any recent game.

Armed and flying

Given the success of Donkey Kong, it was not long before Nintendo decided to make a game starring its newest hero. However, the initial idea of ??Super Mario Bros is quite different from the one we all know. After all, can you imagine the moustache shooting around?

As can be seen in the title’s conceptual arts, the original proposal was to place the character on a kind of flying cloud in which he was to deflect projectiles that were thrown at him. More than that, Mario would still use a rifle to hit his enemies from a distance.

 

Hopefully these facts can give you a new perspective on the Plumber.