10 March: Mario Day

Today is Mario Day, so here are 10 facts about the character Super Mario:

1. 10 March is Mario day because if you write the date US style, abbreviating the month, it’s Mar10, which looks like Mario. It’s not his birthday – it has been stated by Nintendo that Mario’s birthday is 11 October.

2. Mario was created by Shigeru Miyamoto as an extra character in his 1981 game, Donkey Kong.

3. He was originally known as Jumpman. However, the story goes that the employees in Nintendo’s US office had decided there must be a better name for the character to appeal to American audiences. They were working at trying to come up with one when their landlord arrived to demand the rent. The landlord’s name was Mario Segale, and they ended up naming the character after him.

4. Mario has appeared in a number of games and seems to be trying to emulate Barbie in the number of occupations he’s had. He was a carpenter in Donkey Kong, a plumber in Super Mario Bros. His officially recognised jobs are; plumber, doctor, racer, martial artist, professional Baseball player, Soccer player, and Basketball player, but there have been at least four unofficial ones as well.

5. Mario’s appearance was heavily influenced by the limitations of computer graphics in 1981. His Red overalls and Blue shirt were chosen to contrast against the background, and each other so it would be easy to see what he was doing. He wears a cap so the animators wouldn’t have to worry about animating his hairstyle as he moved. His large nose and moustache saved them having to worry too much about facial expressions.

6. Mario and his younger brother Luigi are actually Twins. This was stated in a 1995 platform game from the Mario franchise, Yoshi’s Island. They are delivered together by the Stork but get separated. Hence Yoshi’s mission in the game is to bring the brothers back together.

7. The games are mostly set in the Mushroom Kingdom with Mario and Luigi attempting to rescue Princess Peach from the villain Bowser. Miyamoto originally envisaged Bowser as an ox, but his preliminary sketch was misinterpreted as a Turtle.

8. If Mario and Luigi are the Super Mario Brothers, then it implies that Mario’s full name is actually Mario Mario. For a long time, Nintendo boss Satoru Iwata asserted that Mario didn’t have a last name, but after he died in 2015, his creator Shigeru Miyamoto re-asserted that the character’s name was Mario Mario.

9. Charles Martinet was the voice of Mario from 1991 to 2023. Since then the voice has been that of Kevin Afghani. Martinet moved on to become a "Mario Ambassador", promoting the franchise.

10. The theme tune is called Ground Theme. It was composed by Koji Kondo and is said to be one of the most recognised pieces of game Music ever. The tune remained in the Billboard ringtone charts for 125 weeks and has been performed in concert by live orchestras.