By Cody Klyne, Arts Editor

t’s November, better known as
[Horcnee to some, and while many

of our classmates, friends, and family
struggle to come to terms with that fact
that maybe, just maybe, they don’t have
the genetic makeup to grow peach-fuzz,
let alone a Selleck, it’s up to the rest of us
to appreciate and celebrate those who can.
But let’s narrow the field. Let’s take the
rare opportunity to hit two birds with one
stone and celebrate a man whose recent
anniversary, back in late September,
marks his 25" year as the main man of the
Mushroom Kingdom. I’m talking about
your friend and mine: Super Mario.

Origins

Making his first appearance as
Jumpman back in the 1981 arcade classic
Donkey Kong, Mario is the brainchild
of prodigious Japanese game designer,
producer and all-around life guru Shigeru
Miyamoto. Renamed after ill-tempered
Nintendo of America warehouse landlord
at the time, Mario Segale, the character
re-emerged in 1983’s arcade release
Mario Bros. As you might deduce from
the name alone, this release also marked
the birth of Mario’s less popular, but still
well-meaning brother, Luigi.

While these titles were huge
successes for Miyamoto and Nintendo,
it’s the one that I have yet to name that
is, arguably, the sole catalyst for Mario’s
quick ascent up the metaphorical rainbow
road to success towards becoming the
icon in video game history that he is
today.

Super Mario Bros.

Developed as the successor to
the original arcade hit, Super Mario
Bros follows our hero through his first
adventure in the Mushroom Kingdom.
Running and jumping his way through
a variety of landscapes over the course
of Mario’s quest, players are compelled
to best a handful of nefarious flora and
fauna in an effort to rescue the damsel
in distress, Princess Toadstool (now
known as Princess Peach). After handily
trouncing the side-ways-shuffling,
mushroom inspired Goombas, and
expertly stomping the anthropomorphic,
turtle-look-alike Koopa Troppas, Mario
is put face-to-face with the evildoer at the
heart of the plot; the big bad and King of
the Koopas: Bowser.

Ox, turned turtle, and misperceived
as a dragon, Bowser owes his vivacious
looks to the combined efforts of
Miyamoto and long-time Nintendo
designer Takashi Tezuka. Appearing
throughout the series as the single-minded
“get Peach” antagonist, Bowser, like
the countless minions sent to die before
him, is defeated at the end of the game as
the result of a well-timed jump from the

 

eternal thorn-in-his-side, Mario.

25-years later, ever present in recent
releases, it’s this original jump mechanic
that continues to connect with players.
Allowing Mario to expertly move around
his environments as well as allowing him
a means to defeat his foes, the jump is the
real royalty in the land of the Mushroom
Kingdom. Released in 1985 for the
Nintendo Entertainment System (NES),
Super Mario Bros. acts as a timestamp for
what was undeniably a landmark moment
for the side-scrolling platform as a genre.
That said, it might surprise some of you
to know that, given even just slightly
different circumstances, the Mario we
know and love might have been packing
heat in the form of an M9 instead of the
heat of a magical fire flower.

Had the original concept, which
involved a jetpack, a rifle, a beam gun
and a hard to imagine shooting mechanic,
played out in place of the signature run
and jump game play, Miyamoto’s vision
of having Mario as the go-to character
for Nintendo may have never come to
fruition. Thankfully, this jet-powered,
gun-toting, odd-world Mario was dropped
due to the constraints of the console it was
being developed for. Voila! A classic was
born.

Perhaps most lovingly recalled
as the better part of a pack-in with the
light gun hunting game Duck Hunt,
which combined to be branded as the
North American “Action Set,” late-80’s
consumers received Super Mario Bros.
pro bono with the original purchase of a
NES. With that, gamers took their first
steps into the land of the Mushroom
Kingdom and haven’t had time to look
back.

A Man of Many Hats
While Super Mario Bros. may have
launched the titular character’s lifelong
career starring as the leading man in
countless videogames, saving Princess
Peach hasn’t always been the fulltime
job that it might appear to be. From
paying the monthly maintenance fees on
his personal pipeline, to sustaining his
gluttonous appetite for Super Mushrooms,
Mario’s become accustomed to living a
pretty luxurious lifestyle. Thankfully, he’s
willing to work for it. Here are just a few
examples of the odd jobs our hero has had
to take on to make ends meet and keep the
coins flowing:
Plumber
* His craft by trade, Mario’s seen a
lot of success as an independent
pipefitter. From his early work with
his brother, cleaning up the sewers
below New York City, to the tireless
work he’s put into bringing the
Mushroom Kingdom up to standards,
plumbing contracts have definitely
been the bread and butter of his

employment history. First contract:

Mario Bros. (Arcade, 1983)

Doctor

¢ “Curing” brightly-coloured viruses
the only way he was ever taught
how, with the liberal and aggressive
application of his patented
Megavitamins, Dr. Mario makes
claim to be the most educated,
or at least the best dressed, of his
guises. Donned in a spiffy lab coat, a
stethoscope, and a head mirror, this
is one doctor you should definitely
get a second opinion on. First
diagnosis: Dr. Mario (NES, 1990)

Go-kart Racer

° Like many, presumably, middle-aged
men, Mario’s got a soft spot for
fast cars. Always the conscientious
trendsetter, instead of buying the
classic Shelby Cobra in red with
blue accents that he’s been eyeing
for years, he invested in a low-
maintenance go-kart. First race:
Super Mario Kart (SNES, 1992)

Athlete

¢ Always average. Never the worst.
Never the best. Mario’s got a knack
for being consistently “okay” at
sports. Nevertheless, whether on the
court, field, or course, he’s got fire in
his belly and his eyes on the prize.
As long as they never test him for
Super Mushrooms abuse, he’ll keep
showing up for practice. First game:
NES Open Tournament Golf (NES,
1991)

Wardrobe Overload

The power-up. Appearing in Super
Mario Bros. in the form of Super
Mushrooms (which make Mario bigger),
Fire Flowers (that give Mario the ability
to shoot fire balls), and the elusive
Starman (that make Mario invincible
for a time), Mario’s gone through some
extensive wardrobe changes over the
years that are worth mentioning in
themselves.

Whether he’s donning adorable furry
duds (ala the Tanooki suit in Super Mario
Bros. 3), or something more practical
like a cape (Super Mario World) or
fashionable, like a blue Koopa shell (New
Super Mario Bros.), he’s become a slick
dresser with a distinctive look for every
occasion. A signature of the series, the
power-up is just another taken-for-granted
device in the world of Mario that might
not have happened, had circumstances
been different.

Discussed in a recent interview in
Japan’s Famitsu magazine, Miyamoto
explained the nature of the Super
Mushroom as a mechanic and how it...
sorta came to exist out of necessity. Going
back to the constraints of the system at the
time, the NES has a max resolution of 256
x 240 pixels, Super Mario Bros. was built
around a smaller Mario to better use the
space the team at Nintendo had on screen

 
   

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during the earlier stages of development.
With the world specced in relation to his
size, the idea to allow Mario to grow to
his originally planned larger form during
the game came naturally. Small Mario
was like the training wheel phase to the
big-kid machismo of his “Super” state.

Mario Factoids

¢ Few have uttered the phrase “It’s-a
me, Mario!” with such sugary sweet
vigor as Charles Martinet. Martinet,
an American actor and voice actor,
has voiced the character of Mario
for the past 15 years. Besides our
plucky, boisterous friend, Martinet
has also provided voices for Luigi,
Wario, and more.

¢ Super Mario Bros. has sold an
estimated 40.24 million copies since
1985. Though this figure is arguably
skewed in favour of the title, as
copies that were bundled with the
NES go towards this count, it’s an
impressive feat all the same. That’s a
lot of freaking Mario cartridges.

¢  Everyone’s favourite enemy, the
Chain Chomp, was inspired by a run-
in designer Shigeru Miyamoto had
with a neighbour’s dog who’d tried
to lunge at him during his childhood
only to be snapped back by his chain
inches from his face.

* — Mario’s full name is not “Mario
Mario”. Though this common
misconception is encouraged by the
title “Mario Bros.” , and reiterated
in the terrible 1993 live-action
Hollywood flop based on the
franchise, it’s simply not true.

Inspiring a Generation

Like Mario, and what he represents,
or not (and how couldn’t you), it’s hard
to deny the impact this Koopa killer has
had on our lives and in pop-culture at
large. From recently having a street in
a Spanish suburb named after him, to
pushing the envelope on interspecies-
relations (one of his oldest friends is a
gruff anthropomorphic mushroom and he
can often be seen fraternizing with a large
green dinosaur) Mario’s placement in
the echelon of important fictional people
is forever cemented thanks to his efforts
those 25 long years ago.

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