Mario, the mustachioed plumber who helped make Nintendo a household name in the 1980s, has put down the plunger and retired from his profession, according to the video game company.
Nintendo recently updated Mario’s official profile on the game maker’s Japanese website, and an English translation indicates his plumbing days are in the past.
“All around sporty, whether it’s tennis or baseball, soccer or car racing, he does everything cool. As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago,” Mario’s profile reads in English, gaming website Kotaku first reported.
Nintendo referred The Washington Times back to the character’s official Japanese-language profile when reached for comment Wednesday.
The iconic overall-clad video game character was originally known as “Jumpman” when he made his Nintendo debut in 1981’s “Donkey Kong” but was rebranded two years later in “Mario Bros.,” the first installment in what ultimately became the best-selling video game franchise in the history of the industry.
“Jumpman” was initially designed to be “basically a carpenter” but switched professions to better suit the “Mario Bros.” motif, video game creator Shigeru Miyamoto explained previously.
“With ’Donkey Kong,’ we have this gorilla who grabs this gal and runs away with her, and you have to go chase the gorilla down to save the lady. And the game’s stage was a construction site, so we made him into basically a carpenter,” he explained in 2010. “With ’Mario Bros.,’ we brought in Luigi and a lot of the game was played underground, so we made him to fit that setting, and we decided he could be a plumber. The scenario dictates his role.”
Mario maintained his plumber gig when Nintendo released “Super Mario Bros.” in 1985, the best-selling cartridge in the history of the Nintendo Entertainment System, the company’s hallmark console. He has since appeared in over 200 games across more than a dozen platforms, including last year’s “Super Mario Run” for the Apple iPhone, the fastest-growing app in iOS history.
• Andrew Blake can be reached at ablake@washingtontimes.com.
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