Franchise: Mario

In 1983, an album was released on vinyl by Kid Stuff Records titled Donkey Kong (alternatively called Donkey Kong Goes Home), retelling the story of the video game of the same name. It is notable for not only potentially being the first time Mario was voiced (having an unknown release date in 1983, which was also the debut year of Saturday Supercade), but also giving Mario a stereotypical Italian accent with an "-a-" verbal tic as opposed to the gruff Italian-American accent that would be used in multimedia projects for the rest of the 80s (including Saturday Supercade), predating Charles Martinet's debut as Mario in Mario Teaches Typing by 8 years. According to Kid Stuff Mario voice actor Pat McBride, the reasoning for this voice direction was


Nintendo never gave the team behind Donkey Kong Goes Home any form of guidance for the project, and did not give any word - positive or negative - about the finished album beyond approving it.

Years prior to the animation studio Illumination having a film based off the Mario franchise with the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", the series had been referenced in a handful of films by the same studio, including Donkey Kong references in "Dr. Seuss' The Lorax" and "Despicable Me 3", and an homage to kicking a Koopa Troopa shell featured in "The Secret Life of Pets".

Starting with Super Mario 64, the Koopa Troopa's voice is an incredibly short snippet of "HUMAN, YELL - YELL: FEMALE", a sound effect of a woman gleefully screaming from the Best Service Voice Spectral Volume 1 sound pack, modified into different pitches and speeds. In some games, a different snippet from the sound effect is used to represent Koopa Troopas screaming or being frustrated.

Lexibook, a company infamous for low-quality unlicensed NES-based consoles (or "Famiclones") featuring plagiarized content from a variety of sources including Nintendo games, entered an official agreement with Nintendo in 2020 to license various Nintendo IPs including Animal Crossing, The Legend of Zelda, and Mario.

The lead technical character artist for Luigi's Mansion 3, Jeffrey Zoern, previously worked as the art director for Hotel Mario, another Mario series game themed around hotels that Nintendo has historically been reluctant to acknowledge.

In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", the Japanese name for the character Spike (the foreman from Wrecking Crew) was changed in the corresponding dub. Although no specific reason was given as to why the change was made, it can be assumed it was done to avoid controversy as the character's original Japanese name is "Blackie", which is also a derogatory racial slur in English-speaking countries used to refer to dark-skinned people of African descent.

On April 22, 2015, Nintendo of America uploaded a tweet with an image of a Waluigi plush doll riding a Wiggler plush doll, with the caption:


Someone at Nintendo of America forgot to spell-check Wiggler's name, because the term "wigger" describes a white person who emulates the cultural behaviors attributed to African-Americans.

Shortly after finding the mistake, Nintendo of America took it down and apologized for the error.

While filming the infamous live-action Super Mario Bros movie released in 1993, Bob Hoskins and John Leguizamo would deliberately get intoxicated before shoots to help them cope with the disastrous production.

In 1991, Nintendo and MCA Records released a compilation album titled "Nintendo: White Knuckle Scorin'". While the original plan was to have numerous rock and pop acts record songs based off Nintendo franchises, all but one of the songs contributed to the album have nothing to do with them. The album booklet featured a short comic loosely based on Super Mario World that was written and illustrated by the team responsible for the "Nintendo Comics System" comic book series released in the early 1990's. The comic and the album's release were designed to promote children's literacy, and was dedicated to Bobby Brooks, a talent agent passionate about promoting that cause who was killed in a 1990 helicopter crash that also took the life of blues musician Stevie Ray Vaughan.

The most notable thing to come out of this album's existence is an officially-licensed original song based on the Mario series titled "Ignorance is Bliss" written by Andy Sturmer and his then-girlfriend Sarah Wirt, and performed by Sturmer's psychedelic pop band Jellyfish. Sturmer, despite not being interested in video games, took it upon himself to make sure the song's lyrics remained relevant to the Mario series by directly basing them off of the album booklet's comic, which featured an illiterate Bowser ranting to Princess Toadstool about his plans of turning Dinosaur Land into fossil fuels and using his newfound status as an oil tycoon to join the real-life Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC), as well as how much he hates reading. Sturmer later described the song as a "mini-opera" that was "a lot of fun to write".

In the Super Mario World official guidebook interview, the game's composer Koji Kondo was asked how he came up with Mario's main theme, and revealed that it was originally very different, and went through multiple iterations. He commented:

Goomba's name in the Japanese version is "Kuribo" (クリボー), which means "Chesnut boy" or "Chesnut people". They were named like this because the character sprite was mislabelled by one of the programmers of the original Super Mario game, saying that it looked like a chestnut.

Paratroopa's Japanese name, 'Pata-pata' (パタパタ), comes from the Japanese onomatopoeia for flapping wings.

Koopa troopas' Japanese name, “Noko-noko” (ノコノコ), is the Japanese term for doing something without much care.

Lakitu's Japanese name, 'Jugemu' (ジュゲム); or 'Jugem' as it was romanized in later games of the series, comes from a rakugo folk tale. In the tale, a couple could not think of a suitable name for their newborn baby boy and so the father went to a temple and asked the chief priest to think of a name. The priest suggested several names, but they couldn't decide on one, so they decided to mix all of those names into one, the final result being:

Jugemu-jugemu Gokonosurikire Kaijarisuigyo-no Suigyomatsu Unraimatsu Furaimatsu Kunerutokoroni-sumutokoro Yaburakojino-burakoji Paipopaipo-paiponoshuringan Shuringanno-gurindai Gurindaino-ponpokopino-ponpokonano Chokyumeino-chosuke

Before Super Mario World, Koopa Troopas walked on all four legs.

According to the Mario Kart Double Dash and Mario Kart Wii official guides, the character Daisy is Princess Peach's cousin. However, there are no official sources or in-game evidence that confirms this.

According to a interview with ABC News, when Shigeru Miyamoto was asked why Daisy and Wario aren't a part of the main Mario titles, Miyamoto replied that "Both Daisy and Wario were originally drawn as part of the "Mario Land" games and had the same illustrator. The art style of those games was different from the "Mario World" series with Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach, and for a long time that was the reason that we didn't have those characters enter into each other's stories." Despite this statement, Wario did appear in the DS update of Super Mario 64 and Mario faced off against the enemies of Wario Land 3 in Dr. Mario 64. This not only explains their absence in main Mario games, but also might explain the lack of direct representation of their games in the Mario spin off games in terms locations, enemies, characters, and special moves such as Wario's iconic shoulder bash.

Daisy would eventually be included in the main Mario games as a character added to the mobile game Super Mario Run in the Ver. 3.0.4 update, in addition to having a role in Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

According to a Nintendo documentary, Wario is Mario's childhood friend who grew up with the same plumbing skills.

According to a Nintendo Documentary, Mario's favorite music is not only Opera, but Euro-Pop as well.

According to Eiji Anouma, Miyamoto got the idea of naming Mario from Marionette. Marionette is a puppet controlled from above with strings or wires. Miyamoto also made puppets during his days at school where he would display his puppets in front of the class.