Franchise: Mario

Koji Kondo, the composer of various Mario games, tries to make music that people can repeatedly listen to without getting sick of. He would listen to his own music for hours to see if he would get sick of it or not.

Before he became the voice of Mario, Charles Martinet was a Shakespearean actor. He even based his Mario voice on the character of Gremio from The Taming of the Shrew.

Ever since Mario's debut in 1981, there hasn't been a single year that a Mario game hasn't been released.

Nintendo has depicted Mario (previously Jumpman) with hair and no hat since the NES and Famicom. But in the early artwork for Donkey Kong, Mario was bald.

Princess Daisy's country of origin, Sarasaland, takes its name from the calico textiles imported by Portuguese traders from India to Japan during the Edo Period. Calico became widely popular in Japan to the point the Portuguese word for it, sarasa, was adapted into the Japanese language.

Calico (or sarasa) textiles are most commonly flower patterns made up of multiple, contrasting colors. This is why it is ruled by Daisy, a flower-inspired princess. And just as animal color patterns are named after the fabric (i.e., calico cats, calico goldfish, etc.) it's name alludes to the fact it is comprised of multiple, diverse kingdoms. The reason it is written as "Sarasaland," is because of the poor localization for the English release of Super Mario Land. In Japanese, it is: サラサ・ランド. Properly translated to English, it would be: Calico Land. A space or hyphen can be used in place of the interpoint.

Subsequent descriptions have rendered the name differently, as well:
•The ''Official Game Boy Players Guide'' omits the word land completely: "Sarasa"
•The Super Mario Land 2: 6 Golden Coins manual spaces the name out, but still leaves calico untranslated: "Sarasa Land"
•The Daisy trophy in Super Smash Bros. Melee hyphenates the name and leaves the 'L' in "Land" lowercase: "Sarasa-land"
•Daisy's Mario Superstar Baseball profile misspells sarasa with "ra" added on the end: "Sarasara Land"

According to a 1993 Nintendo Character Guide, Yoshi's full name is T. Yoshisaur Munchakoopas.

Mario has starred in over 200 different games.

After the launch of Mario Strikers Charged, Next Level Games had pitched to Nintendo a Mario volleyball game titled Super Mario Spikers. Referred to during development as simply Mario Volleyball, it was to be a mix of volleyball and wrestling mechanics, and was presented with hints of a TV game show. It was intended for the Wii and work began on it around the end of 2006. Development was canceled in 2007 after the pitch had failed with Nintendo. The game was financed as a reward from the studio's previous work on the Strikers games, and the volleyball mechanic was thought to have been reused for Mario Sports Mix.

In the Mario Kart games, Rosalina is a heavy/large class character. However, in the Super Smash Bros. series she is a light class character. The reason she is a heavy class character in Mario Kart is most likely due to her height.

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.

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

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

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 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.

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

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

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

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

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.

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: