25 Crazy Facts About Mario Characters You Didn’t Know

When Shigeru Miyamoto was a child, he had a traumatic event where he was chased by a dog. Fortunately, the dog was pulled back from biting him by the chain attached to its collar. Miyamoto used this as inspiration for the chain chomps.

Rather than wielding fire and super invincibility, Mario was originally going to ride rockets and have laser guns.

In the original Super Mario Bros. 2 booklet, it says “He thinks he is a girl, and he spits eggs from his mouth. He’d rather be called Birdetta.”

Luigi is pronounced “ruiji” in Japanese which means “Similar.” Of course, in the game, he’s the younger brother of Mario and looks pretty much identical to him until later versions in which he’s taller and slimmer.

In the Game Boy game Super Mario Land 2, Mario didn’t battle his usual hero Bowser but instead took on a new villain, Wario. It was Wario’s first appearance in a Mario game.

Wart first appeared in the video game Super Mario Bros. 2 as the main antagonist. He makes a few casual cameos in some other Mario games but not many. Surprisingly, he shows up in the Game Boy game, Zelda: Link’s Awakening. However, he’s not an antagonist.

While Princess Peach rules over the Mushroom Kingdom, Sarasaland is ruled by Princess Daisy and makes her first appearance in Super Mario Land.

If you take a second look at the original cover for Super Mario Bros., you might notice that Mario actually is dying. The lava is below him and the bricks are in his way. He’s tumbling to his death. Game over.

Being in the Mario world since 1985, Princess Peach has continued to show up time and again becoming a staple for the Mario universe. She has appeared in over sixty titles.

Not only has she been in a ton of video games, she made the Forbes list of wealthiest fictional people. They estimated her overall wealth at $1.3 billion.

Though we all know and love him as the plumber who goes in and out of large green pipes, in the very first Mario game, his occupation is a carpenter.

Originally, Luigi was just a copy of Mario with green clothes instead of red. However, in Super Mario Bros. 2 that all changed as they made him taller and gave him the ability to jump higher than Mario.

In order to defeat Smithy in Super Mario RPG, Bowser teams up with Mario and the gang instead of battling against them, a big turn for the villain who primarily was Mario’s main antagonist.

In Super Mario 64, the ghost Boo will shrink whenever Mario looks at it but grow larger whenever he turns away. The creator Takashi Tezuka based this off of his wife, who would be quiet when he paid attention to her but grow angry when he focused too much on his work.

Also, in Super Mario 64, Boo’s high pitched laugh is really just Bowser’s laugh sped up super fast.

In the early days of Nintendo, they named their jumping carpenter character after their landlord Mario Segale. Segale also happens to be an avid duck hunter.

The Masked Ghoul in Super Mario Land 2 is a reference to Jason Voorhees of the Friday the 13th films.

Making his first appearance on Mario Tennis 64, Waluigi was created out of necessity when Wario didn’t have a tennis partner. Of course, his name is a combination of Wario and Luigi.

In WarioWare: Smooth Movies, Luigi plays a mean violin and even shares his name with famed composer Luigi Boccherini.

As the legend goes, the Koopa Troopas were considered too difficult and the developers needed to create an easier starting opponent. So, the Goomba was born and, of course, is the first baddie you face in the first Super Mario Bros.

First appearing in Super Mario Bros., Toad is one of seven guards that serve Princess Peach. Toad both represents the single character but also the entire “Mushroom People.”

Sometimes the villain can be just as iconic if not more so than the hero, and this is certainly true of Bowser. He’s become so indispensable to the Mario canon, he’s been in 150 of their video games.

When Mario appeared in the original Donkey Kong game, his name was actually Jumpman.

In Yoshi’s Island, Yoshi could transform into various things like a plane or submarine. However, some ROM hackers discovered there were other unused transformations as well, including a mushroom and a tree.

Everyone knows about the magical star you can get in Super Mario Bros that lets you become temporarily invincible and fast, killing all the baddies in your wake. Well, apparently, it’s also the first Mario power-up to have eyes.