Mario is surely one of the most iconic characters that exist in the world and that many years ago transcended beyond the borders of video games to become a cultural phenomenon of the first order. So much so, that there are those who are able to compare it in popularity with nothing more and nothing less than Mickey Mouse. Maybe that’s too much to say? Probably not.
Why a plumber?
Here we could polish the legend by saying that historians disagree but the first appearance of Mario dates back to 1982 when Nintendo launched the arcade game Donkey Kong. At that moment, a more than recognizable character (cap, monkey and mustache) has to climb a structure under construction and, jumping the drums that a huge monkey throws at us from above, reach the top to save our beloved. In that development, Mario was not Mario, but Jumpman, although a year later he would take a letter of his own nature.
It was in 1983 when we got to the heart of the story because Nintendo released mario bros. A game starring Mario and Luigi in which we have to kill the turtles that come out of us while we leave the sewers in which we are through pipes. And finally we have pronounced the word magic: pipes, which are the ones that connect the character with his profession as a plumber.
Miyamoto himself, father of the creature, later confessed that it was precisely because of that setting in mario bros that the idea of turning him into a plumber came up and, from there, they decided to leave him as one more hallmark of the character that has lasted until today.
Have you stopped being a plumber?
Nintendo had a moment of doubt five years ago, in 2017, when it decided to (almost) delete from its character’s profile all reference to an activity related to plumbing, highlighting other occupations in which he did succeed through the many games he has starred in: “In fact, it even looks like he worked as a plumber a long time ago.” So from that attempt to make us forget his beginnings we have moved on to full recognition in recent times where he is still kept as a plumber.
Thus, on the official website of the Japanese, it can be read in Mario’s biography that «He is good at sports and can do anything, from tennis, baseball, soccer to kart racing. His profession is a plumber. However, the place of activity is not limited to that. In other words, he began repairing pipes and fighting the turtles that lived in them, but the success of his other facet as a video game hero has led him to have a very different life full of success and recognition.
It seems perfect to us that Mario’s professional career is respected and that that old profession that gave him fame in 1983 continues to be mentioned, although, as gamers, perhaps it matters more to us that Nintendo one day recognizes that that jumpman from Donkey Kong is actually the first leading role of the mustachioed Italian with a cap that has been brightening our lives for almost 40 years. Or not?
