science

Mario

Mario is a science topic covered in the lgStudy science library. This page brings together a partial reference excerpt, illustrations, worked examples, real-world applications and a short study plan, so you can understand Mario rather than just read about it. In short: Mario ( ; Japanese: マリオ) is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the Mario franchise, a recurring character in the Donkey Kong franchise, and the mascot of their owner, the Japanese company Nintendo.

Key takeaways

Mario belongs to science; place it in that map before memorising details.
Learn the definition first, then one example that makes the definition concrete.
Connect Mario to a quantity you can measure, compute or draw — that is where exam questions come from.
Reproduce the core statement of Mario from memory before moving on to harder problems.

Reference excerpt

Mario ( ; Japanese: マリオ) is a character created by Japanese video game designer Shigeru Miyamoto. He is the star of the Mario franchise, a recurring character in the Donkey Kong franchise, and the mascot of their owner, the Japanese company Nintendo. Mario is an Italian-American plumber who lives in the Mushroom Kingdom with his younger twin brother, Luigi. Their adventures generally involve rescuing Princess Peach from the villain Bowser while using power-ups that give them different abilities. Mario is distinguished by his large nose and mustache, overalls, red cap, and high-pitched, exaggerated Italian accent. Prior to being named Mario, the character was referred to as Ossan, Mr. Video, and Jumpman. Mario debuted as the player character of Donkey Kong, a 1981 platform game. Miyamoto created Mario because Nintendo was unable to license Popeye as the protagonist. The graphical limitations of arcade hardware influenced Mario's design, such as his nose, mustache, and overalls, and he was named after Nintendo of America's landlord, Mario Segale. Mario then starred in Mario Bros. (1983). Its 1985 Nintendo Entertainment System sequel, Super Mario Bros., began the successful Super Mario platformer series. Charles Martinet voiced Mario from 1991 to 2023, when he was succeeded by Kevin Afghani. Mario has appeared in hundreds of video games. These include puzzle games such as Dr. Mario, role-playing games such as Paper Mario and Mario & Luigi, and sports games such as Mario Kart and Mario Tennis. He lacks a set personality and consistent profession, allowing him to take on many different roles across the Mario franchise. Mario is often accompanied by a large cast of supporting characters, including friends like Princess Daisy, Toad, and Yoshi and rivals like Bowser Jr., Donkey Kong, and Wario. Mario appears in other Nintendo properties, such as the Super Smash Bros. series of crossover fighting games. Mario is an established pop culture icon and is widely considered the most famous video game character in history. His likeness has been featured in merchandise, and people and places have been nicknamed after him. He inspired many video game characters, including Sega's Sonic the Hedgehog, and unofficial media. The Mario franchise is the best-selling video game franchise of all time. Mario has been adapted in various media; he was portrayed in live-action by Lou Albano in The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! and by Bob Hoskins in the 1993 film Super Mario Bros.. Chris Pratt voiced him in the animated films The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023) and The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026).

Concept and creation

Shigeru Miyamoto created Mario while developing Donkey Kong in an attempt to produce Nintendo's first blockbuster video game; previous games, such as Sheriff, had not achieved the success of games such as Namco's Pac-Man. Originally, Miyamoto wanted to create a game that used the 1930s characters Popeye, Bluto, and Olive Oyl. At the time, however, because Nintendo was unable to acquire a license to use the characters (and did not until 1982 with Popeye), he ended up creating an unnamed player character, along with Donkey Kong and Lady (later renamed Pauline). In early development of Donkey Kong, Mario was drawn using pixel dots in a 16x16 grid. The focus of the game was to escape a maze, and Mario could not jump. However, Miyamoto soon introduced jumping capabilities for the player character, reasoning that "If you had a barrel rolling towards you, what would you do?" Continuing to draw from 1930s media, King Kong was an inspiration, and Mario was set in New York City.

Name Mario was first called "Ossan" by the development team behind the original Donkey Kong. Although he was unnamed in the Japanese launch release of Donkey Kong, he was named "Jumpman" in the English instructions and "little Mario" in the sales brochure. Miyamoto envisioned a "go-to" character as needed for any game he developed, though limited to cameo appearances because he did not expect the character to become singularly popular. To this end, he originally named the character Mr. Video, comparing what he intended for the character's appearances in later games to the cameos that Alfred Hitchcock had done within his films. In retrospect, Miyamoto commented that if he had used the name "Mr. Video", the character likely would have "disappeared off the face of the Earth".

According to a widely circulated story, during the localization of Donkey Kong for American audiences, Nintendo of America's warehouse landlord, Mario Segale, confronted then-president Minoru Arakawa, demanding back rent. Following a heated argument in which the Nintendo employees eventually convinced Segale he would be paid, they opted to name the character after him. This story is contradicted by former Nintendo of America warehouse manager Don James, who stated in 2012 that he and Arakawa named the character after Segale as a joke because Segale was so reclusive that none of the employees had ever met him. James repeated this account in 2018. A friend of Segale commented: "My direct understanding and perception is that Mario Segale doesn't mind at all the fact that his name inspired such an iconic character, and that he shows humble pride in that fact in front of his grandchildren and close-knit adult circles." Though it is implied by the title of the Mario Bros. series, in a 1989 interview, his full name was stated not to be "Mario Mario". The first notable use of "Mario Mario" is in the 1993 live-action film adaptation of the Super Mario series, and further in Prima's official video game strategy guides, in 2000 for Mario Party 2 and in 2003 for Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga. In 2012, after Mario voice actor Charles Martinet stated that the character's name was, in fact, "Mario Mario" at San Diego Comic-Con, Nintendo CEO Satoru Iwata said Mario had no last name, with which Miyamoto agreed the month after. Two months after Iwata's death in July 2015, Miyamoto changed his stance, asserting at the Super Mario Bros. 30th Anniversary festival that Mario's full name is indeed "Mario Mario". Mario can also be referred to as Super Mario when he acquires the Super Mushroom power-up.

… excerpt ends here. Continue reading the full article.

Illustrations

Mario: The character was named after real estate developer Mario Segale.[16] — The character was named after real estate developer Mario Segale.[16]

Charles Martinet voiced Mario for over 30 years before shifting to a brand ambassador position.

Worked examples

Example 1 — a first encounter with Mario

Start with the simplest possible case. Write down what Mario claims or describes in one sentence, then invent the smallest concrete situation in which that sentence is true. In science, the smallest case is usually a single object, a single equation or a single measurement. Check that every symbol or term in your sentence has a meaning in that case.

Example 2 — changing one variable

Take the situation from Example 1 and change exactly one quantity: double it, halve it, or set it to zero. Predict what should happen to Mario before you calculate. Comparing your prediction with the result is the fastest way to find out whether you understand the idea or only the words.

Example 3 — an exam-style question

Typical questions about Mario ask you to (a) state it precisely, (b) apply it to given data, and (c) explain a limitation. Practise writing all three answers in under five minutes; the third part is what separates a full-mark answer from an average one.

Applications of Mario

In research: Mario appears in science research whenever the underlying quantities have to be modelled precisely. Papers usually cite it as a starting assumption and then explore where it breaks down.
In technology and industry: Engineering practice reuses Mario in design rules, simulations and safety margins. Knowing the idea lets you read a specification sheet and understand why the numbers look the way they do.
In the classroom: Mario is common in secondary-school and first-year university syllabi. It links to neighbouring topics Corporate mascots, Donkey Kong characters, Fantasy (genre) adventurers, so understanding it makes those chapters shorter.
In everyday life: Look for Mario outside the textbook — in sport, cooking, traffic, electronics or the sky above you. An example you found yourself is remembered far longer than one you were given.

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How to study Mario in 20 minutes

Read the reference excerpt below once, without taking notes.
Close the page and write down what Mario means in your own words.
Compare your version with the excerpt and mark what you missed.
Work through the three examples above with pen and paper.
Explain Mario out loud to somebody else — or to Teacher Smith in the lgStudy chat.

Frequently asked questions

What is Mario in simple terms?

Why does Mario matter?

Because it connects several science ideas at once: it gives you a definition you can apply, a quantity you can calculate, and a way to check whether a result is plausible.

How should I study Mario?

Read the excerpt, restate it from memory, then work through the examples and applications listed on this page. The five-step study plan above takes about twenty minutes.

What does this page cover?

It gives you a compact reference excerpt plus original lgStudy explanations, examples, applications and study material on Mario.