A short history of how Mario, gaming’s most famous Italian, almost wasn’t Italian
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The list of celebrities that Italy has gifted to the world is definitely quite long: Dante, Caravaggio, Michelangelo, Leonardo da Vinci. But, obviously, the most famous of all remains a short and stocky mustachioed plumber by the name of Mario. But how Italian is he, really, and what exactly is his story?
I talked about it with a few Italian developers and found out that, in the end, almost everyone loves “doing the Mario”.
In the early 80s, video game characters did not really have a well-defined backstory or, even less, a national identity. Character design was all about the art that decorated the arcade cabinet, the manual or the magazine ads. Overall, the most important design choice was using a few pixels to design instantly recognizable characters on screen. When Miyamoto was finishing the design on the human protagonist for Donkey Kong, he recalled not having any clear ideas on who he should really be. The hero had placeholder names such as Mr. Video or Jumpman – having a great big charismatic gorilla probably seemed colorful enough. But, then, Italy happened. Or, rather, an Italian-American businessman.
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