Nintendo's flagship character was created by Mr. Shigeru Miyamoto, who joined the company at the age of 24 after graduating from college in Japan. Mario first appeared in the 1981 arcade game Donkey Kong as Jumpman and became an instant celebrity during the period when more than 60,000 arcade machines were sold. In the 1982 arcade sequel, Donkey Kong Jr., he was renamed Mario by Mr. Minoru Arakawa, the president of Nintendo of America, who named Mario after the owner of Nintendo's first warehouse, Mario Segali. The 1983 arcade game Mario Bros. was the first game to feature Mario as the title character; the game also featured the first appearance of Mario's brother, Luigi.
Mario in the Media
Mario's first T.V. appearance was in a cartoon series as a circus trainer in the Saturday Supercade on CBS from 1983-1985. His first starring role in a T.V. series was in the Super Mario Show in 1989 which combined live-action segments with animated features. Mario made his big screen debut in the 1989 movie The Wizard; which was followed by the Super Mario Bros. with Bob Hoskins playing the role of Mario.
Home on the NES
Nintendo's first U.S. home videogame console, the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) was released in 1985 with Mario starring in Super Mario Bros. The legendary title has gone on to sell more than 50 million units worldwide. Super Mario Land we released in 1989 with the launch of the Game Boy and has sold more than 14 million units worldwide.
Big Sales
Later, excited videogame players witnessed the first glimpse of the highly anticipated Super Mario Bros 3. Consequently the game became the first videogame to sell more than two million units, making it the best selling game in American videogame history. In 1991, the Super NES was released with Mario starring in Super Mario World. The extremely vast game featured the first appearance of Mario's dinosaur friend, Yoshi, and took a team of 16 more than three years to make. By the end of 1993, there were more than 100 million Mario titled games sold worldwide. The 1995 Super NES game, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island featured Mario as a baby.
And now with the launch of Super Mario 64 -- which Next Generation has called "The Greatest Videogame of All Time," Mario has appeared again and is certain to be both a popular and a fiscal success for Nintendo.
