Why is Mario red? Nintendo’s plumber is immediately recognizable thanks to the bright color of his polo shirt and cap. This color was chosen for a very specific and above all very simple reason. Today, we explain this story to you.
Mario is more than a video game character, he is a pop culture icon recognizable at first glance. It’s thanks to its simple design and red cap… but actually, why is Mario red? We’ll explain it to you.
The Mario we know today is dressed in a red sweater and blue overalls. This was not always the case, as early in his career his colors were reversed. But why was the plumber wearing scarlet overalls?
If Mario is red, it’s for a very simple reason
Mario appeared for the first time in the arcade game Donkey Kong in 1981. He is then named Jumpman (and is a carpenter, not a plumber). His goal is to rescue the princess from the clutches of a horrible gorilla.
The game is presented as a succession of levels on a single screen. Donkey Kong is at the top and swinging barrels on platforms. At the controls of Jumpman, the goal is to reach the top by showing patience and skill. The player’s eyes must therefore constantly be fixed on the hero. To make it clearly visible, creator Shigeru Miyamoto decided to give it this bright red color. Enough to make it stand out against the black background, quite simply! Likewise, the addition of the cap allows you to see your head clearly, something impossible with dark hair. Mario’s iconic design is already here!
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But why is Luigi green?
In 1983, the character returned to arcade machines with Mario Bros. This time the game consists of cleaning the sewers of New York infested by turtles (which will become koopas in the following games). Our hero is no longer called Jumpman, but Mario, in tribute to Mario Seagale, real estate developer who rented premises to Nintendo of America.
The particularity of the game is that you can have fun together. A new character, Luigi, is therefore added to the adventure. Due to technical limitations, Luigi uses the same “sprite” (appearance and animations) as Mario. To differentiate it, he is dressed in green overalls, this allows it to be distinguished as well as its brother on the black background. Green is chosen because it is opposite red on the color spectrum. Quite simply.
Mario, for his part, reverses his colors. His overalls turn blue and his polo shirt red, or the design we know today. However, the overalls return to their scarlet color in the game Super Mario Bros on NES (1985) in order to clearly distinguish them against the blue sky, but are reversed again for Super Mario Bros 2 (western version).
This is the cover of Super Mario Bros 3 in 1988 (Japanese release) which finalized its design. An outfit that he still wears today and which, initially, was only designed for technical reasons.
