While “Super Mario Bros” has been in theaters since Wednesday, a look back at the origins of the famous character, and how his designers developed his iconic look.
Created in 1981 by Japanese creator Shigeru Miyamoto, the famous Italian plumber Mario is now showing his own animated feature film, in theaters since Wednesday.
From its very first appearance on an arcade terminal (in the early 80s) until today, this little character, who is one of the most famous in pop culture, sports an instantly recognizable look. Overalls, a red cap, a nice mustache and a pair of white gloves (which may seem quite surprising for a plumber).
As we recently revisited his name, today let’s dwell on the origin of his iconic physique. An appearance meticulously thought out to give Nintendo’s future mascot a face adapted to its role in the game, but above all conditioned by the technical constraints of the time.
On the arcade machine donkey kong, which marks his first foray into the world of video games, Mario (who is still called Jumpman at the time) must climb a scaffolding and save a damsel in distress captured by a huge gorilla. To do this, he must chain two basic actions: running and jumping.
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As explained by lecturer Alexis Blanchet (Cinema and Audiovisual Department of the Sorbonne Nouvelle University) on the waves of France CultureMario’s look stems directly from his role in the game, so a red cap was definitely put on his head as he was required to run, and Miyamoto wanted to avoid having to animate his hair in the wind.
As for his mustache, it made it possible to very clearly separate his nose and his mouth, offering the player a better reading of his face, at a time when pixels were numbered.
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Mario’s clothing was born from the same imperatives, as Alexis Blanchet also explains, in the program “Mario Kart is 30: why does his mustache still make us shudder?” :
“The overalls allow a flat color that will allow the movement of the arms to be quite visible on the sides of the character, which gives us the idea that the character is really thought around the notion of movement.”
Obviously, Mario is not the only mascot to have been designed according to technical constraints. Long before him, Disney’s and Warner’s first animated characters – such as Mickey Mouse or Bugs Bunny – practically all wore white gloves. A good way, at the time of black and white, to mark the difference between the hands of the characters and their bodies.
(Re)discover an excerpt from “Super Mario Bros”, currently in theaters…