What’s the History Behind Mario and How has the Franchise Developed?

Mario is one of the most iconic and universally recognizable characters in the world and with good reason too, since he’s been around for nearly 30 years. Mario is a hero that many people have come to know and love, but his beginnings weren’t quite as straightforward as you might expect. Here’s what history tells us about how Super Mario came to be:

Mario first appeared in an arcade game called Donkey Kong back in 1981, when Nintendo decided to use their own character design for the title. ‘Jump Man’ was the hero of the game and was tasked with rescuing Pauline (originally known as ‘Lady’), who was Mario’s girlfriend at the time. Even though Mario was out decades ago, it is still inspiring many games up to this present day, for example, there are many Mario themed slots available on sites like these, within this gaming platform, you have the option to play a wide range of traditional games like bingo, blackjack, poker and much more.

Jump Man was a very different beast to the Mario we’re all now familiar with. He didn’t wear overalls, blue overalls, red overalls or even green clothes for that matter, in fact, he simply wore a light blue shirt and white gloves. His appearance and personality were also significantly different from what we see today. Jump Man had an angry expression on his face that would become a trademark of later Mario games, and he behaved in an entirely different way too. Jump Man was an angry, frustrated man, and he was determined to destroy the giant ape Donkey Kong and he wasn’t going to let anybody stand in his way.

Jump Man didn’t last long as a playable character in the game and was soon dropped for Mario, who had been around for a number of years already at this point. Mario’s first appearance on screen came shortly afterwards and he proved to be a huge success with players. Unfortunately, the game was a huge commercial failure and was heavily criticized for being way too difficult to play. Soon after its release, Donkey Kong was taken off the shelves and relegated to the dust bin of history.

Jump Man didn’t go completely unnoticed though, despite his role in the game being significantly reduced. Mario became a recurring character in many of Nintendo’s early games and he even got his own title, called ‘Mario Bros.’ The two Mario’s were never mentioned as being related or having any sort of connection whatsoever, so it wasn’t long before Mario became one of most recognizable names in gaming.