A Physical Fraction

It has been over 20 years since Mario the game was created and it is recognized as one of the top icons in the video game world. Almost everyone who has ever played a video game in his or her life would know exactly who Mario is. He is the hero on a mission that involves him defeating that evil mother fucker Cooper and then saving Princess Peach and after that live happily ever after. He has been on every Nintendo console made to date.

In the beginning, there was Donkey Kong. It was originally made for the Atari 2600 and it involved what would become the legendary Mario as we know him today. In Donky Kong you are supposed to free the princess from Donkey Kong's clutches. After completing the game, you have to start all over on a more difficulty level. It does not have an official ending. The sequel was called Donkey Kong Jr. This time however, Mario was the villain and you played as Donkey Kong Junior. There were 4 levels in the game and after the final stage it starts from over. Mario was just getting started and also had a game called Mario Brothers, which introduced Luigi into the mix.

Excuse me, but did you know...

Mario was first called "Jumpman." He was also a carpenter then, not a plumber.

Shigeru Miyamoto drew Mario as wearing a cap because he found drawing hair difficult. He also drew in the moustache, because it was easier to see than a mouth in the crude video game screen resolution back then.

Mario and his younger brother Luigi are known as the "Mario Brothers." This means that Mario’s last name is also Mario, so his full name is Mario Mario.

Mario has appeared in over 200 video games so far, has sold over 193 million units of games (all of the Mario series) and even has his own TV cartoon show. Super Mario Bros. 3 alone grossed over $500 million in USA.

Super Mario Brothers theme music, written by Koji Kondo, is known worldwide. It has inspired countless fan-renditions, including one played by Carlo Snatana on two guitars (viewed over 4 million times on YouTube!), played by Mozart on 11 string piano, and rapped by the late Tupac Shakur (RIP).

Mario is the most famous character in the history of video games, and perhaps is the most famous character ever. In a 1990 poll by Marketing Evaluations, Mario was found to be more popular (and recognizable) among children than Mickey Mouse and George Bush.

That the Mushroom Kingdom is modeled after the real city of New York. When Shigeru Miyamoto visited the city as a teenager, he was fascinated by the building-sized mushrooms that dotted the pristine landscape. Shigeru was a well known heroin addict at the time.

That the number of term papers and theses entitled "The Correlation Between Super Mario And Socialism" or "Mario Brothers: An Allegory For Communism?" written every year is inversely proportional to the number of fatal dorm fires caused by defective bongs?

The Mario Brothers arcade game was originally named "Fuckman Brothers", but was quickly changed when it was discovered that delinquents could easily use a marker to vandalize the machine's marquee to read "Pacman Brothers"?