El Comfortador @elcomfortador - Tumblr Blog

I would like to think that he'd get the reference.

Earl Moran - "Don't Try Any Pincer Movements On Me" - 1942 Iron & Steel Products, Inc. Advertising Calendar Illustration - Brown & Bigelow Calendar Co. - The American Pin-up Calendar Collection

hollowvoidly

cupofmeat

"Head of a Terrier”, Martin Theodore Ward.

parisartyparisexy

Lou Ferrigno, 1978

70sscifiart

Uncredited cover art for After the Rain, by John Bowen, 1965

popularsizes

This is a short story about Mario and his mustache.

By the time Donkey Kong Jr. was released in arcades, Mario was being drawn to truly look like some kind of Italian stereotype. Curiously, there are conflicting accounts for when Nintendo decided that the character would be of Italian heritage.

There's a 2008 interview with Wired in which Shigeru Miyamoto says that it was decided to make Mario Italian because he had a mustache.

However, there's also a 2022 interview with the Japanese gaming mag Nintendo Dream that states that it happened the other way around; they wanted an Italian character, therefore he was given a mustache.

But both these mustache origin stories skip over what seems like an obvious forebearer in Nintendo's own history: the 1979 video game Sheriff. The protagonist is a cowboy gunman who is depicting in the official art as having a tough guy sneer. However, when that's translated into pixels, it just looks like a mustache.

There's a 2009 Iwata Asks in which Miyamoto talks about realizing how giving Mario a mustache divided up the parts of his face in a way that would read well in the limited pixels of Donkey Kong. He doesn't namecheck Sheriff explicitly, but it's pretty clear that he learn these lessons from making the art for this game. And in this sense, Mr. Jack is kind of a spiritual ancestor to Mario — and another reason he has a mustache, fully separate from Italian stereotypes.

Anyway, read more stories like these in Mario 101, my big "weird" history of the Super Mairo games.

The weird history of Super Mario, told in one hundred and one stories.

#mario #super mario #super mario bros #shigeru miyamoto #nintendo

blkalycat

Safety Shower Demonstration

As I often do, I have written about the Super Mario games — but this time in a seven-part, 101-item "weird" history of the franchise. I think it's a fun overview that questions the presumed facts about how Mario and his games came to be.

Stuff like this:

The names "Mario" and "Jumpman" actually debuted in the same game.

The concept of the Koopa Kingdom as we understand it in the west doesn't really exist in Japan.

A random localization choice in Super Mario Bros. 3 essentially created a new female character that appeared in the 1993 live-action movie.

It is actually made clear in the original Super Mario Bros. instruction manual that no, you're not killing innocent transformed Toads when you smash bricks.

Dry Bones' name comes from the Bible.

There's a decent argument for why Pauline pre-dates both Donkey Kong and Mario.

Daisy was never meant to be a desert princess.

Read the whole thing by clicking below. I swear it's a worthwhile read.

The weird history of Super Mario, told in one hundred and one stories.

#super mario #mario #super mario bros.#super mario bros #nintendo

abobobo

Top: Unreleased artwork by Akiman for the Super Famicom version of Final Fight (1990). According to Akiman, he disliked the outsourced artwork for the port so much that he drew this, but ultimately his submission went unused. (Source) Bottom: The released cover art for Final Fight on Super Famicom. Artist unidentified. (Source)