Nintendo developed the character as its technology improved

The game turned Mario into a pop culture icon

The character has appeared in over 200 games and has had his own movies, television shows, and other kinds of entertainment.

'Super Mario Bros.' was released in 1985

The game was designed by Shigeru Miyamoto and Takashi Tezuka and published by Nintendo in Japan and North America in 1985. It’s seen as a landmark in the history of video games and minted the Mario character as a pop culture icon.

Mario was named after Nintendo’s landlord

“Donkey Kong” designer Shigeru Miyamoto replaced Popeye, the sailor, with the overall-clad, mustachioed carpenter Jumpman, named after his primary skill—jumping over rolling barrels. When the game was translated into English, Jumpman’s name was changed to Mario, a nod to Mario Segale, the landlord for Nintendo’s American office.

Nintendo began in 1889 as a playing card company

As a leading video game publisher, Nintendo has contributed to expanding the prevalence of handheld and console technologies for over a century. It has also developed franchise mascots that have appeared in other media, including Mario and Sonic.

‘Mario Bros.’ was a 'Donkey Kong' spin-off

“Donkey Kong” was a big success, spawning a sequel and a Mario spinoff: 1983’s “Mario Bros.,” starring Mario and his brother Luigi. Realizing his hero didn’t resemble a classic carpenter, Miyamoto turned Mario into a plumber and set the brothers loose in a sewer system that resembled the platform-climbing gameplay of “Donkey Kong.” Watch the gameplay below.

How the inventor of Mario designs games

Shigeru Miyamoto has created some of the most iconic video games in history, from Super Mario Bros. and Donkey Kong to The Legend of Zelda. The game producer boils down his creative philosophy to three basic principles: story, simplicity, and...

Mario's archnemesis hosted a children's show in the 1980s

"Super Mario Bros." grew so popular in the '80s, even King Koopa, the video game's villain, had his own television show, though it's been all but erased from TV history. There's good reason for that: It was a bizarre enterprise, featuring '30s cartoons, a grumpy stand-up comedian, and cheap production.

The levels for 'Super Mario Bros.' were designed by hand

Miyamoto and codesigner Takashi Tezuka sketched the world of the game—called Mushroom Kingdom—by hand before handing it off to developers. In the interview below, they show off some of those original illustrations.

The design changed video games forever

Miyamoto’s direction and Kondo’s sound showed younger generations the potential of video games, inspiring a more sophisticated form that moved far beyond the one-dimensional entertainment of the arcade era.

1993’s ‘Super Mario Bros.' was the first live-action movie based on a video game

The 1993 live-action adaptation was supposed to be an easy hit, thanks to the brand Nintendo had already established. But the film, starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, and Dennis Hopper was a critical and commercial flop. Hoskins would later called it “the worst thing I ever did.”

Listen to the evolution of 'Ground Theme'

Koji Kondo's "Ground Theme" is perhaps the most recognizable piece of music in all video games. As the Mario franchise expanded, the song remained, albeit with different arrangements and in different styles. You can browse every version of the song below. It's a fascinating decades-long evolution of a classic composition.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe dressed as Mario at the Olympics

In a 2016 ceremony at that year’s Summer Games in Rio, Abe dressed as Super Mario to celebrate his country hosting the 2020 Olympics. It was a logical move: The character is one of the most recognizable characters in the world and someone who’s now associated with Japanese culture.

Famicom was the predecessor to the NES

Before the Nintendo Entertainment System was released in the US, Nintendo released a similar console in Japan with some interesting differences, including a Delorean-like exterior and a built-in microphone for karaoke.

The mushrooms in 'Super Mario Bros.' are modeled after a real mushroom

Almost every mushroom in "Super Mario Bros." is based on the Amanita muscaria, sometimes referred to as the fly agaric, because it is known to attract flies. It's also the basis for the original mushroom emoji and the mushrooms from the popular game "Minecraft."

The speech software's origins at MIT led to Hawking's trademark voice being American

Stephen Hawking's trademark voice is called "Perfect Paul," but it mimics Dennis Klatt, an American researcher at MIT who developed the speech synthesis technology. Klatt used his voice during this development, which was immortalized through Hawking.

Memes grew alongside the internet

Early memes featured static images with superimposed text, but grew animated with the advent of video-sharing sites like YouTube and GIF-friendly imageboards like 4chan.

The 1987 Nintendo video game 'Stadium Events' isn't known for being particularly fun, but its scarcity has made it a highly sought-after item that has sold for up to $35K at auction.

John Madden is the only broadcaster to call Super Bowls on four networks

During his long career as an announcer, Madden called 11 Super Bowls across four networks—CBS, Fox, ABC, and NBC. Watch highlights from his first Super Bowl XVI in 1982.

Walt Disney’s Laugh-O-Gram Studio featured his earliest innovations in animation

Before he founded his iconic film company, Walt Disney was a young animator in Kansas City, Missouri. After scoring a contract to create animated newsreels for local movie theaters, Disney formed Laugh-O-Gram Studio, where he created innovative animated shorts that set the path for his later work.

Tesla has incorporated several Easter eggs into its electric vehicles

After a customer complained that the car's sounds woke up his baby, Tesla implemented "Joe Mode," which quiets sounds, in his honor. Autopilot can be used to engage a depiction of Rainbow Road from Mario Kart on the navigation screen.

James Earl Jones didn't become the voice of Darth Vader until after shooting had concluded

The archvillain was originally voiced by David Prowse, who played him on screen. But Prowse's Scottish accent, higher-pitched voice, and muffled delivery (due to the character's mask) made for an underwhelming performance. Jones was brought in during postproduction to do voiceover, recording all the dialogue in under three hours.

Microsoft's Flight Simulator is one of history's longest-running software products

The program originated from a master’s thesis project on generating three-dimensional graphics, which was later combined with flight equations. The first version ran on the Apple II in early 1980, but its creator licensed the program to Microsoft two years later,

Microphone technology made crooning possible

Before the electric microphone, vocalists needed to project to have their voices captured. The new technology, however, made softer, more intimate singing possible, leading to a new style of singing that took off in the late 1920s, with "crooners" becoming some of the first American pop stars.

IBM’s supercomputer Deep Blue beat Garry Kasparov in 1997

After defeating IBM’s Deep Blue in 1996, world champion Garry Kasparov lost their 1997 rematch 3½–2½. The match was a milestone in artificial intelligence, marking the first time a computer beat a reigning world champion.

'Muggle’ entered the Oxford English Dictionary in 2003

The Harry Potter term for a nonmagical person became an official English word when the Oxford English Dictionary added it in 2003—cementing the series’ influence on modern language and popular culture.

Famous Bigfoot footage stabilized using AI

Famous 1967 footage of a Sasquatch-like creature in a California forest has been stabilized using AI, clearly revealing the Bigfoot-esque creature to be a man in a suit.

Walt Disney's early film 'Alice's Wonderland' was a groundbreaking innovation in the silent film era

Long before Major League Baseball began allowing instant replay for balls and strikes, an umpire reluctantly used the technology to determine whether a hit was a home run, a move that inadvertently ushered in a new era for the sport.

Some Pokémon have been named after real and fictional organisms, while some real-world species have been named after Pokémon, such as Chilicola charizard and Binburrum zapdos.

The first robot in literature may have been a 'mechanical man' in 1907's 'Ozma of Oz,' a book in L Frank Baum's 'Wizard of Oz' series.

A vending machine run with Anthropic's AI went out of business after it was convinced to give away items for free and sell a video game console.

The animatronic shark from Steven Spielberg's 'Jaws,' the first modern blockbuster, was a complex underwater apparatus called 'Bruce.'

Memecoins are a type of cryptocurrency—a form of digital currency with a wide variety of uses—created around popular 'memes,' or viral internet jokes.

Domino's Pizza's 30-minute delivery guarantee was responsible for the chain's 1980s surge, but it was discontinued after the company was found liable for delivery driver accidents.

After 25 people used virtual reality headsets to practice flying with virtual wings—flapping their arms—their visual cortex responded to the wings almost as if they were real arms, treating them as body parts.

SpongeBob exemplifies Aristotle's philosophy for living well because he understands that happiness doesn't come from external factors like money, recognition, or power.

Sony set the standard for cylinder-shaped batteries when it repurposed manufacturing equipment used to make rolls of magnetic recording tape.

The name 'Silicon Valley' arose from the founding of Shockley Semiconductor Laboratory in Fairchild Semiconductor in 1956-57, founded near Stanford University in Palo Alto

In 1939, baseball star Lou Gehrig delivered his inspirational 'Luckiest Man' speech after retiring due to the health condition that now bears his name.

Clever Hans was a 1900s horse that was believed to be able to solve math equations, tell time, and read and comprehend German, until a psychology student discovered how he got his answers.

Hear 50 years of iconic hip-hop samples, the genre's foundational looped tracks

A researcher recently discovered an interview from 1967 between groundbreaking journalist Joan Didion and the Grateful Dead, years before the band became an institution.

The Mona Lisa's celebrity status and repeated restorations have obscured what made the painting so revolutionary for its time

The power and influence of the American presidency have expanded significantly over time—far beyond what the founders envisioned.

The story of Dollree Mapp, whose legal challenge over her 1957 conviction for possessing "obscene material" led to a major strengthening of the Fourth Amendment

The word 'jazz' evolved from 'jasm,' 19th-century American slang for 'energy'

Children are now three times more likely to say they want to be a YouTuber when they grow up than an astronaut, with some even attending 'YouTube camps' that teach kids how to create content for the platform.

El Niño, Spanish for 'the boy,' was named after Jesus Christ because the phenomenon resembled the weather changes observed around Christmastime.

Comedy legend Catherine O'Hara, star of 'Schitt's Creek' and 'Home Alone,' quit 'Saturday Night Live' after just one week to return to her old job.

Volcanoes 'die' when their supply of magma runs out, if they are shifted away from their underlying magma reservoir, or if they get clogged by collapsing or their magma cooling back into rock.