Franchise: Mario

When Super Mario Bros. 35 and Super Mario 3D All-Stars were released, they were criticized for being preemptively planned to be pulled from digital storefronts on March 31, 2021. This, along with the DIC Mario cartoons coincidentally being moved from Netflix to Paramount+ on the same day, spawned an internet meme depicting Mario as receiving a medieval public execution by Nintendo on that date.

According to Super Mario Bros. Wonder's art director Masanobu Sato, Shigeru Miyamoto reportedly explained during the development of the first Super Mario Bros. that the reason why Goombas damage Mario when walking into them is because they bite Mario on impact. Due to graphical and hardware limitations, this could not be shown at the time. However, while Super Mario Bros. Wonder is thought to be the first game in the mainline series that shows this detail in gameplay, it's not the first game in the overall franchise to show it, as Goombas had been seen biting in earlier spin-off games like Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars.

In the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie", Mario and Luigi's family are prominently featured. This includes:

• Their Father, voiced by Charles Martinet (and bears a resemblance to Talon from The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time)
• Their Mother, who previously appeared in "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" and is voiced here by Jessica DiCicco
• Uncle Arthur, voiced by John DiMaggio
• Uncle Tony, voiced by Rino Romano (and was coincidentally mentioned in live-action segment "Glasnuts" from the TV series "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!")
• Aunt Marie, who's presumably married to Uncle Arthur
• An unnamed niece, who's most likely Marie and Arthur's daughter, being a first cousin once removed that's referred to as a "(second) niece"
• An unnamed grandfather, who's implied by the co-director Aaron Horvath to previously have been a boxer and wears an outfit similar to Luigi in the 1983 commercial for the Atari ports of Mario Bros.

Interestingly, all of the credited voice actors for the family are all of Italian descent to stay true to the family's Italian heritage.

According to Shigeru Miyamoto, the design of the family were based on character design sheets that former Nintendo illustrator Yoichi Kotabe drew decades before the film began production.

There are a total of 19 modern-day countries Mario has been to in an official Mario game to date.

Mario’s Time Machine has him visit Greece, Egypt, China, France, Germany, Italy, United Kingdom, United States, Austria, India, and Japan.

The Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games series adds Canada, Brazil, and Russia.

Finally, Mario Kart Tour features tracks based on cities from a few new countries: Australia, Singapore, The Netherlands, Thailand, and Spain.

The Japanese name for the recurring Mario series enemy Dry Bones is "Karon" ("カロン"), which is derived from "karakara" ("からから"), a Japanese ideophone that can be used as an adverb for clattering or rattling, or as an adjective meaning "dry". While one would presume that the English name "Dry Bones" was derived from that, it has instead been theorized by some that the name could have been taken from an episode in the Book of Ezekiel in the Hebrew Bible and Christian Old Testament. In Ezekiel 37:1–14, the titular prophet describes an event where God leads him to a valley full of skeletons, referred to as "dry bones" in multiple English translations of the passage. Ezekiel then restores them to life by preaching to them, with the book stating:


Although Dry Bones in the Mario series don't regain their flesh, they otherwise bear similarities to the Biblical prophecy in that they are undead, skeletal Koopa Troopas that can reform moments after being stomped on while making a rattling sound. Despite this, it's unknown if Nintendo has ever officially explained the origins of its English name, or intended these similarities in the enemy's design.

There is a cactus prop at Universal Studios' Super Nintendo World that does not originate from an official Mario game, but rather the fanmade mod Newer Super Mario Bros. Wii. At the time of the park's opening, a Google search for "new super mario bros wii cactus" would show images of Newer's desert levels alongside New Super Mario Bros. Wii, meaning that the cacti was likely added by accident, being mistaken for official Nintendo material.

One criticism that the 2023 film "The Super Mario Bros. Movie" received is that while composer Bryan Tyler collaborated with Nintendo veteran composer Koji Kondo to create a score that incorporates orchestrated rearrangements of iconic songs from the Mario franchise, there were too many moments of Illumination-mandated pop songs replacing the score in certain scenes. The most infamous example of this being the replacement of the original composition "Driving Me Bananas", a medley of songs from the Donkey Kong Country games, with a-ha’s "Take on Me" feeling somewhat out of context.

According to Jamey Scott, who worked in the film's sound department, Tyler fought hard to keep his orchestrated rendition of the Super Star theme in the film over the studio's suggestion of Van Halen's "Jump", and succeeded.

On February 14, 2013, Satoru Iwata announced the "Year of Luigi" in honor of the character's 30th anniversary. Over the next 13 months until the end of the Year on March 18, 2014, Nintendo released several games starring Luigi, including New Super Luigi U, Luigi's Mansion: Dark Moon, Dr. Luigi, and Mario & Luigi: Dream Team. Additionally, Luigi was prominently featured in Super Mario 3D World and NES Remix 2, along with being featured in merchandise.

Beffitingly for Nintendo's famous underdog, Nintendo later reported $457 million in annual operating losses for 2013, making it one of the worst years in the company's history.

The audio used for Bob-ombs, Monty Moles and Goombas in various games starting with Super Mario 64 is actually pieces of Mario's voice saying "Here We Go" from said game after being pitch-shifted. This would continue being the case even after Charles Martinet was replaced with Kevin Afghani starting with Super Mario Bros. Wonder.

Charles Martinet, the voice actor for Mario from 1990 to 2023, first officially voiced the character as part of a motion-capture Silicon Graphics interactive exhibition used at Nintendo trade shows (with the role at the time sometimes split between him and musician Steve Coyle). The first commercially-released product to feature his voice acting is purported to be the Super Mario Bros. pinball machine released in 1992 and produced by Gottlieb. According to Martinet when asked by a fan in 2018, Gottlieb "stole" his voice clips and did not credit or pay him for his acting. While the 1995 PC game Mario's Game Gallery is often cited as Martinet's first official role as Mario in a video game, the actual first credited video game to feature him as Mario is the 1994 PC educational title Mario Teaches Typing, where he replaced the DOS version's voice actor, Ronald B. Ruben.

A popular internet joke upon the release of Super Mario 64 was "What happened to Super Mario 4 through 63?" If one is to calculate every Mario game released before Super Mario 64, including outliers such as ports and titles not released on Nintendo hardware like Mario Teaches Typing, the game would be the 113th title on the series. However, if you were to only count games released on non-devoted Nintendo hardware and remove ports, the title would be, very anti-climactically, the 63rd Mario game.