Don’t forget about Captain Lou
Yesterday, Nintendo announced that Charles Martinet was retiring from the Voice of Mario. Sad!
In reality, Charles has been involved in decades of voice and acting work, across a plethora of medium and publishers. He voiced characters that don’t wear a read cap, like PROSTITUTE in Police Quest: Open Season and Paarthurnax in Skyrim. In fact, his newest role isn’t even Mario, as he recently voiced Magenta for Dragon Ball: Legends. Nintendo confirmed to several outlets that Martinet won’t even be voicing the character(s) in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder — although he’s going to transition to a new role as the official worldwide ambassador for Mario. So, that’s cool!
Anyhoo, though Martinet is perhaps the most recognizable voice (for Western gamers) he’s actually not the first to bring the character to life. Nay nay! There have been many before AND AFTER. Check out this collection of Mario’s voices through the years!
Saturday Supercade: Donkey Kong (1983-4)
Mario was a key character in the pre-NES Donkey Kong portions of the Saturday Supercade (1983-1984) cartoons. While DK was voiced by Soupy Sales (which is amazing) what might floor people is that Mario was voiced by none other than Peter “Optimus Prime” Cullen.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show (1989)
Of course, anyone who got hooked on the NES’s Mario games was also glued to the 1989 cartoon. The Super Show featured wrestling (and music video) legend Captain Lou Albano voicing a gruff Mario who’s not so much a happy-go-lucky character as he is ready to throw down in a bar.
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 & Super Mario World (1990-91)
The middle child of the Super Mario Bros cartoons, Adventures replaced Lou with actor Walker Boone as Mario. The scruffy voice continued though, and cemented Mario as being to use a wrench on friend and foe alike. Boone continued the portrayal of Mario into the Super Mario World cartoon.
The Super Mario Challenge (1990-91)
While not a “true” Mario voice, John Lenahan donned a very similar outfit and cap, albeit in different colors, during the run of this kids’ show.
Super Mario Bros at the Ice Capades (1989)
By now you should be seeing a pattern: Mario’s English voice was always showing up as gruff, with a thick Brooklyn Italian accent. That was the thing! And in live action, like at the ABC Ice Capades TV special, it was shining, man. We’re not sure who played Mario here, but Mr Belvedere as Koopa?? Heck yeah!
Super Mario Bros: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach (1986)
Even in Japanese, Mario’s voice always had an adult tinge to it. Here, he’s voiced by Tōru Furuya and really takes on that older brother role.
Super Mario Bros (1993)
Bob Hoskins was the first to play Mario in a full, big budget movie, and boy-oh-boy will that role ever be looked at with wonder. It’s that 80s/90s Mario that we all knew, but now he was… older?
Hotel Mario (1994)
There were Mario games not developed or published by Nintendo, and one of those was for the Philips CD-i. The game features a series of cutscenes, because… why not? It’s possibly the most bizarre iteration of Mario to date, voiced by Marc Graue, as he sounds like a car salesman annoyed at being interrupted from his lunch.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)
Chris Pratt.
Actually, it’s not a bad take on Mario. The theme of the film is pretty subdued, focusing on Mario as sort of an everyman form the real world, so changing up his voice may have been fairly jarring. It’s so basic, it’s okay.
CHARLES MARTINET
The legend.
Here’s his voice work in Mario 64, which was minimal at the time, but certainly showed the beginnings of a cartoon-influenced direction for the character.
Thank you, Charles!
No Comments