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🕒 7 hrs ago

Super Mario’s $40M Name Swap: Landlord Inspires Gaming’s Most Famous Plumber

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Image & Source: mirror

Super Mario, Nintendo’s pixelated icon, ditched the name Jumpman in 1981 after Mario Segale, a Washington landlord with a formidable moustache, unwittingly inspired a $40M franchise rebrand. Why did Nintendo change Jumpman to Mario? How did Mario become a plumber? As designer Shigeru Miyamoto recalled, “They started calling the character Mario, and when I heard that I said, Oh, Mario's a great name, let's use that.”

After Segale’s moustache upstaged Jumpman’s legacy, Mario morphed from carpenter to plumber, navigating 200+ games and underground pipe dreams. Who was Mario named after? Is Mario based on a real person? Miyamoto’s casual endorsement spurred surreal global devotion—imagine a universe where every plumber is mistaken for a landlord, and every landlord expects a starring role in Donkey Kong.

Donkey Kong’s original carpenter, rechristened as Mario by Nintendo’s U.S. warehouse staff, ultimately powered a franchise that sold 40 million NES games—thanks to a landlord’s uncanny resemblance.

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