It’s a Me, Mario Mario Mario

To differentiate between all the great double acts, one needs to be tall and thin, the other short and fat: The Blues Brothers; The Krankees; Me and my ex-girlfriend.

The prototype classic though, are the Italian plumbers, Luigi and Mario, who, for whatever reason, don’t bother doing the things that most plumbers do – shoddily welding pipes, smashing bathtubs against the wall as they carry them upstairs and check the laundry basket for discarded underwear. No, they jump on Koopas heads, take magic mushrooms and fanny about with Yoshis.

But the most important question about a pair of ficticious characters is: What is their full name? The name “Mario Brothers” implies that they share the surname of Mario.

This would make the big green doofus (nobody wants to be Player 2 when it means controlling that plank) Luigi Mario, but controversially, the red-dungareed Ron Jeremy lookalike would be Mario Mario. Could Nintendo really be entering the tradition of famous paedophile Humbert Humbert and famous football-chant-hero Neville Neville by giving him a double name? If you cross your eyes and stare at Mario Mario, it goes a bit 3D. And then your eyes hurt.

I fired off an e-mail to Nintendo to find out if there was an official answer. And would you know it, they bothered to reply.

Thank you for your email.

The surname of this family is indeed “Mario”, meaning that the brother in green is “Luigi Mario” and the brother in red is “Mario Mario”!

I hope this information helps!
Kind regards,
Jackson Davies
Customer Service Team Leader

Your Nintendo Team

Look at that, a team leader, no less. “Leave this one lads, it’s a job for me.”

So there we have it, despite Wikipedia’s contention that “Nintendo has never revealed Mario’s full name, stating only that it was not “Mario Mario” despite the implication of the Mario Bros. series’ title, and its use in the film.”

FUCK YOU, WIKIPEDIA, I HATE YOU. Unfortunately, due to Wikipedia’s horrendously complicated rules about editing, I can’t be bothered to jump through the hoops required to correct it. Source: Jackson Davies, TEAM FUCKING LEADER.

Mario’s parents were well unimaginative. He did the right thing switching to the Madonna or Pope style single-name convention.