(TotalConservative.com) – After 27 years of playing the flagship Nintendo character Mario from the Super Mario franchise, the voice actor has decided to retire from the role.
The character of Mario became an international cultural staple for many over the last few decades, and no one embodied the spirit of the cartoon Italian plumber more than Charles Martinet, who began voice-acting for the character in 1996 when the groundbreaking Super Mario 64 was released on the equally groundbreaking gaming system Nintendo 64.
Martinet, who is 67, also gave voice to other characters in the Mario universe, including Mario’s brother Luigi and the villainous versions of the two brothers, Wario and Waluigi. He also did voice acting for other games.
On Monday, Nintendo released a statement on Twitter announcing Martinet’s departure from his voice-acting role and that he will be “moving into the brand-new role of Mario ambassador.” Although Martinet will no longer be voicing some of their most famous characters, he will “continue to travel the world” to share “the joy of Mario” and interact with fans.
Nintendo also said to “keep an eye out” for a video message directly from Martinet himself alongside Shigeru Miyamoto, video game designer and the creator of Mario.
The Mario franchise seems to be doing well after all these years. The first game, called Mario Bros., was released in 1983, over 12 years before Martinet took on the voice of the famous character. Now, The Super Mario Bros Movie, which came out this year, brought in nearly $1.4 billion at the box office and became the highest-grossing movie adaptation of a video game in history. Martinet did not voice act for the character in the movie, which was taken on by Chris Pratt with mixed reactions from fans.
Fans started speculating that Martinet’s departure was imminent when some noticed Mario’s voice sounded different in recent promotional videos for Super Mario Bros Wonder, the latest installment in the game franchise.
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