Hi there, welcome to Thomas Game Docs! So, the story of how Super Mario got his voice
has been told hundreds of times at this point. Voice actor Charles Martinet crashed a voice
acting audition which he wasn't even invited to, the interviewer was leaving as he arrived,
and Charles managed to convince him, "Please, just let me audition too!" And so, he told fine, fine, you can audition,
and Charles kept on talking and talking until the auditioner had run out of recording tape,
and he was told, you have to leave now, you have to leave. Charles thought that meant he didn't get the
job, but a week or so later he got the news: he WAS the new voice of super Mario! And, that's how Mario got his much-loved voice. But there's one detail in that story that
I think people skim over, and I find fascinating, and that's the specifics of how Charles give
him his voice. "Wahahoo!" Like how did he that voice? Well, Charles has explained in interviews
that he didn't want to go with traditional, gruff Italian plumber stereotype - "Hey, I'm
walking here" kind of thing. "Hey! I'm walking here, I'm walking here!" But how did he go from that to the Super Mario
that we know and love today - the high pitched, cartoony sounding, almost Mickey Mouse-like
character. Like, that's not what you think of when you
think of an Italian plumber, right? Well it turns out there's a pretty tragic
story behind how Mario got his voice. You see, a few years before the audition,
Charles had gone to these acting classes, and at the classes he met this guy with a
terrible stammer, an awful stutter, that he hadn't been able to get rid of for years and
years and years. And Charles asked him "How did you get your
stutter? Like, were you born with it?" But the guy responded, no no, it all goes
back to one specific event. You see, years ago, it had been this guy's
21st birthday, and a few friends decided to take him to see this comedian perform live
in Las Vegas. And his friends had told the comedian the
name of this guy, so he could mention him, wish him happy birthday or whatever. And the show started normally enough - the
comedian was telling jokes, people were laughing, as you'd expect. But mid-way through, all the lights went off
in the theatre, except for one spotlight which shone down on the 21 year old. And the comedian started making jokes about
this guy - not nice jokes, mean jokes like "Oh, you're so ugly! Oh, you should never have been born!" And he kept going on and on, and the more
he joked, the more the audience laughed, and the more intimidated this poor guy felt. And the comedian just kept going and the audience
kept laughing, and this guy was having an AWFUL time. Finally the show finished, he went home to
his hotel room. But the next day, when he woke up, he had
a terrible stutter, and a stutter that he had never managed to get rid of, I still believe
he has it today. And so, when the guy with the stutter told
Charles this story, Charles decided then and there, he would never tell jokes that hurt
anyone, or upset anyone, or could intimidate anyone. He wanted his jokes to be happy, and to lift
people up. And so, fast forward back to the audition,
and Charles was deciding what kind of voice could he give to this Italian plumber. He didn't know anything about the character,
other than he was in a video game, and he was an Italian plumber called Mario. His first instinct was to go with the typical
"Hey, I'm walkin' here" type Italian plumber. But, he was worried that that might intimidate
children, it could upset people which is NOT what he wanted to do with his comedy - he
had decided! And so, he figured he'd look somewhere else
for inspiration. And luckily for Charles, he had the perfect
guy to base his voice on. You see, a few years back Charles had taken
part in this Shakespeare production of the play "Taming of the Shrew". And Charles had played a character called
Germio. Now in just about every Shakespeare production,
there's a comic relief character, right? A character you're meant to laugh at, to kind
of lighten the mood after the more serious, Shakespeare-style melodrama. And in taming of the shrew, it's this old
Italian man called Gremio - he wouldn't hurt a fly, he's a super nice old Italian man,
and Charles had played him in the performance. And so, when he was in the booth, he suddenly
remembered this performance he'd taken part in, and he figured he could just take that
accent, and kind of raise it up half an octave or so, until it was a kid-friendly, happy-go-lucky
Italian plumber. "Wahahoo!" And that's how Mario got his voice, that's
the story - there's not much more to it than that. It's all thanks to this poor guy with the
stutter that Charles had metall these years ago. If it wasn't for him, Mario could still sound
like this scary Italian plumber guy, instead of the nice, friendly voice that we know and
love today. And so that is the story of the tragedy that
gave Mario his voice - I hope you found that interesting. If you did, you can subscribe to my channel
for more lost chapters from the history books of gaming, as I like to say, and you can follow
me on Twitter @thomasgdocs to see updates about me, yada yada yada. And I'll see you next week, it'll be a hoot. Bye!
