Mario is a kind of mystery. We know very little about his background,
where he’s come from, and, critically, his family. There’s obviously Luigi, his brother. But even that's a bit inconsistent: it used
to be that Luigi was Mario's younger brother by a few years, but now they're supposed to
be twins. But that’s just one family member. Does Mario have any parents? Aunts, uncles, cousins? Well, in order to find out, I dug through
the games, the comics and the TV shows, all to answer the question: Who are Mario’s
parents? So, if we want to figure out the identity
of Mario’s parents, we need to travel back to the time of Mario’s birth, or rather,
when a stork delivered him and Luigi to their parents. In the game Yoshi’s Island, we see this
stork carrying Baby Mario and Baby Luigi on their way to their parents. Except, the villain Kamek intercepts them
on this journey, and steals Luigi! You as Yoshi have to carry Baby Mario around
while searching for the missing Baby Luigi. If you complete the game, the stork is able
to carry the reunited babies off to their waiting parents. And this is where we get our first look at
Mario and Luigi’s parents! Or rather, our first glimpse. As you can see, we only see the parents’
silhouettes, and the camera is positioned so that only the lower halves of these parents
are even visible. But, this does confirm that Mario and Luigi
have two parents. They do exist! Decades later though, the game Yoshi’s NEW
Island shows these same events in a bit more detail. The game opens with a recap of the events
of Yoshi’s Island, but they’re recreated in 3D. And so, here is the scene featuring Mario
and Luigi’s parents, except this time they’re 3D models, not flat 2D sprites. And, that means that you can actually go into
the game’s files to examine these parents in a lot more detail. So, I did that! It was hard. I spent 3 hours navigating old forum posts
and downloading sketchy software, until.... TADA! I managed to extract the 3D models of both
the mother and the father. ...aaaand, they don’t have heads! Yeah, so that’s not exactly surprising,
the game never shows their heads in that cutscene, so why would the developers go to the trouble
of modelling them? But, we can get a much better look at the
rest of their body. If we focus on Mario’s mother for a second,
first she has an animation where she walks up to the door... And then there’s also an animation of surprise. The father also has his own walking animation…
and one for when he’s surprised, too. Except, returning to Yoshi’s New Island
itself, if you keep watching that opening cutscene, there’s actually a plot twist! It turns out that the stork made a mistake,
and these are NOT actually Mario and Luigi’s parents after all. So, the stork continues on its way, in search
of Mario and Luigi’s ACTUAL parents. And, at the very end of the game, we finally
get a glimpse of the TRUE parents! Again, they’re 3D models, so we can go into
the game’s files to get a much better look at them. Except, these are actually the same models
used for the “fake” parents. That’s right, the positions of the mother
and father are switched around, I guess so it’s less obvious to players, but digging
around in the game’s files, there’s definitely only a single mother model and a single father
model. So, it’s no wonder the stork delivered the
babies to the wrong family - they’re indistinguishable from the real family! So, that’s all we get from the games. A little glimpse, and that’s it really. So next, let’s turn to the comics. Now, again, very little detail is given here,
but there is one time when both Mario’s mother and father can be seen. ...Sort of. One of the biggest Mario comics of the '80s
and '90s was called Nintendo Comics System. And there was a one-page comic published in
1990 called Family Album “The Early Years”, which shows some events from the early lives
of Mario and Luigi. Let me show you what’s on this page. “Some babies are born bald… but Mario
was born with a full head of hair! And a full face too!” “Little Mario showed a talent for plumbing
at a very early age…” Oop, pause for a second! Tada, it’s Mario’s mother! Yes, her face is strategically covered up
by a big burst of water, but this is definitely her. Okay, let’s continue. “...he even fixed his father’s pipe!” And, there’s the father! Again, this drawing is framed very carefully
so as not to show Mario’s father’s face, but this IS definitely the father. There’s no more mention of the parents here,
but the last two panels are still interesting and horrific, so let’s look at them too. “Mario led the neighbourhood softball league
in home runs! Here’s a picture of Mario with his lucky
bat!” “Mario’s interest in plumbing grew, and
by the time his baby brother Luigi was born, he could fix almost any leak...” So, that’s the whole thing. Certainly an interesting look at Mario’s,
uh, unique childhood, and also a rare glimpse at Mario’s parents. Rare, but not unique to this comic. Only one year earlier, an anime short was
released on VHS called Super Mario Issun-bōshi. Issun-boshi is a famous Japanese fairy tale
about a couple who wished for a child, and were blessed with a son who was only one inch
tall. And Super Mario Issun-boshi is a re-telling
of that fairy tale, but with Mario characters instead of the actual ones. So, Mario is only one inch tall in this anime
VHS. And, we also get just a tiny glimpse at the
parents once more. Here’s Mama Mario’s feet, as she towers
over the tiny Mario, and then here’s Papa Mario as he holds his son in his hands. While the feet of Mario’s mother don’t
really tell us anything at all, this shot of Mario and his father is pretty interesting,
since we get at least a tiny look at the father’s face. It appears to be very similar to Mario's face,
with a big moustache and kinda pudgy cheeks. HowEVER, Super Mario Issun-boshi is definitely
not canon. Mario is not actually 1 inch tall, and this
was not the story of his childhood. So, whether these are canonically his real
parents is pretty dubious. But I think it warrants mention nonetheless. So, so far we’ve really not seen very much. The edges of a face, a couple of silhouettes,
a pair of feet. It’s all pretty unhelpful. But if we move slightly further away from
what is considered “canon”, then we can finally get some more information about Mario
and Luigi’s larger family. And that comes to us courtesy of the one and
only “It's the Super Mario Bros Super Show”! So, if you’ve spent any time on the internet,
you'll likely know about the Super Mario Bros Super Show. It was a TV programme that aired in 1989 in
America, and it contained a mixture of cartoon sections, alongside live action. Luigi was played by Canadian actor Danny Wells,
while Mario was played by professional wrestler Lou Albano, aka Captain Lou. A legendary cast, truly! So, Mario and Luigi make brief references
to their parents on the odd occasion, but nothing very major. Until that is, the live-action segment “Mama
Mia Mario”. The episode opens with Mario and Luigi lounging
around, when all of a sudden, they get a call from their mother! "Mario Bros plumbing: You call 'em, we clear
'em!" Mario himself steps out the back door to take
out the rubbish, when all of a sudden, Mama Mario shows up at the door. And when the door opens… Here she is! Mama Mario! Take it all in, the clothes, the voice. In case it wasn’t immediately obvious, Mama
Mario is indeed played by Captain Lou, Mario’s actor. Now, Mama Mario appears throughout this episode,
only ever interacting with Luigi, for obvious reasons. Then at the end of the episode, she leaves,
Mario returns, and then there’s another knock on the door. This time, Luigi has to go take care of something
out the back, and then... The
door opens to reveal Aunt Luigeena! And yes, she is indeed played by Danny Wells,
the guy who plays Luigi. From a production standpoint, I love that
instead of coming up with some complex effect that would allow Mario to appear alongside
his mother, they just get Mario to leave the room every time Mama Mario appears, and vice
versa with Luigi and Aunt Luigeena. Now, Mama Mario appears in one other episode
of the Super Show, this time during a flashback to Mario and Luigi’s childhoods. Interestingly this time they do have her appear
alongside Mario himself, but she is still played by Lou Albana. It’s just, they never have Mama Mario face
towards the camera so you can’t see her face. She was played by a body double, and then,
Captain Lou went back and voiced over all her lines with his own voice. This is how the illusion of Mama Mario was
kept up! Very crafty… What about other family members, then? Well, we already saw Aunt Luigeena, but she’s
just the beginning. There’s a whole episode featuring Mario
and Luigi’s cousins, Marianne and Luigeena, not the same as Aunt Luigeena. Again, they’re played by Captain Lou and
Danny Wells, and again, Mario and Luigi are mysteriously absent for the whole episode. The same is true for the episode featuring
Mario Joe and Luigi Bob, another pair of Mario and Luigi’s cousins. That’s all the relatives who appear in the
show itself, but there’s also been a Grandma Mario, a Grandma Mia and an Uncle Tony. And then in other media, there’s also a
Grandpapa, and an Aunt Maria! And then, finally, there’s Marylin, who
is Mario and Luigi’s niece, and the only relative from Super Show who WAS NOT played
by the actors of Mario or Luigi. Oh, and finally she also has a mother too! …..And there’s a tray! A tray! There’s a tray! Nintendo of America released an official Super
Mario Bros tray. And there’s a painting on the wall of a
man who looks like an older version of Mario, and might be Mario’s father. Maybe. I don't know, it's only a tray!!! It’s only a tray... Uh, thanks for watching! Sorry for the chaos this descended into... If you want to hear about Peach’s strange
and canonically dubious family, I’ve made a video about that too. It’s on screen right now. And I’ll see you next week! Bye!
