Charles Martinet is Stepping Down as Mario…
sad day for Mario fans out there 10 a.m Eastern standard time today Nintendo tweets out a statement regarding Charles martinet which I’m sure most people getting through the first two lines of the statement you think he died thankfully no he didn’t but he is not recording lines for Mario and such anymore quoted from Nintendo stating they have a message for fans of the Mushroom Kingdom Charles marnay has been the original voice of Mario in Nintendo games for a long time as far back as Super Mario 64. Charles is now moving into the brand new role
of Mario Ambassador with this transition he will be stepping back from recording character voices for our games but he will continue to travel the world sharing the joy of Mario and interacting with you all it has been an honor working with Charles to help bring Mario to life for so many years and we want to think and celebrate him please keep an eye out for a special video message from Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles himself which we will post at a future date so another video from Nintendo will come in the near future regarding this whole
thing and interestingly enough some already kind of suspected Charles would be stepping back from voicing Mario Super Mario Brothers wonder and especially the upcoming WarioWare game Warrior move it voice clips
replaced Charles was basically retiring from voicing Mario and this is still huge it’s sad and kind of a major deal because Legacy voices for legacy characters it’s not a common thing in the video game Space usually more in animation and show or movie acting otherwise but characters in games like they get recast all the time easiest example Sonic the Hedgehog dudes have three different voices across those games many more if you had TV shows Fox McCloud from Star Fox Cloud Strife Final Fantasy Rayman and his original voice coming back for the Mario plus Rabbids DLC
was one of the longest reprisals for a legacy game character ever and there are some Legacy characters that do retain a legacy voice like banjo from Chris Sutherland voicing him throughout every single game including smash or ikuayotani from but Charles martinet for Mario was always the de facto Legacy voice actor for a legacy game franchise like Mario for over 30 years was Charles literally Mario he gave one of the most beloved characters in fictional media one of the most recognizable and beloved personas today for more than three decades Mario teaches typing was his first debut
as Mario’s voice back in 1991 1992 fun fact but we all know Charles as Mario basically so this is a tough pill to really swallow now that it’s true in the games too another end of an era basically and that’s really unfortunate and we don’t really know now why this came about two we don’t know if Charles just wants to travel and meet up with fans more he does have the special energy with both fan meetups and seeing the world that he wants to do that more we don’t know if he’s retiring from Voice work
altogether or specifically from Nintendo we don’t know if it’s him getting older which he is 67 years old so he is getting there for sure maybe he felt it was time to hang up the torch we don’t know if the this is Nintendo’s move originally for any of this or another reason too I don’t know they could reveal it in the upcoming video they very well could not I’m not sure how this change came about but this meant to find so many people’s childhoods and even adulthoods Nintendo made the games of course but Charles basically
defined the happy-go-lucky Jolly adventurous friendly cartoonish italian-like cinnamon roll Mario is and that kind of personality or exuberance will easily be in Mario for generations to come no matter how many more new voices take the mantle but Charles was the one that set that type of Personality for Mario in place for all these years he’ll at least still be around but man I’m gonna miss some voicing Mario for sure his 3D Mario speaking roles his roles especially in the Mario and Luigi games and the Mario Strikers and tennis games were among my favorite portrayals of
Mario in particular of course his portrayal of Luigi and Luigi’s Mansion as well plus again Mario Luigi but he also voices the Baby Mario Brothers Wario and Waluigi as well so it’s also a matter of getting new voice lines and actors for them too I wouldn’t be surprised if he genuinely felt it was just time too you know dude’s gonna turn 68 next month he’s getting old and he’s been voicing the character for 30 years like it could have been something as simple as just feeling like it was time to retire from the job hopefully
it’s as simple as that and nothing complicated or ill-mannered and slight spoilers for the Mario movie granted it’s been out for four months now it’s honestly extremely poetic it’s Charles’s last role in any Mario anything was the first major theatrical Mario movie done by Nintendo and his voice roles were both a mario-like character meant to emulate Mario’s debut as Jumpman man from his very first game and especially Mario’s father being a figure man to look after and care for Mario the very last thing he expressed being ecstatic and proud of both Mario and Luigi it
makes those scenes even more sad in retrospect now that this is happening but it makes it all the more heartfelt and beautiful that was his last role in a Mario piece of media and Mario Ambassador literally no other person more fit for that role Ambassador basically means someone acting as a representative or promoter of a specific activity and to most if not all of us Charles literally does represent Mario just by his voice so it’s nice to see him as an ambassador for the character and as far as the new voice actor the new guy
voicing Mario and potentially Luigi Wario and Waluigi on top I’m already convinced he’s gonna do a good job all the same Mario still sounds like Mario in Wonder Wario still sounds like Wario and move it neither to me at least feel like cheap cop-outs or anything lesser I’m sure Nintendo’s well aware whoever they get to voice Mario and the other from here on have big shoes to fill because voicing Super Mario is a genuinely big deal I doubt it’ll come to this but I do hope people give the new voice actors a genuine shot at
the role Chris Pratt managed to surpass most expectations voicing Mario in the movie as fine or passable at worst to unironically great at best for most people and the guy doing Mario and wonder is trying to sound like the Mario we’re used to and working well anyways I’d rather people not do the thing to where now that they know it’s not Charles they just write it off not even just because of the whole Chris Pratt getting immediate Flack and what happened there for the Mario movie but the retrospective oh if I didn’t know it wasn’t
Charles I wouldn’t have hated it or thought it was good but now that I do know it’s not him it’s immediately bad or not as good the shitty logic like that you know I’m also way too used to the whole Sonic voice changing and the whole debates with his voice actors with a lot of Rogers unbearable Roger’s amazing Jason’s bad Jason’s good same for Ryan Drummond Etc the very likely reality of it is Mario currently sounds good in Wonder he’ll sound good in the final game most likely same for Luigi and then later titles Wario
and Waluigi Charles will still likely get some checks from Nintendo because they do reuse his likeness for Mario very often anyways that’ll likely not change the new voices for these characters will definitely fill the shoes open for them to wear as it looks to be the case thus far and both Mario and Charles will be okay it’ll all be okay I’d love to see who the new voice actors are it’ll be like if Mario died as mustache head hair or has slightly different colored buttons on his overalls but it’s gonna be Mario still slightly different
from here on out but it’s still Mario Charles is also a great voice actor in other media too dudes not just Mario’s voice in the grand scheme he’s also voiced characters in Dragon Ball Bova for JoJo’s Bizarre Adventure dragons and Skyrim he has more range and skill than people give him credit for and even when I’m curious for Mario’s new voice Direction it’s hard to imagine anyone other than Charles voicing Mario but that’s done in official media now technically since the Mario movie already anyways appreciate you always Charles Martin a both for being a wonderful
joyful man himself as well as voicing one of our favorite characters for Generations well that’ll be it for this video and I should probably let you guys know see it’s kind of a secret I am the new voice for Mario for the Super Mario Mario Series yeah yeah oh you won thank you for watching and stay tuned for the vote of my new related content on YouTube super wowy sorry okay stay soup sister
