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• Mario Appearances(3)

  Other Mario games

  Mario games of other genres include various Game & Watch games; Mario Pinball Land, a pinball game for the Game Boy Advance;[35] various educational games; and the Dr. Mario puzzle games, (with Dr. Mario itself first released in 1990[36]). In these games, Dr. Mario throws vitamins that the player must align in order to destroy the viruses that populate the playing field.[36] 1996's Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System is the first Mario role-playing game;[37] six games have followed, including three in the Paper Mario series (Paper Mario for the Nintendo 64, Paper Mario: The Thousand-Year Door for the Nintendo GameCube, and Super Paper Mario for the Wii) and three in the Mario & Luigi series (Mario & Luigi: Superstar Saga for the Game Boy Advance and Mario & Luigi: Partners in Time and Mario & Luigi: Bowser's Inside Story for the Nintendo DS).

  Several other sub-series of Mario video games have been released. The Mario Kart franchise began with Super Mario Kart for the Super Nintendo Entertainment System, and is currently the most successful and longest-running kart-racing franchise.[38] Other Mario sports games include the Camelot-developed series Mario Golf and Mario Tennis, and, respectively, the baseball and soccer games Mario Superstar Baseball and Super Mario Strikers. In 1999, the Hudson-developed Mario Party series began on the Nintendo 64. The games revolve around a set of mini-games and are playable with up to four players. Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games (for Nintendo DS and Wii) is a collection of twenty-four events based on the Olympic Games. This was followed in 2009 by Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Winter Games on both systems, based on the 2010 Winter Olympics.

  In other media

  Apart from his platformer and spinoff-game appearances, Mario has made guest appearances in non-Mario games, such as Mike Tyson's Punch-Out!! where he is a referee.[39] Mario has even appeared as a playable character in NBA Street V3,[40] and SSX on Tour,[41] both from Electronic Arts. He also makes cameo appearances: in both The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past and The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, Mario appears on a portrait, and in Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes he appears as a small statue.

  Mario has appeared in every game of the Super Smash Bros. series,[42] and has retained his balanced abilities even when fighting characters from other series.[43] He brought with him items, stages, and characters to compete in the tournament. Mario's alter-egos Dr. Mario and Metal Mario have appeared as well.

  The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! television series and the live-action film, called Super Mario Bros., based on the video game series brought Mario into the TV and film entertainment realms. The show starred "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario, and the film starred Bob Hoskins as "Mario Mario", a plumber who is taken to an alternate universe (in which dinosaurs rule) where he must save the Earth from invasion.[44] Outside the original games, television shows, and film, he has spawned a line of licensed merchandise and appeared in popular culture. The Nintendo Comics System series, along with the Nintendo Adventure Books, were also created.