You have stomped a thousand Goombas. Now find out how much you really know about the plumber who carried Nintendo for forty years.
10 questions on power-ups, characters, Mario Kart and the big games of the series, from the NES to the Switch.
Pick your level
The normal quiz sticks to what anyone who grew up with a Nintendo console has seen: the power-ups, the characters who help and hinder, the last castle of the first game and a few of the recent hits. If you have ever lost a race to a shell you never saw coming, you are in the right place.
Hard mode is for the people who watched the Saturday morning cartoon and read the manuals. It covers the real man behind Mario's name, the game Nintendo of America reskinned as a sequel, a famous glitch and the voice actors behind the "wahoo". Five out of ten there is a solid score.
When the NES arrived in the United States in 1985, the video game market was still recovering from the crash of 1983 and retailers were wary of anything that looked like a games console. Nintendo sold it as an entertainment system, with a robot accessory and a light gun, and Super Mario Bros. did the rest.
By the end of the decade Mario had his own breakfast cereal, a live-action and cartoon TV show, and a place in American pop culture that no game character had held before. Hard mode asks about some of that history.
Several characters and items have different names in Japan and in English. The questions use the names from the current English versions of the games, as they appear on screen today.
All ten easy level questions, with the answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Green
Green, as he has since the 1983 arcade game Mario Bros.
Correct answer: Plumber
Plumber, though you rarely see him unblock a sink.
Correct answer: It's-a me, Mario!
"It's-a me, Mario!", voiced for decades by Charles Martinet.
Correct answer: Green pipes
Green pipes, and sometimes a Piranha Plant lives inside.
Correct answer: Gold coins
Gold coins, many of them inside question blocks.
Correct answer: Makes him invincible
It makes him invincible for a short time, and the music speeds up to match.
Correct answer: An ape
An ape. Shigeru Miyamoto reportedly thought "donkey" could mean stubborn.
Correct answer: Bowser
Bowser, who shows little sign of learning from the experience.
Correct answer: His long tongue
His long tongue, and the enemies later come out as eggs.
Correct answer: Rainbow Road
Rainbow Road, where the falls are long and the friendships short.
Want to warm up before playing or double-check something? Open any question to reveal the correct answer and a short explanation.
Correct answer: Fire Flower
The Fire Flower, first seen in Super Mario Bros. in 1985. The Super Star makes him briefly invincible, and the Super Leaf from Super Mario Bros. 3 gives him a raccoon tail.
Correct answer: Spiny Shell
The Spiny Shell, better known as the blue shell. It first appeared in Mario Kart 64 and has been ruining comfortable leads ever since.
Correct answer: Chris Pratt
Chris Pratt. Charlie Day voices Luigi, Jack Black plays Bowser and Seth Rogen is Donkey Kong. The film took more than 1.3 billion dollars worldwide.
Correct answer: Wario
Wario, the villain of that 1992 Game Boy game, who had taken over Mario's castle. Waluigi followed in 2000, in Mario Tennis.
Correct answer: It was the first fully 3D Mario platformer
It was the first Mario platformer in full 3D, and its analog camera and movement became the template for 3D platform games.
Correct answer: New Donk City
New Donk City, whose mayor is Pauline, the woman Mario rescued in the original Donkey Kong. Delfino Plaza is the hub of Super Mario Sunshine.
Correct answer: World 8-4
World 8-4, a maze of pipes and loops that ends with the real Bowser. The seven castles before it each end with a fake one and a Toad.
Correct answer: Power Stars
Power Stars. Shine Sprites are from Super Mario Sunshine and Power Moons from Super Mario Odyssey.
Correct answer: Toad
Toad, or rather one of the Mushroom Retainers waiting at the end of each of the first seven castles in Super Mario Bros. The line has become one of the best-known in gaming.
Correct answer: Bowser Jr.
Bowser Jr., who spends Super Mario Sunshine disguised as Shadow Mario and blaming the real Mario for vandalising Isle Delfino.
Stuck on one, or just curious how nasty it gets? Every hard mode question is here with its answer and the reasoning behind it.
Correct answer: Mario Segale, landlord of Nintendo of America's warehouse
Mario Segale, the property developer who rented Nintendo of America its warehouse near Seattle. The story goes that he turned up demanding overdue rent while staff were looking for a name for the Jumpman character.
Correct answer: Kevin Afghani
Kevin Afghani. Charles Martinet had voiced Mario in the games since the 1990s and became a Mario ambassador for Nintendo when he stepped down.
Correct answer: Captain Lou Albano
Wrestling manager Captain Lou Albano, with Danny Wells as Luigi. Each episode opened with the two brothers in their Brooklyn basement, often with a celebrity guest.
Correct answer: Doki Doki Panic
Yume Kojo: Doki Doki Panic. Nintendo of America found the real Japanese sequel too punishing, so it swapped Mario and friends into Doki Doki Panic instead. The original reached the West years later as The Lost Levels.
Correct answer: A glitched underwater level with no end
A glitch. By clipping through a wall in World 1-2, players could reach a warp zone that sends them to a level the game labels World -1: an underwater stage that loops forever.
Correct answer: Mario Kart World
Mario Kart World, with 24 racers on track and an open world linking its courses. It was sold in a bundle with the console in many countries.
Correct answer: Dark Land
Dark Land, a world of tanks, battleships and airships. Pipe Land is World 7 and Sky Land is World 5.
Correct answer: Rosalina
Rosalina, who watches over the Lumas from her observatory. Her backstory is told in a storybook chapter unlocked during the game, and she later became a playable character in Mario Kart and Smash Bros.
Correct answer: Super Mario Land
Super Mario Land on the Game Boy, in 1989, as the princess of Sarasaland. Apart from a caddie role in a 1991 golf game, she then stayed away until the Nintendo 64 era, when Mario Tennis and Mario Party 3 made her a regular.
Correct answer: The Wonder Flower
The Wonder Flower. Touching one can make the pipes crawl like worms or send the whole level into a stampede. The Super Bell is the cat suit from Super Mario 3D World.