Nintendo has announced that Charles Martinet is no longer voicing Mario and will now serve as “Mario Ambassador” instead. Martinet, who turns 68 next month, has been voicing Mario since 1994’s Mario Teaches Typing, according to his filmography.
Charles Martinet 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’ll 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 thank 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.
We have a message for fans of the Mushroom Kingdom. Please take a look. pic.twitter.com/U1ASicOuTO
— Nintendo of America (@NintendoAmerica) August 21, 2023
Discussion (5 replies)
Join Discussion →Friends and I have been speculating as to why he isn't gonna be voicing the characters anymore, but yeah there's no concrete info. Seems like a waste to me, but I don't know all the details of why things went down this way. One of my friends wonders if it might be health issues. Maybe Charles just got bored and tired of it. Well thanks to him for all the years he did put in. No doubt his voices for the characters he did are iconic. Ain't gonna be the same without him. Almost 30 years he did the job, good gawd. Geezus I'm old, since I remember a time long before Charles Martinet was voicing those characters. A time when we had no idea what Mario, Luigi, Wario and whoever the f*ck else he did sounded like. But after Charles came along, we accepted him as the voices for those characters, and for all those years since, so it's gonna be weird he's gone now. His work is part of some good-@ss memories though.
The friend who told me about this yesterday also shared this video:
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[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.thegamecrater.com/charles-martinet-interview/[/URL]
F*CKING LIAR!!!
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[URL unfurl="true"]https://www.destructoid.com/new-mario-voice-actor-officially-been-revealed/[/URL]
It'sa gonna be tough to replace-a heem.