Mario is the longest-running computer game character (ofcoarse)
Nintendo's famous character 'Mario', a plumber by trade, first appeared in the amusement arcade version of Donkey Kong in 1981. Since then, Mario has made an appearance in more than 70 different games (26 of them leading role)(2003).
In the original, Mario was a carpenter called 'jumpman', but he was renamed when Nintendo's president in America noticed that the character resembled his lanlord, Mario.
His distinctive looks owes a lot to the limitations or early computer technology. On the low-resolution hardware of the early 1980's, it was easier to animate a moustache than a mouth, and a cap was easier to draw than hair.
Also more than 40% of American housholds own a Nintendo game system and the Nintendo game Super Mario Brothers has sold 40.23 million copies worldwide!