Happy Belated Birthday, Mario!

I'm not sure how I missed this, but yesterday marked the 25th anniversary of the release of Super Mario Bros. Although Mario appeared in games prior to Super Mario Brothers - 1981's Donkey Kong, 1982's Donkey Kong Junior (which featured Mario as a villain!), and 1983's Mario Bros. (which introduced Luigi) - it was Super Mario Bros. that made Mario world-famous and saved the video game industry. Prior to the release of Super Mario Bros., sales of consoles and games had collapsed, hurt by a glut of poorly made games from developers and publishers for systems like the Atari, Intellevision, and ColecoVision. Mario, along with the NES console it was packaged with, was largely responsible for the resurrection of the industry, which has persisted to this day.

In honor of this occasion, The Guardian's web site published a list of 25 facts about the portly plumber. See how many of them you are familiar with!