Charles Martinet To No Longer Voice Mario

Fans of Nintendo‘s Mario franchise would be pretty familiar with the name Charles Martinet. The man has been voicing our Goomba-stomping Italian plumber for the past 32 years, after all. Ever since Marinet took the job all the way back in 1991, we’ve been used to hearing his distinct high-pitched voice every time Mario makes one of his block-breaking jumps. Alas though, it seems that we will have to get used to hearing someone else’s voice coming out of Mario’s mustachioed mouth from now on. Especially now that Martinet is leaving his iconic role.

Charles Martinet: No Longer Mario Details

Nintendo of America has just announced on Twitter that Charles Martinet will be leaving his iconic role as the voice of Mario. In fact, Martinet is “stepping back from recording character voices” for Nintendo games entirely. This will include Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, and everyone else he voiced to date. In fact, Martinet himself has a short message for us also on Twitter. You can read the full text below:

My new Adventure begins! You are all Numba One in my heart! #woohoo !!!!!!!

So why is Charles Martinet leaving his most iconic voiced role? Unfortunately, neither Nintendo nor Martinet have made that clear. Nintendo’s official statement above mentions that Martinet is “moving into the brand-new role of Mario Ambassador”. However, they don’t mention at all what that means for Martinet. Even Martinet’s own Twitter post is incredibly vague on the subject, stating that he’s only on a “new Adventure”, and that’s it.

However, there is hope for more information about Charles Martinet soon. Nintendo’s official statement at the end reveals that we should “keep an eye out for a special video message from Shigeru Miyamoto and Charles himself”. They don’t give a release date for this video message though. Only that they will “post at a future date”. Tune back into THS later to find out more about that video message when we do.