If you’re a gamer, especially a gamer from the old-school (back when blood was spilled between Sega and Nintendo fans!), you know who Mario is. If you’re a newer gamer, you’re probably…. perplexed at exactly how Mario acts.  He ain’t right, that there plumber.

Early in his life, Mario was a silent and brilliant man. Why, he was even a doctor!

Even that wasn’t enough for ol’ Mario. Always out for ambition, he even became a boxing referee!

But Mario’s ultimate challenge was about to come. His greatest foe of all time. No, it wasn’t Bowser and it certainly wasn’t a Goomba.

It was bricks, blocks, and assorted objects with pennies and hallucinogenic mushrooms inside of them. The Mushroom Kingdom’s construction union was notorious for hiding their gambling winnings and illegal substances inside their brick-makings. Mario, ever the clever man, knew just where to find the things he needed to feel no pain on his journeys and enough spare change for mustache wax.

However, these ultimate enemies had only had one weakness. One damned weakness. Mario’s forehead. Through three adventures to save his gal Peach, Mario fought these enemies bravely.

Unfortunately, this came at a terrible… terrible price.

BRAIN DAMAGE.

By the time of Mario World, he had tried to break blocks with his feet, but the damage had been done. There was no going back. One of gaming’s greatest heroes was reduced to a childlike state. Shouting “Woohoo!” “Wee” and such. What a shame. What a waste of genius.

The damage had already been to a once brilliant Dr. However, Mario was not out of the woods yet. When on vacation in Super Mario Sunshine, he had to clean up a world full of paint. Not just any paint. LEAD PAINT.

If the blocks weren’t bad enough, then the lead paint surely was the final nail in Mario’s mental state. He was never the same.

Perhaps the saddest evidence of Mario’s downfall was with Mario Galaxy. In what some gaming psychologists have deemed “a fantasy of the mind” for Mario, all of the adventure took place in his struggling brain, not the colorful universe he had dreamed. The game opens with Mario with his arms spread like an airplane, running around, no doubt thinking “I’m flying, Toad! I’m flying!” But for Mario, his feet never left the ground. Mario, how thee had fallen.

What’s next for Mario? Will he get a train, like Link, and go “ME-A TRAIN NOW! CHOO CHOO!”?

Time will only tell. Maybe one day he shall be cured…. one day.