Mario and Luigi Mario were born to Tony Mario Sr. and Jane Mario in Queens, New York on December 31, 1960.Their father Tony was a small time hustler. At night he would run a private gambling club in the basement of the Mario's house. Despite of this the Mario family did not have much money so Mario and Luigi were forced to get jobs and learn to fend for themselves early on in life. The two started out as carpenters, but after an incident with a hacksaw, they quickly moved on to another profession.


Toad: Oh yeah, I remember the hacksaw incident. The Mario bros. were putting in a new front door at some rich lady's apartment in Manhattan. Luigi was holding a board on a table for Mario to cut. Right in the middle of cutting the board the lady comes in and starts screaming at them about the job taking too long. Mario lost focus for just one second and ended up cutting Luigi's thumb right off. They ran to the hospital to get it sewed back on, and ended up never coming back to finish putting up the lady's door.



Old Lady: Yeah I remember that bum Mario and that idiot Luigi. I am still waiting for them to get back from the hospital and fix my door. How long does it take to sew on a lousy thumb.

Narrator: The two brothers decided that a safer line of work might be more up their ally. Having no other job skills at their disposal, Mario and Luigi opted to become plumbers.

Luigi: Its not like I just woke up one day and said, "gee I would really love to fix toilets for a living." We were out of money, and needed some work bad. A friend of our mentioned to us that he had some old plumbing tools his dad used to use, so we were like, "alright we'll give it a shot."




Mario: I never minded the plumbing too much, to tell you the truth. It was an honest days work with good pay. Luigi always had a problem with it though. He was always talking about how someday he was gonna quit being a plumber and make it big as an actor or a singer. I was always pretty happy just doing my plumbing then going home at the end of the day.

Narrator: Young Luigi's eagerness to join the ranks of the Hollywood stars landed the brothers at a local audition for a video game that was being produced in America entitled "Donkey Kong." Producer Howard Lincoln's shares his memories on the event.

Howard: We were holding auditions for Donkey Kong in New York in 1983 I believe. We had already filled the role of Donkey Kong, who was to be played by the guy who was Chewbacca in the Star Wars movies, and we were looking for someone to be the good guy in the game. We had already seen several young stars, but no one seemed to fit the image we were looking for. That's when I saw Mario standing up against a wall on the other side of the room by his brother Luigi. As soon as I saw him I knew he was the one.

Narrator: When we come back, you will hear about how Mario came to be a star, and how one jealous brother made life a living hell. Next on VH1's Behind the NES.