There's been some recent confusion on social media and elsewhere online about what the former voice of Mario, Charles Martinet, is allowed to do when it comes to promoting the iconic Nintendo mascot at certain public events.
It stems from a post shared by the online content creator Ricky Berwick, who mentioned how Martinet "wasn't even allowed to do the voice of Mario or any of his iconic character's voices either" at a convention he recently attended. Berwick added to this, claiming Martinet wasn't allowed to do any of this on video, but "off camera was fine".
This led to Charles Martinet responding to Ricky's original post – explaining how it's all about maintaining the integrity of the character and it's his call:
Charles Martinet: "Oh Ricky. I do the Voice for every Fan I meet. I just don’t improvise non-Mario phrases or dialogue. That’s my choice to be sure. I always maintain the integrity of the character. But come and visit me at any Comic Con or Fan expo and you’ll hear super Mario for sure! #woohoo"
Ricky Berwick: "As long as it's your choice at the end of the day."
In a separate video, Ricky actually shared a video of himself and Martinet – with Charles humming the Mario theme song on camera, but not actually voicing the character.
So, hopefully, it's a bit clearer now – if you do go to a convention to meet Charles, you can still hear him say famous Super Mario lines, but you might not be able to record it on camera, and don't expect him to just necessarily say anything, as it's apparently all about maintaining the integrity of the legendary character he voiced for many years.
Charles Martinet was originally given the title of "Mario Ambassador" in 2023 and last year made an appearance at Nintendo Live 2024. He's been officially replaced by Kevin Afghani in the video games, who most recently voiced Mario in the Switch 2 title Mario Kart World.
In some other Mario voice actor news, the voice of Peach last week revealed she was no longer voicing the princess after an 18-year run.