has shared a video of Charles Martinet saying goodbye to his role as Mario, as well as revealing 𝓰that he calls Shꦗigeru Miyamoto "papa".
A few weeks ago, Nintendo dropped an absolute bombshell on Super Mario fans - Charles Martinet was moving on from the role and would no♍ longer voice Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi (among others), including not making an appearance in the upcoming Super Mario Bros. Wonder. Instead of voicing the characters, Martinet's would become the "Mario Ambassador", a role that's not been made entirely clear to us just yet.
When Nintendo dropped that news on us a few weeks ago, it promised that more iඣnformation would be coming soon and that there was a video message from both Charles Martinet and Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto in the works. As promised, , giving Martinet a chance to say goodbye to his time as the moustachioed plumber.
The video opens up with Martinet saying that it's a big day for Mario, the Mushroom Kingdom, and himself, before announcing that he's stepping into the role of Mario Ambassador, which makes it seem as if the news about Martinet stepping down was supposed to happen a bit later alongside this video. Martinet notes that the role will involve "travelling around the world, sharing the joy of the Mario family, and being able to continue meeting with all you wonderful fans" and that he considers being able to do so a great honour.
After explaining his new role, Martinet passes things over to Shigeru Miyamoto, who reminisces on the time he's spent with Martinet and the journey they've been on together. That being said, he does also incorrectly say that Martinet's first time voicing the character was in 1996's Super Mario 64, when it was actually 1994's Mario Teaches Typing. Probably not a surprise Nintendo doesn't want to remember that.
In one of the most heart-warming sections of the video, Miyamoto reveals that whenever he and Martinet would meet in real life, he would call him "papa", something that Martinet then demonstrates when the video focuses back on him. Miyamoto thanks Martinet for all of his work playing Mario and all the extra effort he's gone to to make fans happy, before saying that he knows he's going to make a great Mario Ambassador.
And that's it, seemingly one of the last times that we'll hear Charles Martinet officially discussing his time as Mario. It's an emotional watch for any Super Mario fan, but it's at least nice that Martinet got the chance to say something about it properly, rather than it just being said through a single image on Twitter.