Swing your arms from side to side. Come on, it’s time to go. Do the Mario!
If those lyrics just triggered a Pavlovian response in your brain, you probably spent your afternoons in 1989 huddled in front of a wood-paneled floor TV. Before Chris Pratt was "doing the voice" and long before Charles Martinet’s high-pitched "Wahoo!" became the industry standard, there was one man who was Mario.
Captain Lou Albano.
He wasn’t a voice actor by trade. He was a professional wrestling manager known for wearing rubber bands in his beard and shouting until his face turned the color of a ripe tomato. Yet, for a brief, glorious window in pop culture history, he transformed from a WWE (then WWF) heel into the living, breathing personification of Nintendo’s flagship plumber.
The Unlikely Marriage of Wrestling and Video Games
It’s easy to forget how weird the late '80s were. Nintendo was a juggernaut, but they hadn't yet figured out what Mario was supposed to sound like. He was just a collection of pixels. When DIC Enterprises decided to produce The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, they didn't go looking for a Broadway star. They went to the squared circle.
Lou Albano was already a household name. He’d managed champion after champion and had recently gained mainstream fame playing Cyndi Lauper’s dad in the "Girls Just Want to Have Fun" music video. He had the girth. He had the Italian-American swagger. Most importantly, he looked exactly like the guy on the box art.
Producer Andy Heyward famously said that when he looked at Mario, he saw Captain Lou. It was a one-shot deal.
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The show itself was a bizarre hybrid. It started with a live-action segment set in a Brooklyn basement—Mario Bros. Plumbing—where Lou and co-star Danny Wells (Luigi) would deal with celebrity guests like Magic Johnson, Elvira, or Sgt. Slaughter. Then, it would transition into a cartoon where Lou and Danny voiced their respective characters.
He Almost Refused to Shave the Beard
Here is something you might not know: Captain Lou Albano almost turned down the role of a lifetime over facial hair.
His beard, held together by those iconic rubber bands, was his brand. It was how he made his living in the wrestling world. To play Mario, the producers insisted he shave it down to just a mustache. Albano was genuinely torn. He eventually relented—thanks in part to his wife’s encouragement and a little nudge from Regis Philbin—but the sacrifice was real.
In a way, that shave symbolized the transition of Mario from a silent video game sprite into a multi-media icon.
"The Big Slob That Did Everything Wrong"
If you listen to Lou talk about Mario in his later years, his perspective on the character was... unique. Honestly, it was hilarious. In a 2000s DVD interview, he described Mario as "a big slob that doesn't do anything right."
He didn't see Mario as a heroic, ethereal savior of kingdoms. To Lou, Mario was a guy off the street. A blue-collar plumber who loved pizza, got frustrated with his brother, and just happened to fall into adventures. That grounded, slightly "rough around the edges" energy is exactly why kids loved him. He felt like an uncle you’d have dinner with, not a corporate mascot.
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This gritty, Brooklyn-centric version of Mario influenced everything that followed for years. When Bob Hoskins took the role in the 1993 live-action movie, he was essentially playing a darker version of the archetype Lou had established. Even the "Mario" voice in the early CD-i games and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon kept that gravelly, New York accent.
The Brutal Reality of Production
While the show looked like a chaotic party, the schedule was a nightmare.
Danny Wells later recalled that they worked six days a week. They would film the live-action segments in a studio in Los Angeles until they were ready to collapse, then immediately head to another studio to record the dialogue for the animated portions.
Lou wasn't a trained actor. He was a performer.
Producers often struggled with his "one-take" style. If you asked Lou to read a line five different ways, it came out exactly the same every single time. He wasn't there to give you range; he was there to give you Captain Lou. And it worked. His chemistry with Danny Wells was genuine. They had an "Abbott and Costello" vibe that felt authentic because, behind the scenes, they actually liked each other.
The "Go to Hell" PSA and the Legacy of the Show
You can't talk about Captain Lou Albano Mario without mentioning the public service announcements.
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The show frequently ended with Mario giving advice to kids. One specific PSA has achieved legendary status on the internet. In it, Lou looks directly into the camera and warns children that "If you do drugs, you go to hell before you die."
It was blunt. It was terrifying. It was peak Lou Albano.
But beyond the memes and the rubber bands, Albano gave Mario a soul before the games were capable of doing so. He participated in "Do the Mario" dance-alongs and even offered to legally change his name to Mario during production (though he eventually backed out of that one).
He died in 2009 at the age of 76, but his version of the character remains the definitive one for a certain demographic. For us, Mario isn't a high-pitched "it's-a-me." He's a guy in a basement with a heavy accent, a heart of gold, and a slight obsession with linguini.
Why Captain Lou's Mario Still Matters
Today, Nintendo is very protective of their brand. Every "wahoo" and "mamma mia" is calculated.
There is something refreshing about looking back at the Captain Lou era. It was messy. It was low-budget. It featured a wrestler who barely knew how to play the video game he was promoting. But it had a level of human warmth that is hard to replicate with CGI.
Next Steps for the Nostalgic Fan:
- Revisit the Live-Action Segments: Most of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is available on streaming services or YouTube. Watch "Neatness Counts" just to see the sheer energy Lou brings to a simple plumbing skit.
- Track Down the "Captain Lou Is Missing" Episode: This meta-episode features Lou Albano playing himself as a guest star while Mario is "missing" (because Lou couldn't be on screen twice at once with 1989 technology). It’s a surreal piece of television history.
- Listen to the Voice Evolution: Compare Lou’s voice in the 1989 cartoon to Walker Boone’s in the Super Mario World series and Charles Martinet’s in Mario 64. You can hear the exact moment the character shifted from a Brooklyn plumber to a fantasy hero.