Obscure Mario/Luigi reference...

[tony_good]

This may be unlikely, but if anyone here has seen the very old film "Wages of Fear", is it purely coincidental that two of the major characters are named Mario (Yves Montand, the Frenchman) and Luigi (Folco Lulli, the Italian)?

Perhaps Nintendo reversed the two roles, as Mario is tall and thin whereas Luigi is short and stout.

Anybody ever made that connection? I remember hearing somewhere that Mario was based on Nintendo's landlord, but I'm unsure about the origins of Luigi.

That seems too big a coincidence. Or am I just out of my mind?

[Lady Jaye]

I think it's just a coincidence, especially since Luigi started out as Mario's identical twin, but in green (and it can be argued that the second Mario in the DK Jr. intro IS Luigi...). The only reason why Luigi was modified to his current type (tall and skinny) was a practical one: when Nintendo converted Doki Doki Panic to make SMB 2, they replaced the original character sprites with Mario character sprites. There was a tall and skinny character whose sprites were filled by Luigi. It's as simple as that.

As for the choice of the name Luigi, well remember that he started being known as Luigi in the original Mario Bros. I think that Nintendo just chose a random Italian name to match Mario, one that sounded good with the name Mario.