Help Wanted: Nintendo Announces Mario No Longer a Plumber

It's a-me, unemployed.

Nintendo has updated the resume of their plumber-in-chief Mario, though not the kind of addendum that he'd be stoked about. In the official Japanese-language profile of Mario, the video game giant has removed the cornerstone of the character’s backstory and franchise’s history: Plumbing. Mario, the hero known for traversing the Mushroom Kingdom, primarily through the underground plumbing system, has lost his main gig with the company saying that he is no longer a plumber. According to Nintendo:

"All around sporty, whether it’s tennis or baseball, soccer or car racing, he [Mario] does everything cool. As a matter of fact, he also seems to have worked as a plumber a long time ago…"

Of course, Super Mario is more than just a plumber and has held more than his fair share of odd jobs. Over the years, he has made several career changes. Some of his various occupations include:

• A licensed doctor
• A professional tennis player
• A jumpman
• A professional golfer
• Some sort of ecological crusader
• A professional go-kart racer

As illustrious as Mario's career trajectory has been over the last four decades, it's hard to separate his iconic denim jumpsuit from his blue-collar roots. When first introduced in 1981’s Donkey Kong, the character, then known as Jumpman, was a carpenter, as the game takes place on a construction site terrorized by a massive gorilla.

And the story behind Mario's day job has been such a long standing subject of fan speculations that in 2010, Shigeru Miyamoto at last explained how the character landed his first two jobs in an interview with USA Today:

"With Donkey Kong, we have this gorilla who grabs this gal and runs away with her and you have to go chase the gorilla down to save the lady. And the game's stage was a construction site, so we made him into basically a carpenter. …. With (1983's) Mario Bros., we brought in Luigi and a lot of the game was played underground so we made him to fit that setting and, we decided he could be a plumber. The scenario dictates his role."

Fans aren't quite sure how to deal with Mario being suddenly unemploted. It's not like he can live on the cakes he gets from Princess Peach in return for rescuing her.

Imagine if Mario was your actual plumber though. Come back from making him a cup of tea and find him jumping on your pet tortoise. Liability

— Joe (@steamedhamms) September 4, 2017

Us: Good morning! It's a beautiful day!Nintendo: Mario is no longer a plumber.Us: pic.twitter.com/CA4iNgOFbV

— Joe-Joe and Kim! (@joejoehasfun) September 4, 2017

If Mario isn’t a plumber anymore, does he drive cars now? Is this what Mario Kart 8 was preparing us for?“It’s-a me, your Uber driver!”

— Dannel Jurado (@DeMarko) September 4, 2017

It's Labour Day and Nintendo fires Mario from being a plumber? This is why the working man needs a union. pic.twitter.com/Fyqqu2Dfxt

— Scott Rüegg (@scottruegg) September 4, 2017

The "Mario is no longer a plumber" is important because Luigi still is a plumber getting good money

— 💚Luigi Odyssey💚 (@LuigiOdyssey) September 5, 2017

Mario is not a plumber anymore? Wtf? What about all the heavily-plumbing-based gameplay?

— Kumail Nanjiani (@kumailn) September 5, 2017

It's safe to say that despite Nintendo insisting that Mario may have worked as a plumber a long time ago or something, he'll still be the most famous pipe jockey in video game history. Try as they might, they'll never invalidate his license. After all, it appears that he'll continue to wear his trademark overalls for years to come, a tribute to his former life as a New York plumber.

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