Nintendo's Super Mario Has Gray Hair and Is Now a Silver Fox!

To paraphrase Stevie Nicks, "Time makes you bolder/Even Super Mario gets older." That's right; your favorite fictional characters don't stay young forever. Nintendo just released promo art in preparation for its new video game, the E3 2017 Super Mario Odyssey. And if you zoom in on the image, you'll see something new: Super Mario is a silver fox now. That's right; the character now rocks one gray hair. You can find it just above the top of his ear.

It makes sense, since Mario's first appearance was in a Donkey Kong video game from 1981. That would make the plumber 36 years old, so it only seems realistic for him to have a few grays. Plus, rescuing Princess Peach from Bowser every day must be pretty stressful.

In a 2005 interview with Nintendo Japan, Mario's creator, Shigeru Miyamoto, revealed that the character is supposed to stay in his mid-20s forever, dang it. (I feel the same way about myself.) The interview was conducted in Japanese, but according to Google Translate, Miyamoto said, "Normally, when you create a character and present him to the world, all the details get filled in: What's his favorite color? What kind of food does he like to eat? But aside from the fact that he's about 24 to 25 years old, we didn't define anything else."

So Nintendo went a little rogue with its newest depiction, but I'm here for it. Gray hair is sexy, and if you don't want to take it from me, take it from these guys.