 Welcome to the Video Game Storytime Advent Calendar, in which we provide you with a teeny tiny video every day in the run-up to Christmas. Have you ever wondered why Mario is Italian? According to Shigeru Miyamoto, Mario's ethnicity was a deliberate choice, based on the comics that his creator used to read as a child. Miyamoto said, When I was younger, I used to enjoy comics and drawing comics as well, and among the comics that I read, some were Italian comics. And if you think about it, the big nose in the mustache is not a facial feature that's characteristic of Japanese people. And so I think that my connection to those Italian comics, probably I drew on that inspiration when we first drew the character. So there you have it. Mario is Italian because Shigeru Miyamoto thinks big noses and mustaches are cool. Mystery solved. Come back tomorrow for your next tiny piece of trivia.