Had to happen sometime. Sad to see it come, but Charles has had a hell of a run. He will continue to be the template for Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi for the rest of the characters’ existence.
Very much, in my mind, like any new Looney Tunes voice actors are just trying to sound like Mel Blanc.
It’ll be great to hear Charles’ influence for years to come, even if he’s not doing (or doing less of) the performances anymore.
He basically invented Luigi’s personality on the fly.
Luigi was just green Mario, right until they put Martinet with a live 3D face animation rig at an event and “talk to Luigi!” was one of the options.
He then came up with Luigi as the slightly cowardly, not as confident, but good spirited and kind, companion to Mario. The voice tone, the mannerisms, he just made it all up and Nintendo loved it.
Without that, no Luigi’s Mansion and the green Mario dude would still have no personality.
Nah. Luigi had a personality prior to the 3D era. His modern portrayal is, at bare minimum, inspired by the Super Mario Adventure comics, where he was portrayed as the more cowardly of the two brothers. And that’s not even looking into things like the Super Show, which created Toad’s modern voice or the CYOA novels.
He put a voice to that persona, but he didn’t create it whole cloth.
Martinet himself explains how he made up the “cowardly” trait because at first, when people asked about Luigi, his way of dealing with it was replying that “my brother is too shy! Too scared! He can’t show up”.
I’ve met Charles Martinet several times at conventions. He seems like such an amazing person. He really does always put a smile on the faces of everyone in the room, no matter their age. Even seeing the remote interactions between Miyamoto and Charles here made me grin like a little kid.
Oh, and Charles really let his hair grow out!
Here’s a link to YouTube instead :)
https://youtube.com/watch?v=LbcE4-b0PKs&si=lKaqC0o9Id6EkOFx
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