AP Explains: Super Mario's global appeal

On Sunday, the Japanese prime minister turned up at the Olympics closing ceremonies to promote the 2020 Tokyo games dressed up as Mario, the eponymous hero of the popular video game series created in 1985. Who is Mario and how did he come by his global appeal? Japanese animation and game characters from Hello Kitty to Pac Man also made appearances in the closing ceremonies. But none of them may have the global reach of Super Mario, the game franchise that was a hit when Nintendo's video game system and Game Boy burst onto the scene in the 1980s. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's appearance as Super Mario was a crowd-pleasing reminder of how much the game helped spur on the videogame revolution in the U.S. and globally.