# Dr Mario

Dr. Mario is a Nintendo puzzle video game and the alter ego of Mario as a physician who tosses two-toned vitamin capsules at viruses inside a bottle. First released in 1990 for the NES and Game Boy, the title spawned decades of sequels, playable Super Smash Bros. appearances, and running online jokes about why the plumber suddenly holds a medical degree.

## Overview
Dr. Mario is both a 1990 Nintendo puzzle game and the persona Mario takes on inside that series, trading his plumbing overalls for a white lab coat, stethoscope, and head mirror[1]. Play centers on a bottle filled with red, blue, and yellow viruses; the player rotates two-toned capsules as they fall and lines up four matching colors in a row to clear them off the field[1].

In the game's fiction, Dr. Mario works at the Mushroom Kingdom Hospital alongside Nurse Peach (localized as Nurse Toadstool in English versions) and deploys vitamin capsules of his own invention to neutralize a tri-color virus outbreak caused by a lab accident[1]. Nintendo treats Dr. Mario as a distinct character from regular Mario in some spin-off media, most visibly the Super Smash Bros. series, where his moveset closely tracks Mario's but swaps fireballs for medical caplets[1].

The gameplay slots Dr. Mario into the tile-matching puzzle genre, an area later dominated by titles like Bejeweled but rooted in the Tetris-era design boom of the late 1980s[2].

## How It Spread
The original was followed by a long chain of sequels including Dr. Mario 64 on the Nintendo 64, Dr. Mario Online Rx on WiiWare, and Dr. Mario: Miracle Cure on the 3DS[1]. Publications including Nintendo Power and the video series Screw Attack ranked the game among Nintendo's best[3].

Dr. Mario became a recurring playable fighter in three Super Smash Bros. entries: Melee, Smash for 3DS/Wii U, and Ultimate, where he fights as a separate character from Mario with slightly heavier physics and caplet projectiles in place of fireballs[1]. The head-to-head multiplayer mode built the game's competitive scene, since combos where two chains clear on the same move drop garbage capsules into the opponent's bottle[4].

On February 1st, 2019, Nintendo announced Dr. Mario World, a free-to-play mobile game for iOS and Android built for a summer 2019 release[3]. The reveal set off Twitter jokes about the gap between Super Mario titles and Dr. Mario titles, with users including @MercuryCrusader and @SB2749 posting popular tweets riffing on Mario apparently squeezing medical school in between plumbing adventures[3].

## How to Use
In gameplay, players rotate falling two-colored capsules and stack them so that four or more same-colored halves line up vertically or horizontally next to a virus of that color, which then vanishes[1]. Levels typically end when every virus in the bottle is cleared, and losing means letting the stack overflow the top of the bottle[4].

## Frequently Asked Questions
### What is Dr Mario?
Dr. Mario is a 1990 Nintendo puzzle game and a Mario persona in which he plays a physician tossing vitamin capsules at viruses in a bottle[1].

### Where did Dr Mario come from?
The game debuted in 1990 on the Nintendo Entertainment System and Game Boy as a puzzle spin-off from the main Super Mario platformer series[1].

### What does Dr Mario mean?
Dr. Mario is the doctor version of Mario, working at the Mushroom Kingdom Hospital with Nurse Peach and clearing a tri-color virus outbreak using capsules he invented[1].

### How do you use Dr Mario?
Players rotate falling two-toned capsules and match four halves of the same color to a virus of that color to clear it, aiming to eliminate every virus in the bottle[1].

### Is Dr Mario still popular?
Dr. Mario is treated as a classic Nintendo puzzle title and is still a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate, with a mobile spin-off Dr. Mario World announced in 2019[3].

## References
1. [https://www.mariowiki.com/Dr._Mario](<https://www.mariowiki.com/Dr._Mario>)
2. [https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/swapadjacent/](<https://www.jesperjuul.net/text/swapadjacent/>)
3. [https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dr-mario](<https://knowyourmeme.com/memes/dr-mario>)
4. [https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dr%20Mario](<https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Dr%20Mario>)

---
Source: https://meme.com/memes/dr-mario
Published by meme.com — The Internet Meme Library