Wario is a Nintendo character designed as the greedy, villainous counterpart to Mario, with his own Wario Land and WarioWare game series and a long history of YouTube parodies built around his voice and personality.

What does Wario mean?

The name is a play on Mario, swapping the M for an inverted 'W' and pairing with the Japanese word 'warui,' meaning 'bad,' to signal that he is Mario's wicked opposite.

How do you use Wario?

Online, Wario is mostly used as a parody subject: creators splice his Charles Martinet voice clips and WarioWare mini-game screens into sketches, raps, and reaction edits, as seen in Random Encounters' 'Wario Rap' and PewDiePie's WarioWare playthrough.

Is Wario still popular?

Wario is a classic Nintendo mascot who still appears in new Mario Kart, Mario Party, Super Smash Bros., and WarioWare releases, and his older meme uploads such as PewDiePie's 2013 WarioWare video still carry millions of views.

Wario

Q: Where did Wario come from?

He first appeared as the main villain of Super Mario Land 2: Legend of the Six Golden Coins on the Game Boy in 1992, designed by Hiroji Kiyotake at Nintendo.

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Published October 5, 2026

Wario is Nintendo's greedy, garlic-breathed rival to Mario who debuted in 1992 as a boss villain and later grew into one of the company's most parodied mascots online1. His exaggerated voice work by Charles Martinet, his WarioWare mini-game chaos, and his Super Smash Bros. Brawl debut fueled a wave of YouTube sketches, Let's Plays, and remix videos that turned the yellow-and-purple antihero into a long-running meme subject2.

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Overview

Wario is a Nintendo character designed as Mario's inverse, a hulking, treasure-obsessed antihero who wears a yellow and purple version of Mario's outfit and sports a jagged mustache1. Charles Martinet voiced him for decades, giving the character his signature nasal laugh and garlic-themed shouts, lines that fans later clipped and remixed into countless YouTube videos2.

As a meme, Wario mostly travels through game footage parodies, musical tributes, and reaction edits built around his crude physical humor and the frantic WarioWare mini-game format2. Fan edits tend to lean on three ingredients: his loud catchphrases, the chaotic one-sentence prompts from WarioWare, and his status as a greedy foil to Mario, which lets creators cast him as the chaotic version of any wholesome Nintendo scene3.

Gallery

Origin & Background

Platform

Nintendo Game Boy (character origin) / YouTube (meme spread)

Key People

Hiroji Kiyotake; meme creators unknown

Date

1992

Wario made his first appearance as the main villain of Super Mario Land 2: Legend of the Six Golden Coins, released on the Game Boy in 1992, with character design credited to Hiroji Kiyotake1. Two years later Nintendo spun him off into his own platformer series starting with Wario Land on the Game Boy, followed by sequels including Wario Land II, Wario Land 3, Wario Land 4, and Wario Land: Shake It!2.

In 2003 Nintendo launched a second Wario franchise, WarioWare: Mega Microgame$! for the Game Boy Advance, trading platforming for rapid-fire mini-games solved in a few seconds each1. The WarioWare line, along with Wario's recurring spots in Mario Kart, Mario Party, and the Mario sports titles, is what kept him in the Nintendo rotation long enough for an online fan base to form around him2.

How It Spread

Wario's online footprint picked up after Nintendo added him as a playable fighter in Super Smash Bros. Brawl, which pushed him in front of a much larger competitive and casual audience2. On January 14, 2008, fans launched the WarioWiki on Fandom, which went on to catalog more than 170 articles covering his games, moves, and appearances2.

YouTube is where the meme side really took shape. On January 31, 2013, the channel Random Encounters uploaded 'The Wario Rap,' a song written from Wario's perspective and stuffed with callbacks to his game history, which pulled in more than 600,000 views3. A few months later, on April 16, 2013, PewDiePie posted 'MOST RANDOM GAME EVER! Wario Smooth Moves,' a playthrough of WarioWare: Smooth Moves with his girlfriend that climbed past 13 million views and introduced the character to a much wider YouTube audience4.

Beyond those headline uploads, Wario stayed a reliable subject for sketch channels, Let's Players, and remixers, with his voice lines and WarioWare prompts recycled into reaction edits and parody tracks2. Urban Dictionary entries from fans describe him as Mario's 'insanely rich cousin' with a 'kickass attitude,' capturing the affectionate-villain tone most of the meme content takes5.

Timeline

1992

Wario debuts as the main villain of Super Mario Land 2: Legend of the Six Golden Coins on the Game Boy, designed by Hiroji Kiyotake.

1994

Nintendo launches the Wario Land platformer series, giving the character his own franchise.

2003

WarioWare: Mega Microgame$! releases on Game Boy Advance, introducing the rapid-fire mini-game format.

2008-01-14

Fans create the WarioWiki on Fandom, building a hub for the character's growing online fandom.

2013-01-31

YouTube channel Random Encounters uploads 'The Wario Rap,' which passes 600,000 views.

2013-04-16

PewDiePie uploads 'MOST RANDOM GAME EVER! Wario Smooth Moves,' which later surpasses 13 million views.

How to Use This Meme

Wario memes typically pull from three wells: Charles Martinet voice clips (the 'WAH' and 'I'm-a Wario, I'm-a gonna win' lines), WarioWare mini-game screens with their one-word commands, and the visual gag of Wario replacing Mario in otherwise normal Nintendo footage. A common convention is to pair his crude, greedy persona against something earnest, often by swapping him into Mario promotional material or by scoring parody raps and sketches with his voice lines2.