I'm not sure if any of you follow my Twitter stream - but yesterday I updated it while I was at the Nintendo meet and greet event.

I got to meet easily one of the most recognisable characters in gaming history - Nintendo's Mario. Well, I got to meet the man/voice behind the character, Charles Martinet - who is just so full of life. I think Nintendo's Kate Kearny said it best when she said it's like he has 12 personalities in one body.

Here's is a short video of 29 seconds that shows Charles in character:

Charles answered questions from Nintendo South Africa, as well as the media.

He told us about how he landed the role of Mario. He "gate-grashed" the initial audition after being told about it at the last moment. He arrived while the casting director was busy packing up. After being given, reluctantly, a chance to audition, he was asked to speak like an Italian plumber from New York, for 30 minutes.

He gave it his all. If you watched the above clip, or played any of the Super Mario Brothers games for that matter, you know know what he sounded like!

After he left the audition, the casting director immediately called Nintendo to say he found Mario, and sent over Charles' audition tape - without sending any other tapes!

His interview / Q&A went well; he was asked some difficult questions like "sing our national anthem" to the easy like, what is our rugby team called. It was a very entertaining morning, listening to Charles speak, as he is very like-able person. Full of character, no pun intended.

We were told we could help ourselves to the props for Charles to autograph, so I took a giant mushroom cutout which he signed:

... and that was the day Mario met me!