Mario, probably the most recognisable video game character in the world, is only 24 years old—according to the man who created him, Shigeru Miyamoto.

From his lustrous moustache, his generous gut, and the fact that British actor Bob Hoskins was 50 years old when he played him in the Super Mario Bros movie, Nintendo fans have generally assumed to have been of more middle-aged mien, but this is not at all the case.

In a Japanese interview from 2005 which was recently reposted by Nintendo, Miyamoto claimed that Mario's age is the only thing that's definite about the character.

"I think it was fortuitous that we didn't put any restrictions on Mario as a character," he said in the footage. "Normally when you create a character and present him to the world, all the details get filed in: what's his favourite colour? what kind of food does he like to eat?"

"But aside from the fact that he's about 24-25 years old, we didn't define anything else."

He added: “When we make a game we take care not to add incongruence to that game’s world. With that caveat, I’d like to keep using Mario in future games.”

Considering the increasingly psychedelic quality to Mario's subsequent adventures, however, one has to wonder what kind of incongruence Miyamoto would consider too much for his greatest creation to bear.

Incredibly, Super Mario 64 was released 20 years ago yesterday in the US, while Mario's first appearance, in the original Donkey Kong, in which he was more prosaically known as Jumpman, was 35 years ago, in 1981. The franchise he spawned has sold more than half a billion copies worldwide, with more than 200 titles.

More worrying yet, this news means Luigi, Mario's younger brother, is actually in his early 20s at most—and even raises the possibility that he's a teenager who happens to have one of the thickest and most overdeveloped moustaches in history.

Update: We're told that, according to canon, Mario and Luigi are actually twin brothers—but Luigi is the younger of the two. So, Luigi isn't a teenager; he's 24 as well!