SUPER MARIO BROS

Mario is 40? He doesn't look a day over... actually, he looks way older than 40.

- Craig Grannell

That's because he is - it's just his most famous game that's turned 40. Before then he'd appeared in Donkey Kong as 'Jumpman', saving his girlfriend from a giant ape, then spent quality time in the sewers with his brother exterminating assorted animals. After brief stints in sport and medicine, he progressed to rescuing a perpetually kidnapped princess in a magical realm where he regularly obliterated the transmogrified corpses of its inhabitants.