It’s-a-no-longer me: Charles Martinet steps down as Mario’s voice

What makes this so surprising is that Charles has voiced Mario (as well as Luigi, Wario, Waluigi, etc) for over 30 years, with the recent Super Mario Bros Movie and the Japanese version of WarioWare Gold being some of the very few instances where he didn't voice his usual characters.

That's very rare in the entertainment industry. Most major franchises recast their characters at least once or twice in their lifetime, with the likes of James Bond and Doctor Who even justifying the change of cast in universe. Heck, I suspect only The Simpsons and certain soap operas have ever been a situation where the same character was played by the same actor for this amount of time or longer, and even there it's incredibly rare to see (most soap opera characters get written out of the show, and the main Simpsons cast being so consistent is still insane).

So it's like seeing your childhood icon change after decades here.

Still, I guess it was kinda inevitable. Martinet is nearing 70 at this point, and his portrayals of his characters in certain recent games (like Luigi's Mansion 3) have felt a bit rough compared to how they used to sound. So I suspect it was a case of 'better step back now while I can still train people how to do the relevant voices rather than be forced to quit because I can't do said voices at all anymore'

Waaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh

if I remember well, the documentary High Score produced by Netflix had a great section on how he got the part. He also voices the documentary.