#Deepestlore

One of the best episodes ever 

@OP

I guess Mario could be classed as a super athletic Italian dwarf? 

Miyamato also stated in an interview (the one for BotW with the rapid-fire questions) that the Zelda series takes place on Earth.

He's a middle aged, overweight plumber from NY. So yes.

Mario and the people at New Donk City are both Homo sapiens, but they're two different variations of this species. Mario, Peach, Luigi and other similar humans are Homo sapiens enanus, while the people at New Donk are Homo Sapiens grandus. Homo sapiens enanus is a species that appeared when the normal Homo sapiens who lived at the territory now known as Mushroom Kingdom, entered in contact with mushroom spores and consumed them. As millions of years passed, the consumption of addictive mushrooms made them evolve smaller than the normal Homo sapiens. Some of them eventually evolved as Toads, while others retained the human form, but smaller (like Mario, Peach).

Source: My ass

Actually, he's 24. https://mynintendonews.com/2016/09/30/miyamoto-reveals-marios-age/

He's not really overweight, either. His gut doesn't stick out or anything.

EDIT: Hell, he's not even a plumber anymore either. https://www.polygon.com/2017/9/5/16255344/mario-is-not-a-plumber

Also, he's not even from New York, as revealed in Super Mario World 2.

He's as much of a human as Elmer Fudd is, I guess. I think any backstory with Mario being from New York has been retconned at this point...otherwise the events of the Yoshi games don't really make much sense.

Though who knows...maybe Odyssey will address it in a clever way.

Nintendo can rewrite him all they want but I don't have to go along with it.

 Mario Bros. pre-dates Yoshi's Island by more than a decade though.  

I am going into Odyssey expecting to get a definitive answer...