Everytime he died, why did Mario stick his hands in the air and stuff in the earlier Super Mario games?

Question

In some earlier Japanese games, when a person dies, they stick their hands up in the air above their heads and face the screen and just go off the screen; they just somehow lift off the ground and go all the way down until they're not on the screen anymore. The faces they make scare me when they die. Does anybody know why certain game sprites are like this? Please help!

Answer 1

They raise their hands like they're falling. If you ever see people on roller coasters, when they are in a drop, they rasie their hands.

Answer 2

This is because the Japanease wanted to keep a very postitive attituide when they created games back in the 1980's. This is why instead of using lives they called them 1-ups, to give a postitive attituide. In the same way you didn't die, you simply went off the screen with a crazy smile. More or less it was to keep the games family friendly, and it worked fairly well, nintendo still has this as a Mission statement. This is why they don't make games like GTA, they rely more on a postitive family friendly gaming.