Marco Polo's Plumbers

Marco Polo's Plumbers were two unnamed plumbers who were employed by Marco Polo. Mario and Luigi bear an uncanny resemblance to the two plumbers.

Marco Polo's Plumbers were referenced in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 episode "The Venice Menace". While Mario and Luigi were in Venice, Mario felt something reaching out to his soul, but he couldn't figure out what it was. At one point, they unknowingly passed by statues of the two plumbers which rested atop a tall column.

Later on, after Mario and Luigi had saved Venice from Bowser, a gondolier showed them around the city, and directed them towards the statues. He introduced the two statues as Marco Polo's Plumbers, and explained that they brought plumbing back from China to help make Venice the city it is now. Princess Toadstool and Toad deduce that the plumbers were ancestors of Mario and Luigi, explaining why Mario felt so attached to Venice in the first place.