I. The Earth & Early Warp-Era: Brooklyn & The Kongs (~1981–1984)

• Location: Earth (specifically Brooklyn, New York).
• The Cast: Mario (then "Jumpman") and Luigi are human carpenters/plumbers living in the real world who just barely accidentally stumbled across a barricaded warp pipe in the sewers of Brooklyn.
• The Kong Lineage:
  • King Cranky Kong: Never interacted with humans before (other than possibly Princess Peach obviously)
  • Mario Movie’s Donkey Kong (Cranky II): King Cranky’s son, the original Donkey Kong who kidnapped Pauline in 1981.
  • Donkey Kong Jr.: The son of Donkey Kong, who will be born shortly after the Mario Movie events and rescue his dad from the cage Mario put him in. who would rescue him from Mario post-Mario-Movie
  • Donkey Kong III: The grandson of Cranky (which is the name the movie DK will take up when he’s old)
  • (Diddy, Dixie, and the other kongs can be seen in the stands because this is the generation of Diddy Kongs and Dixie Kongs that are friends with each other and with DK I, and not boyfriend-girlfriend, but whose descendants will be and be friends with DK III
• The Conflict: The events of the original arcade Donkey Kong and Mario Bros. (arcade) happen here. These are the "pre-isekai" adventures.

II. The Exodus: Arrival on the Mushroom Kingdom’s planet (~1985)

• The Event: As depicted in The Super Mario Bros. Movie (which serves as the canonical origin story in this theory) and implied by Super Mario Bros. (NES), Mario and Luigi are sucked into a Warp Pipe in Brooklyn, New York.
• The Destination: They arrive in the Mushroom Kingdom’s world/dimension. This is a physical, spherical planet distinct from Earth.
• Geography: The planet they’re now on contains:
  • The Mushroom Kingdom: Central hub.
  • Sarasaland & Beanbean Kingdom: Neighboring countries accessible by travel.
  • DK Isle: Where the Kongs live.
  • The Flower Kingdom: A neighboring region ("a short hop away") on the same continent.
  • Big Ape City (later renamed “New Donk City” in remembrance of the famous events of Mario rescuing the mayor Pauline from the Donkey Kongs): Where apes & monkeys and maybe some humans live at that time.

III. The Mainline Legends (1985–1999)

• The "Legends": The events of Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 3, Super Mario World, and Super Mario 64 occur.
• Significance: These feats turn Mario into a global celebrity and the royal hero.

IV. The Beginning of Documentation (~2000)

• The Event: The events of Paper Mario (N64) occur.
• The Nature of "Paper": The events of Paper Mario happen in Mario’s now-home Mushroom Kingdom universe, so he didn’t go and enter a paper world/dimension.
• The Commission: Upon his victory, Princess Peach commissions the Royal Toad Scribes to write a specific chronicle of this unique interdimensional adventure.
• The Book: Peach begins the tradition of recording Mario's adventures in a royal chronicle, kept in the castle’s attic. These stories become "history" or "legends" to other cultures. This handwritten tome is titled “Paper Mario” (or in English “Mario Story”, the Japanese name of the “Paper Mario” game). It records a paper-ified account of the adventure and retroactively includes summaries of the "Mainline Legends" (SMB1, SM64) since the inhabitants in the Paper Mario games view those events as their own backstory/mythology.

V. The Illusion & The Mansion (2001)

• The Event: Luigi's Mansion.
• King Boo's Power: King Boo creates a magically constructed Mansion in Boo Woods. To make the illusion convincing, his magic samples and pulls real objects from the nearby area (Peach's Castle and E. Gadd's Lab). And since the mansion was relatively near to Peach's Castle/E. Gadd's lab, King Boo's magic pulled the real book (or a perfect replica) from Peach's library into the illusion.