Marcello (also spelt Marcelo) is the Hammerhead Shark Prince and cousin to Tubarina and Veto in the animated series. He moved to the Shark Palace while his parents, the Hammerhead King and Queen, are touring the Farlands with the hammerhead sharks. Marcello likes to tease girls, cause trouble and to always win first prize in sports competitions, but in spite of this, he is actually good-natured.
Marcello's relationship with Tubarina is strained because Marcello likes making stupid jokes and Tubarina is bossy. While they may fight on occasion, deep down they are like siblings.
Marcello's counterpart in the Princesas do Mar books is a girl named Marcela, who is well-mannered and intelligent compared to her cartoon counterpart, who is a naughty troublemaker.
Character highlights[]
Marcello makes his debut in The Royal Ball, where he intends to sneak down and see the Royal Ball just as the girls, who have gathered for a sleepover, intend to do so as well. When they are initially thwarted by the Shark King arranging Pointer to be their babysitter, Marcello and the girls work together to get past Pointer by pretending to be tired so that he can go to sleep. They then head down to see the Ball, but they find nobody having fun while the Shark King and Queen are giving speeches. Just as they are about to leave, Pointer comes down to look for the children, having been woken up by the fanfare and noticed that they are gone. Tubarina turns off the lights before heading back upstairs with the others. When the lights go back on, Pointer somehow ends up inside the shark statue, bringing the fun back to the Ball as everyone laughs at the sight.
In The Monster, Marcello is talking to Hugo about something and Polvina finds out that he is talking about the monster octopus; there were accounts of people seeing the monster, but they never had any proof of its existence because it apparently disappears, like it was never there. Marcello is determined to find the proof with Hugo before the girls do, to which they decide to do the same before Marcello does. Marcello and Tubarina are unwilling to work together, at which point Hugo and Polvina find a little octopus. Marcello tries to ask him about the monster octopus, which frightens him and makes him swim away. Marcello and the others go after the octopus, which goes into a cave. Marcello and Hugo attempt to move away the rocks, only to end up trapped in the cave. Later on, the girls actually manage to get Marcello and Hugo out of the cave with the help of the little octopus’ mother, the monster octopus, who they promise not to reveal her existence to anyone. Marcello later reveals that there was no such thing as a monster octopus (according to him) and that he did all this just to have some fun with the girls.
In The Ticklish Octopus, Marcello sees the girls making a herbal soup for Tentie, who does not look sick, but when he tickles him, Tentie laughs and inks, embarrassing himself. Later, when Spikey and Gummy tell the girls and Marcello that Tentie is heading for Dryland, they immediately head there to look for him, evading the Drylanders while doing so. At one point, Marcello tries talking to Tentie, apologising for making him feel bad and promising him not to tickle him again. The two find each other, but when Drylanders seemingly surround them, Tentie has Marcello tickle him, making him ink so they can escape without being seen. When they head back to give Tentie his medicine, the girls tickle Marcello as some form of punishment.
When a group of hammerhead sharks are gathering at the Coral Caves in The Hammerheads, the girls get Marcello, only to find that he doesn’t want to see them because he is scared of having to deal with hundreds of them at a time. The girls try to help him reduce his fear, but it doesn’t work. Marcello is only willing to go to the gathering when faced with the possibility of Tubarina going in his place, but he goes slow on purpose, leading the girls to drag him to the Coral Caves. Just as they arrive there, Marcello gets scared again and swims off. The girls find him again and they find out that Marcello is afraid that the hammerheads wouldn’t like him. As Marcello is conflicted over whether he can meet the hammerheads or not, Tubarina tricks him into meeting the hammerheads. Marcello tries talking with them; when the girls believe that he is in trouble, Marcello tells them that the gathering was a family reunion and they thought it was great that he came.
When the class does a project on stingrays in The Gift, Marcello decides to join Soraia’s group so that everyone else will do all the work (particularly given that Soraia is the Stingray Princess). Tubarina suggests to him that he give Soraia a little gift when he asks her; sure enough, he does, but somehow, the girls find out that the gift was so nice that even Soraia was fooled by it. He also bribes the rest of Soraia’s group with gifts so that they will do things for him in return. The girls find out that Marcello is getting his gifts from Hugo, who is making them for him, and after failing to dissuade everyone, they decide to replace the gifts with uglier imitations. When Soraia and her group finds out, they reject Marcello, forcing him to join the girls’ group.
In The Dare, Ester and Marcello are challenging each other to a series of dares, such as teasing a shark and “riding the blowhole”. Eventually, they challenge each other to “the ultimate dare”, which is to break the First Law of Salacia and show themselves to a Drylander. Ester and Marcello are initially up for the dare, but by the time they decide to back out of it, they are caught in a Drylander race. They manage to get away when Tubarina gets the shark they teased earlier to distract the Drylanders, but as payback, they have to give the shark a back rub every day for a month.
When Marcello brings Snick to the Shark Palace in Marcello's Friend, Snick messes up various things and Gummy is blamed for it each time. Later, when the girls find Marcello’s room messed up, Marcello denies that Snick did it until they discover Snick and his siblings in the ballroom. When Marcello fails to get them to leave, the girls, on Gummy’s suggestion, decide to dress him up as his father, the Hammerhead King, which proves effective in getting Snick and his siblings to leave.
In The Piano Lesson, Marcello starts taking piano lessons with Socita and falls in love with her, to the point that he has at least four lessons in one week. When he tells Tubarina about this and asks her what girls like in boys, she gives him some incorrect advice in the hope that she can show him that boys don’t understand girls. However, Marcello doubts this information and after telling Socita, Polvina and Ester about it, they decide to play the trick back on Tubarina by having Socita pretend that Marcello was awful to her and having Marcello pretend to run away. When they later reveal the trick to her, Tubarina apologises to Marcello and he goes off with Socita for another piano lesson.
In Grow Up, Marcello insists that he has the biggest muscles after the girls find him and Hugo comparing muscles. While playing “clumsy ball” with Tubarina, Marcello cuts his leg on some poisonous coral and falls into a coma for two days. During his coma-induced dream, Marcello dreams that he has bigger muscles, but as a result, he breaks everything he touches and makes everyone scared of him. Eventually, when Marcello wakes up, he is glad to have his normal muscles and nobody being scared of him.
In The Sweet Talker, Marcello manages to flatter Tubarina into doing his homework for him and realises that he can flatter other people into doing things for him, namely Polvina helping him with his homework and Ester helping him arrange flowers. Marcello tells Hugo about this and he begins doubting about whether he is his best friend. The girls later discover that they have been played and so, they decide to flatter Marcello back, much to his horror. He goes to stay with Hugo, but when he doubts about whether he is his best friend, Marcello offers to do things for him, which is partly revealed to be a trick by the girls.
In the books[]
Despite his exclusivity to the animated series, Marcello also appears in the literacy series book The Challenge of the Sharks. Marcello is playing with Gummy at the Shark Palace when they hear a commotion at the corals. They head there and discover whale shark Xu stirring the corals in search for his girlfriend, dwarf shark Joanna. Marcello and Gummy start searching the corals and they hear Joanna trapped inside them. Marcello asks Gummy to fetch Tubarina before the two go and find hammerhead shark Sharp Sense and sawshark Zeca. Sharp Sense guides Zeca as she cuts through the coral, freeing Joanna and reuniting her with Xu.