Super Mario Bros. (TV)

Prior to having his own animated series, Mario starred as a regular on the Donkey Kong-based segments of the Saturday Supercade. Voiced by Peter Cullen, he was constantly on the trail of escaped circus gorilla Donkey Kong, who was actually his pet monkey in the game.

Mario then starred in a 1986 anime movie made for TV, titled The Great Mission to Save Princess Peach. This film is very obscure even in Japan, and not much is known about it. But what is known about it is that it marked the animated debut of Luigi, Princess Peach (still referred to as Princess Toadstool in the USA at the time), and King Bowser Koopa.

Mario's animated TV series was produced by DiC Entertainment. Three shows were made, each with a different title. However, since the shows all belonged to the same franchise, each individual show can be seen as a season on a single show. Like most DiC cartoons based on a certain property, Mario's cartoons had a habit of being inconsistent with the games they were based on, although they sometimes featured things that, by coincidence, would happen in later games. (For example, Mario's appetite for Italian delicacies is mentioned in Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine.)

The cartoons were also cursed with subpar animation, even for DiC. Nearly every episode had at least one animation goof, such as a coloring error or a character saying another character's line. There were also some rather grotesque plot holes and weak stories, especially in the first season. However, despite these obvious errors, people still fondly remember Mario's cartoons.

Season 1: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show

The second part was a cartoon based on the Super Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros. 2 video games, where Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach Toadstool, and Toad battle against King Bowser Koopa, usually in a movie parody (an idea that would've been more appropriate for Bugs Bunny). Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Bowser usually had a different outfit for each one. Interestingly, Wart, the main antagonist of the second game, was never in any of the episodes, yet practically all of his minions managed to appear; this seems to suggest that Wart is perhaps in alignment with Bowser. Like most 1980s cartoons, Bowser would prolong the series' run by using a Sub-Space potion to escape from his adversaries. Strangely, Mario and the gang never think of trying to stop Bowser from going through the warps. The Super Mario Bros. cartoon was shown on Mondays through Thursdays only.

On Fridays, They showed The Legend of Zelda cartoons based on the game of the same name in which Link and Princess Zelda are fighting against the forces of Ganon.

The show later changed its name to "Club Mario", replacing the live-action Mario segment with two completely different characters known as Tommy Treehuger and Coemcee, with occassional appearances by Tammy Treehuger (Tommy's twin sister) and Evil Eric (Coemcee's evil twin brother). This show lasted from 1989 to 1990, and can currently seen on Yahooligans! TV.

Episodes

1. The Bird! The Bird! / Neatness Counts
2. King Mario of Cramalot / Day of the Orphan
3. Butch Mario & the Luigi Kid / All Steamed Up
4. Mario's Magic Carpet / Marianne and Luigeena
5. Rolling Down the River / The Mario Monster Mash
6. The Great Gladiator Gig / Bonkers From Yonkers
7. Mario and the Beanstalk / Bats in the Basement
8. Love 'Em and Leave 'Em / Will the Real Elvis Please Shut Up!
9. The Great BMX Race / Mama Mia Mario
10. Stars in Their Eyes / Alligator Dundee
11. Jungle Fever / Dance
12. Brooklyn Bound / Cher's Poochie
13. Toad Warriors / E.C. The Extra Creepy
14. The Fire of Hercufleas / The Marios Fight Back
15. Count Koopula / Magician
16. Pirates of Koopa / Do You Believe in Magic?
17. Two Plumbers and a Baby / Lost Dog
18. The Adventures of Sherlock Mario / Plumbers of the Year
19. Do You Princess Toadstool Take This Koopa...? / Mario Hillbillies
20. The Pied Koopa / Super Plant
21. Koopenstein / Baby Mario Love
22. On Her Majesty's Sewer Service / 9001: A Mario Odyssey
23. Mario and Joliet / Fake Bro
24. Too Hot to Handle / Time Out Luigi
25. Hooded Robin and His Mario Men / Flower Power
26. 20,000 Koopas Under the Sea / Vampire Until Ready
27. Mighty McMario and the Pot of Gold / Heart Throb
28. Mario Meets Koop-zilla / Fortune Teller
29. Koopa Klaus / Little Marios
30. Mario and the Red Baron Koopa / Gorilla My Dreams
31. The Unzappables / George Washington Slept Here
32. Bad Rap / Caught in a Draft
33. The Mark of Zero / Toupee
34. The Ten Koopmandments / The Artist
35. The Koopas Are Coming! The Koopas Are Coming! / Zenned Out Mario
36. The Trojan Koopa / Texas Tea
37. Quest For Pizza / The Painting
38. The Great Gold Coin Rush / Game Show Host
39. Elvin Lives / Home Radio
40. Plumber´s Academy / Glasnuts
41. Karate Koopa / Adee Don't
42. Mario of the Apes / Chippie Chipmunks
43. Princess, I Shrunk the Mario Brothers / A Basement Divided
44. Little Red Riding Princess / No Way to Treat a Queenie
45. The Provolone Ranger / Goodbye Mr. Fish
46. Escape From Koopatraz / French
47. Mario of the Deep / Two Bums From Brooklyn
48. Flatbush Koopa / Opera
49. Raiders of the Lost Mushroom / Cyrano de Mario
50. Crocodile Mario / Rowdy Roddy's Rotten Pipes
51. Star Koopa / Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush
52. Robo Koopa / Captain Lou is Missing
    

    Trivia

• Every Friday, a "Legend of Zelda" cartoon was shown in place of a Mario cartoon. Scenes from the episode were shown during the live-action segments as sneak previews on the preceding days. (These preview clips are edited out of the episodes on Yahooligans! TV.)
• When shown in reruns after cancellation, DiC took out all the song remakes and replaced them with instrumentals of the songs featured in TAOSMB3. The song remakes have never been reinstated, not even on the DVDs or Yahooligans! TV.
• Domino's Pizza sponsored the show.
• From 1989 to 1991, Kid Klassics released NTSC VHSs of the show. These videos contained two, one, or no live-action segments, and featured the cartoon segments the way they originally aired (meaning they included the song remakes that were edited out in later airings). On these videos, the "Super Mario Bros." theme wasn’t included before the cartoon segment.
• "Two Plumbers and a Baby" was aired without an intro on television.
• There was a Viewmaster three-reel set based on the show (but labeled as "Super Mario Bros. 2"). The A reel showed various scenes from the live-action segments, while the B and C reels were an adaptation of "The Bird! The Bird!" Oddly, although the picture descriptions say "King Koopa" (alias Bowser), the villain featured in reels B and C is clearly Wart.
  

  Season 2: The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

  The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was based on the video game by the same name. This shows Mario, Luigi, Peach, and Toad fighting against Bowser Koopa and his Koopa Kids, who went by different names on the show, as DiC most likely had an imported copy of the Japanese version of the game, which had not given the Koopa Kids actual names. On the show, the Koopa Kids were called:

• Cheatsy Koopa (Larry Koopa)
• Bigmouth Koopa (Morton Koopa Jr.)
• Kootie Pie Koopa (Wendy O. Koopa)
• Bully Koopa (Roy Koopa)
• Hip Koopa (Lemmy Koopa)
• Hop Koopa (Iggy Koopa)
• Kooky Von Koopa (Ludwig Von Koopa)

Episodes

1. Sneaky, Lying, Cheating, Giant Ninja Koopas / Reptiles in the Rose Garden
2. Mind Your Mummy Mommy, Mario / The Beauty of Kootie
3. Princess Toadstool For President / Never Koop a Koopa
4. Reign Storm / Toddler Terrors of Time Travel
5. Tag Team Trouble / Dadzilla
6. Oh, Brother! / Misadventure of Mighty Plumber
7. A Toadally Magical Adventure / Misadventures in Babysitting
8. Do the Koopa / Kootie Pie Rocks
9. Mush-Rumors / The Ugly Mermaid
10. Up, Up, and a Koopa / 7 Continents For 7 Koopas
11. Crimes R Us / Life’s Ruff
12. True Colors / Recycled Koopa
13. The Venice Menace / Super Koopa
    

    Trivia

• The show is rated TV-Y7.
• The animation of each Mario cartoon was slightly different. SMB3's animation suffered from a large amount of animation, coloring and drawing errors which made the show look very dodgy at times.
• Almost every episode features the title floating over a world map screenshot from the SMB3 game. "Kootie Pie Rocks", however, did not have that kind of title card.
• Hip (Iggy) and Hop (Lemmy) were voiced by Tara Charrendoff (now Tara Strong). She currently does the voice of Timmy Turner of the Nickelodeon cartoon The Fairly OddParents When you listen to Hip, he sounds somewhat like Timmy speaking slower than he usually does. Incidentally, Tara also provided the voice of Bowser Junior in Super Mario Sunshine.
• In the episode "The Beauty of Kootie", when Kootie Pie (Wendy) accidentally transforms Luigi (who has been fooling her under the guise of a suave Italian reptile) back to normal, she responds by yelling, "Aaugh! I've been kissed by a plumber!" This is perhaps based off of a similar phrase uttered by Lucy van Pelt of Peanuts.
• In the episode "Do the Koopa", the scene in which Mario grabs the Doom Dancer is an obvious parody of a similar scene in the movie Indiana Jones and the Raiders of the Lost Ark.
• Milli Vanilli guest starred in the episode "Kootie Pie Rocks" where they are kidnapped by aforesaid Koopaling (known as Wendy O. Koopa in the games) during a live concert (visited by among others, Princess Peach, who is a fan). The episode aired October 27, 1990 just prior to November 15, when it was revealed that Milli Vanilli was really a lip-syncing duo who only fronted for real musicians. 'The songs that originally feature in this Kootie Pie Rocks appear to have now been replaced with an action theme music, as well as the mention of their names being cut from the episode.' (tv tome [1]).
  

  Season 3: Super Mario World

  Super Mario World was based on the Super NES video game with the same name. This show takes place on Dinosaur Land, and Toad is replaced by Yoshi and a preadolescent caveman named Oogtar (who did not exist in the games). Confusingly, Yoshi's Island was populated with cavemen instead of Yoshies, and much of the locations were not called by their actual names. For example, the Vanilla Dome was called the Ice Dome, and the Forest of Illusion was called the Enchanted Forest. As with the previous cartoon, DiC had most likely only gotten an imported copy, as evidenced by the fact that the new enemies featured in the game were never called by their real names on the show, but rather by what real-life things they resembled (for example, Rexes were called dinosaurs, and Wigglers were called caterpillars).

Episodes

1. Fire Sale
2. The Wheel Thing
3. Send in the Clown
4. Ghosts R Us
5. The Night Before Cave Christmas
6. King Scoopa Koopa
7. Born to Ride
8. Party Line
9. Gopher Bash
10. Rock TV
11. The Yoshi Shuffle
12. A Little Learning
13. Mama Luigi
    

    Trivia

• The show is rated TV-Y7.
• In the original "We'll be back" and "We’re back" clips, the show was called "Captain N & Super Mario Bros. World".
• The episode writing in this series seems to be less complex and different than SMB3, just as SMB3 was different than SMBSS. This is probably since Reed and Bruce Shelly did not provide the pilot and did not work as story editors on this show (or on the show period) but rather Phil Harnage, an exceptional writer of the previous two series. The idea that the setting was no longer in the Mushroom Kingdom probably added to this.
• Yoshi's basic look changes considerably for the better after the first half of the show’s run.
• Yoshi's voice actor, Andrew Sabiston, later went on to do the voice of Diddy Kong in the Donkey Kong Country cartoon.
• Although the title of the fifth episode is a reference to The Night Before Christmas, the story is actually more similar to How the Grinch Stole Christmas, in that it has Bowser trying to steal all of the toys.
• The episode "Rock TV" is very similar to the episode "Un-Reality TV" in several ways. Also, during the episode, Bowser makes an obvious reference to Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood, and also pretends to be a rock star similar to Vanilla Ice.
  

  Mario All-Stars

  
  Mario All-Stars was released in 1994 on Cable Television. It featured 39 episodes of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and all the Super Mario World episodes with some edited footage and no live-action segments. Oddly enough, the commercials aired for this show featured clips from The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (which was never featured on this show for reasons unknown) and claimed to feature the Mario Bros. in 40 "brand-new adventures".