The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! Discussion

[Wesr]

I just finally got started watching this as I have all but the last season when it was combined with Captain N. I forgot how cheesy it is but it's a great slice of the 80s and the cartoon is actually pretty well written and fits in well with the game universe. Wish Captain N had been so well written as its potential was wasted. I'm on collection 1 disc 3. I still have another disc and the 2nd volume to go. Then it's on to Captain N and Legend of Zelda. I want to know why Sonic's had a cartoon constantly since the 90s yet Mario hasn't had squat since Mario World hit.

[Serum]

My favorite of all the animated series is "The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3," if for no other reason, than because Walker Boone is a great Mario. I didn't care too much for "Super Mario World," as I'm not a fan of the whole "Flintstones" theme they were going for, but the original "Super Show" with Lou Albano and Danny Weller was great, even if the guys playing Mario and Luigi seemed a little too old and grumpy.

[Wesr]

I think the grumpy part was their attempt at being from Brooklyn and it didn't turn out right. I'm actually trying to watch Mario 3 at the moment but even after all these years I still can't get into it.

[Serum]

I once sat and watched every episode in a row in a single day. It was a surreal experience that shook my very perception of what you might call "reality."

[Wesr]

It took me 2 days to watch all of the Super Show episodes. I tried to watch volume 1 of Masters Of the Universe today but that's just way too much lol. I still have all of the Super Show Zelda episodes to go too.

[Serum]

I can still remember watching the Super Mario Brothers Super Show on Saturday mornings when I was kid. It's too bad these memories get further away with every passing day.

[Star Ma'am]

I love the Super Show! It was of course how I first heard of Super Mario (sadly, at the time my parents would not let me own a NES...) - so yes, among things when I first played the game and I reached Bowser on world 1-4 I was like "OMG it's the King Koopa guy from the cartoon!" LOL

It was of course also through the Legend of Zelda and Captain N: The Game Master cartoons how I heard of Zelda and most of the games mentioned in Captain N (can you believe there was even one episode based on the original Final Fantasy?) - so yes those shows (and some, if not all, of the game-based cartoons created since those) provide useful tips for any gamers

Oddly enough, I bought a video of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! just 22 days before Dennis Hopper died. Yes I bought it as a means of wishing Dennis well, to say I am thinking about him and I hope he doesn't suffer too much when... the time comes 0:-) - but of course I didn't expect a certain very upsetting complication about his death...

[oldskoolplayer86]

SMBSS - Loved the live action segments. My favorite was when Inspector Gadget made an appearance. Lou Albano and Danny Wells, to me are the real Mario Bros. The way they portrayed their characters seemed to just fit. Prior to the movie, this was the only time where we saw the Mario Bros. in live action, and not a cartoon/video game/comic book etc. The cartoons were cheesy, I could do without them but I didn't mind them.

SMB3 - Probably my favorite of the 3. The plots were pretty good. In my opinion, this is how a Mario cartoon should have been. The usage of the (awesome) powerups, question blocks, warp pipes, anything in the Mario universe that was in the cartoon was done right. The voices for the Mario Bros. were ok, I didn't mind them.

SMW - I didn't mind this series, but it's probably my least favorite. I did like the fact that they made the cartoon like the game again (powerups, question blocks, warp pipes) but it didn't have that feel to it like Mario 3. Like someone said earlier, the cave people were dumb, Oogtar was annyoing (I honestly would have preferred Toad but he wasn't in the game). Yoshi to me seemed a little.. off. Thumbs up for King Koopa having the same voice actor voice him in all three series.

[Wesr]

The only way I got to see SMB super show was when I was at my friends' house 15 minutes away as they had cable as they're in the city and we didn't get cable until 1990-1991. By the time Mario 3 and mario land came out I kinda had lost interest. I never realized how bad Captain N was until recently but I need to watch it to get reference material for my Captain N props.

[Phlibbit]

"Diamonds, gold, rubies...it must be worth more than a hundred bucks!"

I love that show.

[superwesleybros]

I have all the Mario cartoons and Movie on the DVD.

I wish they would make a Mario Cartoon like Sonic X but good.

[LBD_Nytetrayn]

I have it all, and love it.

I liked The Super Mario Bros. Super Show best when they weren't doing parodies and pop-culture references as the plot of an episode, with but a few exceptions. The live-action stuff, I enjoyed as a kid, though not as much as the cartoon. But my wife and I found ourselves enjoying them more than the cartoon segments now as adults.

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was the peak of the cartoons for me. Sure, we lost Captain Lou as Mario, Danny Wells as Luigi, and that cute voice for the Princess, but at least the replacements were good, and Toad and Koopa got to keep their voices. I was disappointed that the Koopa Troopas never really reappeared, save for a Paratroopa cameo in one ep, though they looked completely different.

The New Super Mario World... sadly, you could see the budget cuts, and the show seemed too Flintstone-centric with the addition of cave people. I'd rather the dinosaurs been a greater focus, with more than one Yoshi. But at the time, I didn't have a Super NES, so I took whatever World I could get.

The Legend of Zelda was a fun show, and for a while, I even liked it more than the Mario cartoons. Having Bob Forward of later Beast Wars fame on board probably helped, and here's a simple fact: just about, if not every single time Link said "excuuuuuse me, Princess!", she bloody well deserved it. Speaking of Zelda, loved her design there.

Captain N: The Game Master was pretty good in its first two seasons, but the third really suffered due to the budget cuts. It also has one of my favorite versions of Zelda, even over the other cartoon, and keeping the voices for Link, Zelda, and Ganon was just somehow perfect. Those are without a doubt my favorite episodes of both Captain N and Zelda (since it sort of continued the original).

I have the DVDs now, but I did tape a bunch of episodes (almost the entire final season) at the time, and watched them constantly in reruns on the Family Channel... even as they shifted to things like "Captain N and the Video Game Masters" and "Mario All-Stars," which lamentably only used Super Show and World toons.

Incidentally, the Valiant comics were pretty good, too. The Mario ones are my least-favorite, with but a few exceptions, as they were largely idiot plots. But Zelda, Captain N, Metroid, and Punch-Out!! were awesome stuff, and I'm still trying to complete my collection. Oh, and I did like the Game Boy story as well-- sadly, my parents wouldn't let me get those, as they figured I didn't need them if I didn't have a Game Boy. Pity it was never finished.

Oh, and then there's Club Mario. I enjoyed it at the time, but now? Well, I wish they'd been on the DVDs as well, but purely because they're so groan-worthy in retrospect.

I do wish they'd made another cartoon after, but the fact is, they didn't make another game for years after, while Sonic was going at a pretty good clip. I do remember that a friend of mine thought there would be a Super Mario Kart cartoon (with better character models, apparently) when Domino's ran ads for a SMK contest which used animation... I think from the Japanese commercial. A Super Mario RPG toon might have been neat, too.

Sonic's animation hasn't been quite so constant, though. SatAM ran for two seasons from 1993 to 1994, and Adventures only got half of that. Underground didn't come until 1999 and ran until 2000, while Sonic X didn't arrive until 2003 and ran until 2006 (2005-2008 for the English version).

I'd love to see another Mario cartoon, but it seems Nintendo is a bit apprehensive about such things these days... at least Kirby and F-Zero got a shot. I just wish I could find DVDs of those...

Oh, and I'm not even touching Pokemon.

[Wesr]

I had an issue of the Valiant Mario comic, it was hard to find valiant back then and the corner family owned drug store of all places had it. I never heard of Club mario. I always give animation companies big props when they keep actors, it's what made DC/Warner brothers great when they kept most of the cast of batman and superman from the 80s all the way until the end of justice league unlimited.

A new mario might be good but given the current state of American cartoons it could be horrid. A new slightly darker Zelda cartoon would work, something aimed at teens and not little kids.

[AndrewTheBeatnik]

Hey Pizannos! How many of you have seen the Super Mario Bros. Super Show? It's a great children's tv show that I still enjoy to this day. I was on a trip to Target a few years ago, and was lucky enough to have spotted a four disk set of the show. These contain episodes from 'The Bird! The Bird!' through 'Toad Warrior'.

I would love any suggestion of which episodes to watch or to hear any of your favorite quotes, episodes, memories or anything from this show!

[Serum]

You know, in retrospect-- I think "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" had less to do with the games than the movie...

[1upmushroom]

The show was less faithful than the movie? "Ahem"

The cartoon is about Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the Princess stopping Koopa from doing evil.

The movie is about Mario and Luigi stopping Koopa a T Rex descendent from merging two dimensions together so that he can take over our dimension with Devo guns, and Goombas.

The Cartoon show had Goombas, Fry Guys, Shy Guys, Tri-clydes, Mouser, Bob-ombs, Koopa Troopas, Bloobers, Cheep-cheeps (sort of), and those cactus things from SMB 2 as enemies.

The movie had Goombas, cops, and maybe Koopa Troopas as enemies.

The music for the cartoon show was many remixes and versions of several recognizable Mario tunes.

The music for the movie was mostly a Alan Silvestri score with one recognizable Mario tune. Not that that's a bad thing.

The cartoon show's version of the Mushroom Kingdom was a vast and wide world filled with many unique lands, including desert. mountainous, grass, and water terrains.

The Movie's version of the Mushroom Kingdom was Blade Runner esque cyberpunk city filled with chaos and violence that's almost covered by a desert terrain. Again, not that this is a bad thing.

The cartoon show had Koopa look like a monster.

The movie had Koopa look like Dennis Hopper with greased up hair and no eyebrows. While the motivations may have been the same the looks certainly wasn't.

However these aren't neccessarily bad things! The movie is still great, I have nothing against it but I can't say it's more faithful to the games than the cartoons.

[Serum]

Eh, the movie has aged like a fine wine. The cartoon show has aged like milk.

[Phlibbit]

I disagree. The Mario cartoons are a completely valid interpretation. I enjoy the Super Show the most although the SMB3 cartoon probably has the best blend of game-inspired and original content. The cartoons have definitely aged much better than some of the old superhero cartoons (from the Superfriends era).

[Serum]

I don't know, I don't even really like the Mario games that much, I just like the movie.

[AndrewTheBeatnik]

Watching this show is a funny little reminder of the '80's. The '90's and '80's were the era of great televisions shows for sure. I picked up a four disk set of this shows first episodes from Target a few years ago and still occasionally watch them.

I watched an episode in YouTube with a character named Wizenheimer who is a Magikoopa, and I thought he was hilarious so I made a wallpaper of him. Maybe I'll post it one here sometime.

[IbanezJFS]

I actually have all of the Mario Cartoons on DVD. And I have just recently watched the Nostalgia Critic's review on it. And Needless to say he says it sucks. But I think he is forgetting this was meant to be a kids cartoon show. And honestly how 3 to 10 year old had any concept of story structure? And frankly I think the Cartoon fits Mario's type of adventures. Every day a new city with new people to meet and enemies to stop. Kind of like the Mario Game for the NES. It's just 1 level after the next.

And I loved the Live action Segments. I only wish I could have met Captain Lou Albano (R.I.P). My favorite guest was always Sargent Slaughter. Best wrestling name EVER

[Mario500]

I don't believe any of the Mario TV series were meant to appeal only to children; they were meant to appeal to folks of any age who loved the Mario games and animated cartoons in general.

[Star Ma'am]

I don't believe any of the Mario TV series were meant to appeal only to children; they were meant to appeal to folks of any age who loved the Mario games and animated cartoons in general.

I agree! I'm 27 and I still love the cartoons - imagine my delight when Super Mario 3, Super Mario World and Captain N were broadcast on a kids' channel here in the UK!

[AndrewTheBeatnik]

The show was less faithful than the movie? "Ahem"

*SNIP*

However these aren't neccessarily bad things! The movie is still great, I have nothing against it but I can't say it's more faithful to the games than the cartoons.

But essentially the movie is Mario, Luigi, Toad (sort of), and Daisy stopping Koopa from doing evil. But you're right, it doesn't directly reference the game's exact plot (or whatever there is of one) and characters. Either way, the movie, show and games are incredible works of art! Haha

[Serum]

The movie is an incredible work of art-- the TV shows... eh. I'm not exactly sure what the intended demographic for those shows was. On the one hand, they were bright with lots of colors, but on the other hand, they featured poorly done covers of songs kids that age had never heard of.

[ultimateemail5000]

I love the Super Show, but I wish it was made more today, because we would have probably got a 13 episode season of just the Mario Bros. trying to rescue Princess Peach, instead of a bunch of very badly written parody titles. Star Koopa, Cramelot, and what not. But it's sad if it was made today because we wouldnt have Lou Albano and Danny Wells as the Bros. We all know that Nintendo will never allow any company to make a cartoon based on their property today. They even said that Hollywood is always asking them for movie deals but are always turned down. Which I understand why after what happened last time. The 80's especially, was a time where anything that was a toy was a cartoon, just to sell to kids, or old shows rehashed into new ones.

The show was good, but I think SMB3 cartoon was probably the best of the series. SMW was just down right awful, very, VERY, poorly written. It was like they ran out of juice, and the animation was even worst. Probably due to budget cuts, the only good thing out of that show was the intro which was very well animated.

[SethRex]

Few days ago I finally got the first volume of Mario Super Show. Not the re-release with just the animated segments but the full show show with animated and live action segments together. I'm slowly making my way through it now.