Super Mario Bros. Super Show (Throwback Thursday)

By Mark Rodriguez

Here's another Throwback Thursday on a real old-school cartoon series based on probably the granddaddy of all video game heroes ever. I'm talking about Super Mario Bros! From the 8-bit NES to the Nintendo Switch, Mario is still going strong to this day. Time to go back to when all we had were just Super Mario Bros 1 and 2. Hey Paisanos!!! It's the Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

This cartoon hit the boob tube in 1989, and man, I didn't even own the NES yet so it was my first real look at the characters besides playing the games at a friend's house. The show was divided into live-action segments and a cartoon, kinda like Video Power did. The live-action parts had the WWF Superstar himself, Captain Lou Albano as Mario and Danny Wells as Luigi, and they were basically about their normal lives as plumbers in Brooklyn before they were sucked into the mushroom kingdom. Some kind of situation would happen, most of the time would feature a cameo guest star like Ernie Hudson from the Ghostbusters, Elvira Mistress of the Dark, and even fellow WWF Superstars like Sgt. Slaughter and Roddy Rowdy Piper. Then the cartoon would air, and after that we'd get a final live-action skit to resolve the situation started in the first skit.

The skits were incredibly cheesy and the jokes were pretty dumb now that we're older... but it was still fun to see Sgt. Slaughter make the Mario Brothers do push-ups. There was even an episode where Captain Lou Albano guest starred... and they always had to find some excuse to have Mario leave the scene so he would always 'miss running into him'.

 Now for the actual cartoon, the basic backstory shows that Mario and Luigi were fixing a clogged bathtub in Brooklyn, and it somehow sucked them into the Mushroom Kingdom just in time to rescue Princess Toadstool and Toad from the evil King Koopa. The actual series involves Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess going from world to world to stop whatever evil plan Koopa is up to. That's possibly the best way to describe it since the plot was all over the place from episode to episode. At the time the only story we had to go on was Koopa kidnapped the Princess and Mario had to save her (which is kinda-sorta what the story is in the current Mario games too, whenever Mario isn't busy throwing weird parties or going go-kart racing). 

The main characters are Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool of course, based on the line-up from the American version of Super Mario Bros 2 that let you choose all four. Mario was the brave hero and a big glutton for pasta. Luigi was the more cowardly and reluctant hero. Toad was.... there.. and so was the Princess, kinda. Being a cheesy 80's cartoon and whatnot, Mario and Luigi would mostly speak with jokes and puns related to all sorts of pasta, or plumbing situations. I didn't like how they made Luigi into a coward, but at least once or twice, when the chips were down and Mario was out, he still stepped up to the plate when he needed to be. Captain Lou and Danny still voiced Mario and Luigi in the cartoon as well.

I also think this cartoon helped redefine Luigi's design. In the original Mario Bros and Super Mario Bros, Mario and Luigi were basically twins. Hell, in Super Mario Bros, Luigi, wore white overalls. Super Mario Bros. 2 made him taller, thinner, dressed in green and with a different style of mustache. The cartoon kept that look, and I have to say it was weird and awkward having Luigi just be a Green Mario Twin again when Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World came out. Luckily Nintendo decided to go back with the Mario 2 design when Luigi started appearing in all the Mario Party/Kart/etc games and the Luigi's Mansion series. 

I also notice Mario has black hair in this cartoon... probably based on the box art cover of Super Mario Bros. 2. The following series (Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World) would draw Mario with his orange/brown hair, though I wonder why his mustache is still black.

 The main villain, was of course Boswer, who was called King Koopa in the show. It took me forever to finally get that Bowser and King Koopa were one in the same, and I kinda get why they went with the change. 

Back in the original NES instruction book for the original Super Mario Bros (well, I had the one that came with Duck Hunt), it did refer to him as Bowser, King of the Koopa, so they probably got his name from there. The odd thing was at the time, most outside media other than the games themselves would refer to him as King Koopa. Even the live-action movie went with that and never called him Bowser. Plus, look at the original sprite. 

He was mostly all green and he didn't have his now-famous orange spiked hair. The cartoon designers mostly based his look on his 8-bit appearance and added the crown for added effect. Super Mario 3, Super Mario World and the 3D games would finally have Bowser's red hair be part of his in game graphics, and his look started to match all the promotional art there's always been of him.

King Koopa was basically cartoonishly evil, doing whatever crime he could think of for the sake of enjoying being evil. While he did want to take over the Mushroom Kingdom, several episodes had him doing simpler crimes like bank robberies to fit with the episode's theme. And yes, he would occasionally kidnap the Princess to make his escape, hold her hostage, or lure the plumbers into a trap. At the end of each episode he would either jump into a warp pipe, or create his own warp zone escape by tossing a magic potion, like in Super Mario 2, to get away until 'next time'.

Since at the time we only had Super Mario 1 and 2, the other villains were a mix of both, though mostly from the sequel since the first game only had a handful of bad guys. Koopa mostly had what he calls, the Koopa Pack, which was a Koopa Troopa, Mouser and Tri Clyde. He would also have an army of Koopa Troopas and Shy Guys. It was common for them to be riding Ostros as their main source of transportation, and they would often use Cobrats as guns (since the snakes do spit out bullets in the games). Koopa would also call on the Albatross to drop Bob-Ombs on the heroes. Other common enemies seen throughout the episodes are Sniffits, Goombas, Pirahna Plants, and Birdo. Phantos and Fry Guy would make a few appearances as well.

Each episode starts off with Mario narrating his 'plumber's log' as the heroes enter some strange made-up land, that I assume is still part of the Mushroom Kingdom. We'd have places like Car Land, Spy Land, Robot Land and such, and each followed that particular theme. While the heroes stayed the same, Koopa would change to fit the theme or parody the episode was about. In one episode, he might be a mobster crime boss. In another he's an evil pharaoh. In one episode he's even a robot. And the heroes never note the changes and act as if they've always been fighting that particular incarnation of Koopa. In fact there are very few episodes where they're facing just plain ol' regular King Koopa. The episodes would parody stuff like the Star Wars and Indiana Jones movies, and the ones that were somewhat original would still have parody knock-off guest star characters based on Indiana Jones, Robin Hood (a talking bird named Hooded Robin), James Bond, and even the Three Stooges. 

 My favorite Land. and episode in general, was Rap Land. The entire episode had rap-ish versions of the usual background music and everyone talked in rap. Yes, that's right. Throughout the entire episode... everyone. was. rapping. Kudos to them to be able to rhyme every single line. And yeah, even a parody version of the Fat Boys guest starred (remember them???).

Of course what's Mario without his power-ups? While the cartoons skipped the Super Mushroom, the show still featured the Fire Flowers and Starmen. Unlike the games, these made up worlds followed their own rules, so there were no question mark blocks or anything, and most of the time they'd find the Fire Flowers either by sheer dumb luck, or they grow in gardens like ordinary plants. The Fire Flowers let Mario and Luigi shoot fireballs, while the Starmen make them invincible for a short time. Besides the video game power-ups, Mario and Luigi stay true to their profession and also use plungers, wrenches and their plumbing know-how to solve their situations. 

The background music of the show are variations of tunes from both Mario games, always fitting the situation. The jollier stage 1 tune from Marios 2 for happy situations, Bowser's castle theme for dangerous situations, and so forth. The only theme not in the series is Wart's theme, and yes, in this show Bowser takes over both the minions from Mario 1 and 2 since Wart never makes an appearance. The characters also have sound effects straight from the game for almost everything they do. Anyone jumping has the jump sound from the game, anyone throwing something makes the sound heard when you throw a veggie in Mario 2, and so forth.

 True to the cheese of its time, the cartoon also felt the need to have songs play during chase sequences similar to other shows like Alvin and the Chipmunks, Josie and the Pussycats and Muppet Babies. These were actual songs, though I don't remember if they were sung by the actual artists or not. Offhand I remember some classics like 'Walk like an Egyptian' by The Bangles, 'I feel good' by James Brown, Money (That's what I want) by Barret Strong and Rockin Robin by Bobby Day to name a few. 

There are two last things to mention on this show. Every Friday, instead of a Mario cartoon they would air the Legend of Zelda. It was a more serious show with deadlier looking enemies. The basic plot has Link having the Tri Force of Courage within him, while he guarded the Tri Force of Widsom. Ganon owned the Tri Force of Power, and his main goal is to rule all of Hyrule, either by stealing the Tri Force of Wisdom, some other means, or dealing with Link and Zelda directly.

Other than fighting the bad guys, Link is usually trying to get a kiss from Princess Zelda, who usually turns him down for whatever reason. This brings on his annoying catchphrase 'well excuuuuuuse me, princess!'. The series also had a Tinkerbell-like character named Sprite, that followed Link around and wished he'd pay more attention to her than to Wendy.. I mean Zelda. As for Your Royal Hotness, Zelda was actually quite the capable fighter in this show and rarely needed to be rescued or helped out. She was more of an equal companion to Link when it came time to fight.

 The series had the classic Zelda themes as well as the sound effects, but none of the silly chase scenes with songs in the background. While it did have its own cheesy humor, it was still a lot more serious and 'realistic' than the Mario cartoon.

One thing I just HAD to point out was a funny episode that dealt with censorship, when it came to weapon use. In the cartoon Link would use his sword to blast the enemies to bits. Similar to most cartoon swordsmen, like He-Man or Leonardo from TMNT, he'd use his sword for anything except actually hacking an enemy down. Censorship and all. One episode had an enemy replace Link's sword with an ordinary sword. It was funny to see Link being cornered by his enemies, being unable to protect himself since his 'useless' sword wasn't able to blast his enemies.... even though he could still, technically speaking, actually swing the sword around and defeat his enemies the old-fashioned way.

The final thing to mention happened when the show was finally dying down. The last few months for whatever reason, replaced the skits with the live-action Mario Brothers and had some random 'EXTREEEEMEEEE' teens hosting a show called Club Mario. I completely forget whatever they did, I just know it was lame, trying too hard to be cool, and didn't seem to fit in with the cartoons. By now the Mario and Zelda cartoons were just reruns, so the interest was dying down. I just remember the guys doing random channel surfing on a satellite dish and one of them having an evil brother (played by the same actor) trying to take over their show. It was... very confusing. Why waste the time and effort for new skits with new actors if the cartoons were reruns?

 And sadly, that's where it ended. Eventually Nintendo would rock the world with Super Mario Bros. 3 and there would be a new cartoon based on that, as well as other videogame related shows like Captain N and The Power Team. I do have to admit the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoon had a more linear plot and it actually did follow the style of the games, actually taking place in the Mushroom Kingdom with flying Question Mark Blocks and all of that. However some voices changed and I just didn't like Mario's voice. Had Captain Lou Albano stayed, the Mario 3 cartoon would have been perfection.

The Super Mario Bros Super Show isn't THAT bad... but it didn't age well. It's incredibly cheesy even for an 80's cartoon and while it was funny to watch as kids, the lame-ass parodies of movies and overdone pasta puns might make it embarrassing to watch as an adult. It was such a weird cartoon that even threw the wacky logic of the actual game series out of the water. Horrible catchphrase aside, the Legend of Zelda wasn't that bad either, but compared to how awesome the current Zelda games are, this portrayal of Link is such a useless little goober, so I can understand why many Zelda fans are ashamed to admit this cartoon even existed. 

I know they released the Mario and Zelda cartoons on DVD, but I'm not sure if the DVDs included the live action shorts or not. Based on what I've seen of the Mario 3 DVD where some songs were edited out, I can imagine most if not all of the songs of this show were edited out since they were actual existing songs and not made up stuff like the Mario 3 cartoon had. 

That wraps it up for this edition of Throwback Thursday. Stay tuned as we tackle The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 next time! Until then... DO THE MARIO!!!