Throwback Thursday- The Adventures of Super Mario bros 3

By Mark Rodriguez

Super Mario Bros 3 was without a doubt one of if not THE hottest and most popular game for the classic NES. It basically took everything we loved about the original and multiplied it by 10. Who can forget the movie The Wizard with Fred Savage with a preview of this game as well as all the magazines covering it at the time. I still remember the giant Game Boy displays at Toys R Us advertising the game and the new cartoon coming out (as well as the Game Boy itself of course). The Super Mario Bros. Super Show has run its course so I guess it was time for an update.

Unlike the first show that was weekly, this show was on Saturday morning and part of a game cartoon hour since Captain N the Game Master was after it. Eventually they kinda/sorta combined them into The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 and Captain N the Game Master, but we'll discuss that other show some other time. This time the show would stick a lot closer to the games since, to be honest, they had a lot more actual worlds to work with instead of making up worlds like Rap Land and Spy Land. I mean unlike the first 2 games that only had World 1-1 and such, Mario 3 introduced 8 worlds with actual names.

The intro explains that the Marios thought Koopa was defeated for good (would have loved to have seen that episode) when he suddenly returned with his Koopa Kids. How they came to be, we'll never know, but it's up to Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad to stop them. The main setting is the Mushroom Kingdom, but their adventures take them to the other lands featured in the actual games like Sand Land and Ice Land. Koopa himself lived in Dark Land, which was the final world in the game, and he flew around in his Doomship to cause trouble. 

To top it off the worlds were full of flying blocks, clouds with eyes and Koopa's castle was full of videogame-ish traps like lava pits and Thwomps. Unlike the Super Show where the Fire Flowers were in random locations, here they actually had to break the blocks to get the Super Leaves and other power ups, making it more like game. And of course the show still carried the 8-bit sound effects whenever the characters run and jump and so forth, as well as the music straight from the game. 

 Even with 8 worlds to feature, a lot of the adventures would take Mario and Luigi to the real world, mostly Brooklyn, but sometimes other places. Besides wanting to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom or kidnap the princess, Koopa would often set his sights on the real world too, sometimes to conquer it, and other times to just cause trouble there to make the Marios' lives miserable. I always thought it was weird how they called it the 'real world'. Did the Princess, Toad and Koopa consider themselves to be living in a fake world or fantasy world? Remember in their eyes, the Mushroom Kingdom would be 'the real world' and our world would be a weird fantasy world. 

The characters are basically the same as in the Super Show. Mario is the brave hero who loves plumbing and pasta, Luigi was the more reluctant and slightly cowardly hero. The princess was brave, and while she still got kidnapped a lot, she still wasn't one to be taken lightly. And Toad was there too.

Mario and Luigi were replaced by new voice actors... and yeah.. Luigi isn't so bad but I really liked Captain Lou Albano as Mario. I'm pretty sure the princess is the same, and Koopa and Toad also kept their voices from the Super Show. The show would still have cheesy songs, but this time the cheese has been cranked up to eleven since instead of using real songs, it was mostly made up silly songs sung by the Koopa Kids themselves. It really is painful to watch as an adult and makes you wonder how you could have liked the show as a kid.

Koopa was still dastardly evil and loving it and he was even referred to as Bowser Koopa sometimes. The newer addition were the Koopa Kids. I think I heard somewhere their names and personalities weren't well defined yet in the actual game (since the cartoon had to be made early enough so that it would be out in time of the game's release) so the show gave them all new names and character quirks. They all had magic wands that allowed them to do whatever the plot called for. The game would call them the Koopalings.

 Cheatsy Koopa was probably featured the most, and true to the name he was a lying, cheating, double-crossing little bastard. He would even double-cross his dad on several occasions. It was weird because Koopa would be angry at him but still proud of his underhandedness. In the games he's named Larry Koopa.

Bully Koopa was the big tough guy and....well, bully of the group. He'd bully his brothers and be the most eager for a fight. In the games his name is Roy Koopa. 

Big Mouth Koopa was always talking. He'd usually blurt out the same kinda thing several times in different ways until someone shuts him up. In the games he's named Morton Koopa Jr. 

Kooky Von Koopa was the crazy genius of the pack and usually come up with wacky inventions or magic potions. He'd either come up with most of the plans their brothers would do or help out anyone else with his inventions. In the games he's named Ludwig Von Koopa.

Kootie Pie Koopa was a spoiled brat and would throw tantrums whenever she wouldn't get her way. She was also incredibly vain and had a foul temper. She would scare even Koopa, but sometimes even he had enough of her and had to put his foot down. In the games she's named Wendy O Koopa. I don't think they ever say what the O stands for.

Hip and Hop Koopa were the youngest of the group and were mostly seen together. They would probably be the most mischievous of the lot and they would finish each others' sentences. In the games, the one with the glasses is Iggy Koopa and the one without is Lemmy Koopa. They were probably seen the least on the show and would mostly appear in an episode that would feature the whole gang.

And now to discuss a few episodes. I'll mention 3 of my faves and I know there is ONE episode in particular you all want me to talk about... so let's get that classic one out of the way. Yes... the episode is called Kootie Pie Rocks and it features Milli Vanilli.

Who? Oh yeah... back in the days of New Kids on the Block and such, these guys in dreadlocks named Milli Vanilli were the heartthrob duo all the girls were crazy for. How they landed a cameo on a cartoon about the Super Mario Bros, I'll never know. But anyway, this episode has Kootie Pie find out that the Princess was going to the real world with the Marios to see them in a live concert... so she tantrums her dad into having him kidnap them for her own private concert.

The episode in itself was entertaining, with little things like Koopa mispronouncing Milli Vanilli, and just the fact of having such a bizzare real world band cameo in this series. Needless to say... this episode seriously dates the series. Of course the real drama lies beyond the cartoon show. 

As most of you who have even heard of Milli Vanilli would know, they were soon discovered to be lip syncing their songs causing a huge scandal that would damage their credibility with the fans. And it just so happens that this scandal happened about 2 weeks after this episode first aired. As a result, reruns of the episode would skip out their songs, replacing them with random music found in the Captain N cartoons (they would use this tune to replace most of the songs on later DVD releases of the episodes). The most noticeable edit came when the duo was singing 'Blame it on the Rain' at their concert to which Koopa would joke and say 'Blame it on the rain? Blame it on King Koopa!' They skipped the song, but not the line, so Koopa's line doesn't make sense for people that didn't see the episode in its first airing since the song isn't playing in the background. Man, I wish I still had that VHS tape I recorded it on. 

On to another episode, a favorite of mine is 'Super Koopa' in which Koopa finally does something about all the Mario Bros use of 'super powers' against him. So Kooky created some kind of amulet that would allow him to have all the super powers that the Marios use, but it only worked in the real world.. where the bros wouldn't be able to use their own super powers since floating blocks with Fire Flowers and such don't exist in Brooklyn. Luckily Toad was able to grab a bunch of power up blocks and things and take them to the real world to help out the plumber heroes. It ends in an epic showdown with maximum power up spammage, as Mario, Luigi and Koopa would use power up after power up. Hell, Koopa would even mix and match them, flying with the Raccoon Power while still being able to use Fire Power. Not even the stupid song of the day was bad enough to ruin this scene. Somewhat.

My last favorite episode to mention was 'Oh Brother', mostly since it's so rare to see Mario and Luigi argue with each other. After an argument, Luigi walks out and Mario has to go find him. However, he gets captured and brainwashed by one of Kooky's devices (called the Lame-Brainer no less) and Luigi has to snap him out of it. It was just a fun episode overall, and again it's just so rare to see the goody-goody plumber bros in each other's faces. Hey, all brothers argue from time to time, Mario and Luigi shouldn't be the exception.

And yes... since I do so many blog posts about the Ninja Turtles... I guess I should mention there was an episode with a slight parody/reference to them. In one ep, Koopa uses his wand to transform Cheatsy, Bully, Kooky and Big Mouth into 'Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas' complete with ninja weapons. Near the end of the episode, Mario also turned giant sized, though I forgot what ridiculously long name he called himself. To top it off, in the episode Big Mouth once yelled out "I love being a Koopa!!!" which was a reference from the live-action TMNT movies which was out at the time. Seeing as the Koopas themselves are turtles... the whole ninja thing does seem to work for them.... This was technically the first episode of the series, and I remember catching it late, so I was wondering who the hell all these weird new characters were.

So that wraps up this article. The series is fun to watch for nostalgic purposes, but boy has it aged. This one was definitely made just for kids due to gaming being perceived as strictly for kids at that era, so some of the cheesiness is almost painful to watch. The eps are available on DVD in several sets, but of course, the songs are edited and replaced with random music.

Next week we'll discuss the third and last Mario cartoon, Super Mario World. Yes, Mario had finally gone to 16-bit so it warranted a whole new show!