The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
| The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! | |
|---|---|
 | |
| Genre | Animated series, Adventure, Comedy |
| Starring | Lou Albano Danny Wells |
| Voices of | Lou Albano Danny Wells Jeannie Elias John Stocker Harvey Atkin Cyndy Preston Jonathan Potts Len Carlson Colin Fox Allen Stewart-Coates Elizabeth Hanna Paulina Gillis |
| Country of origin | United States |
| No. of seasons | 1 |
| No. of episodes | 65 (52 Mario, 13 Zelda) (list of episodes) |
| Original release | |
| Network | first-run syndication |
| Release | September 4 – December 4, 1989 |
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! was the first American TV series based on the Super Mario Bros. NES series of video games. It was originally broadcast via first-run syndication to mostly independent TV stations from September 4, 1989 to December 4, 1989, repeating episodes and Club Mario re-edited episodes until September 6, 1991. Reruns then aired on The Family Channel in the United States from September 23, 1991[1] to August 26, 1994.[2] The show was produced by DiC Entertainment and was distributed for syndicated television by Viacom Enterprises.
Format
Live-Action Segment Guest Stars
The first and last parts of each episode were live-action segments which showed Mario (played by "Captain" Lou Albano) and Luigi (Danny Wells) living in Brooklyn, where they would often be visited by celebrity guest stars. These parts were taped before a live studio audience. Some of them were popular TV stars, such as Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Jim Lange, Danica McKellar, Nicole Eggert, Clare Carey and Brian Bonsall or professional athletes such as Lyle Alzado, Magic Johnson, Roddy Piper and Sgt. Slaughter. Occasionally, the main actors would be playing guest stars themselves, forcing their regular characters to leave when it came time for their other characters to show up. The main characters also regularly played female versions of themselves, Marianne and Luigeena (the Mario Bros. cousins), and also 2 hillbilly cousins, named Mario Joe and Luigi Bob. In the fifth episode, Ernie Hudson appeared as a Slimebuster, a parody of his Ghostbusters persona using his own name rather than Winston Zeddemore.
Super Mario Bros. Cartoon
After a brief introduction of the sitcom segment of the show, a commercial would broadcast and a cartoon of about ten minutes would be [3] broadcast next, featuring characters and situations based upon the NES games Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2, as well as several sound effects and musical ques from the two games. The characters featured therein would be Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool defending the Mushroom Kingdom from the reptilian villain King Koopa, often in a movie or pop-culture parody. Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Bowser Koopa often used alter egos fitting the current theme. Wart, the main antagonist of the second game, was never in any of the episodes, yet most of his minions appeared in the show.
The cartoon series occurs after the events and situations of the Super Mario Bros. game when Princess Toadstool was rescued, with borrowed elements, situations, concepts, and characters from Super Mario Bros.. The theme song for the cartoon segments revealed that the Mario Brothers were accidentally warped into the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a bathtub drain in Brooklyn, New York City, New York, USA. After traveling via the warp drain, the Mario Brothers coincidentally defeated Bowser Koopa's Koopa Troopas, save Princess Toadstool and stopped Bowser Koopa's plan to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. At the beginning of every cartoon segment Mario recites an entry into his "Plumber's Log," similar, yet different to, the Captain's Log from Star Trek.
The Legend of Zelda animated series
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! cartoon aired on Mondays through Thursdays, while The Legend of Zelda animated series would air on Fridays as a stand-in on the same timeslot utilizing the same opening and closing scenarios, as well as featuring live-action segments of its preceding day's show.[citation needed] The series was based on The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link NES video games, in which the elf-like hero Link and Princess Zelda battled against the forces of the evil wizard Ganon. Scenes from each episode of the show were shown during the live-action segments on the preceding Super Mario Bros. Super Show! daily-week broadcast as sneak peeks. The Zelda cartoons, however, only lasted for 13 episodes, which ended nearly as its preceding Super Mario Bros. Super Show! final daily-week air, though the characters of Link and Zelda, along with their respective voice actors (Jonathan Potts and Cynthia Preston), were later featured as crossovers within episodes of Captain N: The Game Master, another animated series based on NES video games, also produced by DiC Entertainment around the same period, airing on NBC as part of its Saturday morning cartoon lineup.
Club Mario
During the summer of 1990, Club Mario[4] replaced the Mario Brothers live-action segments. This featured "extreme" Mario-obsessed teenagers (Chris Coombs, Michael Rawlins, and Victoria Delany) goofing around, and in at least one episode, running around the DiC studios and harassing Andy Heyward. Mr. Coombs and Miss Delany played siblings Tommy and Tammy Treehugger, respectively. An additional added segment was a one-to-two-minute viewing of Space Scout Theate, hosted by Princess Centauri, a green alien woman, which was edited from the sci-fi TV series, Photon.
Cast of Club Mario;
- Chris Coombs as Tommy Treehugger
- Michael Anthony Rawlins as Co-MC
- Michael Anthony Rawlins as Evil Eric
- Kurt Weldon as Dr. Know-It-All
- Victoria Delaney as Tammy Treehugger
- Jeff Rose as The Big Kid
- James Abbott as The Band
- Shanti Kahn as Princess Centauri
Featured Songs
At some point in the cartoon segments, a song would be played to go along with the scene. These were usually notable singles from famous singers, songwriters, and musical artists of the era. When the program was either re-broadcast or re-released on a home medium such as videotape or DVD, the songs weren't usually included, without rare exceptions or mistakes of the version authored.
Super Mario Bros. cast
- "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario
- Danny Wells as Luigi
- Jeannie Elias as Princess Toadstool (most episodes), Birdo, and Shy Guy
- John Stocker as Toad, Koopa Troopa, Mouser, Beezo, and Flurry
- Harvey Atkin as Bowser Koopa, Tryclyde and Snifit
Legend of Zelda cast
- Cyndy Preston as Princess Zelda
- Jonathan Potts as Link
- Len Carlson as Ganon, Goriya, Gleeok, Moblin, Stalfos
- Colin Fox as King Harkinian
- Allen Stewart-Coates as The Triforce of Power
- Elizabeth Hanna as The Triforce of Wisdom
- Paulina Gillis as Spryte, Sing
Home Video Releases
- From 1989 to 1991, Kids Klassics released VHS videos of the show. These versions of the episodes may or may not have contained the sitcom segments, and are the only commercially available versions of the episodes to feature the cartoon segments as were originally produced and aired, complete with the original hit songs of the day intact. Of these videos, the "Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" theme song was not included before the cartoon segment.[citation needed]
- The animated episode "Koopa Klaus" and the sitcom segment "Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush" were featured, along with Super Mario World's "The Night Before Cave Christmas" on the 1996 VHS release of Super Mario Bros. Super Christmas Adventures!
- A DVD collection was released in February, 2002, with the release of Mario's Greatest Movie Moments, which combined the adjacent new VHS releases Mario's Action Adventures and Mario's Monster Madness.[citation needed] This DVD features a bonus episode only viewable after correctly answering questions via interactive quiz. The episode, "The Adventures of Sherlock Mario", also features the final segment of the accompanying sitcom segment, "Plumbers of the Year", complete with a preview for the next episode of "The Legend of Zelda" and the ending credits.
- When broadcast airings of reruns began on Internet television network Yahooligans!, Mario Mania! was released and featured the same episodes that aired within the first week[citation needed], without Zelda previews.
- Shout! Factory released two four-disc volumes of the show in 2006 which featured the episodes with the Zelda previews, sans the exception of King Mario of Cramalot, with and commercial indents reinstated, and the featured songs still replaced. For the second volume, four of the animated episodes are presented as "bonus episodes" without any of the sitcom segments. With the exception of the four "bonus" episodes, the other episodes were arranged in production, not broadcast, order.
- Since 2008, DIC Entertainment Inc. and Nintendo of America, Inc. have allowed distribution and sale of the episodes via the Apple iTunes Store of both the Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, and selected episodes of The Legend of Zelda cartoons.
| DVD Name | Ep # | Release Date | Additional Information |
|---|---|---|---|
| Volume 1 | 24 | March 28, 2006 |
|
| Volume 2 | 24 | October 31, 2006 |
|
References
- ^ The Intelligencer - September 23, 1991
- ^ The Intelligencer - August 26, 1994
- ^ Super Mario Bros. - Cartoon Resource Website entry #76
- ^ Club Mario
External links
- NCircle Entertainment: Buy Super Mario Bros. Super Show on DVD
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! in Jump The Shark
- Do The Mario!
- A Look at Several Episodes
- Retrojunk Entry
- Club Mario Segments for "The Ten Koopmandments"
- Club Mario Segments for "Koopas are Coming! Koopas are Coming!"
- Club Mario Segments for "The Trojan Koopa"
- Club Mario Segments for "Sting a Stinger"
- The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! at IMDb
- Template:Tv.com
- Mario Bros. derivative works
- Animated series based on video games
- 1980s American animated television series
- First-run syndicated television programs in the United States
- Television spin-offs
- Television series by CBS Paramount Television
- Television series by DIC Entertainment
- 1989 television series debuts
- 1989 television series endings