DiC Mario Cartoons
 

A lot of us grew up with DiC's Mario cartoons; The Super Mario Bros Super Show, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World. What were some of your fondest memories with those cartoons and do you ever go back to them?

The strangest think about them were how the Koopalings had different names in the cartoons than they did in the games. To be honest, they're what keep me entertained about the latter two shows and likely enhanced my love for them, both cartoons and games.

They were fun in a dated 80's cartoon kind of way, and I remember watching them as a kid. I wouldn't go back and watch them now though, although I have watched some youtube clips of various parts of it over the years.

I remember really disliking Mario World when it aired, fortunately Youtube Poops have redeemed it for me.

Mario 3 was probably the best season they did.

It was recently establish that the Koopalings are not Bowser's kids.

To be honest, I don't remember much about those cartoons. I remember watching a few episodes of one of the cartoons when I was a kid (can't remember which one it was) on videotape and liked them. I watched some episodes of all three shows on the tv channel Pop nearly a decade ago and thought they were fun to watch in a "so bad, they're good" sort of way.

Love it. Watched it a lot as a kid, & have several DVD's of it as an adult.

You can get all episodes of the Super Mario Bros Super Show on DVD.
https://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-B...+show+complete

All the episodes of Super Mario Bros 3
https://www.amazon.com/Adventures-Su...+show+complete

All the episodes of Super Mario World
https://www.amazon.com/Super-Mario-W...+show+complete

Also all the episodes of Super Mario World that were a part of Captain N.
https://www.amazon.com/Captain-New-S...ords=captain+n

The only redeeming quality of these shows (other than some of the voice-work and the opening songs for Super Show and SMW) is that they helped to play a vital role in the creation of YouTube Poops.

I think the only one I actually cared for was an anime film; but I don't remember what it was called. Haven't watched it in years.

I loved them but did like Mario 3 better because it was closer to the games. The original was basically movie parody after movie parody, it was rare whenever they faced just regular King Koopa. It was also funny in the way that noone ever reacted to Koopa suddenly being a mobster today, a cowboy bandit the next day and a robot later on. They just went with it and acted as if Koopa was whatever incarnation always.

The Mario 3 cartoon did keep the actual power ups and floating blocks and whatnot (the original show had fire flowers growing like regular plants and being popped out of blocks). Plus Mario 3 had more worlds to use, so the cartoon didn't have to make up worlds like before. And hey, they even called Koopa Bowser once or twice in that version. If only Captain Lou stuck around to voice Mario in those versions the show woulda been better. I like it way more than the replacement Mario.

I didn't play the actual Mario 3 til later so I didn't know the Koopa Kids had different names. To be honest, I never knew Mario's story, such as it is, in the games when I was a kid. All I knew is you were a guy running over holes, stomping on turtles and shooting fireballs for.... whatever reason. At least the cartoons showed me who the princess and Koopa were.

They were my favorite cartoons as a kid, long before I even knew what a "video game" was. I think that's why I have such a different opinion about the Mario series compared to other people. Honestly, I still enjoy the cartoons to this day, not just in a so-bad-it's-good way, but it in a "Hey, that was fun." way. For a syndicated cartoon from the 80s it's not that bad. While there are plenty of bad episodes that I recommend to nobody (Mario's Magic Carpet, Bad Rap, Star Koopa, etc) there a a lot of episodes I'd recommend to anyone that likes the Mario cast and universe.

One think that still fascinates me to this day is how well the cartoons "predicted" the personalities of the characters from the games. It predicted Mario as a hero who acts first and thinks later with a love for Italian food. It predicted Luigi as a coward with a heart of gold. It predicted Princess Peach as being able to take care of herself(Not even Mario and Luigi can take on Bowser's army all at once as shown in Super Princess Peach), it take Bowser almost the entire episode to kidnap her in "Little Red Riding Princess". I like how the cartoons all used music and sound effects from the games. I've always wished for a soundtrack release of the show because some of the remixes are pretty catchy. I also like how seriously Mario and Luigi take plumbing. There was one episode where Mario & Luigi clog some pipes to stop a volcano from erupting. Luigi is disgusted with what he had to do while Mario's voice has so much panic and dread("But we had no choice!") as he defends his actions that you'd think he was a doctor that committed physician assisted suicide. I just love how the writers took the fact that they're plumbers and just went crazy with it.

My favorite of the three shows is the Super Mario Bros Super Show, though I did like Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World better as a kid. Just everything about the latter two shows feels toned down. Mario's love of Italian food is toned down, Luigi's cowardice is toned down, etc. I still love the other two and there are some good episodes in the others like Tag Team Trouble or The Venice Menace. My niece likes Super Mario World the best, because Yoshi is her favorite Mario character.

Although I have my doubts, I do hope we some day get a new Super Mario Bros cartoon or at the very least a comic series. Mario's world is to big and interesting to keep confined to simple video game excuse plots.

Some of my favorite episodes:

The Bird! The Bird!
Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid
Little Red Riding Princess
Brooklyn Bound
The Trojan Koopa
Plumber's Academy
Send in the Clowns
I've never understood why Mario, a series so simple that Sesame Street has a stronger mythology, needed a retcon like this. To me it takes away what made those characters interesting in the first place, now they're no more special then a Goomba or Boom-Boom.
I'm assuming you're talking about Super Mario Bros the Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach. Nothing to special about it, but it has it's moments. I think my favorite part is the blatant product placement where Mario & Luigi hit a block and get Mario brand ramen, complete with Mario saying "This is yummy stuff, folks." and winking at the audience. I wonder if the "dog" in the movie was an inspiration for the caterpillar-like Wigglers in the games. It's interesting how Luigi has a blue yellow color scheme in the movie while the production art for the movie had him with a green red color scheme. He even has his more game accurate colors on the VHS cover.
They had different names in the cartoon due to the fact that they didn't have names yet when the cartoon was in production. The Koopalings were unnamed in the Japanese SMB3 manual, they weren't given names until the USA release. Since the cartoon was in production before the localization of the game they had to come up with their own names, though they must of been aware of the game names later on because Toad does call the one with blue hair "Kooky von Koopa"(A combination of his cartoon name "Kooky" and his game name "Ludwig von Koopa") in "Reign Storm".

In an interview from Miyamoto back in 2012.
https://gamingreinvented.com/news/ni...wser-any-more/

“Our current story is that the seven Koopalings are not Bowser’s children. Bower’s only child is Bowser Jr. and we don’t know who the the mother is.”

From memory which is hazy:

Super Mario Bros Super Show: Boring, mostly parodies.

Super Mario Bros 3: Amusing, they go crazy here.

Super Mario All-Stars: Never watched.

They were all alright for the time they were from. It's worth noting I watched SMBSS as an adult and SMB3 a few episodes on VHS when I was around 11. I plan to watch them all one of these days.

Its really hard to believe there's never been a new Mario cartoon in over 25 years. Why has Nintendo never tried to make another Mario cartoon again? Or an anime even?

You would have thought Mario would get a long running anime in Japan or something like Pokemon....but nothing. Its really strange when you think about it.

I remember about a year or so ago, something about Sony Pictures getting the movie rights to make an animated Super Mario Bros movie.

We actually know the reason, when Nintendo of America was founded they had a lot of permission to license stuff and whatnot and NOA did what America does best and that is marketing. That's why there are tons of Nintendo stuff in the 80s from Donkey Kong plush toys to Nintendo Cereal in the NES days. However after the failure of the Super Mario Bros. movie which looks nothing like its source material, Nintendo of Japan decided to strip the power away from NOA for the most part and they really couldn't license stuff like before. By the Gamecube era NOA had almost no real power. Why is there no anime in Japan? Well Mario did have an OVA years before but I guess it wasn't very popular so they discontinued it. Pokemon is another thing since Nintendo doesn't own it outright.

But after many years of wanting to protect their IP they finally decided to not only relax but actively pursue it, this happened what barely 2 years ago? We're already seeing plenty of those things like the upcoming Nintendo park at Universal and the Pokemon movie with many other rumored things in the works. We've been getting tons of Nintendo merchandise the last few years as well so it's actually a great time to be a Nintendo fan.


About the Koopalings, they didn't have names so the cartoon gave them some but then Nintendo gave them names which were not the ones from the cartoon since that wasn't official.


If you ask me The Legend of Zelda and Captain N cartoons are pretty good and better than the Mario. They kind of count in this topic since they're also by DIC and TLOZ aired alongside SMBSS and SMW with Captain N, not to mention Captain N is in continuity with TLOZ.

But there's been a ton of stuff for other Nintendo properities since. Donkey Kong Country got a CG cartoon in the 90's. The Kirby anime made 100 episodes. The F-zero anime made 65 episodes or so. There's also been Animal Crossing OVA's in Japan.

Really makes no sense that Mario never got a long running anime. Its mind boggling, because it could have covered every single new major Mario game the same way Pokemon does when a new game comes out.

True but Nintendo in general was more careful, it's not the same to have a Kirby cartoon where nothing is at stake than to have a show with their mascot be a dud which could actually hurt Nintendo's image.

Also Mario games have never been about story which makes it difficult to translate into other mediums, since they've always been about gameplay first. Think of it how Disney doesn't really make Mickey Mouse cartoons even if he's one of the most iconic characters ever.

I mean do you really want a Mario cartoon? I sure don't. Then again I never would've thought a Kirby cartoon would work but the anime was pretty damn entertaining.

Well another Mario anime/cartoon would likely be another fun comedy show with just a little action. Basically an updated version of the 90's show, just better written and more true to the games.

Probably something as simple as Bowser and the Koopalings coming up with a new scheme to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom every episode, just like true Saturday Morning fare.

Right?! You'd think Mario would have an anime tv series during the GameCube era since Sonic had one. It would have been nice competition.

Sonic had both Sonic X and now Sonic Boom in the 2000's.

Leaving Mario two cartoons shorter than Sonic. There's no telling how long Boom will last. Mario could possibly go for either anime or CG since I don't know how an American-made cartoon of him will do by today's standards. Especially since he has an established voice now with Charles Martinet.

Looking back at the show, it shows me that Mario can have deeper more gruff voice and get away with. I imagine if a new cartoon/show was launched with thecurrent voice actor, by the end of the 20 mins it would get annoying.

Super Mario Bros. 3 was the best of the three. Though I preferred the Legend of Zelda cartoon over all three.

Super Mario RPG, Super Mario World 2: Yoshi's Island, Paper Mario, Mario & Luigi Super Star Saga, Super Mario Sunshine, Super Paper Mario, Luigi's Mansion, Paper Mario the Thousand Year Door and Super Mario Galaxy would disagree with you. There are more games I could mention, but I think I've proved my point that Mario can work just fine, if not, amazingly with a story.
Ever see the new Mickey Mouse shorts? Mickey Mouse had new cartoons on TV since 2014. They're funny, creative, some are barely even 10 minutes long and some have little dialogue, letting the animation and the characters simply tell the story. They could easily and successfuly do a Mario series like that, similar to the intro for Mario Power Tennis:


Honestly, I don't think we'll ever see Mario having adventures outside the games again so long as Story-Ruins-the-Gameplay-Shigeru Miyamoto is around.

It would probably have every character speak except Mario, Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi. Maybe how the Kirby anime handled Kirby's dialogue only not turning the protagonist into an infant.

Well I remember thinking it was cool that they got Captain Lou Albano to play and voice Mario. I liked his voice better than the one in the Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World cartoons. I even liked his voice better than Charles Martinet's Mario voice. No disrespect to him though, since I met him before and he was pretty cool. I also like Danny Wells' Luigi voice better than the others.

Super Mario 3 was consistently good. SMW and SS not so much. The Unzappables was my first Mario experience and sadly the live action segment isn't on DVD.

SS is pretty good at times but what's bad is really bad. It's like you're waiting for the live action to resume again.

SMB3 is terrific all the way through. I just marathoned it again recently as it's hard to just pick and watch, and The Venice Menace/Super Koopa has glitches. :/ The Koopa kids were either integral or just shoehorned into the plot. Did Hip and Hop really have to be in The Ugly Mermaid???

SMW is just too forced and it's weird that they just moved everyone there instead of the vacation plot of the game. Koopa could've easily taken the Mushroom Kingdom while they were gone. At least this show is unique for mixing in one shot villains and having Koopa work alone on two occasions like the old days.

I think Hip and Hop were twins because of Lemmy and Iggy having the same hairstyle at the time. It would have helped if they looked at the size of their sprites seeing that Iggy is way taller than what his cartoon counterpart became. If a new cartoon were to happen, they definitely wouldn't mess those small little details up, this time around.

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 on Steam.

http://store.steampowered.com/app/517030/

I mentioned something about this show about a year ago on another message board. The members there didn't know about it. Oh, I will say this...because of the cartoons, it made me a big fan of Luigi. I liked the fact that despite his reservations, he'd still go in and try to do what needed to be done. I wouldn't consider him "chicken", but he seemed more cautious than anything, in the beginning.



Anyway, I used to love the Mario cartoons, but my least favorite of the bunch was Super Mario World. It was annoying because Mario seemed to be the one to get all the power ups. Why not let Luigi get the cape feather and stuff like that.

With the Super Show, despite its cheesiness, and as I stated above, I definitely give credit where credit is due. They didn't have much to work with and the writers were very creative. I also like Lou and Danny as Mario and Luigi and being older, I have more of an appreciation for the live-action segments. In my area, the Super Mario Bros Super Show aired in the afternoons, so I would rush home from school to catch it.

As for SMB3's cartoon, I liked that a lot too as a kid. I liked the power ups, I liked the Koopa Kids (Kooky [Ludwig] and Cheatsy [Larry] were my favorites). I also liked the fact that Mario and Luigi had eps where they would end up back in the real world. There was even an episode where I recall the princess taking a trip to Hawaii to get away from the Mushroom Kingdom. Oh!! And that Milli Vanilli ep! I remembered that one well! She went to the real world to attend their concert. I think I remember the song being Blame it on the Rain (yes...I liked Milli Vanilli as a kid ^^; )

Super Mario World was okay, but as I mentioned in the spoiler, I didn't like it as much as the other two, and that was mainly due to the fact that Mario hogged all of the power ups. The ep that sticks out the most to me, was when Luigi and Yoshi became chickens or something from eating fast food. Mario didn't turn because he only ate the fries and Princess didn't eat it. Koopa was going to kill all the folks turning into those chicken things and open up a fried chicken place. That's just...morbid. ><

In my mind, since I did grow up with these cartoons, I will always associate Mario and Luigi with being Italian Americans from Brooklyn. I miss those accents. I personally hate their voices used in the games now. I hate the fact that they're considered "twins" as opposed to Mario being older than Luigi (check out the old Nintendo Power comics...they did this one where they were talking about the lives of the brothers and they showed Mario, maybe toddler aged with a baby Luigi), and I still hate the fact the Koopalings aren't Koopa's kids (the SMB3 manual contradicts this, of course)...but I'm willing to give that a pass.They were there on vacation. In the episode where Luigi was telling the story of how they found Yoshi, he mentioned that he, Mario, and the princess came to Dino Land for a vacation, but the cave people were missing, and Mario and Princess were caught.

I guess after that, since Koopa was a threat, they decided to stay in Dino Land longer than they'd originally planned.

I've mentioned this before, but I'm still don't understand why that needed to be retconed. From Super Mario Bros 3 (1988 ) to Super Mario Advance 4 (2003) the were always Bowser's children until New Super Mario Bros Wii (2009). Miyamoto always goes on and on how story doesn't matter in games and that they only serve to ruin the gameplay, yet they felt the need to change one of the most well know and liked parts of Mario's very limited lore. I don't understand how this change improves the gameplay, but here we are.

To me it completely misses what made the Koopalings so popular in the first place, the contrasting image that the big bad evil King Bowser is also a loving father. But I'm obviously wrong, because I'm not supposed to like their characters as characters...I'm only supposed to like them for the gameplay they provide.

It had to do more with how the Mario world evolved. When SM64 came out it was a very different mushroom kingdom and that's because the N64 couldn't make the original worlds we used to know. The 3D worlds also meant you couldn't have 7 levels like in the past with a koopaling in each level but instead you could have a different boss that could do different things while it was more difficult to find things for the koopalings to do than create a new boss designed on a gimmick. They always liked the idea of a "kid" bowser which is why we got Bowser Jr. and one of them is easier to handle. Eventually they were able to recreate the original mushroom kingdom more like the ones from the 2D games and due to popular demand/to reference the past they also brought the Koopalings back but no longer as their kids which is fine now since Jr. does a good job. I was angrier when they were ignored like they never happened. They worry about gameplay first and story later which is fine. The Koopalings could've had the same fate as DK jr. RIP. No reason to complain anymore, the kids who grew up with the Koopalings are all older adults who don't care about Mario lore while there's a whole generation of adults who are 18+ who grew up playing Mario Sunshine as their first game.

RPGs don't count, obviously they're story focused and they're comedy oriented. SMW2 is a barebones story same with SMG which most of the story is not even part of the main quest but something you do on your own by reading the chapters and Miyamoto thought it was too much story which is why he eliminated it in SMG2. Sunshine is the only real example you have there and Miyamoto has pointed out many times how it didn't work and it is a pretty crappy story when they added a little more plot to the Mario game.

They're shorts, yeah Mario could make some shorts but a 22 minute season show? Mario doesn't lend itself too much to that. They would need to make too many creative decisions and most likely suck. We'll see what happens now that Nintendo is finally licensing stuff but I don't think most of their IPs lend themselves to cartoons.

DK Jr. IS Donkey Kong. The original DK is Cranky Kong.

That Mario Power Tennis opening is still my favorite opening to any Mario game. It'd be cool to see an 11 minute episode cartoon in the same vein as Sonic Boom. I don't know how they'd do a Mario anime. Even one that was like Kirby or Sonic X would be hard to imagine.

I must have spun that disk in my Gamcube more times just to watch that intro then I did to actually play the game.
I can respect that, but I feel that the Mario cast have such diverse personalities that the stories just write themselves. A series staring Wario alone has so much potential. Imagine greedy short tempered Wario going on adventures and get rich quick schemes with his Wario Ware friends for more and more money. It would be like a more comical and greedy version of Ducktales with Wario's archeological escapades from the Wario Land series and his feud with Captain Syrup. Heck, we've had fully voiced Wario already and he's a delight to listen to:

That's highly debatable. DK jr still appeared in Mario Tennis with modern Donkey Kong. Not to mention Baby Mario appears in modern era games as well so continuity be damned, I want DK Jr.

That was kind of explained in Mario & Luigi Partners in Time, Professor E. Gadd has a time machine and that's how Baby Mario and Baby Luigi were able to join Mario and Luigi in that game. Even Bowser was able to travel back in time in Yoshi's Island DS so time travel apparently isn't a hard thing to do in the Mario universe.

Which means whenever Baby Mario or Baby Daisy are hanging out with their adult counterparts, they were simply plucked from time and presumably sent back after the kart race or tennis tournament their having.

I loved the mario dic cartoons, my fav is adventures of super Mario bros. 3

I also saw the mission to save princess peach film years ago and a few episodes of Saturday supercade

These shows have not aged well at all and I've watched them a few years ago. I don't mind that they're not like the source material but man, they just are not that good.

Gotta hand it to the dialogue though. Most characters at the time, like the Turtles, mostly speak with puns related to their favorite food or whatever. Mario and Luigi both talked about their favorite foods AND plumber puns.

My favorite line from the live action segments will always be 'hey, you're falling asleep on the job and we're not getting paid by the hour'.