In continuation of our celebration of Mario’s 30th Anniversary we wanted to review a retro Mario game, however, the new Super Mario Maker took up all of my video game playing this weekend (even interrupted my Metal Gear Solid V playing) so I didn’t get around to any other games this weekend.
However, the good lord was on my side this weekend to help keep up the Mario Week theme, as I stopped by my local 2nd and Charles and in the “Free Bin” was a DVD of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 the cartoon.
I haven’t seen this cartoon since it originally aired on The Saturday Morning Cartoon block on NBC in 1990 so I was happy to review something that I honestly hadn’t seen in 25 years.
First off the show takes place in the world of Super Mario Bros. 3, this was released on the NES back in 1990 and this show was to tie-in with the game as well as work as a spiritual successor to the Super Mario Super Show from the previous year that starred WWF Manager Captain Lou Albano as a live action Mario who hosted the show did a few skits before introducing the cartoons for the day. Those cartoons were inspired by Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2.
In the new cartoon, like the game it’s based on, we’re introduced to King Koopa’s Koopa Kids. A funny thing about the Koopa Kids is that they had completely different names in the game than in the show. In the game the creators were inspired by Western Music. Iggy (Iggy Pop) Morton (Morton Downey Jr.) Lemmy (Lemmy from Motorhead), Wendy (Wendy O Williams), Ludwig (Ludwig Von Beethoven), Roy (Roy Oberson), and Larry (the U2 Drummer).
However, when the show went into production with DIC, the kids were unnamed so they show producers came up with their own (less inspired) names, like; Bully Koopa (Roy), Big Mouth Koopa (Morton), Kooky Von Koopa (Ludwig), Cheatsy Koopa (Larry), Kootie Pie Koopa (Wendy), and Hip and Hop Koopa (Lemmy and Iggy respectively).
The show overall is very Saturday morning-ish of that era which is campy and hit or miss depending on who you are. For me it’s a bit of a miss. It’s not as horrible as a lot of things from that area but while watching all 66 minutes of the DVD I found myself zoning out and wanting to get back to Super Mario Maker (this game truly has a hold on me). A cartoon I once loved just wasn’t fun anymore, too me, even though the DVD was free, it wasn’t worth the price of admission because there were definitely other things I wanted to do with my time. For this I give this my rating of Don’t Go Back.
Leave a Reply