Pekopon Returns and reviews "Super Mario Bros. 3 The animated TV Series".
A few days ago I bought the “Batman The Complete Animated Series” DVD box set. It’s an awesome show, and seeing it for the first time is a real joy. However a couple days later I bought something else I was seeing for the first time, “The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 The Complete Series” The best way I can compare the quality of watching these two shows back to back is to say you just finished watching the very first season of Thomas the Tank Engine on the Strand VHS tapes voiced by Ringo Starr, and then skipped to Season 12 and forced yourself to sit through the whole season no matter how painful. While Batman to Super Mario Bros. 3 might not be THAT painful, it’s the best I can come up with.
So as you may have guessed, sitting through The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was NOT an easy task. Generally if I don’t like a show, I’ll stop watching! But in this show’s case I felt I should get my 20 bucks worth and sit through it all no matter how much it hurt. I have a new found respect for the Nostalgia Critic and other such reviewers. Sitting through a show you don’t like is tough, but at least you get to share with the rest of the people how bad it was.
To begin with, I feel I should point out that I had NO knowledge about the Mario Bros. 3 show. I knew about The Super Mario Brothers Super Show, and I knew about the Super Mario World show, but I had NEVER heard of a Mario 3 show before. Since it was only 13 episodes I foolishly assumed that it might actually have a continuous story line, but sadly I was wrong.
So the show is about Mario, Luigi, Toadstool, and Toad getting attacked by King Koopa (or Bowser Koopa as they rarely call him) and his koopa kids, and Mario of course has to put them back in their place every cartoon. Now I’ll be honest and say that I freaking love the Koopa Kids. There’s something that’s just so cool about them in the games, and you bet your ass I was excited when I heard they were going to be in New Super Mario Bros. Wii. Unfortunately they managed to take most of the kids and turn them into really annoying characters. The only likable one (which luckily enough has always been my favourite Koopa Kid) is Ludwig von Koopa, who was renamed Kooky for some reason. In fact, all of the koopa kids got new names. Why? Why did they feel that was necessary?
Easily the most annoying character in the whole show is Kootie Pie, usually known as Wendy Koopa. Every second of her on screen time feels like an hour. She’s self centered, a cry baby, a spoiled brat who King Koopa is far too forgiving to, and of course annoying enough to make a viewer want to shoot themselves. I find it funny yet also sad how the hardest boss in Mario 3 suddenly turned into the biggest loser in the show. It wouldn’t be so bad if she wasn’t in it too much, but there were a bunch of cartoons revolving around her. Her only redeeming scene was when she was threatening two band members who King Koopa kidnapped. What would she do if they didn’t play for her? She’d turn them into accountants!
Alright, I admit that’s kind of funny.
While we’re still focusing on the Koopas, the King is kind of a wuss in this version since he acts far too much like a father and not enough like a ruler. He just comes off as a loser villain. One of his best scenes though was when he threatened to throw Kootie Pie in the dungeon unless she got rid of the band members I mentioned earlier. YES! Throw that brat in the dungeon!
My favourite character is actually Toad. Even though a lot of people hate him due to the whole “Princess is in another castle” bit, he’s actually really likable in this show. He gets the best lines, his voice is actually pretty accurate to what it is today, and he’s home to FOUR of my favourite continuity issues.
Yeah you knew this was coming. The Mario cartoons are infamous for their bad continuity, but it wasn’t until I watched this show that I really knew how bad it was. Sure there’s the typical thing where nothing stays the same colour for more than 2 seconds, but there are bigger ones too. I’ll list off some of my favourite continuity issues, starting with toad.
In the episode where Toad, Mario, Luigi, Koopa and Ludwig all turn into babies, Toad has peach feet for a while indicating he has no shoes. Then half way through the episode he suddenly has his purple shoes back, and they never fix it. He has them the rest of the episode. Also in the same episode, Toad is supposed to just be wearing a diaper, but in one shot he’s fully clothed like his normal self.
In one episode the Princess is in Toad’s house while Toad, Mario and Luigi are fighting giant pipe monsters. We clearly see toad with Mario and Luigi, but then it cuts to Toadstool opening the door to toad’s house, and toad is with her! Then it cuts back to Mario and Luigi and Toad is with them! As if it wasn’t bad enough that one time, they cut back to the house again, and Toad is still with Toadstool! WHAT THE HELL?! Can Toad Teleport?!
Moving on to other characters, In the first episode Luigi’s green clothes turn blue, and later in the SAME cartoon he turns RED!
In the same episode there’s one shot where Koopa doesn’t have his crown, and then when it cuts away from his close up he has it!
And here’s another favourite. In one episode Larry Koopa is under a wrestling ring setting up a trap. It then cuts to Koopa in the audience, and Larry is sitting with him! It then cuts back to Larry under the ring!
Lastly in an episode with a tv hero known as Mighty plumber, he and Koopa are in a treasure room when water starts falling. In one shot the water sort of splits up in mid air, and it’s obvious that Mighty Plumber is SUPPOSED to be standing under there next to koopa. HOW DO YOU MISS THAT!? WERE THESE CARTOONS MADE IN A HOUR?!!!
How did they manage to screw up so many big things?! There’s a billion other things I could point out Like how the koopa kids change colour constantly, Luigi’s colours were reversed, and how raccoon Mario didn’t have his raccoon ears, but I’d be here all day if I listed everything.
Oh, and let’s not forget the HORRIBLE songs in every cartoon. They even reused one of them! None of those songs are good, or even tolerable. If you aren’t ready to pull out your hair by the end of the song, well you have a bigger tolerance for pain than I do. At least they’re short.
Now to the show’s credit, there are a couple of good jokes and funny scenes, but mostly with toad. In one episode Luigi built a really crummy looking steam powered sled out of pipes. He asked Toad and Toadstool “Do you like it?” to which Toad replied “compared to what?”
Good line.
Another scene with toad that cracked me up and made me burst out laughing was when Toad and Toadstool were in Hawaii, and Toad was laying in a beach chair when a little girl and her dad saw him. The girl asked “Daddy, why does that kid have an umbrella on his head?” Toad replied, “Eat Pineapple Kid”. When looking back it actually makes no sense, however Toad said it in such a tone of voice that you knew it meant “piss off” and that made it hilarious. Though it’s certainly a one time only joke as it makes no sense the next time.
Now I’m going to do you a favour and show you the ONLY cool scene in the entire show. It’s when Mario and Luigi do a special move that looks exactly like a Bros. Attack move from Mario and Luigi Super Star Saga. It’s 57 seconds into the vid.
It isn’t a bros attack move, but it would fit right in if they put it in a game. I could watch that for seven minutes straight. (hey, it’s cool, but not THAT cool)
Now there aren’t really any movie parodies in this series, so thankfully it’s all original stories with a few possible exceptions. It also doesn’t try to be as much like the game as the Super Show did, and that helps. In fact, episode 5 was actually really good! It’s the only salvageable episode, and MAYBE episode 6 can be salvaged as well. Everything else sucks though. It’s poorly written, badly animated, and probably DEcreased sales of the game rather than INcrease them.
The show has some salvageable bits, but other than that it’s downright awful. Now I know a lot of people will say “well what did you expect?” to which I’d reply “I expected SOMETHING.” Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to continue watching Batman the animated series to cure me. While I'm recovering, you can laugh at this funny screenshot I took.
lolololololololol
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