When it comes to the Mario Bros video game series being at it’s peak it would have been at Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World games. Dic got license to make a SMB3 cartoon series (a SMW cartoon series followed a year later) and it lasted about a season in the early 90’s on NBC. The cartoon show featured more then just Super Mario Bros 3 there was also Captain N the game master which will probably never see the light of day again because of all the heavy licensing that was involved.

I got this DVD when I found it for about 10 dollars and decided to pick it up. When they say 6 episodes it’s really 6 cartoon shorts from the Super Mario Bros 3 shows, a regular show was an hour long with two Super Mario Bros shorts at the beginning and end with the Captain N in the middle. There a bit cheesier then I remember and the quality between them varies there are a few good episodes that fans of the old series might want to check out.

Reptiles in the Rosegarden.
This is one of the worse episodes of Super Mario Bros 3 series and the only one I could think of that is worse then that is the one where they meet Villie Manillie(I probably misspelled that), which I was hopping was on the disc at least that would have been a fun one to bash, or um review. Oh well at least this one isn’t phony baloney

Anyways it’s Kooties (Wendy) birthday and King Koopa decides to crown her ruler of America in the real world. They beam the white house to the dark land where Bowser rules and capture the Mario Bros and the Princess so they don’t interfere. With a little help from the Princess starting a fight among the guards they escape and with Mario plumbing skills get the white house back to the real world. They hijack Koopas doom ship and recapture Kootie and take her back to dark world where they crash Koopas doom ship into the castle.

Have you drowned in cheese yet because there is just a lot of cheese, if not plane lameness in this cartoon. Koopa takes over America to easily, yeah so he’s able to make the white house disappear; so why the army didn’t come in and nuke his butt is beyond me. A small scene with Koopa doing something to show that he means business would have been more entertaining and made a lot more sense, otherwise you get the impression has why the hell hasn’t anyone started shooting at them. Other then the whole ludicrous plot of Koopa taking over America and Mario rescuing the president there are two amusing scenes. One involving the Princess getting the hammer bros to get into a fight to escape. Another one involving the Mario Bros dressing up has Hammer Bros so they can sneak onto the doom ship. The disguises are only a step above the usual team rocket disguise and the fact that Mario is telling Luigi is sure to work only to have the first hammer bros they run into telling Mario he’s gain weight before chasing him is worth a chuckle. Another thing to notice is that the Princess is the brains behind the group, which is kind of ironic because in the game these days she has become the dumb blond.

Sneaky, Lying, Cheating, Giant Ninja Koopas.
Try saying the name of this short 5 times fast. Ok the title along with the episode is a spoof of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, to bad the only good joke along the lines is I love being a Koopa made by Big Mouth (I do believe Mortin in the videogames). If you purchased any General Mills cereal last summer and found a Super Mario Bros DVD in it this is the episode that was on the disc.

King Koopa is trying to take over giant land and has changed 4 of his kids into the Sneaky, Lying, Cheating, Giant Ninja Koopas. His plan is to capture its new leader Hugo the Huge and turn him into a miniature poodle. Even with the Mario Bros there with a power of a raccoon leaf they manage to capture Hugo along with Luigi and the Princess. Mario’s only hope to rescue comes with Hugo’s loud mouth parrot who promises Mario he’ll help if Mario can get the cage the Koopa’s had stolen back. Once inside Koopa’s castle Mario changes the poodle and the giant ninja wand around on Koopa. When he encounters Koopa the Princess dares him to turn Mario into a poodle to. Not realizing the wands have been switched he turns Mario into a giant ninja to, Mario breaks out his friends and shrinks the Koopa kids down to size. Unfortunately they break the Parrots cage and in the end Mario get’s chased off by him.

This one’s an all right episode certainly better then Reptiles in the Rose garden. We get to see the Mario Bros use the leaf items that gave them the ability grow raccoon tails and fly around. We also get a good joke when Mario tells Luigi that the sun was in his eyes when he forgets to catch Luigi in the beginning of the episode when the two are trying to find leafs to prepare for the Koopas arrival. The sun hears this line and get’s mad and starts to chase them around, it’s a bit of an amusing scene and anybody who’s played Super Mario Bros 3 knows how big a pain the sun can be when he starts to chase you around.

The Beauty of Kootie.
This one is actually pretty good in this one the Mario’s go to desert land where the king’s hot top has been spitting out oil recently. It seems that Kootie and Cheatsey (don’t remember his real name) have been sabotaging the kings pipes in order to refill Bowsers doom ship. When Cheatsey see’s the Mario’s coming he turns Kootie into Mario dream girl, but he forgets to transform her tail. Mario falls in love at first sight and despite Luigi’s warning that she has a tail she convinces him to lock up the Princess, the king of desert land, and Toad up in the dungeon. She then transforms back and kicks Mario and Luigi down a pit. The Mario’s of course manage to climb out and while Kootie is busy bragging to the Princess how she was able to capture her Mario steals her wand without her knowing. He turns Luigi into Casanova Koopa who convinces Kootie into letting the others go while Mario see’s how he can sabotage the plumbing. It isn’t long till Luigi is found out but he’s able to set the Princess free and gives Mario enough time to set the plumbing up to where he can get rid of King Koopas and his kid, has well has wreck another doom ship.

Like I said this one is actually pretty good while the human Kootie with the tail falls a bit lame at sometimes I liked the joke with Luigi being turned into an Italian Koopa was pretty funny. By and large the episode contains nothing to groan about either so it’s a pretty interesting episode.

Toddler terrors of time travel.
When Toad hears Kooky (Ludwig) has a plan to go back in time to prevent the Mario Bros from ever warping to the mushroom kingdom. Toad tells the Mario who sneak aboard the doom ship in order to stop King Koopa and Kooky from going back in time. But when the Koopa’s hit turbulence the device automatically starts and it turns Kooky, Toad, Mario, King Koopa and Luigi all into babies (the Mario still keep there mustache). Now the confusing part is that Kooky was able to adjust the time travel device to get them to the place where the Mario Bros where doing the plumbing job that they got sucked down the drain to the mushroom kingdom. But they still remain toddlers, a chase happens down the streets of Brooklyn’s but the Mario Bros manage to loose Koopa and Kooky and head to the house where they warped to the mushroom kingdom. But the lady there doesn’t believe that there baby plumbers and sets them down for a nap. Meanwhile Kookey manages to reverse his and Koopas transformations and they become adults. They go to the same house the Mario does with the alibi that there costume plumbers and start to clog the bathtub up. Meanwhile the Mario’s have escaped from there crib and decide to sabotage Koopa’s efforts from the basement but they get noticed and captured. Toad manages to escape and become an adult again. He sneaks aboard the doom ship has it fly’s away and points the device at the Mario’s who become big again just in time to unclog the drain and warp to the mushroom kingdom and save the Princess again.

Ok time travel is not supposed to make sense since it’s impossible to travel backwards in time without causing some sort of paradox. And since it can’t exist I guess nitpicking it is kind of futile but there are a few confusing points to be made. First they all turn to babies when they go back to the past because Kooky said they’ve gone to far back in time, but even though they fixed it they don’t grow up. Obviously the Mario didn’t work on the plumbing has babies. Then the biggest one is at the end when Koopa has the Princess and tells her that the Mario’s won’t be coming back because there stuck in history. If they had changed history the Princess wouldn’t know who the Mario’s even where. Other then I am a big geek when it comes to time travel this episode is ok it has a few good jokes I chuckled during a baby stroller part of the chase scene Koopa’s and Kooky’s stroller reads Bad Babies on Board.

Reign Storm
The Princess needs a vacation so she plans a trip to Hawaii but she’s nervous about leaving the mushroom kingdom in the hands of the Mario Bros. They tell her they will write if they have troubles, and Toad drags her down the warp pipe. King Koopa and Kooky see this and decide to cause trouble for the Mario’s while there in charge. Blowing up a dam for starters to make the Mario’s write to the Princess. It’s not long before a mop of angry mushrooms gather at there door and Mario writes a letter to the Princess and throws it down a pipe, but a piranha plant catches it and eats. Meanwhile Bowser has Kooky build a robotic Princess to take over the kingdom. And despite the fact that there new Princess has bolts tied to her neck the Mario’s fall for it and even let her hand over the crown to the kingdom. Meanwhile back in the real world Toad catches Kooky spying on them fearing something is up he tells the Princess who hightails it back to the mushroom king in order to stop Koopa’s takeover. The Mario’s welcome the real Princess back has King Koopa runs in fear.

This one is an ok one there’s nothing bad about but there’s nothing great. There’s not to many great jokes in it at all but at least there is one part in the episode where they acknowledge King Koopa’s name is Bowser. Other then the world’s worst version of All girls want to have fun there’s nothing to groan either.

Never Koop a Koopa
They saved the best for last never Koopa a Koopa. The episode starts out with King Koopa surrendering and telling that he’s given up trying to take over the mushroom kingdom and then he hands the key to his castle over to the Princess before using his wand to warp him and his kids out. The Princess decides she should turn the place into a retirement center for older mushrooms, Luigi and Toad warns against it. Since there worried about it Mario decides to tack along. They find castle koopa filled with booby traps but when they fall down a trap door they wind up in Koopas dungeon with him and Cheatsey there laughing at how they tricked them. Meanwhile Toad and Luigi sneak into the castle looking for Mario and the Princess and get caught and thrown into the dungeon. The Princess decides to surrender her kingdom over to Koopa if he promises to let them go. Meanwhile Cheatsey plans on double crossing his own dad and has the Mario’s to move to his room. He makes the Princess sign over the kingdom to him before leaving to brag about it to his dad King Koopa. Meanwhile the Princess uses the sledge brothers to break the lock on the others cage and they make a break for it. They find leafs that given them raccoon tails and fly out of there. Meanwhile Koopa reveals to Cheatsey that the Princess tricked them that instead of a signature there is a weird drawing on the contract. They notice this just has the Mario’s fly by the window.

Ok every 80’s and very early 90’s villain has this case might be has done the turning over a new leaf so I can trick a good guy. The Shredder did it, Skeletor did it, and now it’s Koopa’s turn to do it. Luckily we never see Koopa doing anything like helping little old ladies across the street, we don’t see him again in till the Mario and the Princess wind up in his jail which is good because it allows the rest of the episode to rest on the Princess and Cheatsey and the Mario’s escape. There are some good one liners delivered by Toad in the beginning. I like Toad’s line “remind me never to grow old” when the Princess tells them about Castle Koopa being turned into an old folks home.

Animation.
The animation in Super Mario Bros 3 was pretty good at the time. Considering this was the NES the character models where right on the mark at the time. Again the characters where a bit different on the NES that’s why the Princess is a brunette and Bowser where’s a crown and is a bit more green. But other then that they capture the world of Mario bros 3 pretty well ? block float over the land has well has blocks and platforms that are suspended in air give a good look to the series. Add in some remix music in the series and feel of the series does match the feel of the game. The only they got wrong is that Mario’s in his classic red overalls and blue shirt rather then the other way around but then that would be nitpicking

The DVD.
Ok the DVD is pretty much bare bones has far has any special features you got basic menus, there nice enough to let you bounce around to what episode you want to see but there are no scene selects in any of the episodes, heck each episode is just one chapter in itself. The video quality isn’t that great either but since I got this for under 10 dollars I wasn’t to surprised. I was also a bit disappointed that they cut out the original opening segments to the cartoons has well. Now to review the only bonus thing that this DVD has and it’s not something I couldn’t necessarily live without, in fact I was glad it didn’t make me sick, it’s time to review another episode of Sonic Underground.

Sonic Underground: Sonic Tonic.
I guess I am not the only one who doesn’t catch the irony of Sega games being on the Nintendo gamecube, Dic is to and just like the Legend of Zelda Ganon’s evil tower this DVD has an episode of Sonic underground probably the worst Sonic series I have ever seen.

The series revolves around Sonic plus two new characters that are his siblings Sonya and Manick and there all voiced by the same guy who played Steve Urkel on Family Matters. Anyways in this one Robotnick destroys the hanging gardens of Mobius in order to find the tree to make a new invention sonic tonic. A new tonic that when pored on ones feet will make them go super fast. Robotnick gives it to his two bounty hunters and they get fast enough to catch Sonic the hedgehog and bring him to Robotnick but a side effect appears soon after. There feed double in size and they can’t walk without falling down. Sonic uses this to escape and gives his Sonya and Manick a hard time for not getting there fast enough. They journey to the hanging garden in order to stop Robotnick from making more Sonic Tonic. But when there jeep breaks down Sonic gives him more of a hard time about being slow that Sonya and Manick decide to try some Sonic Tonic they swiped from Robotnick in the process of rescuing Sonic. They get super fast and decide to ditch Sonic. Sonic quickly fixes there cars and races to catch up. At the hanging gardens Sonya and Manick are corner when there feet start to grow. Sonic arrives in time to save them but get’s corner on top of the garden. He throws in what’s left and then tells them to all play there magical music instruments. When they do there feet shrink and the gardens are restored to the pristine state they where in before Robotnick arrived.

It’s not has bad has the one has on the Legend of Zelda VHS but it still isn’t has good has some of the old Sonic episodes that where on ABC 10 years ago. But at least the music video wasn’t has bad nor did they get into the whole music has a weapon thing in till at least the end of the episode so it wasn’t has annoying.

Final Recommendation.
I wouldn’t have minded seeing Captain N the game master on the DVD so it could be the Super Mario Bros 3 the way it’s meant to be but since there was so much license to that show I doubt we will ever see that show see the light of day again. But on the bright side 4 of the 6 episodes of SMB3 turned out to be quite enjoyable if a bit cheesy, and the Sonic episode didn’t turn out to be to bad. I recommend it if you want some classic Nintendo nostalgia.


Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4