Plot Details: This opinion reveals major details about the movie's plot.

Now back in the 1980’s when the NES was first really big there was one video game mascot that people associated with video games period. Super Mario Bros the three games that the NES had where probably the most remembered and popular games back in the day, and it’s sad to see the fact that Mario does more partying then he does adventuring. Anyways back in the day Mario was big enough that he had his own TV show called the Super Mario Bros Super Show, made by DIC (which also later brought us the Super Mario Bros 3 and Captain N cartoon show) the show stared professional wrestler Lou Albino doing the voice of Mario and portraying him in the life action skits they did. The animated shorts are sandwich between two parts of the live action skits.

I found this DVD for sale recently also dirt cheap for around 10 dollars. It’s not a bad DVD if your fan of the old Mario games.

warning the following reviews are of a very cheesy TV show, more cheesy then the pizza that the Mario’s brother’s phone sits on. will not be held responsible for any deaths regarding drowning in 80’s cheese. Thank you that is all

Episode 1
Live action segment Neatness counts
The Mario Bros are at home when Nicole Eggert (who is she? I don’t know some 80’s star I guess) drops by so they can fix there sink before she goes to a party. But the sink squirts on her, then they try to dry her with the furnace and it spits soot, she steps in cake and sits in pizza. They apologize only to find out that she is going to a sloppy party (help I am drowning in cheese all ready) and they just helped her prepare.

My Thoughts.
Ok we have the option of watching the live segments without the animated ones. To bad we don’t have the option of skipping the live action sequences, especially when it comes to this skit. It’s bad, it’s cheesy, and it’s not really that funny. Of course if I knew who Nicole Eggert was maybe I would have gotten more of a laugh of her sitting in the pizza.

The animated segment The Bird The Bird.
This one begins with Mario narrating the fact that they just escaped King Koopas castle (I take it means the animated shorts happen after the first game) and are now on the run from her. While passing the mountains Toad gets kidnapped by Birdo who mistakes him for her lost son. The Mario’s start to climb the mountain she lives on to look for Toad, meanwhile a Flurry spots them and reports back to King Koopa about the Mario Bros. He sends Albatosses to bomb them and cause an avalanche. They find a cave complete with a door on it to hide in but the snow comes through and blocks them in. The Princess sees a fire flower which Mario grabs and then uses fire balls to block the door way. After a little more searching they find the birdo’s baby frozen in ice and Mario defrosts him. They decide to take a break and make a fire. Meanwhile Toad is having trouble convincing the Birdo that he’s not her child and when she takes him for his flying lessons he uses the opportunity to make his escape using his hat has a parachute he floats to the ground right by where the Mario Bros are camping. Since Toad knows where the mother is they choose to send him up to return Birdo’s baby. Meanwhile King Koopa attacks the group and Mario fends off his troops with his fire balls, but a bob bomb blasts injures him enough that he looses his fire balls. Koopa surrounds him but Toad returns with Birdo and they throw giant vegetables at him from the air. He retreats and Birdo invites them up to her place for dinner. Mario thinks there having spaghetti but it turns out to be worms and they decided to not eat and run.

My Thoughts.
The life action part stinks the animated short makes up for that. It’s the first episode though and a few of the characters are a bit of in there looks. Toad cap is done with the red and white reverse on it, so he looks more like a magic mushroom power up with legs. Birdo is the worst out of them though she barley looks like those in the games. Has the rest of the characters go they don’t look to bad considering these where early 80’s video games. If you can’t tell Mario Bros Super Show animated skits combine the villains and power ups from both the original Super Mario Bros and SMB2 games. In other words Mario will throw vegetables and fire balls to stop koopa. Now for the episode there are a few good laughs to be had especially with Toad trying to convince Birdo that he is not her baby.

Episode 2
Live action segment.
The live action segments go around Mario and Luigi looking after Patty the sad eye orphan who has her birthday. When she says it’s her birthday she has them throw a big birthday party for her and spend all there money on extravagant gifts. But when Patty’s parents come over the Mario’s found they are duped. Patty is forced to apologize and the Mario’s forgive her before sitting down and having some cake.

My thoughts.
This is better then the last one there is a few good jokes here and there. But a few of them fall flat because some of the extras in the skit over act more then William Shanter.

Animated King Mario of Cramalot.
The Mario’s are searching for a way to get rid of King Koopa so they seek out Mervin the magician in Cramalot. Only to find out that Mervin is in a bit of a spot, it seems that the king of Cramalot has died and Koopa has moved in and crowned himself king. The only way for anyone to prove themselves King is to pool a golden plunber out of a clogged bath tub. Mario succeeds in doing this but when Koopa finds out he manages to capture the group and throw them all in the dungeon. With water filling the dungeon and the cealing collapsing the Mario’s think there doomed intill Mervin returns and bails them all out. Mervin takes them to a lake where Mario receives a Excalibur, no not the sword but the plumbers helper. It turns him into fire Mario and they return and battle Koopa. Toad, Luigi, Mervin, and the Princess hold off the Koopa Troopas while Mario battles Koopa using the plumbers helper. After a battle over chandlers and atop tables Koopa eventually looses the golden plungers and decides to run away through a warp zone. Mervin crowns Mario the king of cramalot but when Mario learns he will have to loose weight and won’t be able to eat pasta again he gives the crown back and runs away.

My thoughts.
It’s a good episode and there are plenty of good jokes cracked by Mervin. I like the golden plunger joke when Mario asks about it, he goes one thing about us in Cramalot where not chinsey. A few good jokes cracked by Koopa also when he’s busy trying to convince a koopa troopa that he’s now king of Cramalot and it is going no where with it.

Episode 3
Live action segment
Sergent Slaughter (which I do believe is another wrestler) has hired the Mario Bros to fix his steam machine. Mario gets it working and hops in to see if it works and gets stuck. Sergent Slaughter comes in and Luigi tells him he should try it out and he turns it up to max. Because he dosen’t like the knocking noise that it’s making he makes Luigi to 500 pushups before ordering him to take it up to his tank. While trying to move it jostles it enough for the door to pop open and mini Mario pops out threating to get slaughter, Luigi tells him to stand up and Mario tells him he’s all ready standing.

My Thoughts
Finally a good live action segment with a lot of good jokes, most of them coming from Sergent Slaughter. I like the beginning when he calls them telling them he’s taking a short cut off the Brooklyn Bridge, and Mario asks how can you take a short cut on the Brooklyn Bridge. You hear Slaughter yell it helps if you have a tank and then you hear a lot of screaming and car crashes. The mini Mario was a predictable joke but it goes off with out falling to flat and it’s worth a chuckle.

The animated segment Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid.
Mario and Luigi are in the old west trying to find out where Shreiff Koopa has imprision the Princess again and they discover a bounty on there head which gets them in trouble with a talking cactus. They are manage to out wit the cactus and out run deputy Mouser and his men by jumping over logs floating down a waterfall (think Super Mario Bros 2). They come back to the same spot and find out the bounty on there heads have more then doubled but they manage to find the mine the Princess is in. But Mouser surprises them and the battle between them causes a giant boulder to roll twords them. They are chased into town by it, but when Mario sees all you can eat pasta on one of the signs in town he grabs Toad and Luigi and runs into that building. Only to find out that it’s the local jail and that he’s now prisonor of Koopas. Koopa locks them up but they manage to trick Mouser into coming into the jail cell and Toad manages to sneak into his hat and escape. He hides in Mouser cap intill Mouser puts it down right by some Bob-ombs. He uses one to bust Mario out of jail and they go to the mine where the Princess is in, and using bomb flowers they see growing in the mine blow up a wall in the mine thinking that is where she is imprision. But Luigi is caught in the explosion so Mario takes him out for some air and once again they are caught by Koopa. They get into a ptooey fire ball gun battle and the Mario’s run back into the mine and fall of the cliff right into where Koopa at the Princess locked up. He laughs at them for being stuck but Mario and Luigi play with some pipes that are in the pit with them and are manage to swim out, meanwhile the amount of water that is released flushes Koopa away.
My thoughts.
The animated short is also a step up above the last two episode. Toad’s hat is the wrong color but we see some good jokes from Bowser threating the Princess. When the Princess dosen’t give in to his demand he tells her’s breakfast, lunch, and dinner for the rest of the week before handing her three beans. It’s humerous and it’s so much like the 80’s villain that Koopa was. We also see a scene where they log skip over waterfalls which happen a lot in Super Mario Bros 2. And in another scene we see that Toad pulls out bomb plants faster then Luigi, which is also true in Super Mario Bros 2.

Episode number 4
Live action segment Marionette and Luigini.
The Mario Bros are going to have Lyle Alazado (another 80’s star I suppose) over for dinner but they receive a call that there female cousines Marionette and Luigini (played by Lou Albano and Danny Wells in drag) are coming over. They hurry out for refreshments so they can get back home hopefully before the cousins arrive. Lyle shows up early and so do the cousins and they immedily start hitting on him. Luigini goes out to search for the Mario’s when Luigi arrives in time to shew Marionette away from Lyle. After she leaves Mario enters and Lyle tells them about his horrifying expiernce. The two cousins enter and tell them there date with Lyle is off they just saw Mel Gibson and there going to be tracking him home, Lyle cracks a joke about how disappointed he is that Mel stole the two cousins away from him.

My thoughts.
This skit if funny but in that’s also just plane wrong in the first place. I have to admit having the Mario’s in drag hitting on Lyle was pretty funny though.

Mario Magic Carpet
The Mario Bros journey to the desert in order to get Aladdins lamp. A lamp they hope will get rid of Koopa for good. But they get captured by sultain Pashba and imprsion. On there way to the cell they notice that the lamp there looking for is in the sultains treasury. They decide to escape from the cell and steal the lamp. Meanwhile Pashba isen’t having any luck convincing the Princess to join his harem so he deicdes to try to sell her to king koopa. When the Mario’s find out they rub the lamp to release the genie in order to help the princess. The genie turns out to be a rather angry nag of a women who dosen’t have much magic. Instead of rescuing the Princess it creates a bad smell which Koopa uses to make an escape with the Princess in his magic carpet. (the magic carpet are have car, have carpet.) The Mario’s wish to fly and all the genies does after a lot of winnying is cause them to fly straight up and fall straight back down. Toad see’s a use carpet lot though while this is happening and they deicde to buy a flying carpet. The chase begins with the Mario’s eventually catching up to Bowser, Bowsers plan is to dumb the Princess in quick sand and get her out of his hair for good. The Mario’s catch up but not without a lot of wineing from the genie. Despite there best efforts Koopa reaches the quick sand first and dumps the Princess in it. But the Mario’s arrive in time to lift her out, but Koopa sicks a bunch of wild Pidgets on them. Has the Pidgets eat there carpet Luigi remembers he can speak Pidget and tells them that Koopa carpet tastes better, the Pidget start to attack Koopa instead, and in the process the genies lamp lands in Koopas car and she imeadily starts nagging him on how he should drive. The Mario’s laugh at the scene and Mario suggests they deserve each other. They fly off into the distance and the episode ends.

My Thoughts.
It’s a pretty good episode with a few good jokes. The nagging genie is good for a few laughs, and Toad has a few good one liners played off her. When Mario’s driving the use carpet rather poorly the genie starts hollering about it, and Toad says I don’t know which is worse the backseat driver or the front seat one.

Episode 5.
Live action Slime Busters.
When the Mario’s notice they have a sime ghost they call in Ernie Hudson (Ghostsbusters 2) from Slime Busters. Luigi gets dragged by the slime into the bedroom and Ernie goes in after them. Ernie comes out saying that the most vile thing he has ever seen, the smoke clears and it’s Luigi and Mario tells him to shake hands with Luigi. While there looking for the remains of the slime ghost Luigi starts to act weird and when they notice is body is starting to turn into slime Ernie shoots him with his ray. The ray works and Luigi turns back to normal and the ghost surrenders himself just so he can get away from the Mario’s.

My thoughts.
A pretty good skit it’s obvious a parody of Ghostbusters and it’s done good. I like it when they talk to Earnie they ask where the other slime busters are, and he tells them when they heard it was the Mario’s he lost the draw. Anyways not a bad skit.

The .Legend of Zelda the Ringer
OK every Fridays the Super Mario Bros Super show would turn there Mario animated cartoon show to Nintnedo’s 2nd biggest franchise at the time The Legend of Zelda. Since I reviewed the Ringer all ready when I reviewed the Legend of Zelda gannons evil tower VHS I am going to be lasy and just put the hyper link to the review where the title is. And while I have watch a few more Zelda episodes on Yahooligans and not all have them are has bad has the one on the VHS my opinion on the ringer and on the Zelda VHS tape remain the same.

Animation.
The animation on Super Mario Bros Super Show was a bit slack on the animated bits. Since it was the early days of the NES the creators took a bit more artistic lincense but a lot of the fun look in the video games still come out in there campy way. It’s not has good has Super Mario Bros 3 but by that time it was obvious where Nintendo was going to take the Mario Bros franchise and how characters where going to look in the future.

Voice Acting.
While the animation is a bit more slack the VA are better since Albano and Wells do a better Mario and Luigi voices then the ones in SMB3. Princess also has a bit more of a high pitch voice to hers. Toad and Koopas remain the same in all the Mario Bros series produced by DIC.
DVD contents.
The video on the DVD isn’t too bad, it’s better then I expect but it’s still a cheapo DVD so it’s not what I call great quality. The extras have a few nice touches to them, there are two extras. The first one is that you can watch the live action skits without being interrupted by the cartoons. No scene specific access to let us access just the cartoons though. The next one is ask Andy where fans asked Andy there favorite questions and he answers. Most of them are just trivial but there’s some good info in this segment.

Final Recommendation.
The Super Mario Bros Super Show was a fun show and its DVD is worth it. While it says Volume 1 I doubt there is going to be anymore DVD releases though mainly because DIC’s Yaholigan deal got so popular that I doubt anybody bought these DVD’s.


Recommended: Yes

Viewing Format: DVD
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day
Suitability For Children: Suitable for Children up to Age 4