I had a VHS tape of this show when I was 7. One of the episodes on the tape was "The Great BMX Race." That's the episode I'll be reviewing!
THIS was the tape. =)
I bet Tempo Kids Club had ZERO members.
HERE!
"Hey Pie-Zanos! It's the Super Mario Bros Super Show!"
...OK, first question: What the fuck IS A PIE-ZANO??
WE'RE NOT LIKE THE OTHERS WHO GET ALL THE FAME.
YIPPY-YIPPY, YIPPY-YIPPY, YO!
As a wrestling nut, I'm VERY excited to watch Captain Lou Albano as Mario. It's a shame kid-me couldn't appreciate such inspired casting.
I never thought I'd say that Lou Albano performed a role better than Bob Hoskins, but IT'S TRUE!
So, according to the rap intro, um... the Mario Bros will... adventure? And meet Princess and Koopas? And I'll be... hooked on the Brothers?
Not sure exactly what the premise of this show is, but HEY LOOK! Mario is riding a magic carpet! Who cares what the show is? FLYING CARPETS!
We begin with 3 minutes of what can only be described as a prime-time Mario sitcom set in Mario's New York apartment. WHAT DID I JUST TYPE?
I feel the need to show visual proof of this. I don't think you'd believe me otherwise! I swear it's real!
I laughed SO hard at this. Not cuz it was funny, but cuz it was BAFFLING. All the slapstick sounds they use are sounds from NES Mario Bros!
To a kid this will be standard kids-show stuff, but as a grown-up Mario fan, this is downright bizarre. I IMPLORE you watch this on YouTube!
By the way, THIS is what Mario and Luigi's mother looks like. Where the hell was SHE in Mario Kart 8?
Next up, we get a SECOND Mario rap! With a SECOND intro sequence! What's going on?!? I'm scared and confused!
After TWO intros and TWO raps describing what the show is about, I still have no idea what this show is about. AND I'M A MARIO FAN.
I need to take a break. Something just happened that I don't think I can explain. The cartoon started and I was sat there, ready to watch...
And then I saw this.
I actually nearly passed out. I couldn't stop laughing. My bewilderment at this image was killing me. Please someone explain this to me!
After a mad rap intro, a live-action MARIO SITCOM starring LOU ALBANO, Mario's MOM, a SECOND mad rap intro and THIS bike... It's too much!
I'll come back to this episode later. Mario cartoon used WEIRDNESS, I got confused, hit myself in confusion and fainted. Mario cartoon wins.
---(COMES BACK NEXT DAY)---
OK, this is attempt number 2. LEZDOIT!
Is the Mushroom Kingdom actually a microscopic world that exists in the fungal bacteria at the bottom of drains?
...Screw it, IT IS NOW!
So remember kids, NEVER CLEAN YOUR BATH DRAINS. Mushroom people live there.
OH GOD, IT'S THIS AGAIN!! HELP!! I CAN'T WATCH!!
OK, stay positive. The music here is from Super Mario Bros 2. FOCUS ON THAT.
Speaking of Mario Bros 2, a wild Fry Guy appears! He spits fire at the bike with NES Fire Flower sound FX. Nice!
...Excuse me? That's not a sentence. Sentences need WORDS. Try again.
Was he trying to say "Stop there...... ......Deh Beet?"
Didn't have a clue what he was saying as a kid. NOT DOING MUCH BETTER AS AN ADULT.
...Stop them-there feet?
No, I conclude that he intended to say, and succeeded in saying, "STOB DAIRP DEH BEET."
Deal with it, I guess!
Jeezus, this guy can spit up a storm.
Did Toad's voice actor work ever again after this?
Checking IMDB. Um, yes he did. LOTS. His name's John Stocker. He's been in EVERYTHING.
He's also Mouser in this episode. The more you know!
Fry's next sentence is a vast improvement. "SSSSAHH BEEN LOOKING FOR YOU, MUSHROOM."
I kinda hope this show is wall-to-wall gibberish talk.
Fry's like "GIMME YA MONEY." Peach is like "Nah mate, Koopa took it." Fry's like "Get some then, so you can enter a BMX race and WIN money."
Um... what? Get money, then you can WIN money? What strange dialogue.
They coulda just said "Need money? Win this race then!" Much neater!
By the way, Mario never gets hold of money to enter the BMX race with, so... the BMX race is free entry? So that line is pointless anyway?
Also, if Peach or anyone else says "Koopa," THEY MEAN BOWSER. For some reason, Bowser is just called "Koopa" in this show. That's weird!
Especially since this show DOES feature Koopa Troopers that get referred to as... "Koopas!" Wow, this won't be confusing as hell!
So Mario enters a conveniently advertised bike race to win money to pay Fry Guy, cuz Fry threatened him, I guess.
Take a drink every time Mario says "Pastah Power" in this cartoon.
Mario says to Toad "We'll save you, Pie-Zano!" WHAT'S A PIE-ZANO? I STILL DON'T KNOW! As a kid I thought he was saying that line to Fry Guy!
That's what happens when you don't address people BY THEIR ACTUAL NAMES. Pie-Zano could be friggin' anyone! I DON'T KNOW WHO PIE-ZANO IS!
Thank God I didn't start casually calling people Pie-Zanos as a kid. It sounds racist!
All these Pie-Zanos coming in here, taking our jobs-
I should stop getting so worked up about one little word, though. After all, as a great man once said...
"STOB DAIRP DEH BEET!"
So the race starts, and the Bros are competing against a gang of bosses from Mario Bros 2.
Hehehe! "Tart."
Mario responds with "Arrivederci!" and bolts off. As a kid, my parents WERE able to clarify what Arrivederci meant. Swozzaahp? Not so much.
OMG! Peach actually says words in this cartoon! Words that aren't just "MARIOOOOOOO!!!" What happened to THIS Peach?
The game which, by the way, turned out to be a dream. The only game where Peach gets to kick ass and it wasn't even real. Cheers, Nintendo.
WHO THE HELL IS THIS GUY? Is this meant to be Bowser? WHY IS HE SO GREEN?
So it turns out the race was set up by Bowser so that he can make the Bros have a "biking accident" and get away with, well... killing them.
Holy hell! They took a moment to establish the plot clearly and concisely! And we're only, what? SEVEN MINUTES IN TO A TWENTY-MINUTE SHOW?
Peach and Toad try to run out in front of the biking Bros to stop them.
And by "run" I mean "plod through pudding."
Toad is like "Whoa... hey... mario... um... hey..."
John Stocker once again earning his paycheck.
No such luck. The Bros bike on and Peach gets captured by Bowser, who ties her up with the most ideal bondage equipment... an asleep snake.
Peach to Bowser: "Koopa, you're a disgusting, double-crossing meanie!"
Of course, what she MEANT to say was... "MARIOOOOOOOOO!!!!!"
The Mario-2-Boss-Gang crash through the brothers and Mario yells "Let's show 'em some smoking smoke!"
Smoking smoke is the worst smoke.
The Boss Gang prepare to ram the Bros off of a somewhat-high-up cliff ledge. As a kid, I was legit fearing for Mario's life at this point!
Just to put things into perspective, quite literally...
This is what the cliff looks like from a distance...
Hey, wait a second-
Notice where the Boss Gang are cycling from.
Mario stops the fall by throwing a plunger attached to the bike with a rope ALL THE WAY BACK UP THE CLIFF onto the giant rock at the top...
...And THIS is how far they've fallen!
Why are these proportions so TERRIBLE??
If your shoddy animation is noticeable TO A SEVEN-YEAR-OLD, you know you've done the worst job ever. How did they think this was acceptable?
This cartoon is entertaining as hell, but I simply cannot comprehend how child-me could have watched something like this. It's too bizarre!
And bearing in mind, I've been watching this in chunks, four-minutes-at-a-time, so I'm not even watching this all the way through in one go!
If I had to watch this all the way through in one sitting, I think my brain would just implode.
AND THERE WAS A WHOLE SERIES OF THIS SHOW!
I watched a coupla minutes ahead to see if it was worth continuing this review. The Bros speed off down the cliff...
The Boss Gang activate their bike's motors (why didn't they have those activated to begin with?) and speed down the cliff FROM HALFWAY UP...
And then THIS happened!
---(COMES BACK NEXT DAY)---
Peach escapes from Bowser while he's distracted by the silly proportions of Mount NotToScale.
As I recall, chase scenes featuring bizarre rip-off pop songs happened in EVERY episode. And they got WEIRDER and WEIRDER and WEIRDER...
Finally, the Bros save the day by playing a patty-cake game and spinning on their bike super-fast to create a sandstorm. Not making this up.
Then they just grab a bunch of fruit from a conveniently located garden, throw it at the Boss Gang and Bowser and just... win? ...The end?
The writers obviously couldn't figure out how to end the episode, so one of them in frustration said "F**K IT. MAKE A FOOD FIGHT HAPPEN."
OH GOD! WE'RE NOT DONE WITH MARIO'S MOTHER YET!
The punchlines they're going for in the scenes involving Mario's mom are "She sounds Italian and that's funny!"
Pretty sure that's racist.
And as if ONE ill-conceived Nintendo cartoon wasn't bad enough...
CLEAR YOUR PLATES, YOU'RE HAVING SECONDS!!
SO NOW I HAVE TO WATCH THE ZELDA CARTOON TOO.
Oh thank God. It's only a commercial for the Zelda cartoon.
Honestly, they lost me WELL before "Excuuuuuse me, Princess!"
The Mario sitcom finish just goes ON and ON until finally, we get the end credit... dance?
Let it speak for itself.
There! It's over! I completed the review! Thank you for reading!
I'M NEVER WATCHING THE SUPER MARIO BROS SUPER SHOW EVER AGAIN.
If you're an adult, you love Mario and have a high threshold for strange crap, watch ONE episode of this and have fun, BUT NO MORE THAN ONE.
If you're a kid, DO NOT WATCH THIS SHOW. YOU WILL GROW UP WRONG BECAUSE OF IT. This kind of TV wasn't good for me. It was WAY too fucked up.
Thank GOD Mario cartoons were only briefly broadcast on Channel 4, at like, 6AM. Thank God I only ever watched a couple of episodes. Yikes.
I now need to go watch a Let's Play of Mario Maker and remind myself of what Mario ACTUALLY IS.
So until next time...
STOB DAIRP DEH BEET!
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