These last two episodes were never recorded on my VHS tapes. I remember the week after taping the previous episode we recorded the same time slot and ended up with another copy of the very first episode. I'm not sure the exact order the episodes aired in, since the order on my VHS doesn't exactly match the order usually listed for the broadcast schedule. Anyway, I never saw these last two episodes growing up and it wouldn't be until I could find them on the internet that I would finally be able to watch them.
Mind Your Mummy Mommy, Mario
We kick things off in a pyramid with Hip and Hop poking around. Hip steps on the remains of a dry bones and jumps into Hop's arms, causing the two of them to stumble around until they smash into an urn. They then hear a banging noise and we see a sarcophagus nearby with the lid shaking. The two quickly grab another sarcophagus, which is apparently what they came here for, and make tracks with it. The two are barely out of the room when the first sarcophagus opens and an angry mummy shouts “They stole my son!” Outside, Hip and Hop look back and see the mummy right behind them as they run across the desert. Fortunately for them, a pipe is up ahead at the top of a flight of stairs, so they climb up and hop in. It's not a warp pipe or anything, just a pipe laying on its side floating in mid-air. The mummy runs past, not seeing them and still in a tizzy. Hip and Hop examine the sarcophagus and see that the image of the prince carved into it looks like Mario. We then cut to Mario, who is sleeping in bed with a pipe wrench and a plunger laying on his chest and crossing over each other, mimicking the image on the sarcophagus. Because that's a perfectly normal thing to do. Toad, Luigi and Toadstool are also present and sitting around. The door bursts open and a mushroom citizen rushes in. I'd like to point out that if you look out the door in this shot you can see that Mario and Luigi have apparently moved into the middle of the desert. He says there's a mummy running loose in Desert Land and Mario shouts, excessively loudly, that they have to get the mummy back where it belongs “before it scares the pasta out of everybody!” Pasta humour may be much less frequent than it was in the Super Show but it's still there.
We see the mummy running about and chasing a couple of mushroomers through a small town where all the buildings are makeshift tents. She chases them into one tent, but it falls on top of her as she tries to leave. Mario and the gang arrive in time to see the mummy throwing note blocks about. Mario decides to go and talk to the mummy but has a tent thrown on top of him for his trouble. Hip and Hop are still hiding in the pipe from earlier and have decided now is the best time to run off. Toadstool asks aloud why the mummy would be so upset, then sees Hip and Hop running off with the sarcophagus and concludes that his is all their fault. She rushes after them with Toad and Luigi, but tells Mario to keep the mummy occupied till they get back.
Mario walks up to talk to the mummy, but as soon as she sees him she assumes that he's her son come back to her, then tries to hug him. The son in question is actually called Prince Mushroomkhamun, which is a bit odd because the mummy appears to be human, though it's a bit hard to tell for certain since she's dead. Mario tries to jump away from the mummy, but she moves much quicker than he was expecting and catches him before he can land. Meanwhile, the others chase Hip and Hop over a sand dune only to be ambushed by the Doomship when they reach the top. Hip and Hop ride on top of the sarcophagus as it's hauled up to the Doomship via crane. Koopa taunts our heroes, saying that even his youngest kids could outsmart them. As I mentioned before, the twins are the youngest in the family in this show.
We cut to a shot of Mario being carried off by the mummy, with Toadstool and the others witnessing and commenting on it. Oddly, there's no transition scene of them moving at all, so I guess the mummy carried Mario right past them. They chase after the mummy but are soon left eating dust. Toadstool laments that they'll never find Mario without a map, causing Toad to mention that he has a cousin nearby who deals in maps. We cut to said cousin as he espouses his wears. Toadstool pays for a map to the mummy tombs and Luigi notes that there's a picture of Mario on it. Toadstool quickly puts together why the mummy ran off with Mario in first place. Oddly, the picture of the prince looks alive and healthy but the picture of his mother next to him has her looking mummified. Toadstool decides to go after the sarcophagus that was stolen and return it to the mummy in order to get Mario back.
Inside the pyramid, Mario tries to tell his captor that he isn't her son, to no avail. She wraps him up in bandages and tries to put him down for a ten thousand year nap. Not sure where she plans to make him sleep since they're short a sarcophagus. Mario tries hopping away, but the mummy grabs a loose bandage and pulls him back. She then places him in what looks like her sarcophagus.
Outside Kastle Koopa, Luigi flies by with his raccoon powers, pulling what looks like a cloud, though in reality its just a bunch of steam concealing a balloon. Unfortunately, a twister comes by, blowing all the steam away and leaving the balloon tangled up on one of the castle's towers. Toadstool and company walk into the tower and find the missing sarcophagus standing right there. Convenient. Luigi runs off, then returns with a bunch of pipes and stuff. After a little work he's finished constructing his Steam Powered Mummy Sled.™ Outside, Koopa arrives on the scene along with a terribly drawn Hip and Hop. Koopa yells at the intruders to come out, so they do, riding on a Steam Powered Mummy Sled.™
This is where the montage for the episode kicks in, but the track used in the youtube video I happened to watch was, once again, an instrumental version of “Megamove.” I don't have this episode on tape, but research shows that the classic “Wipeout” was being played during this sequence. I recently found a video of this sequence with the original audio.
The Steam Powered Mummy Sled™ flies down an impossibly long staircase, bowling over para-goombas who happily land in the formation of bowling pins, past a few rows of ravenous chain chomps, out the front door and into a lake.
Back in the pyramid, Mario does an incredible leap that sends him bursting out through the very top of the pyramid. He hops down the side of the pyramid just as Toadstool and the others arrive with the sarcophagus. Luigi hugs his bro and Toadstool unties Mario's bandages from behind. Then Mario just kind of spins on the spot and his bandages come off. The mummy breaks down the pyramid wall and looks pissed. Toadstool explains that the queen made a mistake and the mummy immediately blames Mario for impersonating her son. The mummy then walks up to Luigi and says he looks exactly like her husband, causing Luigi to run for his life.
Invasion of the Paper Peddlers
As the narrator helpfully explains, Dr. Wily is in Kongoland brewing up some evil. He pulls out a contraption sporting several hoses which then attach themselves to a group of nearby trees and starts syphoning stuff, I'm guessing sap, out of them. Oddly, the sap is green. Also, as the sap is sucked out, the trees immediately wither away. The narrator then explains that a week later the N Team has gotten an urgent call for help from Newsworld, so we see them levitate out of a warp zone that's in the ground. Just as Kevin and Lana are discussing how this place was too peaceful, a paperboy comes riding along and smashes right into Simon, causing both the vampire hunter and a bunch of newspapers to go flying. After Simon crashes into a water fountain, the paperboy shouts at them to stay back. It seems he thinks they're zombies. Kid Icarus explains that, no, they aren't zombies. The paperboy actually recognizes everyone there, except for Simon. He introduces himself as Julio and says he's the one who called them. Seems they have a zombie problem. Simon seems incredulous about the whole thing. Not because he doesn't believe in zombies of course, it's just that this town does not look like the place zombies usually hang out. I guess he's an expert on the subject. I mean there's a ton of zombies at Dracula's place.
In case you haven't guessed, this episode is based off of the old NES game Paperboy, with Julio here being the titular character from said game. Kevin decides to go off with Julio and investigate this whole zombie thing. He gets on Julio's bike and the two ride off, but Simon decides to follow after them by riding a unicycle he pulls out of his backpack. As Kevin rides down the street, Julio sits on the back of the bike and tosses papers at houses, hitting everything but the doorsteps. Just like in the actual game. Simon is also accosted by a small dog. Julio throws one paper through the glass on the front door of one house, causing a woman to come out and start chasing them. Kevin pedals faster but has to swerve out of the way of a little kid on a trike and ends up smashing right through some garbage cans. The lady stops chasing them, but as Simon rides past her she throws a rolling pin at him.
Kevin and Julio do a little bonding as Kevin shows the kid how to throw papers without causing a ton of property damage. He demonstrates by throwing a paper at some old guy. After they've left, the old guy reads the paper and the headline changes to “Mother Brain is my master.” A line which he repeats out loud. We see Mother Brain observing this on that video screen of hers that sees everything. Wily pulls a lever and gives Momma B an electric shock. Their plan it seems is to syphon off energy from Mother Brain into some special ink, and that will allow her to control her new minions when they read stuff printed with said ink. She orders the old guy to destroy Kevin and the paperboy, so he gets in his car and tries to run them down. Simon wraps his whip around a tree and pulls himself up and out of the way of the car. At least that's what he tires to do. Instead he ends up on the hood of the car. Kevin shoots a tree ahead of them, causing it to fall over just after they pass under it. The car crashes into the fallen tree and the clearly hypnotized driver explains his brakes weren't working. Kevin believes him out of hand, despite Julio's insistence that he's a zombie. I guess in this context he means brainwashed zombie and not actually undead.
In a building somewhere in Newsworld, we see Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo pouring the hypnotic ink into a paper press. Mother Brain is there too, despite the fact that she was in Metroid just a minute ago. The two drop a barrel of ink and Mother Brain turns it into a big green monster with her thoughts. Because psychic ink. She yells at them to go to paperboy's house and stop the N Team, so the pair rush off through a warp zone. Even though their target is on the same game world they're on now.
At Julio's house, the whole N Team is in attendance as Julio's mom gives everyone milk. Mega Man and Game Boy both drink it up, despite Game Boy having a screen for a face. He does have trouble digesting it, as he falls over afterwards. Julio's mom tries to read a newspaper, but it seems Julio has cut out large portions of it. When she reaches for a whole paper, Julio grabs it out of her hand and convinces her not to read it. His mom goes off to bake cookies and Game Boy goes to help. Julio explains that he thinks the newspapers are what's turning everyone into zombies. Course since no one believes him he's still stuck delivering them.
The doorbell rings and Julio's mom answers it to find Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo there. The two are dressed in trench coats and sunglasses and are selling a cookbook. The mom smells her cookies burning and closes the door on Eggplant Wizard's foot. Or whatever passes for a foot on an eggplant. King Hippo grabs the book from his partner and the two sneak into the house, right past Game Boy, who is stumped trying to figure out how to open a carton of milk. He ends up squeezing it so hard that it bursts open. King Hippo slips on the fresh puddle. Game Boy and Eggplant Wizard start fighting over the cookbook until the mom tells Game Boy to serve the cookies. The book ends up in a bowl full of batter and Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo start bickering about who's fault it all is. The mom picks up the book and reads it as the title changes to “Mother Brain is your master.”
Julio's mom walks into the dinning room as the N Team are eating their cookies. She unplugs a ceiling fan, which is just plugged into an outlet on the wall. Then she gives the cord a tug and the whole thing falls on the table. Most unsafe ceiling fan ever. In the kitchen, Mother Brain is somehow there as well, just floating in mid-air. Not sure how she got there or how she's floating. Eggplant Wizard pulls out a vial of ink and spills it on the toaster. Mother Brain then realizes she can mind control the toaster the same way she does people. Even though, traditionally, toasters are immune to hypnosis.
Back in the dinning room, Simon confirms that, yes, Julio's mom has been hypnotized. Just as everyone finally starts acknowledging that there is a hypnosis scheme going on, a bunch of appliances attack them. And said appliances are all flying, because we all know when household appliances take on a life of their own they gain the ability to fly. Kevin tells everyone to run outside, and they do, while he stays behind. Then, only after everyone else is already safe, does he think to use his ability to stop time.
Now safe from those oh-so-threatening household appliances, the N Team heads to the newspaper office. The newspaper by the way is the Daily Sun. They all decide to sneak in the back door. Once inside, the N Team observes Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo from behind a bunch of barrels filled with the hypnotic ink. Kid Icarus pulls out a pair of love arrows and nails Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo with them. In the butt. He calls them love arrows, but all it seems to do is make Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo act real nice. Kevin asks them what's up with the ink and Eggplant Wizard tells him it's made from the sap of the junga-junga tree in Kongoland. By now King Hippo has pulled the arrow out of his behind and tells Eggplant Wizard to shut up. When the rest of the N Team comes out of hiding the pair run off through a warp zone, but not before Hippo knocks Eggplant Wizard into a press and flattens him. As the N Team begins looking for a cure, by just sort of poking around the room, Julio reveals that he's immune to the effect of the newspapers because he can't read. It seems that he can't read because he's been skipping school to deliver newspapers. He says his family needs the money ever since his dad lost his job. Um, dude? Pretty sure having a paper route doesn't mean you can't go to school. It's not one or the other.
Kevin pulls out a book at random and reads that the cure for juna-junga sap is oingo tree sap. Of course, Mother Brain sees all this on her screen back home. She's all over the place in this episode. She yells at Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo as per usual. A while later, Hippo is sitting in a Kongoland tree with a fishing rod, with Eggplant Wizard dangling off the end of the line. Simon walks by and Hippo lowers Eggplant Wizard, who's dressed up as Kid Icarus. He says he's Kid Icarus' cousin and hands Simon a love note he says is from Lana. It reads “Roses are red, Violets are blue, whatever Mother Brain says, I do.” Elsewhere, Mega Man rips a tree in half to get some tree sap. Hippo walks up dressed either as a knight or a robot, I can't tell, and gives Mega Man a package he says is from Captain N. The package contains a sap sucker, but when Mega Man reads the instructions he gets hypnotized too. Game Boy finds a tree, but it's soon uprooted by Donkey Kong, who starts eating it. In this particular episode DK is dressed as a farmer. Game Boy floats about Donkey Kong's head until the big ape swats at him. This causes Donkey Kong to smack himself in the cheek and spit out a bunch of tree sap, which Game Boy catches in a bucket. Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo observe this and argue about what to do, when Donkey Kong steps on them.
Back at the Daily Sun, Kid Icarus is guarding the door. Mega Man approaches and Kid Icarus stops him, leading to this exchange. “You scared me, I thought you were a zombie.” “I am. And now so are you.” Mega Man holds out a plate with hypnotic words written on it. Inside, Lana is teaching Julio how to read by spelling the word awake. She plans to distribute the cure the same way the original hypnotizing ink was spread, newspapers. Simon calls Lana outside and makes her read a card written in some more hypnotic ink. Now with almost all of the N Team her puppets, Mother Brain gloats while floating above everyone's head. Seriously, when did she learn to float like that? She never does it in any other episode. Inside, Kevin is getting a recharge for his equipment from Game Boy. He mentioned he was low on power once before. Well he sort of did. He said, “I hope I have enough power for this to work,” which he says pretty much all the time. Kevin zaps the barrels of the original hypno-ink and gets ready to deliver the papers. Just as they're leaving, the rest of the N Team arrives with arms stuck out in front of them in the traditional zombie gait.
As Kevin and Julio begin delivering papers to the neighbourhood, we get our montage for this episode set to “Wild Ride.” Not sure if this is a sound-alike of anything. As the song plays, Eggplant Wizard and King Hippo try to get Kevin and Julio with a brainwashed lawnmower, then chase after them in a bike before Game Boy smashes into them. Kevin becomes surrounded by his former friends, who all try to get him to read stuff. Mega Man makes his appearance by ripping another tree in half. With Kevin surrounded, things look bad, but Julio tells everyone to look up. He's ridden on top of Game Boy and painted the word “Awake” on a billboard using tree sap. Everyone reads the one word and is instantly cured of their brainwashing. Mother Brain watches her plan go to pieces on her magic screen. Julio makes one final delivery as he drops off a paper to his mother. After reading the paper she invites everyone in for dinner. Also, Julio's dad makes an appearance and we find out he got a new job. Yay.
The Beauty of Kootie
Once again we begin in Desert Land, this time outside the palace belonging to the sultan. Oddly, the palace seems to be made mostly out of tents, though the upper towers look like they're made of sand. We see the sultan chilling in his bath, when the water being pumped through the camel-shaped faucet turns to oil. A guard rushes in and the sultan tells him to call the Mario Brothers. We cut to Mario and Luigi having already stopped the flow of the oil, while Toad and Toadstool look on. The place was built on an oil well and the sultan suspects the water and oil pipes got crossed somehow. The room shakes and Mario says the built-up oil pressure could cause the palace to blow. Cheatsy is busy eavesdropping on the conversation via the camel faucet when Kootie Pie yells for him. Seems she's having trouble with the pipes she's switched. Cheatsy arrives with a purple head to tell her the Marios are there. Then his head goes back to normal. Kootie pulls out her wand and calls her dad on it. Apparently their plan is to steal oil for the Doomship via the water pipes. So what's wrong with stealing it with the oil pipes? Is that just too predictable? As Kootie Pie whines about having to do work, her wand grows in size, most likely due to an animation error. Cheatsy comes up with a plan. He grabs said wand and uses it to turn Kootie Pie into a human girl, though her tail remains.
We hear some odd moaning noises that are clearly coming from the Mario Brothers. It honestly sounds like they've been turned into zombies or something. Cheatsy hears them and runs off. Mario and Luigi walk into the room and Mario immediately falls for the transformed Kootie. She introduces herself as Fettuccine Alfredo. I- I don't even. Just typing that out causes me physical pain. Luigi sees her tail, but she denies having one. Koot- I mean Fettuccine says she's been lost in the dungeons for days. Luigi keeps trying to get a better look at the tail, but she eventually gets fed up and hits him with it. Somehow Mario has already set up a romantic dinner in this time, complete with candles and everything. Ko- Fettuccine tells Mario to bring the sultan and his guards down into the basement “In case the castle explodes.” And of course, because a pretty girl says it, Mario agrees. The sultan comes down with Toad, Toadstool and a single guard. At Fettuccine's request the group walks into a small chamber with one door. Toadstool comments that Fettuccine's dress doesn't match her tail. Fettuccine gets mad and throws Toadstool in the cell herself, then locks the door.
Tired of being a human she calls for Cheatsy to turn her back, so the little guy pops up and does just that. Mario is in shock, naturally, and doesn't react as Cheatsy and Kootie Pie grab a hose and spray oil at the two brothers, causing them to slide into a hole in the floor. A short time later, Koopa arrives with a bunch of para-goombas and sledge brothers. He gloats of course. Heck he even says, “I'll be upstairs gloating, while my Doomship sucks your oil well dry.”
While Kootie Pie and Cheatsy keep an eye on the prisoners, and proceed to taunt them, Mario and Luigi crawl up through a pipe that is entirely too small to hold either one of them. The two sneak up behind the Koopas and grab the wand that is for some reason just lying on the floor unattended. They rush off into another room and Mario uses the wand to turn Luigi into a koopa. What we end up with is a horned, green skinned, mustachioed reptile in a purple tuxedo, which Mario dubs Casanova Koopa. At Mario's behest Luig- *sigh* Casanova Koopa *shudder* disguises his voice and walks out to romance Kootie Pie.
Kootie Pie falls for Casanova the moment she lays eyes on him, and he wastes no time planting a kiss on her lips. Casanova asks for some quiet time alone with Kootie in the cell, so like a fool, Kootie Pie kicks out her captives and uses her wand to make the whole place look more homely. I'm not sure if each of the kids brought their own wand here, because Mario should still have possession of one wand. If there are two wands they're both coloured purple. Cheatsy thinks letting the captives go free is a bad idea, but instead of putting his foot down and stopping Kootie's blunder, he just sort of tells her that dad probably won't like it. As Kootie Pie kisses Casanova some more, her wand goes off and turns Casanova back into Luigi. Cheatsy is so surprised his head turns yellow for a few frames. Kootie Pie doesn't respond well to the change either and chases Luigi up the stairs shouting “I'll tie your lips behind your head!”
Upstairs, Mario has finished repairing the plumbing. Despite the fact that he had to be downstairs to fix the pipes earlier. Also, shouldn't Koopa be up here with them? He said he was going upstairs. Luigi bursts in and warns that the Koopa Kids are behind him. Mario grabs a hose and sprays the two of them with oil. Now it's montage time, but as before, the song got replaced with another instrumental version of “Megamove.” The song that originally played here was “Slippin' and a Sliddin.'” If you want you can see the original version here. The kids get washed up next to their dad and he sends a bunch of minions after the brothers, who also get sprayed with oil.
Koopa calls in the Doomship, which smashes right into one of the palace's towers, and the bow of the ship slides right into the room. Koopa and company climb aboard and back the ship out of the palace. Soon they're back into the air where they start firing the ship's artillery. The brothers respond by pumping out more oil through the camel faucet for the tub. I guess they never fixed the plumbing after all. So much oil gets pumped out that it soon sprays out the windows, then the tower collapses with Mario still riding the camel facets as it continues to spew oil everywhere. We get a shot of everyone else watching him so I guess they're okay, though how that's the case when the building basically exploded is beyond me. A shot of oil hits the side of the Doomship and somehow oil spews out of the monitors on the bridge, soaking the Koopas. That's enough for Koopa and the Doomship retreats. With the day won, Luigi turns off the pressure to the camel faucet and Mario hops down. The sultan is upset that his palace is ruined. Luigi notices one of the wands lying on the ground and uses it to restore the palace. Then he says that the wand melted. I'm not sure if the plumbing ever got fixed or not. Either way enough oil was sprayed over the course of the episode to seriously affect the Desert Land economy.
Having never seen this episode as a kid, none of these cartoons holds any nostalgic value for me. Looking at them as an adult I have to say I found all three parts to be just below average. I had already seen a TV show that used Mistaken Identity. I had already watched someone try to seduce someone else while wearing a disguise. Because of this I wasn't engaged by these episodes like I would have been when I was four. Guess that shows the difference between a child's view and an adult's view. Although I can't say I remember anyone trying to take over the world using newspapers printed with hypnotic ink, so at least the Captain N episode was unique.
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