Web Animation / The Koopa Kids

Here come the Koopa kids! From left to right: Lemmy, Wendy, Larry, Roy, Morton, Bowser Jr.,Iggy and Ludwig

The Koopa Kids was a web animated series created by FreezeFlame22 and is the very first installment released on his channel.

Inspired by SMG4, this series centered on the Dysfunctional Family that is formed by King Bowser Koopa and his eight children: the Koopa Kids. The main character was Lemmy, and the series mainly focused on him, Morton and Wendy, the so called "Rejects" of the family. The series featured many early concepts of characters that would later appear in Freeze's regular series.

The series ran from 2013 to 2016, and while it amassed a decent fanbase, it would ultimately be Quietly Cancelled and unlisted from Freeze's main channel, as Freeze was no longer proud of the work he had done with this series, growing to dislike all of its characters, visuals, voice-acting and style of story-telling (It should be noted that Freeze was merely a pre-teen when he started making the series, which is easily reflected on the writing and humor). A Continuity Reboot of The Koopa Kids would arrive to replace it in 2017; Bowser's Children, later renamed Bowser's Koopalings, causing The Koopa Kids to be officially considered as non-canon. Before that, January of 2017 saw the birth of a new series, Carl, starting the side character of the same name in The Koopa Kids, who was given a re-design and a new personality and backstory altogether. While initially conceived as a spin-off series, Carl soon lost any lingering connection to The Koopa Kids following the series' official cancellation with the arrival of Bowser's Koopalings.

On February 27th, 2020, Freeze announced he would make a channel exclusively dedicated to archiving the series for historical purposes. Season 1 can be found here, Season 2 can be found here, and Season 3 can be found here.

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The Koopa Kids provides examples of:

• Abhorrent Admirer: Daisy and Birdo towards Luigi and Yoshi respectively. They are naturally creeped out by them and more often than not try to stay away from them.
• Absurdly Youthful Father: Exaggerated. The Series Finale "C U Later" reveals that Bowser had his first kid, Ludwig, when he was 13 years old. The others aren't any better, with Lemmy, Roy and Iggy being conceived when he was 14, Wendy when he was 16, and Larry when he was 19. As explained by FreezeFlame22, this was a result of him trying to stay loyal to the canon of the Mario series, as Mario has been stated to be around 25 years old according to Word of God, and he wanted Bowser to be the same age as him while also wanting the Koopalings to be teenagers, causing a severe case of Writers Cannot Do Math which he is severely embarrassed about. Bowser Jr. is the only one that doesn't count, being born when Bowser was much older (though there is a much worse implication regarding Junior's conception...).
• Abusive Parents: Bowser is the epitome of this. He makes it perfectly clear that he doesn't care for any of his children except for Larry and Bowser Jr., and is often abusing them both physically and emotionally. It is particularly bad in the case of Morton, Wendy and Lemmy (especially Wendy), to whom he refers to as "The Rejects" of the family.
• Adaptational Gender Identity: In canon Mario games, Birdo is heavily hinted to be a transgender female. In this series, Yoshi thinks that Birdo is female at first, but Birdo is quick to tell him "I'm a guy", leading to an Unsettling Gender-Reveal that is Played for Laughs.
• Adaptational Jerkass: Mario and Peach, while both charming Nice Guys in their home universe, are portrayed as insufferable scumbags who treat the people around them like garbage.
• Adaptational Villainy: In canon, Rosalina is a benevolent woman who is a loving mother figure to the Lumas. During the "Rosalina's Wrath" episode, she is a cruel, selfish Villain of the Week who enslaves the Lumas she cares for.
• Advertised Extra:
  • Lemmy was stated to be the main protagonist of The Koopa Kids, but he barely has any episodes that focus on him. His entire character (or rather lack of character) being that he was a dumb kid who believed everything was candy didn't help matters.
  • Larry is supposed to be a key member of the Koopa family, but outside of his questionable crush on Wendy and one episode of his own, he never did much in the series.
• All There in the Manual: Most if not all of the characters had backstories written about them on the now defunct-Koopa Kid Wiki, which were never mentioned anywhere in the show.
• Arch-Enemy: With the exception of Larry, all of the Koopa Kids have a personal nemesis in another one of their siblings.
  • Iggy holds a grudge against Lemmy, whom he blames for cutting off all of his hair (despite the fact that Iggy forced Lemmy to give him a haircut, while being fully aware that Lemmy is an idiot who shouldn't be trusted with tools. Made ever more baffling when you take into consideration that Iggy is supposed to be The Smart Guy). Lemmy on the other hand is quite unaware that Iggy despises him, even after he's been beaten up by him multiple times, sometimes to the point of near-death.
  • Roy holds a grudge against Morton... because Morton made fun of his pink shell. On Morton's end, he and Wendy usually bully Roy for being fat.
  • Ludwig has tried to murder Bowser Jr. on multiple occasions out of jealousy that Bowser favors him and Larry over him, even going as far as to give the position of second in command to Junior the instant he was born, taking it away from Ludwig, something that Junior wastes no time in rubbing on Ludwig's face whenever he can. Ludwig and Wendy also have a rivalry going on between them, though the exact reason for this rivalry has never been revealed.
  • Non-Sibling Rivalry examples include Bowser and Mario, Wendy and Peach, Luigi and Mario, Toadette and Peach, and Kamek and E.Gadd.
• Asshole Victim: Basically everyone. Because they're all horrible people, it's hard to feel any sympathy for them whenever they suffer from misfortune.
  • Bowser's third wife and Wendy and Larry's biological mother: She was murdered by Bowser so that she wouldn't call the police on him, but, much like Bowser, she verbally abused Wendy and outright told her that she wanted to have a better child, so any sympathy the audience may have had for her immediately goes out the window.
• Alpha Bitch: Princess Peach is rather uncaring towards everyone, and she is quick to belittle her own servants if they make the tiniest of mistakes.
• Artistic License – Biology: Wendy and Iggy's hair never grew back after they had their heads completely shaved off by Bowser and Lemmy respectively. In real life, their hair would have grown back about two weeks after shaving.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • The Season 1 episode "Homesick" has the police arrest Wendy on the basis that she destroyed Mario, Peach and Wario's homes (which had actually been done by Bowser, who let Wendy take the fall for him), for which she is later found guilty and sent to prison for. This has many, many problems:
    • Wendy is arrested and declared guilty without any evidence whatsoever. More over, no investigation on Wendy was ever made. In real life, the police cannot issue an arrest without a court order or probable cause that a person has committed the crime they are being accused of.
    • Wendy was at a completely different place at the time the Banzai Bill hit those buildings, and there are at least four eyewitnesses who can back up her alibi (Lemmy, Morton and at least two Goomburger employees), Wendy also paid for the food, so any receipts she might have gotten after paying would immediately clear her from suspicion, and if not that, fast food restaurant chains must always have CCTV cameras installed, so it's unlikely for Wendy to not have been caught on one. However, no witnesses are ever called to testify (even though Morton and Lemmy are literally in the courtroom during the trial), no one thinks of checking for any potential receipts, and no CCTV footage is reviewed whatsoever.
    • The trial lasts little more than one afternoon. In reality, criminal trials can last up to four or six months before a verdict is reached.
    • Wendy is around sixteen years old, meaning that she is a minor and as such wouldn't be sent to prison, but rather juvenile hall. This happens yet again in another episode in which Bowser Jr. is thrown in prison with Bowser, Kamek and Messenger (long story) despite only being five years old.
    • Iggy kills Carl, who is Wendy's lawyer, to reduce the possibilities of her being declared innocent. If the accused party's defense becomes unavailable for whatever reason and there is no one to take on the defense's roles, the client has the possibility to find a new lawyer or even ask the court to postpone the trial. Additionally, Carl is a minor, and most graduated lawyers don't start exercising their profession until at least their early to mid 20s.
    • Finally, the mere fact that Iggy murdered Carl in front of a courthouse in broad daylight (as a way to reduce the chances of Wendy being found not guilty no less) warrants for an arrest. This doesn't happen, and he gets to go free while Wendy is sentenced with no evidence.
  • Another Season 1 episode "A Sugarless World" has Kamek convincing a judge to pass a law that bans all sugar foods and drinks in the Mushroom Kingdom. In real life, a judge is only supposed to interpret existing laws, preside over trials and pass judgement. They do not have the ability to make up and pass new laws on the spot.
  • Morton was adopted from an orphanage by Bowser (just so that he would win a free beer for having seven children nontheless). Given that a person has to meet a series of requirements in order to be eligible to adopt children, among which includes a full background check on the person's home and criminal history, there's no way that Bowser would have been able to adopt Morton in real life given his history of alcoholism, theft, child abuse, murder and kidnapping. In fact, chances are that his biological children are all taken away from him instead.
• Bad People Abuse Animals:
  • Iggy isn't too kind to his pet Chain Chomp, Chompy, often neglecting to feed him and usually performing horrific experiments on him. One episode even has him strangling Chompy because he thinks its fun.
  • Mario regularly mistreats Yoshi, beating him up, choking him, abandoning him off of cliffs, and making him lay so many eggs that his digestive system can barely function.
• Beta Bitch: Daisy is this to Peach, being stated to be her Only Friend who follows her around everywhere. She is noted by many characters as being an uglier and fatter version of Peach (even though she is very similar to Peach appearance-wise), and as mentioned in the now defunct-Koopa Kid Wiki, is usually called "Peach's buttmonkey" or "Yellow Peach".
• Big, Screwed-Up Family: The Koopa family is this by truckloads: Bowser is an Abusive Father who regularly insults and beats his kids, and is stated to only care about Larry and Bowser Jr., Morton, Wendy, Iggy and Ludwig come dangerously close to being sociopaths, Bowser Jr. can be either an evil little brat or harmless depending on the episode, Lemmy is most likely mentally disabled, Roy spends most of his time bullying his siblings, and Larry has a crush on his own sister, with no one calling him out on this. Additionally, the siblings are either best friends or mortal enemies depending on who they are, with no middle ground existing whatsoever.
• Black-and-Grey Morality: While Mario has done very reprehensible things in his career "saving" the Mushroom Kingdom (including both animal and sibling abuse, manslaughter, and medical malpractice), Bowser isn't above committing atrocities that are just as bad, if not worse, such as child abuse and neglect, theft, kidnapping, sexual harassment, murder, and possibly even rape. The difference is that, thanks to the poor writing, the show is aware that Mario is evil, but it's rather oblivious to the fact that Bowser is just as bad as him, if not worse.
• Brother–Sister Incest: Larry infamously had a crush on Wendy, despite him being aware that she is his sister. More concerning is the fact that no one ever called Larry out on this, not even his own father or Wendy herself. According to Word of God, the idea behind the joke was that Larry was too naive to understand incest is wrong, but that the way the joke was handled gave off different implications.
• Canon Discontinuity: Following its cancellation, The Koopa Kids is considered non-canon to the FreezeFlame22 Universe, with Bowser's Koopalings having being created specifically to replace the series and Retcon it out of existance.
• Cerebus Syndrome: Infamously, the third and final season, primarily the Series Finale, introduced many concepts that were initially All There in the Manual in an attempt to make the show more serious in tone.
• Child by Rape: Implied with Bowser Jr., who is the son of Bowser and Peach. His conception is implied to have been anything but consensual on Peach's end.
• Child Hater: Mario and Peach both admit that they hate children, though Peach is much more open about it than Mario.
• Childhood Brain Damage: The Sarasaland doctor tried to cure Daisy's vision problems when she was a toddler, but he accidentally dropped an anvil on her head.
• Creepy Crossdresser: Birdo is portrayed as both this and a Depraved Homosexual, constantly stalking Yoshi and making a lot of creepy remarks towards him.
• Depending on the Writer: More like "Depending on the Episode" since this series only had one writer, but Bowser Jr.'s character will constantly take drastic shifts depending on the plotline and how it progresses: He is supposed to be a selfish Spoiled Brat who believes himself to be superior to everyone, but more often than not he will randomly turn nice and be kind to his siblings for the sake of getting the plot moving forward.
• Did Not Do the Bloody Research: In seasons one and two the characters often use the word "faggot" to insult each other. As explained by FreezeFlame22 in the years following the series' conclusion, he often heard the word getting tossed around where he lived when he was very young (as a reminder, Freeze is British), and thought it stood for a more generic insult (akin to "dumbass" or "moron"). By the third season of the series, Freeze realized the word was actually a homophobic slur, and accordingly retired it from the series.
• The Ditz:
  • Lemmy's whole character is basically him believing that everything is candy.
  • Due to Childhood Brain Damage, Daisy became very scatterbrained to the point where she wasn't able to do basic mathematics.
• Embarrassing Initials: More like "Unfortunate Initials". Bowser's father, King Kelvin Koopa, nicknames himself "Triple K", referring it as his "rapper name". Apparently he didn't realize his "rapper name" bears an unfortunate resemblance to the shortening of the name for a notorious hate group.
• Everyone Has Standards: Peach may be a spoiled, selfish and uncaring Alpha Bitch, but even she can't stand being around Mario and often rejects his advances on her.
• Flat Character: Every single character. From start to finish, all of the characters remained the same way and had little to no depths to be explored. Lemmy is probably the worst in this regard given that he is supposed to be the main character, and yet his whole personality is thinking that everything is candy.
• Half-Human Hybrid: By default, Bowser Jr. is one due to being the biological child of both Bowser and Peach.
• Hero Antagonist: Mario, while normally the hero of his eponymous franchise, is the main antagonist of the series.
• Informed Deformity:
  • Roy is often made fun of for being fat by Wendy and Morton. While Roy is shown to be fat, his sprite was exactly the same build as Morton's, who in-universe is stated to be muscular and strong. It's also ironic coming from Wendy, since she is often seen eating large amounts of junk food.
  • Bowser, Luigi and Messenger have described Daisy as "fat and ugly", even though appearance wise she looks very similar to Peach, who Bowser himself described as "sexy".
• Informed Attribute: Morton was often said to be very strong, having a mesomorphic build, but his sprite has the exact same build as Roy's, who is said to be overweight.
• Missing Mom: All of Bowser's kids were abandoned by their mothers, leaving Bowser to raise them on his own. The only three exceptions are Wendy, Larry (whose mother was murdered by Bowser), and Bowser Jr. (whose mother is Peach, but he is not aware of this).
• My Friends... and Zoidberg: Bowser has this attitude towards Lemmy, not counting him among his children. For his part, Lemmy doesn't mind in the slightest.
• Noodle Incident:
  • Wendy and Ludwig appear to have a rivalry going on, but unlike the rest of the siblings, it is never explained why they hate each other the way they do.
  • As revealed by Kamek, the reason why Wendy is bald is because Bowser cut off her hair for an unexplained reason back when she was a child.
• Only Known By His Nickname: Messenger, who was only ever referred to as such for most of the series. In one episode he even lampshades how he doesn't have a real name, only for the Series Finale to reveal that his real name was Roger.
• Parental Favoritism: Out of his eight children, Bowser only cares about Larry and Bowser Jr.. He constantly spoils and consents the two of them, but his other six kids could go play in the traffic for all he cares. Paralleling this, Wendy, Morton and Lemmy are the three kids Bowser dislikes the most, referring to them as "The Rejects".
• Pregnancy Does Not Work That Way: In a Flashback Episode, it is shown that Peach gives birth to Bowser Jr. one or two days after finding out she is pregnant, which is implied to have happened a few days after Bowser kidnaped and slept with her (itself which is implied to not have been consensual on Peach's end). In reality, pregnant women may not even realize that they are pregnant until at least two weeks have passed, and what's perhaps the biggest offender, is that a human pregnancy usually lasts nine months, not a few days.^Note While the now-defunct Koopa Kid wiki stated that Koopas have a shorter gesticulation period than humans, it is still highly unlikely for Peach to give birth to Bowser Jr. only one or two days after finding out she is pregnant (For reference, turtle eggs, the closest counterpart to a Koopa in real life, hatch between 60 and 120 days after they are laid, and the shortest known gestation period of any animal is that of the Virginian opossum, which is about 12 days). Additionally, Peach shows no visible signs of pregnancy, she seemingly never considered having an abortion despite being a self-admitted Child Hater, and Junior's birth resembles an actual birth little to nothing. He is also born already wrapped in a towel for some reason.
• Shout-Out: In the Season 3 episode "Lemmy Does Things", Lemmy hums the opening theme tune to Doug, specifically the Nickelodeon seasons.
• Social Services Does Not Exist: Considering how, with the exception of Larry and Bowser Jr., Bowser verbally, emotionally and physically abuses all of his kids on a daily basis, even making them to work while they are sick, and addressing three of them as "The Rejects" and stealing and gambling away their money, as well as forcing them to sleep on beds made of stone, in addition to his frequent alcoholism and history of kidnapping, sexual harassment, theft, murder and possibly even rape, one has to wonder how Bowser has managed to keep custody of his children for as long as he has.
• Spoiled Brat: Princess Peach is always asking for things she doesn't need, and she is very ungrateful for what she already has.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Carl would die in every single episode of the series he appeared in.
• The Unfavorite: Out of his eight children, Bowser dislikes Morton, Lemmy and Wendy the most, referring to the three of them as "The Rejects", forcing them to sleep on beds made of stone and not being above stealing their money among other things. He in particular strongly dislikes Wendy the most out of all of his children, openly calling her his biggest disappointment and that she's an unwanted child who no one likes. In turn, Wendy shows Bowser the same amount of disdain as he does.
• Token Good Teammate:
  • Lemmy seems to be the only member of the Koopa family with a consistent kind demeanor. He is completely free from any malicious bone in his body, thus he has never done anything wrong throught the whole series, with the exception of Iggy's hair incident;
  • Anna, Morton's girlfriend. While she only got a few minutes of screentime in the Series Finale, she seems to be one of the few character within the show's universe to actually be a decent person, caring for Morton and showing concern for his well-being.
• Uncertain Doom: The series finale "C U Later" ends with Mario and Luigi trapped in the flaming wreckage of what used to be Bowser's airship. Bowser's lines at the end, saying "goodbye" to Mario, imply that both Mario brothers died in the fire.
• Villain Protagonist: The Koopalings, the Quirky Miniboss Squad of the Mario franchise, are the main protagonists of this series.
• Villain of the Week: Every once in a while, an episode would feature a one-time antagonist to torment the main characters, with these being Bowser's father Kelvin Koopa, Fawful, Dark Bones, Metal Mario, Bot (who is directly taken from SMG4's videos), King K. Rool and Rosalina, just to name a few.
• Villain with Good Publicity: Mario can be defined with every bad adjective that exists in the book, but he is thought of as a hero by all the inhabitants of the Mushroom Kingdom (especially Toad and Toadsworth). The only ones who know what he really is like are Luigi, Peach, Yoshi, Toadette and Bowser and his family.
• What Does He See in Her?: Peach is an uncaring, selfish, egotistical brat, as well as a self-admited Child Hater, who is always asking for things she doesn't need, is never grateful for what she already has, and overall treats everyone like disposable garbage (even her Only Friend Daisy). Despite all of this, Bowser has being smitten by her ever since they were children, despite her making it explicitly clear that she hates his guts. Granted, Bowser isn't any better of a person than Peach (in fact, he may possibly be even worse than her).
• Whole-Plot Reference: The Season 1 episode "A Sugarless World" is an almost Shot-for-Shot Remake of the The Simpsons episode "Sweets and Sour Marge", but with Mario characters slapped on.
• World of Jerkass: Oh boy, and how. Not only are characters like Mario and Peach made into irredeemable assholes, but the protagonists (who are supposed to be the good guys) themselves also count: Bowser is an Abusive Dad, Wendy and Morton are both rude and condescending towards everyone that is not Lemmy, Iggy is an animal abuser who tries to kill Lemmy over a mistake he made, Ludwig tries to murder Bowser Jr. out of jealousy, Bowser Jr. is either an evil child or just an annoying brat depending on the episode and Roy is a one-dimensional bully.
• Yandere: Princess Daisy is smitten with Luigi, and she will do anything to get to him, including murdering anyone who tries to "steal" him away from her.
• You Are Fat: Most of the comedy aimed at Roy consisted in making fun of his weight, with Wendy and Morton doing it the most (ironically, as Morton's sprite is about the same size as Roy's, and Wendy is constantly seen eating junk food).

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