There were three cartoons based on the
Super Mario Bros. franchise.
First was
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, a 1989 animated/live action
DiC production was an
Animated Adaptation of
Nintendo's flagship games, featuring the adventures of those plucky plumbers from Brooklyn. The show ran four days a week in syndication, with Fridays reserved for a cartoon based on
The Legend Of Zelda.
Saturday morning cartoons titled
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and
Super Mario World were later made (without live-action segments) and would air alongside
Captain N: The Game Master on
NBC. All three shows are now availableon DVD. See also
Super Mario Bros The Parody Series for the
Abridged Series version.
Ironically, the shows are (relatively speaking) about as accurate to the spirit of the game than any other Mario adaptation on either side of the Pacific.
For tropes unique to one of the three shows, see their respective articles.
Tropes present on more than one show:
- Adaptation Dye Job: Peach not only still has her old American name, but her appearance is a fairly good direct rendition of her early game sprite: a more Daisy-like redhead.
- The Anime of the Game: To the extent that sound effects and background from the shows' game (Super Show counting for SMB 1 and 2) are used extensively.
- Badass Mustache: Mario and Luigi.
- Bad Is Good and Good Is Bad: What Koopa teaches his kids, as long as their bad deeds aren't against him.
- Beauty Mark: Kootie Pie (or Wendy O. Koopa) in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World.
- Big Eater: Mario, and later Yoshi.
- Canon Immigrant: Luigi's Cowardly Sidekick personality debuted here. Toad's oddly screechy voice is eerily similar to the gibberish sound Toadfolks make in recent games.
- Card-Carrying Villain: King Koopa and his seven Koopa Kids.
- Christmas Episode: "Koopa Klaus" and "The Night Before Cave Christmas."
- Circling Birdies: Super Stars in this case, and Mario uses it to his advantage.
- Clumsy Copyright Censorship: The song covers in SMBSS and a few SMB3 episodes being replaced by instrumentals from the latter series, most notably an instrumental version of "Mega Move," an original song created by DIC that first appeared in the Super Mario Bros 3 series.
- Composite Character: King Koopa, the cartoons' version of Bowser, appears to be a mix of both Bowser and Wart (especially in the Super Show).
- Cowardly Sidekick: Luigi, and later Yoshi.
- Daddy's Little Villain: Kootie Pie.
- A Day in the Limelight: All three shows have at least one episode focusing on Luigi - "Quest for Pizza" in SMBSS, "Life's Ruff" in SMB3, and "Mama Luigi" in SMW.
- Especially notable is that Luigi is the only one of the four heroes to be in "Life's Ruff".
- Distressed Damsel: Toadstool 90% of the time in SMBSS; in SMB3 she took on a more active role.
- Inevitable Waterfall: In Mama Luigi episode.
- Loud of War: One episode had a group of cute little aliens saving the day by using their kazoo-like noses to hum a tune which drove King Koopa nuts and forced him to flee. The song they sang? The theme of The Legend of Zelda!
- Mad Scientist: Kooky
Ludwig
von Koopa. - Magic Skirt: Princess Toadstool
Peach
, of course. - Motor Mouth: Big Mouth Koopa Jr.*
Morton Koopa Jr.
- Off Model: Every. Freaking. Thing. There are countless animation errors, all around sloppy animation quality, and some blatant inconsistencies between drawings! (note, for example that in the "Night Before Cave Christmas" episode, that Mario inexplicably grows large between cuts when he's talking to Oogtar about being "good". And the Super Mario World cartoon is probably the least frequent offender.)
- The intro meanwhile has some very good animation that one can think it wasn't for the show.
- Plot-Induced Stupidity: At no point in the series does Koopa breathe fire, even though that's been one of his powers throughout the games. Given the fact that Fire Flowers time out in this milieu, it probably would have made him too broken.
- Quicksand Sucks: A few times the good guys got stuck in it and needed someone to help them out, apparently forgetting they have the ability to hop out of the quicksand.
- Royals Who Actually Do Something: Princess Toadstool. Possibly King Koopa too, though it's arguable if he's a real king since his crown appears to be taped together.
- Saving Christmas: The Christmas episodes of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show and Super Mario World do one of the different types of this.
- Spoiled Brat: Kootie Pie
Wendy O.
Koopa, to the max. - Super Not Drowning Skills
- Villain Exit Stage Left: King Koopa frequently pulls this off in the Super Show, usually by way of a warp-generating potion (based on the doors to Sub-Con in the American Super Mario Bros. 2), and a few times on the later two as well.
- YouTube Poop: A prime source, especially the Super Mario World cartoon.
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