The episodes of Captain N & The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, I have were recorded on three VHS tapes long ago. The first tape holds the first five episodes, followed by a few episodes of the Beetlejuice series. The second tape had another five episodes with three episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures mixed in. Specifically the episodes “Dating, Acme Acres Style,” “Looniversity Daze” and “Best o' Plucky Duck Day.” The last tape had the eleventh episode, though I can't remember what else was on the tape and I have been missing it for years.
When I go online to look up the episode order, they are never consistent with the order I have on my VHS tapes, even taking into account that I'm missing episodes. I am relatively certain that both the second season of Captain N as well as Mario Bros. 3 were broadcast separately before they were merged together into this one hour long show. There's also one more Captain N episode in season two called “When Mother Brain Rules,” but it's a clip show. There isn't even a Framing Device, it's just a bunch of random clips from season 1 and 2. There are actually two versions of this episode. The first has a short introduction by a narrator guy setting up the premise, then it's just a bunch of clips with no dialogue except at the very end, which is just the last few seconds of “Game Boy.” The second version is the more well-known one and has Simon narrating all the stuff we see. This version doesn't end with the last scene of “Game Boy.” Not sure exactly what the deal with this episode is, but I can tell you it's missing from the Captain N DVD.
In addition to the actual TV shows that were recorded, we of course also got the commercials from the original broadcast, as well as the bumpers which separated the show from the commercials. You can see the bumpers NBC used on Saturday mornings here.
Commercials can be just as nostalgic as the TV shows, and unlike the shows which are still remembered today, the commercials are largely forgotten. A partial list of the commercials I have on tape (though not necessarily on the same tapes as Mario and Captain N,) include: Twizzlers, Burger King Kid's Club, Blacktron LEGO, Fruit Stripe Gum, Barbie Hawaiian Ice Party, Grape Escape Board Game,
Chef Boyardee,
Mentos,
Golden Crisp,
Juicy Fruit,
Dinoghetti,
Mr Chrsitie’s Wizards Castle Cookies,
Crocodile Mile, Kraft Macaroni and Cheese, Hi-C,
Cookie Crisp, Rainbow Chips Ahoy!
Lite-Brite, Teddy Grahms, Cinnamon toast Crunch, Lucky Charms, Captain Crunch, Bill and Ted's Excellent Cereal, Dino-Riders and lastly, Sonic and the Sega Genesis. Here is an assortment of commercials which include the Camp Candy credits. I also have a commercial for a Disney film called The Rocketeer.
If there is one thing I hope to have conveyed to you here, it's how significant this show was to me growing up. I know this show isn't exactly high art, but I still loved it, flaws and all. For me, there isn't really a more powerful form of nostalgia than popping in one of these old VHS tapes and watching it, especially with the commercials and bumpers included. Every few years I would hunt down these tapes, put them in my VCR and take a trip down memory lane. To be perfectly frank, I still get a little misty eyed when I hear the song that plays during the end credits of the video game.
So what became of' Captain N and Super Mario? There were some Mario comics that ran in Nintendo Power for a while under the name Super Mario Adventures. In addition, both shows had a tie-in comic series as part of something called the Nintendo Comics System. In both instances the Mario comics actually used the in-game names for Bowser and the Koopa Kids. In addition, the kids' personalities more closely matched the personas the video games hinted they had. I think. When Captain N was turned into a comic, they lost the rights to all the characters not owned by Nintendo. That means no Simon, Mega Man or Dr. Wily. However we did get to see Samus as part of the N Team. The comics switched up the love triangle by replacing Simon's Lana infatuation with Samus liking Kevin. We also got a new bad guy in the form of Uranos, another Kid Icarus villain. He is much more competent than King Hippo and Eggplant Wizard ever were. Oddly, in the comics, Donkey Kong is considered a minion of Mother Brain, even though this was definitely not the case in the cartoon. Unless you count the first season episode "Videolympics" where he was. Consistency!
After this show finished a new show started called Captain N and the New Super Mario World. It was 13 episodes long and featured a 15 minute episode of Mario followed by a 15 minute episode of Captain N. Instead of being set in the Mushroom Kingdom, Mario World was set in Dinosaur Land, and the mushroom people were replaced by cavemen. Toad was out and Yoshi became a cast member. There was also a recurring caveboy named Oogtar. Koopa and his offspring however remained exactly the same. While there were 13 new Mario episodes, only 7 new episodes of Captain N were made for its third season. These season three episodes are also known for having much worse animation than the previous seasons, and the character models were much less detailed. To make up for the lack of new material, the remaining 6 Captain N episodes were reruns of season one and two episodes that had been cut down to fit the 15 minute time slot. This is actually how I first saw “Nightmare on Mother Brain's Street.” “Quest for the Potion of Power” was also shown in season three, however instead of being trimmed down it was turned into a two-part episode. If you want to learn more, I suggest heading over to Random Action Hour for their coverage on Super Mario World and Captain N Season 3.
I used to have several Captain N and Mario World episodes recorded on VHS tapes, but I don't know where they are now. The tapes also contained several other shows from the NBC Saturday morning line-up, including Space Cats, Yo Yogi and Pro Stars. The segments surrounding commercials and in between shows were hosted by two guys called Chip and Pepper. After Captain N and the New Super Mario World was done, there was another show called Super Mario All-Stars which showed two random 15 minute episodes taken from the library of the Super Show, Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. There was also a show called Captain N & The Video Game Masters that would show content from Captain N, (obviously,) The Legend of Zelda, Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World, but not Super Show. Again, neither of these shows had new content, they were just recycling footage from previous shows and I have personally never seen any episodes. Once these shows were taken off the air that was it. Captain N was never heard from again and there weren't any more Mario TV shows. Well, unless you count this. Enjoy your nightmares folks!
