YMMV / The Koopa Kids

• Alternative Character Interpretation: Terrible writing of the series aside, are there other possible reasons for the way some characters are?:
  • Are Bowser's kids bad people by nature, or are their selfish, self-centered and sometimes even psychotic personalities a result of years of verbal, physical and emotional abuse inflicted to them by Bowser?
  • Regarding Bowser himself. Is he also the way he is because of his father neglecting him, and is simply just continuing the Chain of Harm? or is he naturally a completely irredeemable monster with no sympathetic qualities whatsoever? Given his treatment of Kamek, the one who took him in when he ran away from home as a kid, it's probably the latter.
  • Luigi's sudden shift in characterization near the end of the series (not taking into account the fact that he was purposefully rewritten to be an irredeemable person). Did all the abuse, neglect, misfortune and ridicule that Mario, Daisy and many others constantly put him through finally get to him to the point where he snapped and no longer cared about anything other than revenge, or was he always just as much of a terrible person as Mario and was simply hoping to get everyone out of the way to take his place?
  • How much of a bad person is Peach in reality? Does she resent Toadsworth for constantly treating her like a child and being an overprotective and inefective parental figure to her, and perhaps developed her Alpha Bitch personality as a self-defense mechanism, or is she simply just fulfilling the role of a selfish Spoiled Brat who has never had to work a day in her life? Moreover, can Peach really be blamed for her hostility towards the Koopa Kids and Bowser, especially considering that not only do they kidnap her on a regular basis, but also the fact that Bowser may have raped her?
• Accidental Innuendo: "Oh Father Where Art Thou (2/2)" has this gem from Mario himself. While this line contains a typo, an uninformed viewer can take this line to mean Mario is gay or bisexual and/or that Peach is a crossdresser:
  "We need something to turn [Peach and Daisy] back! Then, Peach will be my boyfriend [sic] and you will continue to be Daisy's boyfriend!"
• Bile Fascination: During the 2020s, when FreezeFlame22 decided to archive the series on a separate channel for conservation purposes, many users who had only heard of Freeze's canon series decided to watch The Koopa Kids out of curiosity to know if it really was as bad as Freeze claimed it to be. The general consensus of these people is that the first two seasons are on So Bad, It's Good levels, whereas the third season is just bad.
• Condemned by History: While The Koopa Kids amassed a decent fanbase throughout its run in the early-to-mid 2010s and was arguably FreezeFlame22's first internet breakthrough, the fans who grew up with the show now look back at it with disdain, and so does Freeze himself, and it's not hard to see why.
  • Freeze was merely a pre-teen when he started the series, so it didn't have the best quality; the visuals were crude and unpolished, the voice acting was all done by Freeze with a cheap mic until the second half of season 3, and, as a result of mainly taking Family Guy and Supermarioglitchy4's Super Mario 64 Bloopers as inspirations, the series had an overwhelming amount of Sadist and Word-Salad Humor that is now seen as either cringey or just plain cruel.
  • The characters are all regarded as unlikable at best and completely irredeemable at worst, even the ones the viewer is supposed to root for.
  • Finally, it's quite difficult to talk about this show without bringing up some of the most questionable elements, such as the constant use of a homophobic slur as a casual insult due to Freeze believing that it the slur in question stood for a more generic insult at the time, Larry having a crush on Wendy and nobody confronting him about this, Birdo's portrayal as a Depraved Homosexual Creepy Crossdresser coming off as an offensive stereotype of LGBTQ+ individuals, or the worst of all, the show expecting the viewer to sympathize with Bowser despite the fact that he physically, verbally and emotionally abuses his kids on a daily basis, was revealed to have murdered Larry and Wendy's mother in order to avoid jailtime, and the fact that it's heavily implied that Bowser Jr.'s conception was not consensual on Peach's end.
• Crosses the Line Twice: The season 3 episode "Best Enemies (2/2)" revealed that after faking his death, Mario changed his identity and became a doctor, though many of his patients died under his care. That would sound horrifying if it weren't for the fact that he was playing Tetris with the pills.
• Designated Hero: Oh boy, and how:
  • The Koopa family falls into this many times: While Iggy and Ludwig have little to no redeeming qualities (with Iggy being a psychotic animal abuser and Ludwig trying to commit fratricide on Bowser Jr. many times), their siblings and father can be just as as bad, if not worse, than characters who are supposed to be evil such as the Villain of the Week or even Hate Sinks such as Mario and Peach.
  • The most obvious ones are Wendy and Morton, who alongside Lemmy are the three main characters of the series. Viewers are supposed to side with them and see them as being on the right, but it is difficult to do so when they are both very rude and condescending to others that are not Lemmy, even characters who are nice to them such as Carl or Larry, and are shown doing horrible things many times throughout the series (sometimes even including murder or blackmail). Particularly notorious is the case of how they both treat Roy: Wendy and Morton can insult Roy all they want and the show will portray them as being in the right, but the minute Roy answers back, the show will paint him in the wrong.
  • Bowser is probably the worst case out of every single character. He is an alcoholic abuser who couldn't care less about any of his children except Larry and Bowser Jr.. As seen many times throughout the series, Bowser constantly insults his kids and even makes them work while they are sick, threatening to having them severely punished if they don't obey. He is not above beating his kids or stealing from other people in the airship either, always forgets about Lemmy's very existence, and refers to him, Wendy and Morton as "The Rejects", as well as forcing them to sleep on beds made of stone among other things. He also had his first kid at the age of thirteen, and continued to have more throughout his teens without a care in the world, as well as adopting one child just to win a free beer for having seven children (don't ask). In addition, it is also revealed that he murdered Larry and Wendy's biological mother to avoid jailtime and that it's implied that Bowser Jr.'s conception was anything but consensual on Peach's end. In spite of this, Bowser is usually shown as someone the audience should sympathize with in spite of how much of a horrible person he is.
• Designated Villain: Roy is meant to be seen as a ruthless bully, but he is often portrayed in the wrong even when he hasn't done anything, especially when it comes to Morton and Wendy's treatment of him, as they often bully him for being fat. Compare that with Iggy's history of animal abuse, Ludwig's attempts of murdering his own brother out of jealousy, Bowser Jr. randomly shifting between being nice and being evil depending on the episode, Larry openly having a crush on his own sister, and Bowser's entire history of child abuse, alcoholism, murder, theft, kidnapping, sexual harassment and possibly even rape, and you get why some people think that Roy, alongside Lemmy, despite the latter's flat characterization, is the most decent person out of his whole family (which unfortunately is not saying much).
• Diagnosed by the Audience: Lemmy is commonly thought of by fans to have some sort of developmental disability. He thinks everything is candy, is very kind and trusting of others to a fault, and doesn't really pay attention to if people hate him or not.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kamek earns this status due to the fact that he is probably the only character with some bits of morality in the World of Jerkass that is The Koopa Kids, especially when Bowser and his kids' antics end up directly hurting him in any way. It says a lot that when the show was rebooted as Bowser's Koopalings, Kamek was one of the few characters to receive a few tweaks, but otherwise stay relatively the same as he was in The Koopa Kids.
  • The Paratroopa that speaks in a stoic tone of voice, but is also very quick to lose his temper and scream his lungs out, causing fans to nickname him "The Cranky Paratroopa", and all of this despite only having had appeared four times in total. Tellingly, FreezeFlame22 decided to bring back the character for both Carl and Bowser's Koopalings, giving him a re-design and an official name: Clyde Adams.
• Epileptic Trees: A rather horrifying one. As seen in a flashback to Roy's birth during series finale, when Roy was about to hatch from his egg, Bowser, (who at the time believed Roy was female due to the egg having pink spots), repeatedly chanted "be hot", only to be disappointed upon discovering that the child was male. Some fans have speculated that, seeing as how Bowser's least favourite child is Wendy, it probably means that he resents her for not being "hot". On a more morbid note, the fact that he was hoping for a new-born baby to be hot (who he is the father of nontheless) raises a lot of alarming questions.
• Harsher in Hindsight: The show's take on Birdo, who is depicted as a Creepy Crossdresser who sexually harasses Yoshi and makes a lot of creepy remarks towards him, hasn't aged the best. While it was considered edgy humor during the early to mid 2010s, the time when The Koopa Kids was being worked on, the jokes would be seen as outright offensive to audiences in the late 2010s and 2020s, especially after there was a greater awareness of LGBTQ+ issues in the years following the series' conclusion.
• Hilarious in Hindsight:
  • The Season 1 episode "Kamek's Lucky Win" has Toadette go on a mission to save Peach with Toad, Mario and Luigi. Almost half a decade later, Toadette would actually start going on adventures with the Mario brothers in canon.
  • Starting with the episode "Rosalina's Wrath", Peach's sprite was updated in order for her dress to resemble its appearance in the Super Smash Bros. games, where it is much more detailed than in the Mario games. Daisy's sprite was also updated to match Peach's despite her not being a playable character in Smash at the time. Four years later, Daisy would be revealed as a playable character in Super Smash Bros. Ultimate and indeed, much like Peach, she has a much more detailed dress.
  • The Season 3 episode "Peach's Castle Party" has Ludwig end up Dragged into Drag after being confused for a girl by the Elite Trio, who believed that his name was "Linda". Carl in particular is smitten by "Linda's" beauty and even says that "she's hot". Fast-forward to 2017 and Carl gets his own show where we see his mother... whose name is Linda and who is noted by many people, mainly Boo, as being very attractive, much to Carl's embarrassment.
• Hollywood Homely: As described by many people (mainly Luigi, Bowser and Messenger), Daisy is supposed to be completely hideous, likely to compliment her status as Peach's Beta Bitch and her psychotic obsession with Luigi. Problem is, not only does her sprite resemble her appearance in Mario games, where she is often described as being visually appealing, but in terms of appearance, she is very similar to Peach, whom everyone describes as being very attractive (with Bowser calling her "sexy").
• Moral Event Horizon: In the Series Finale it's revealed that Bowser, already quite the Designated Hero to begin with, crossed this way before the events of the series even took place. For starters, he began sleeping around with multiple women and having children as early as 13 years old. All those women left their children with Bowser, who would go on to abuse them all growing up. That is already bad to begin with, but the cherry on top of the cake is him killing Wendy and Larry's mother after she threatened to report him to the police for kidnapping and sexually assaulting a human woman. Despite this remorseless, selfish action and Larry's subsequent mental breakdown upon learning that his father murdered his mother, the show still expects viewers to sympathize with Bowser. If that wasn't enough, reminder that, among other horrible things, he adopted Morton simply so that he could win a free beer and proceeded to call him "a waste of money" after Bowser Jr. was born, thus exceeding the number of children required, gleefully let Wendy get arrested and sentenced to prison for something he did, and that he might have raped Peach, as Bowser Jr.'s conception is implied to have been anything but consensual on her end.
• Narm Charm: Take a look at the crude visuals, low-quality voice acting, (courtesy of a then pre-teen FreezeFlame22), set of bland and/or unlikable characters, and messy and over-the-top plotlines and you can see why FreezeFlame22 regrets The Koopa Kids as much as he does. Though thanks to the series' So Bad, It's Good status, some are able to enjoy some episodes in an an ironic way.
• Narm: Less charming however are other elements of the series, included, but not limited to, Iggy's Evil Laugh, which is regarded as being legendarily annoying, Lemmy's whole character amounting to asking if what someone said means candy, not helped by his irritating squeaky toy-like voice, the random use of the Trollface and Shoop Da Whoop face, which sometimes appear on some characters' faces (with the latter one being used as an actual weapon in the series), or some episodes using footage of games such as Mario Kart Wii, Mario Kart 7, Super Smash Bros. Brawl and Super Smash Bros. for Nintendo 3DS, all clearly recorded with a phone and even being plot-relevant in various episodes. No, really. Again, it's no wonder FreezeFlame22 regrets this series as much as he does.
• No Yay:
  • Bowser Jr. being Bowser's favourite child becomes this once you realize that there's a high chance that Bowser may have raped Peach.
  • Larry's crush on Wendy. The fact that he is in love with his sister is already creepy enough, but it becomes even more disturbing when you take into account that nobody really calls Larry out on this, not even Wendy herself.
  • Daisy and Birdo's obsessions with Luigi and Yoshi respectively are the definition of creepy, with both of them being textbook examples of love-obssesed stalkers, with Daisy having a Stalker Shrine of Luigi and spying on him everyday and Birdo openly fantasizing about the many explicit things he would like to do to Yoshi. Good grief!
• Rooting for the Empire: Mario may be a psychotic lunatic, but at least the show treats him as such, and he himself has no problem with admitting that he is a complete bastard. Compare that to the Koopa family, who can be even worse people than Mario but are always portrayed as the good guys, and it becomes easy to understand why people who have watched this show prefer Mario over to them. The scene in which Mario beats up the Koopalings and Junior over a "prank call" they made to him in particular is noted by many as being very satisfactory to watch.
• So Bad, It's Good: Relating to Bile Fascination above, most of the people that have checked the series to see if it is as bad as FreezeFlame22 claims it is generally agree that the first two seasons are enjoyable in an ironic way, mainly thanks to the crude visuals and voice acting, and the ridiculously over-the-top plotlines. When it comes to season three, which infamously tried to shift to tone of the series into a more serious one, viewers tend to agree that the series becomes unbearable to watch.
• Squick: Larry's infatuation with his sister Wendy. While the basis of the joke was that Larry was too naive to understand that incest is wrong, the joke had run its course very quickly, with many modern viewers seeing it as disgusting. What makes it even worse is that nobody really confronts Larry about this, not even Wendy herself. At most Bowser Jr. calls him an idiot and tells him that Wendy will never like him, but the fact that nobody ever thought of telling Larry that it's wrong for him to have a crush on his own sister is very concerning.
• Take That, Scrappy!: Basically any scene in which the Koopa family suffers from extreme misfortune. Given their repulsive personalities and actions, it's hard to have any sympathy for them. The scene in which Mario beats all of Bowser's children up and Bowser himself gets arrested in particular feel very satisfactory to watch.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Character: As poorly-written as the characters were, Luigi had the potential to be a well-written character (or as close to well-written as this series can be, anyway). He had the potential to eventually stand up to Mario and permanently leave him, but FreezeFlame22 decided not to do that, being annoyed at fans who liked this scenario, and purposefully rewrote Luigi's character to make him as unlikeable as possible, and no better than his brother. FreezeFlame22 has since come to regret this mistake, advising any current and future writers to never take this approach with a character.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: Aside from the poor writing itself, the show had a tendency to abuse Status Quo Is God, rendering many of the plotlines useless and doing away with any potential Character Development that could have come out of it:
  • The whole "Ludwig's Gluttony" duology is this in regards to Ludwig and Bowser's Jr.'s relationship with one another, even seeming like it's going to give both of them some Character Development (which would be a huge accomplishment for this show). The result? Ludwig accepts Junior's apology... only for Ludwig to state that he will still try to murder Junior when he least expects, and both of them going back to hating each other the very next episode, rendering the the two-part episode completely pointless.
  • The episode "Bowser's Daughter" implies that, deep down, Bowser does appreciate Wendy. You're not to blame if you don't remember this fact, given that following episodes still have Bowser directly telling Wendy how much of a disappointment he considers her to be or subjecting her to severe levels of abuse (such as forcing her to travel inside the trunk of a car). Reminder that the show expects you to sympathize with Bowser even though he is a terrible person.
  • Bowser Jr. is unaware that Peach is his biological mother, and Peach is said to not want anyone to find out that she is the mother of one of Bowser's children. The series never once considered exploring this concept.
• The Woobie:
  • Luigi. Change in personality notwithstanding, the poor guy is treated like a slave by his older brother, is forced to date an Abhorrent Admirer Yandere whom he's creeped out by just so that said brother can continue to date the Resident Alpha Bitch, and barely anyone in the Mushroom Kingdom gives a damn about what he's going through. The man desperately needs a hug.
  • Carl dies in every single episode of the series, with no one paying any attention to his deaths (and with people such as Wendy or Gooper outright telling him that no one cares about his condition), despite how brutal and gruesome they can be. The scene where he is impaled by an arrow in the head and cries his heart out as he is agonizing to death is particularly hard to watch (especially considering it's supposed to be Played for Laughs).

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