The only problem with this review is that you criticize the voices for being unlike the modern games' voices, while also mentioning that this show had little to work with.
"What's out there? What's waiting for me?"
I'm not critizing the voices for being unlike the modern game's voices. I'm simply stating that they're different, and that the show just grabbed stereotypes out of a bag to fill in what they could.
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I admit I'm quite fond of the live-action segments, which were generally at least competently acted and pretty much run on Narm Charm. But yeah, the cartoon was terrible.
I read somewhere that since they didn't know if Wart or Bowser were going to be the big villain in Mario Games from then on, they had to create "King Koopa" instead, but I'm not sure if it's true.
If that's the case, they should have used both Bowser and Wart.
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A bland, half-assed cash-in with no personality
To anyone familiar with the modern Mario and Zelda games but not this old late 80s cartoon, the Super Mario Bros Super Show must seem very strange. Created before the games had voice acting and dialog, or much of a plot, this variety show had to fill in the many blanks in the franchises in order to be able to tell a story. And it did indeed fill in the blanks: with low-quality generica.
The characters are as bland and stereotyped as you can get. The show's producers must have been told simply that Mario and Luigi are Italian plumbers from Brooklyn, and used that information to generate the main characters' personalities. They speak with rough Brooklyn accents that are a far cry from the cheerful cartoony voices they have in the modern games. And they often carry plungers for use as a weapon. And they crack lots and lots of pasta jokes, because you know, they're Italian, get it?
The Mario live-action segments are horrible and boring. They're about the Mario brothers working as plumbers in Brooklyn and dealing with various things that happen. They have a laugh track. Nothing more to mention.
The Mario cartoon episodes are very strange. The characters are on all sorts of random adventures, ranging from outer space to a music-themed world to various other locations. King Koopa (the cartoon's name for Bowser) would sometimes try to kill all the heroes, but other times he'd try to capture the princess and instead kill the Mario brothers and Toad only. It was strangely inconsistent. The events of the episodes were also very very random.
The Zelda cartoon at least tried harder. It had a consistent setting and plot: Ganon would try to steal the triforce of wisdom from Zelda, Link would have to protect her, etc. Other times, the heroes would try to strike Ganon first and steal his triforce. There would frequently be assaults on the castle of Hyrule. Also, amusingly, Link would usually fight enemies by firing a beam from his sword - a staple of the older Zelda games but not the newer ones.
To be fair, what did they have to work with? Only the first two Mario and Zelda games had been released at the time, giving them little to go by. But what they made up to fill the blanks was just plain lame.