The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3
Genre Animated television series
Voices of Walker Boone
Tony Rosato
Country of origin Flag of the United States United States
No. of seasons 1
No. of episodes 26 (List of episodes)
Broadcast
First shown in NBC,
Original run September 8, 1990 – December 1, 1990
Chronology
Preceded by The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
Followed by Super Mario World
External links
IMDb profile
TV.com summary

The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 is the second TV series based on the Super Mario Bros. NES and Super NES series of video games. It aired on NBC, from September 8, 1990 through December 1, 1990.

Contents

[edit] Format

Based on the Super Mario Bros. 3 video game, the cartoon shows Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad fighting against Bowser Koopa and his Koopalings, who went by different names on the show. On the show, the Koopalings were called:

  • Cheatsy Koopa (Larry)
  • Bigmouth Koopa (Morton)
  • Kootie Pie Koopa (Wendy)
  • Hop Koopa (Iggy)
  • Bully Koopa (Roy)
  • Hip Koopa (Lemmy)
  • Kooky Von Koopa (Ludwig von Koopa)

No official explanation was ever given to the name change. While its reason is disputed among fans, most agree that the likely explanation is that DiC, the company that made the show, did not have access to their real names during production of the show as they were using the Japanese version of Super Mario Bros. 3 as reference. In the game, the Koopa Kids were not originally named (usually being called simply as "koopa kid" or "little koopa") until it was brought over into the US for English localization, shortly before The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 went on air. Given the vast amounts of time it takes to animate a cartoon, it would be very difficult to make the cartoon in such short time, needing more than a year. To accommodate this, the made-up names were added in place, each fitting their personality or a play in sound. When viewing the cartoon, it appears that DiC was never informed of the add-on. Oddly enough, names from the American version of the game were inserted ("Kooky von Koopa" or referring to King Koopa as "Bowser"), which may have been a last minute attempt to make the cartoon feel more like the US version of the game. DiC likely retained the show names to avoid confusion among viewers and to avoid the large amount of expenses of to re-animate the whole show to accommodate this.

Like the previous Mario cartoon series, the animation was done by Sei Young Animation Co. Ltd, however this show was co-produced by Reteitalia S.P.A., hence the slight differences in character design.

Since the show was based on Super Mario Bros. 3, the enemies and power-ups were also seen in the show. In addition to being more faithful to the Mario gameplay, the series was given an established sense of continuity, something that the previous series lacked. The show was also known for having many of its episodes set in "the real world", with "actual" human beings appearing from time to time. Episodes took place in locations such as London, Paris, Venice, New York City, Cape Canaveral, Los Angeles and even Washington, D.C.. One memorable episode entitled "7 Continents for 7 Koopas" was about the seven Koopa Kids invading each of the seven continents.

This cartoon was originally shown in the hour-long Captain N and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 programming block along with the second season of Captain N: The Game Master. All further airings of the series separated it from Captain N.

[edit] Cast

[edit] Home video releases

It has been released on DVD in Australia in a full box set made by MRA Entertainment, Europe which one volume out of the four has only been released in Germany, and one single DVD release in the US by Sterling Entertainment Group in 2003. Due to the success of the DVD sets of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Shout! Factory released a 3-disc box set of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 on June 26, 2007, which was released again in a double pack with The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog volume 1 as a double pack on December 4, 2007, as a tie-in with Mario & Sonic at the Olympic Games

[edit] Broadcast history


v • d • e
Mario television series (Episodes)
Languages