So if any of you watch Moviebob's Big Picture over at the Escapist you probably watched the episode on bad video game cartoons. There's some everyone knows about but then there's the often forgotten ones based on Battletoads, Bubsy and Darkstalkers. Much like movies based on video games, cartoons based on video games didn't fare much better at least Western based cartoon shows. Some animes are passable at best.
Now I am old enough to remember when Mario first came out and was a huge hit. I'm old and nowadays you kids have it lucky where you can go into a Hot Topic or Specers or go on Amazon and find tons of great Mario stuff. When I was a kid, even when Mario and the NES were big, cool tie in stuff was far and few between. McDonalds had a set of Mario happy meal toys (I still have somewhere) and I had some school supplies. There was a short lived comic series that I don't reccomend but nothing like now.
But Regan era TV existed to sell us stuff. And when Mario got popular with kids, it made sense to make a cartoon show. Sadly none of Mario's cartoons were that good. As much as I love Mario, I don't love him enough to own any DVDs of his old cartoons. My nephew who's 7 has a few though and he loves them.
Saturday Supercade: Donkey Kong This gets forgotten but waaaaay back in the 1980s. there was a sort of compilation show based on several popular arcade games at the time (aka Wreck-it-Ralph's friends) in this you had cartoons based on Frogger, Q*Bert, Pitfall and DK Jr. managing the impossible in being MORE annoying than Scrappy Doo but also we had Mario and his ex girlfriend Pauline chasing after Donkey Kong. DK is sort of the Bugs to Mario's Elmer Fudd. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKHSJA_9EiI DK here is much more fun and playful compared to the King Kong like monster he was in Captain N and at least it's not horrid CG like the DKC based cartoon.
Super Mario Bros. Super Show You all have heard of this one and some have fond memories of it. You had the live action Mario and Luigi in Brooklyn where unusual guest stars would come and visit. The weird thing about Super Show was Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad didn't chase Koopa around the Mushroom Kingdom rather they went to ____Land. Basically pick a noun and slap "land" at the end of it. Supposedly Wart and Bowser were collapsed into one character making King Koopa who looked different from his game design though some think it was based on the NES sprite not Miyamoto's designs. And on Fridays they did a Zelda cartoon which is summed up in one phrase "Well Excccuuuuuuussse me Princess!" A shame because Zelda was actually pretty badass in that. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JA10XUaI3Mo
Super Mario Bros. 3 Sharing the hour long slot with Captain N was what I think the best of the Mario cartoons in that it tried to be true to it's game. It was in the Mushroom Kingdom and it's various worlds. Mario and Luigi got to use their powerups. Bowser had an airship though they stuck with green King Koopa. I also liked Mario voice in this and I do wish this is what he would sound like in games as opposed to that annoying Italian stereotype. Though for whatever reason the show changed the names and designs of the Koopa Kids which never made sense to me. Then again this was before the big anime boom in the US and the creators felt the need to "Americanize" the show. As anyone who has watched a 4Kids dub can vouch for. Also please to enjoy the "ear rape" that comes whenever a musical number plays. It's supposed to be the koopalings singing." http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5A8NjZsIiMk
Super Mario World Well after SMB3 did a fair job of trying to be accurate to it's source material, SMW basically said "pffffft!" They saw the game took place in "Dinosaurland" so they threw in giant godzilla dinos and cavemen and for you Sonic X watchers who hated Chris Thorndyke, he's likable compared to Oogtar, the obnoxious Neanderthal with wonderous catch phrases like "dino-bunga" and Yoshi was given "Elmo-speech" in that he referred to himself in the third person. This also has more ear raping music as well as the animation manages to look even worse. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3k3pErwQePc
Now there is a Mario anime you can watch on youtube but it was never translated to English or released on DVD and sometimes I have wondered if Nintendo would do like Sonic and allow a newer Mario anime to be made. Ever since the debacle of the Super Mario Bros. movie, Nintendo keeps a tight leash on lending out their properties and some would dread a 4Kids dub of Mario and friends. Then again Pokemon lasted over a decade and Kirby Right Back at Ya wasn't half bad. Would you watch a new Mario cartoon?
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