The Super Mario Bros. Super Show

''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' is an American live-action/animated television series airing from September 4 to November 30, 1989, on syndication. The series is based on the video games ''Super Mario Bros.'' and '' Super Mario Bros. 2'' by Nintendo, and is the first of three television series to be based upon the ''Mario'' video game series. The animation was provided by Sei Young Animation.

Each episode consists of live-action segments starring WWF Hall of Fame wrestler "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario and Danny Wells as Luigi alongside a special guest, either as themselves or a character for the segments. The remainder of the program is dedicated to animated stories of ''Super Mario Bros.'', starring the voices of Albano and Wells in their respective roles, which were exhibited Monday through Thursday. The Friday episode of ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' was instead accompanied by animated serials of ''The Legend of Zelda''.

Premise

''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' revolves around Mario and Luigi, two Italian-American plumbers from Brooklyn who accidentally warp into the Mushroom Kingdom while fixing a bathtub drain. The show is split into two different portions separated by style, chronology, and locale. The animated portion is set in the Mushroom Kingdom after the Mario Brothers' unwitting conveyance, while the live-action segments, a satire of contemporary sitcoms, are set in Brooklyn and deal with the peculiarities of running a plumbing business in the late 1980s.

Each episode begins with Mario reciting an entry into his "Plumber's Log", then teaming up with Luigi to assist Princess Toadstool and Toad in preventing King Koopa from taking over the Kingdom with a sinister plot, generally one parodying a book, movie, or historical event.

Each episode's plot featured characters and situations based upon the NES games ''Super Mario Bros.'' and '' Super Mario Bros. 2'', as well as several sound effects and musical cues from both games. Some plots often involved parodies of movies or pop culture references of the time. Despite making use of the games, some episodes featured inconsistencies between the serials and the video games. For example, in the animated serials, Mario receives fire powers from a Super Star, whereas the star grants temporary invincibility in the game, with the Fire Flower granting pyrokinesis.

Voice cast

* Lou Albano as Mario (live-action and animated)
* Danny Wells as Luigi (live-action and animated)
* Jeannie Elias as Princess Toadstool (animated segments)
* John Stocker as Toad (animated segments)
* Harvey Atkin as King Koopa (animated segments)

Additional voices

* Robert Bockstael
* Dorian Joe Clark
* Robert Cowan
* Diane Fabian
* Paulina Gillis
* Joyce Gordon
* Marilyn Lightstone
* Marla Lukofsky
* Greg Morton
* Steve Schirrinall
* Greg Swanson
* Ron Rubin
* Keith Knight
* Dan Hennessey
* Susan Roman

Guest stars

* Lyle Alzado as himself
* Craig Armstrong as Frankenstein's Monster
* Vicki Bakken as the Queen
* Kay Ballard as herself
* Joe Bellan as himself
* Harry Blackstone, Jr. as the Magician
* Brian Bonsall as himself
* Melanie Chartoff as herself
* Philip L. Clarke as Computer Voice
* Patrick Dempsey as the Piranha Plant
* Shabba Doo as himself
* Donna Douglas as Elle Mae
* Vic Dunlop as himself
* Marty Allen as Imperial Poogah
* Elvira as herself
* Nicole Eggert as herself
* Paul Elder as Alligator Dundee
* Kort Falkenberg as Santa Claus
* Norman Fell as himself
* Martin Gardner as Mikhail S. Gorbachev
* Larry Gelman as Sigmund Fruitcake and himself
* Courtney Gibbs as herself
* Joseph S. Griffo as Mini Mario
* Karen Hartman as herself
* David Horowitz as himself
* Ernie Hudson as himself
* Magic Johnson as himself
* Elaine Kagan as herself
* Jim Lange as himself
* Cyndi Lauper as herself
* Maurice LaMarche as Inspector Gadget
* Eugene Liebowitz as Dr. Frankenstein
* Pam Matteson as herself
* Danica McKellar as Patty
* Ed Metzger as Einstein
* Fab Morvan as himself
* Rob Pilatus as himself
* Gary Owens as himself
* Willard Pugh as Little Robert
* Sgt. Slaughter as himself
* Howard Stevens as himself
* Fred Travalena as Elvis Presley
* Arsenio Trinidad as Obi-Wan Cannoli
* Nedra Volz as herself
* James Ward as himself
* Regina Williams as Susanna Ross
* Moon Zappa as herself
* "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as himself

Lou Albano appeared as himself in "Captain Lou Is Missing". There was no trick photography—Mario was out of the shop when he entered and remained out until the end of the episode.

Production

History and development

Before the series was conceived, Andy Heyward, the then-CEO of DIC Enterprises, spent about a year trying to convince Nintendo to license the characters. In an interview with USA Today, Heyward said: "The Mario Bros. is such a unique property we had to do it in a different way...We wanted to do a cartoon but also do a show that extended beyond the cartoon". The project originated as ''Super Mario Bros. Power Hour'', a one hour long animation block that would have featured series based on a number of intellectual properties. Concept art was produced for adaptations of ''Super Mario Bros.'', ''The Legend of Zelda'', ''Metroid'', ''Castlevania'', ''Double Dragon'', and ''California Games''. With the exception of Mario and Zelda, none of these additional adaptations were ultimately produced. ''Double Dragon'' would receive a later adaptation from DIC which aired from 1993 to 1994, but this did not make use of the 1980s concepts and was instead based on the SNES titles released in the interim.

The show premiered in September 1989. To promote the series, Lou Albano appeared on ''Live with Regis and Kathie Lee'' in May 1989 with his beard shaven. When the series first aired, it was distributed by Viacom Enterprises and was marketed by MTV. In addition, DiC planned to produce an animated film based on the series. The film was to be released in summer 1990.

In David Sheff's book '' Game Over'', Bill White, the then-director of advertising and public relations for Nintendo, said that the purpose of the television series was to boost awareness of the characters.

Format

Each episode of the program consisted of two live action segments, one at the start and the other towards the end, dubbed ''Mario Bros. Plumbing'', in which Lou Albano and Danny Wells portrayed the roles of Mario and Luigi respectively in comedic story accompanied by a laugh track. These segments involved a celebrity guest star joining the pair, either as themselves or as a character connected to the segment's plot, who were often a popular television star or professional athlete (including WWE (then WWF) stars of the time); such guests included Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Lyle Alzado and Magic Johnson.

Alongside guest stars, both Albano and Wells portrayed additional characters in a number of episodes related to Mario and Luigi. In one episode, Albano played as himself, but had to make the character of Mario absent for this to work, while in a number of episodes the pair were joined by Maurice LaMarche in the live-action role of the animated character Inspector Gadget (making it the first appearance of the character in live-action, predating the live-action film by ten years), before his eventual role in voicing the character in ''Inspector Gadget's Last Case'' and '' Gadget & the Gadgetinis''. In an interview for Shout! Factory's first DVD release of the show in 2006which exclude some episodes that involved Cassandra Peterson as Elvira, alongside Gadget's second appearance and a few other episodesAlbano stated that filming of the live-action segments involved mainly himself and Wells receiving a central plot and mostly improvising the dialogue as they went along.

The rest of the episode in-between these live-action segments were dedicated to animated serials. For the majority of episodes, between Monday and Thursday, each episode of ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' featured an animated serial of the ''Super Mario Bros.'', which both Albano and Wells voiced their respective characters. A total of 52 serials were aired under this schedule until November 16, 1989. For every subsequent Friday, the animated segments consisted of serials of ''The Legend of Zelda'', with scenes featuring during the live-action segments on the preceding ''Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' episodes during the week, and then broadcast as sneak peeks. A total of 13 serials were aired under this schedule, and following November 16, were repeated for the remaining episodes of ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' until its eventual conclusion.

Songs

Each episode featured two main theme songs used during its broadcast:
* "Plumber Rap" - composed by Shuki Levy, the theme was performed by Albano and Wells - first to open up the show, and repeated again to open up the ''Super Mario Bros.'' animated segments.
* "Do the Mario" - performed by Albano in front of a greenscreen of the animated show's backgrounds, it acted as the closing theme for ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'', and was composed around the original "Overworld" theme from the ''Super Mario Bros.'' video game.

During the remainder of the episodes, during the animated segments, a song taken from one of the notable singles from popular singers, songwriters, and musical artists of the era, would be used to accompany a scene of the serial. When the program was re-released onto DVD in North America, these songs were replaced instrumentals of songs from ''The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3'' and one song from ''Super Mario World''.

Reruns

''Club Mario''

The first set of reruns of the program were aired during the 1990-1991 TV season, again in syndication, but with significant changes in the live-action format. While it retained the program's original scheduling arrangement of broadcasts and the animated serials of ''Super Mario Bros.'' and ''The Legend of Zelda'', the live-action segments of Albano and Wells were replaced with a new continuity of five-minute live-action segments, entitled ''Club Mario.''

The format for these segments focused on a new set of characters—Mario-obsessed teenagers Tommy Treehugger (Chris Coombs) and Co-MC (Michael Anthony Rawlins)—hijacking the ''Super Show's'' satellite signal (in reality, tapes of the show were sent to stations well in advance). The two were regularly visited by Tommy's annoying sister Tammy (Victoria Delaney), the aptly named Dr. Know-It-All (Kurt Weldon), Co-MC's evil twin Eric (also Rawlins), and a guest star. The segment featured a one-to-two-minute viewing of ''Space Scout Theater/Spaced Out Theater'' hosted by Princess Centauri (Shanti Kahn), which was sourced and edited from the children's science fiction television series ''Photon''. In at least one episode, they harass Andy Heyward (playing himself) in the DiC offices.

''Club Mario'' proved unpopular with viewers and was discontinued after one season. Further reruns of the show returned to the use of the original Albano and Wells live-action segments.

Cast

* Chris Coombs as Tommy Treehugger
* Michael Anthony Rawlins as Co-MC/Evil Eric
* Kurt Weldon as Dr. Know-It-All
* Victoria Delaney as Tammy Treehugger
* Jeff Rose as The Big Kid
* James Abbott as The Band
* Shanti Kahn as Princess Centauri
* Andy Heyward as himself

''Mario All Stars''

The second set of reruns was created by The Family Channel in 1994 as a programming package entitled ''Mario All Stars'', inspired by the video game title ''Super Mario All-Stars'' that was released the previous year. The format of the rerun focused on primarily the cartoons featured in ''The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!'' alongside those from the ''Super Mario World'' series; prior to being re-edited for this package, the network aired reruns of the program at slower than normal speed and retained the use of the live-action segments before they were discontinued to make way to the package's layout. The rerun was used again by the USA Network in 1997, from January 8 to June 6, before the network replaced it with reruns of ''Sonic the Hedgehog''. The theme song was the end credits theme of ''Super Mario World''.

Although clips from the ''Super Mario Bros. 3'' cartoons were used in promos for the show, none of the show's episodes were featured.

Home media

From 1989 to 1990, Kids Klassics (with the sponsorship of Nesquik) released episodes of the series on VHS. Starting in 1991, Kids Klassics' parent company GoodTimes Entertainment continued releasing episodes on VHS up through 1993. These 1989 releases are noted for being to only releases to contain the original song covers.

In 1994, Buena Vista Home Video under their DIC Toon-Time Video label released the VHS ''Super Mario Bros. Super Christmas Adventures!'', which contained the animated segment "Koopa Klaus" and the live-action segment "Santa Claus is Coming to Flatbush" alongside the ''Super Mario World'' episode "The Night Before Cave Christmas".

In 2002, Lions Gate Home Entertainment released a DVD titled ''Mario's Greatest Movie Moments'', which contained 6 episodes as well as two episodes of ''The Legend of Zelda''. The VHS versions of the DVD, ''Mario's Monster Madness'' and ''Action Adventures'', includes the same episodes (3 per tape, alongside 1 Zelda episode). None of those releases contained any live-action segments.

In 2004, Sterling Entertainment released ''Mario Mania'' on DVD which contained the first week's episodes, consisting of 4 Mario segments and a ''Legend of Zelda'' episode. This release however featured the live-action segments and could also be watched on their own. A Question-and-answer with DIC CEO Andy Heyward was also included. Another DVD which consisted of 5 episodes: ''Mario's Movie Madness'' was released by Sterling in 2005, but removed the live-action segments.

In 2006, Shout! Factory and Sony BMG Music Entertainment released the series on two 4-disc DVD sets.

These two sets were discontinued in 2012 after Shout!'s deal with Cookie Jar Entertainment expired.

From 2007 to 2009, NCircle Entertainment released several DVD sets of the series. The prints used on these releases were taken from the Shout! Factory boxsets.

NCircle re-released the complete sets in 2012 with the same extras as the Shout! Factory sets, but with the live-action segments removed and "On Her Majesty's Sewer Service" excluded. These releases have the DiC logo replaced with the then-current Cooke Jar logo.

In July 2012, the show was added to Netflix as a part of their instant streaming library. The show was later removed from the service on May 22, 2021.

As of 2020, the series can be purchased digitally to own on VUDU, which is owned by Fandango Media.

UK Home Media history

From 1991 to 1993, Abbey Home Entertainment Distribution released six videos of the "Super Mario Bros. Super Show" with only the animated segmented episodes, the animated segmented intro and the live-action segment of "Do the Mario" in the closing credits.

Maximum Entertainment (Under license from Fox Kids Europe/Jetix Europe) released 4 DVD sets of the series from 2004 to 2007. The first and fourth sets contained 6 episodes, the second contained 5 and the third set contained 3 episodes.

Australia Home Media history

Beyond Home Entertainment released a six-disc box set in the 2000s, with two segments "Rolling Down the River" and "The Unzappables" omitted.

Reception

Critical response

The show was met with generally mixed reviews from critics, who felt that the storylines were a unique twist to the franchise and that the humor could be considered "funny" but were critical of its live action segments and Albano and Wells’ acting. Upon the series premiere in September 1989, Mike Hughes of USA Today described the series as a "surprising disappointment", opining that the series had "little of the wit and spark" and relied too heavily on slapstick. In a retrospective review for the series' DVD, Mark Bozon of IGN referred the series as "the biggest offender among Nintendo's many embarrassing moments" but thought that the animated shorts were "interesting to look back on". Bozon gave the overall series a 7 out of 10 (while giving the DVD itself a 5 out of 10). Common Sense Media rated the show 1 out of 5 stars, stating that the show with stereotypes has not aged well.

Ratings

Upon the first week of its premiere, the series had a cumulative 4.1/12 rating/share, making the series the highest rated first-run syndicated series at the time. Within the next two weeks, the series (3.8/11) was beat out by Buena Vista Television

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