The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! facts for kids
Quick facts for kids The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! |
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| Genre | |
| Created by |
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| Directed by | Dan Riba |
| Starring |
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| Voices of |
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| Narrated by | Lou Albano (cartoons only) |
| Theme music composer | |
| Opening theme | "The Mario Rap", performed by Lou Albano and Danny Wells |
| Ending theme | "Do the Mario", performed by Lou Albano |
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| Country of origin | United States |
| Original language(s) | English |
| No. of episodes |
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| Executive producer(s) |
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| Running time | 20 minutes |
| Production company(s) | |
| Distributor | Viacom Enterprises (United States) Saban International (Internationally) |
| Release | |
| Original network | First-run syndication |
| Audio format | Dolby Surround 5.1 |
| Original release | September 4 – December 1, 1989 |
| Chronology | |
| Followed by | The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 (1990) |
| Related shows | The Legend of Zelda (1989) |
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is a 1989 American television series, conceived by Andy Heyward, produced by DIC Enterprises and Saban Entertainment, and distributed by Viacom Enterprises in the United States, airing from September 4 to December 1, 1989 on syndication. The series was based upon Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2, and was the first of three television series to be based upon the Mario video game series.
Each episode consists of live-action segments starring WWF/WWE Hall of Famer Capt. 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 alongside Jeannie Elias, John Stocker and Harvey Atkin. For every Friday and the remaining episodes of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, it was accompanied by animated serials of The Legend of Zelda, based on the video game of the same name, and starring the voices of Jonathan Potts as Link, Cynthia Preston as Princess Zelda and Len Carlson as Ganon, until the conclusion of the television series.
Contents
Premise
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!
The premise of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! focused upon Mario and Luigi being two Italian-American plumbers from Brooklyn, New York. In the animated serials of Super Mario Bros., per the series' opening titles, the pair accidentally warped into the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a bathtub drain for a customer (as was re-iterated in the episode "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel" in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3). Upon their arrival, each episode begins with Mario reciting an entry into his "Plumber's Log" (a parody of the Captain's Log from Star Trek ) prior to both himself and Luigi helping out Princess Toadstool (Jeannie Elias) and Toad (John Stocker) in defeating King Koopa (Harvey Atkin) from taking over the Kingdom with a sinister plot in a parody of a book, movie or a 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 - one example was that the animated serials saw Mario receive his fire-powers from a Star power-up, when in the game the power-up grants temporary invincibility.
Stories for the live-action segments of Mario Bros. Plumbing take place mainly before those of the animated serials.
The Legend of Zelda
The premise of the Legend of Zelda focused on the hero Link (Jonathan Potts) helping Princess Zelda (Cynthia Preston) to defend the kingdom of Hyrule from the evil wizard Ganon (Len Carlson), by preventing him from owning the Triforce through thwarting his schemes or those of his underlings. Many elements of the serials were based upon the NES game The Legend of Zelda. It is one of few Zelda productions to feature the character of Link being able to fully talk - the others in the Zelda franchise being the CD-i games, the manga series, the comic series, and episodes of Captain N: The Game Master (the latter following the conclusion of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, and based upon the NES game Zelda II: The Adventure of Link) - with episodes often featuring the character using the sarcastic catchphrase "Well, excuse me, Princess!" (which later went on to become a popular meme) and a running gag involving Link failing to get Zelda to kiss him for his heroic deeds.
Voice cast
Super Mario Bros. cast
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Additional voices
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The Legend of Zelda Voice cast
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Additional voices
- Don Francks
- Marvin Goldhar
- Christopher Ward
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 | width="25%" align="left" valign="top" |
- Vic Dunlop as himself
- 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 | width="25%" align="left" valign="top" |
- David Horowitz as himself
- Ernie Hudson 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
- Gary Owens as himself
- Willard Pugh as Little Robert (parody of Little Richard)
- Sgt. Slaughter as himself | width="25%" align="left" valign="top" |
- 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.
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 in 1990 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 (played by Chris Coombs) and Co-MC (played by Michael Anthony Rawlins) - "commandeering" the "satellite signal" of the Super Show (despite the reality of the show going out on tapes to stations well in advance) and goofing around. 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 played by 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 (portrayed by Shanti Kahn), which was sourced and edited from the science fiction children television series Photon. In at least one episode, they picked on Andy Heyward (as himself) in the DiC offices.
Club Mario proved unpopular with viewers and was discontinued following this season. Further reruns of the show during the 1991-1992 TV season and onward returned to the use of the original Albano and Wells live-action segments.
Cast
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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 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.
See also
In Spanish: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! para niños
