The Super Mario Bros. Super Show

This show features the Super Mario Brothers in Animated form with Lou Albano and Danny Wells providing the voices for the brothers and also playing the brothers in real live action form as well with special guest stars! Each show starts out with the live action Mario's and goes to cartoon, after the cartoon the live action portion wraps up! All 24 episodes include their live action counterparts! This 4 disc set features these 24 episodes plus a new interview with Lou Albano(Mario)!

Disc 1

The Bird! The Bird!

Butch Mario and the Luigi Kid

King Mario of Cramalot

Mario's Magic Carpet

Roll'in down the river

The Great Gladiator Gig

Disc 2

Mario and the Beanstalk

Love'em and Leave'em

The Great BMX Race

Two Plumbers and a Baby

Stars in their Eyes

Pirates of the Koopa

Disc 3

Robo Koopa

Count Koopula

Jungle Fever

Mario OF The Deep

The Fire OF Herculfleas

Mario Meets Koop-Zilla

Disc 4

Mario And Joliet

Too Hot To Handle

Brooklyn Bound

The Adventures OF Sherlock Mario

Hooded Robin

Toad Warrior

So if your sink is in trouble unclog this dvd on the double and get hooked on the Brothers!!!

Back in 1989-1990, there were five afternoon shows I watched all the time when I was a kid: Chip N' Dale Rescue Rangers and Ducktales on Fox, while on KUSI-51 I watched the Jetsons, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, and the Super Mario Bros Super Show. Now, four of them have finally been added to my DVD collection, and I am partially awaiting the arrival of TSMBSS to include the fourth.

The show is one of my favorites. While half of it features various little live action skits featuring the Mario Bros. and various guests, from Sgt. Slaughter to Magic Johnson and even Inspector Gadget(played by Maurice LaMarche in live action... far better than the performance Matthew Broderick gave), with some funny plots such as Mario switching bodies with Frankenstein's monster or Luigi getting trapped in a magician's hat. The other half is animated, in which Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach... sorry, Toadstool, and Toad attempt to try and rid the world of King Koopa.

The toons themselves were a bit of a merger of the first two Mario games. Koopa, for example, had Bowser's design and ego, but also had Wart's crown and color, plus Mouser(from the 2nd game) was his main henchman. The plots sometimes dealt with facing Koopa in the Mushroom Kingdom, but usually they took the plumbers and placed them in various situations: For example, movie parodies such as Indiana Jones, James Bond, or Godzilla, or homages such the group visiting Camelot... I mean, Cram-a-lot, or even prehistoric times. All the while Koopa would continue to menace the group under various disguises and alter-egos, similar to say, Boris Badanov from Rocky and Bullwinkle. Interestingly enough, some of Mario and Luigi's traits from the games, such as Mario's huge appetite and Luigi being a complete and total coward, actually originated in this show.

However, I am worried on how the releases will turn out. Although it seems DIC, I'm worried if they will truly be the episodes I watched on TV all the time. One of the highlights of the series was that at some point in an episode they would play various songs, such as "Weird Science," "Thriller," or "Danger Zone". However, in reairings of the episodes(retitled, Super Mario All-Stars, which aired with the two sequels, Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World), as well as on their single-disc releases of TSMBSS, DIC completely edited these songs out. There's been no mention on whether the songs will be included for the 4-disc set, but I hope they are, because I want the episodes as they ORIGINALLY aired, not edited up. I contacted them and asked if they would be including the songs, but have yet to receive a reply. Here's hoping that the series will be restored on DVD the way it should be.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is definitely a well remembered cult classic.The half-hour series was a combination of the live action characters of Mario and Luigi (and friends) and the cartoon characters. The cartoon featured many of the characters from the three Super Mario games released in the mid 80's. In the cartoon, Mario, Luigi, Toad and The Princess are often fighting the evil forces of King Koopa. Between 1985 and 1989 Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 2, and Super Mario Bros 3 were among the most popular NES games on the market.

The DVD box set includes 24 episodes from the shows 1989 season. The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! was a fun afternoon cartoon to watch in the late 80's and its nice to see such an unlikely release available on DVD. The episodes look pretty good, although some appear to have that grainy television look verses a real sharp DVD look at times. The packaging is awesome and colorful. It's great to have this show on DVD. Special guests include Cyndi Lauper, Nicole Eggert, and Magic Johnson. It's clear Shout! Factory put a lot of effort into this release.

5 stars for effort, 4 stars for picture quality.

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