Super Mario Bros. Super Show!

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is an American television series based upon Nintendo's Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2 video games. It is the first of three TV shows based on the video game series, with the other being The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 and Super Mario World. It was originally broadcast via first-run syndication from September 4, 1989, to December 1, 1989, with reruns continuing until September 6, 1991. The Family Channel picked up the series on September 23, 1991,[1] and aired it until August 26, 1994.[2] The show was produced by DiC Animation and was distributed by Viacom Enterprises in association with Nintendo of America, Inc.. DHX Media, the successor company of Cookie Jar Entertainment and DiC, is the current distributor.

Format
Mario Bros. Plumbing

The first and last parts of each episode were live segments which showed Mario (WWE Hall of Famer Captain Lou Albano) and Luigi (Danny Wells), two Italian-American plumbers living in Brooklyn, where they would often be visited by celebrity guest stars.

Some of the celebrity guest stars were popular television stars, such as Nedra Volz, Norman Fell, Donna Douglas, Eve Plumb, Vanna White, Jim Lange, Danica McKellar, Nicole Eggert, Clare Carey and Brian Bonsall or professional athletes such as the Late Lyle Alzado, Magic Johnson, and WWE Hall of Famers Roddy Piper and Sgt. Slaughter. In one episode, Ernie Hudson appeared as a Slimebuster, a parody of his Ghostbusters persona Winston Zeddemore and on another occasion Mario and Luigi receive a visit from Inspector Gadget, performed live by Maurice LaMarche. There was also another episode with Cassandra Peterson as Elvira, Mistress of the Dark, but the episode was not included in the DVDs. In an interview for the first DVD release of the show, Lou Albano talked about filming these live action skits, which mainly involved he and Wells getting a central plot and mostly improvising the dialogue as they went along.

In one episode, Lou Albano portrays himself, forcing his regular character to leave the scene in order for himself to appear. In the episode in question, pop star Cyndi Lauper states she's looking for Lou Albano because he's missing, due to the note she got from him (although there is an important part missing from the note). Mario exclaims how much he wants to meet Lou, and later Lou appears as himself supposedly while Mario's out shopping for pizza. As a result, Luigi gets to meet Lou, but Mario does not.

Lou Albano and Danny Wells also once played female versions of themselves, Marianne and Luigeena (their cousins), and also two hillbilly cousins, named Mario Joe and Luigi Bob.

Super Mario Bros.

Each Super Mario Bros. cartoon served as the second segment of every show, following the introduction and first few minutes of the episode's live-action segment.[3] The cartoon 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 the two games. Each episode featured Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool defending the Mushroom Kingdom from the reptilian villain King Koopa, often in a movie or pop-culture parody. Getting into the spirit of these parodies, Koopa often used alter egos fitting the current theme.

The theme song for the cartoon segments revealed that the Super Mario Brothers were accidentally warped into the Mushroom Kingdom while working on a bathtub drain in Brooklyn. After traveling via the warp drain, the Super Mario Brothers defeated King Koopa's Koopa Troopas, saved Princess Toadstool and halted Koopa's plan to conquer the Mushroom Kingdom. At the beginning of every cartoon segment, Mario recites an entry into his "Plumber's Log", a parody of the Captain's Log from Star Trek.

When Mario and Luigi are in danger, they often do their Patty-Cake routine: "Patty-cake, Patty-cake, Pasta-Man! Gimme Pasta power as quick as you can!" then everything becomes possible.

The Super Mario Bros. cartoons aired four days a week, from Monday through Thursday.

Mario All Stars

In 1993, The Family Channel aired the show in a package named Mario All Stars, consisting of time compressed versions of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! cartoon segments and the Super Mario World cartoons. It ran for 39 episodes in double episode format, and was promoted as "the Super Mario Bros. in 40 brand new adventures". Although clips from the Super Mario Bros. 3 cartoons were used in promos for the show, none of the show's episodes were featured. All Stars was later seen on the USA Network from January 6–June 6, 1997, when it was replaced by Sonic the Hedgehog reruns. Before being re-edited for All Stars in 1993, Family Channel played the episodes slower than their normal speed and included the live action segments. The package's title is most likely inspired by the title of the video game compilation Super Mario All-Stars that was released the previous year.

Songs
Theme Song

"Plumber Rap" (Lou Albano and Danny Wells): The main theme, which is divided into two parts. The first part opens the show while the second part opens the Super Mario Bros. animated segments. "Do the Mario" (Lou Albano): The ending theme to the show performed in front of a greenscreen of the animated show's backgrounds, which featured an accompanying dance performed by Albano described within the lyrics.

Voice Cast

 * "Captain" Lou Albano as Mario
 * Danny Wells as Luigi
 * Jeannie Elias as Princess Toadstool/Princess Peach
 * John Stocker as Toad
 * Harvey Atkin as King Koopa

Episodes

 * List of Super Mario Bros. Super Show! episodes.