4/5/06 5:09 PM
"The Super Mario Brothers Super Show!"
Some where between terrible and CBS lays the 80's. Nothing that truly spawned from that era can not leave the mouth with anything but an over all desire for grape starbursts and poison. So with all the excitement I have managed to build, I am glad to stumble to poorly introducing my Super Mario Brother, Super Show article.
For two people who battle evil by jumping on things heads, the brothers don't look very agile. Mario (Played by Captain Lou, a former wrestler) is barely able to lift his hand above his head while dancing for the intro. Luigi pretty much seems happy to just have a role in the damned show, either that or he is coked out of his mind.
Several fan sites that I have been to regale the fact that Captain Lou shaved his trade mark beard and grew a handle bar mustache to fit the role. Not one of these sites mention that he gained weight for the role. I never really paid any attention to wrestling in the 80's, so I kind of image that they allowed slow, fat, middle aged men to tap each other with chairs and then take breaks to eat cheeseburgers and hardened lard deposits from the bottom of fast food fryers
Luigi gets rather serious about the dance steps while Captain Lou pretty much just makes up his own. In still life the blue screen work doesn't look that bad, but in action there was no way, even in the 80's, that you bought they were actually in the Mushroom Kingdom. One of the brothers is always a step off, by that I mean Lou. I don't really know how the dancing was supposed to have gone, but I am kind of guessing that Luigi memorized that shit for the sake of keeping his job. Capt. Lou probably killed a hooker an episode and everyone just looked the other way.
Interesting enough Luigi is ranked one of the worst names ever. Only ending up with one and a half stars. Mario on the other hand is happy to pull in the amazing two star mile marker. If they were hotels they probably wouldn't advertise that anywhere. Well, Mario might, that is just the way he roles.
When the show starts both Mario and Luigi spend several minutes pointing out how Italian they are. I guess it was done to developer character. I have found in many of my writings that it is better to slowly introduce these things, rather then slam people over the head with the facts. I guess Mario just loves pasta though. Best to point that out every five and a half seconds.
Nicky from Baywatch stops in the brother's medicine cabinet to point out that their toothpaste is out of date. If you can tell, she has a lot of problems with acting and saying things that are words. The brothers don't seem to mind. I don't really think I would care if I found a bimbo behind my mirror. I probably would be more pissed that my cabinet had lost its back though. But then again I get pissed over everything.
Turns out she is looking for a plumber for some reason or another. I was sober and it was hard to care. Half the time I was trying to figure out who the fuck the woman was, and why her career had sunk so low as to be on this show. I did end up looking it up on IMDB for this article, which is pretty much the only reason that the last paragraph made it into life.
I kind of didn't follow why there was a stopped up drain in the middle of the living room, but then I noticed the tomato plant growing out of the bathtub. Clearly this wasn't time for questions.
The sink sprays water on Nicky, who takes it like a champ. The brothers are naturally impressed with her ability to take things to the face. If you are keeping count this is insanely unneeded sexual hint #1. Neither brother stands up and we are taken right to the cartoon.
Interestingly enough the cartoon centers around the second game released in the states. That game was originally called "Doki Doki Panic" and was mainly about running all over the middle-east beating sense into people. Not being considered "canon" as a Mario game, it found itself being the main setting for the Mario cartoon.
Oh, yeah, Toad gets kidnapped within the first five seconds by a giant flying lizard with poor eyesight. I think that it is interesting to point out that you can see the frames of animation in the still shot.
Mario and the Princess and "Dead weight", as I came to call him in my mind, rush after Toad. No real plot points are added other then Luigi being a total wuss and Mario having balls that must be made out of some kind of radiation shielding metal that makes most men sterile.
Koopa quickly finds out the brothers are in the Ice Kingdom, and then has two of his servants lick his feet while he just kind of sits there. The show really does have this weird sexual overtone the entire time, this being overly uncomfortable moment #2 if you care about that kind of thing. To make matters worse I was talking to Bucko over aim while watching this.
Me: Koopa is having two of the ice doods lick his feet.
Bucko: Clean?
Me: No, kind of just like "lick my feet while I gain sexual pleasure from this".
Bucko: Huh, did you know that foot fucking was the wave of the 80's? And that Penthouse went so far as to declare that on one their covers?
Me: Sadly I did know that...
The group is found and forced to hide in a cave from an avalanche. The princess is quick to point out that they are trapped. This instills the entire use of the her character for the rest of the series. Something happens, she points it out. She sees something, she points it out. There is a moment of silence and she stands there and blinks. Nothing useful mind you, just making sure that we all know that she is there. Good to see that they were giving women good role models in the 80's.
Mario quickly finds a fire flower, changes color, and blasts his way out of the cave. At the same time Toad escapes the clutches of the Birdo and drops in on the brothers. I am sure that I should add a punch line here, but in all honesty I think the writers were just doing most of this section of the episode to fill time.
The best part of the entire thing is where Mario instructs the Princess and Toad to hide while they take care of Koopa. Everyone is surprised because Koopa himself hasn't even announced that he is coming to get them. Mainly this leads me to believe that all the voice recording was done in one take, and if you lost where you where you just kept going. Hopefully this is true because this is possibly the first cartoon in history that the cartoon characters themselves over act through scenes.
None of this is really amazing or makes much sense. Things happen, then something else happens. That pretty much describes the end of the episode. Koopa ends up running off screaming that he will be back, blah blah blah. We then cut to commercial.
Back in the real world the brothers can't seem to stop making a mess all over the baywatch babe. It doesn't seem like she is so disgusted with sitting in pizza and having garbage dumped on her as she is with the fact that Luigi won't stop touching her.
Side note: Not only do the brothers have a toilet in the middle of their living room, but they also have a pipe that dumps garbage into the room. The more that I learn about this place the less I think they pay rent to live here, and the more that I come to terms with the City wanting them to leave. The Teenaged Mutant Ninja Turtles didn't have to live this bad, and they lived in a sewer.
It turns out that Nicky is happy with everything that has been going on, because she was going to a "Sloppy party" the entire time. I have never really heard of one of these things, but I guess that is where rich people go to dress like hobos and do Coke. Needless to say she is happy they ruined her designer outfit for her, so now she doesn't have to pay a homeless person for their clothing.
The brother lay whatever crap they can find on her and Nicky rejoices in what can only be called a porn star gasp of glee. Mario really seems to get into it, while Luigi seems to have the attitude of "Hell, its the 80s!" And thus ends our adventure into the first episode of the Mario Brothers show.
I know this pretty much just raises as many questions about the thing as it answers, but that is ok, I have a box set of the stuff and I am sure I will get around to reviewing every single one for all of you. I really can't wait to watch the "Captain Lou Interviewed" Bonus section again.