Animated segment: Brooklyn plumbers Mario and Luigi help Princess Toadstool and her sidekick Toad in stopping evil King Koopa from attacking various lands, including crime land, rap land, jungle land, caveman land, river world, the Wild West... Live action segment: Mario and Luigi are living inside their Brooklyn apartment, and are visited by various guests: Alligator Dundee, Dracula, Frankenstein's Monster, Vincent Van Gook, Mikhail Gorbachev, Pam Matteson, Magic Johnson, Cyndi Lauper...
An early prototype of a Super Mario animated show, this late 80s extravaganza doesn't quite hold up, though it is a sight to behold due to its sheer audacity. Its main problem is that the authors, led by producer Andy Heyward and writers Bob Forward and Phil Harnage, were only scarcely inspired in conjuring up the adventures of Mario and Luigi, and thus out of 52 episodes, only four are good, near the beginning and the ending of the series ("King Mario of Cramalot", "Butch Mario & the Luigi Kid", "Crocodile Mario", "Robo Koopa"). A lot of blame should be attributed to their wrong "translation" of the video game: instead of building up a clear narrative, they instead resorted to different parodies for each animated episode, which leaves a very inconsistent and intangible feeling. They could have written a stable storyline—as it was the case in the improved follow-up "Super Mario Bros. 3" where the heroes are always on one location—and not resort to lazy, empty spoofs of "Indiana Jones", "Star Wars", "Three Men and a Baby", "Jack and the Beanstalk", "Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior", "The Untouchables", "Godzilla" and what-not, all of which form a (very protracted) low point of the series. Why would Koopa be disguised as Genghis Khan or as Darth Vader, for instance? It makes no sense in this bizarre patchwork of disparate stories and styles.
Surprisingly though, while overall a weak series, there are still some "isolated" moments of greatness that can cause a smile on the viewers' face. When they put some effort into it, the authors come up with a few really good moments of humor, and a large part of them involves Luigi being just plain silly. The live-action pilot episode is a good example: even though Luigi wants to help Nicole Eggert, who was splashed by water from the sink, she just gets messier by the minute in a series of accidents, when she gets dirt from the oven, steps on a cake, sits on a pizza and is then placed under a garbage disposal. Another good episode is the one involving the intimidating wrestler Roddy Piper, who assigned Luigi to fix his bagpipe. Mario then has this exchange with Luigi: "You meatball, we're plumbers, we don't fix bagpipes!" - "I know that, but try telling that to Roddy Piper!" It then turns out that Mario turned the bagpipe into a vacuum cleaner. Several animated episodes also shine when Luigi is in top-form: in "Crocodile Mario", Mario and Luigi toss a Crocodile-repelling statue between themselves, as they try to run away from Koopa who is trying to steal it back. One golden moment of pure hilarity has Mario returning to the city, the Crocodiles want to attack him, but just then Luigi throws the statue at him and the reptiles flee. As Luigi runs behind him, the Crocodiles return to try to attack him, but just then Mario throws the statue back to Luigi, and the reptiles flee once again. "King Mario of Cramalot" also has a delicious joke: Mario summons Luigi to swim across a lake and lower a bridge for them to enter a castle. Just as Luigi is in the middle of the jump, Mario adds: "By the way, watch out for the killer-Piranha fish!", as Luigi backs up and tries to dodge the water. Unfortunately, this "funny Luigi" vanishes in later episodes, and all we are left with is a "routine Luigi" who just acts as an extra who walks after Mario. Despite these underwhelming features and thin writing, some guest stars are amusing (Magic Johnson and Cyndi Lauper standing out the most) whereas it is rare to find such contagiously optimistic and happy characters as Mario and Luigi in modern TV shows.
Grade:+
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