8 years after Mario made his small-screen debut in your local videogame parlor - as a carpenter, not a plumber - in the huge coin-op hit "Donkey Kong", and six years after he and Luigi first came home on the Atari 2600 in a cartridge conversion of the original "Mario Bros." coin-op, they finally hit the big time with their own daily TV show.
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! (SMBSS) came out at a time when videogames had just experienced a rebirth, and cartoons about them were getting to be popular. SMBSS shared voice talent with another big videogame show from the same year: "Captain N: The Game Master". SMBSS centered on Nintendo's most popular videogame character, Mario, and his adventures with brother Luigi, ever-in-distress Princess Toadstool, and her sidekick Toad the Mushroom. The villain was always King Koopa...but, unless you've been under a rock since the 1980's, you already know about these characters!
SMBSS aired in syndication for just one season, on Mondays-Thursdays, with Friday's slot taken up by "The Legend of Zelda" (based on the OTHER most popular NES videogame series). It featured, at the start and end of the show, an actor dressed up as Mario (the WWF's "Captain" Lou Albano), talking and having fun with brother Luigi (Danny Wells) in their basement (they used a gruff American voice, rather than the Italian accents Nintendo switched to during the days of the N64 console). The cartoons ran in-between these live sequences, which were awfully funny. Unfortunately, those "bookend" sequences are missing from this disc, other than Mario singing & dancing against a cartoon backdrop during the closing credits. The spotlight of this DVD is on the cartoons themselves.
DIC Entertainment's show has been captured onto DVD by TriMark/Lion's Gate, in a "best-of" compilation themed to "Mario's Greatest Movie Moments". You can catch this "film stories theme" by the episode titles included:
* Kount Koopula!
* Koopenstein!
* Koopzilla
* Robo-Koopa
* Toad Warriors
* Raiders of the Lost Mushroom
Also included are two bonus episodes of Legend of Zelda:
* The Missing Link
* Kiss'n Tell
Those comprise the "eight complete episodes" on this disc. There is also a bonus, hidden Mario cartoon you can reach by way of beating the "Exciting Interactive Game" (its a multiple-choice trivia game).
Video
Video is nice, with bright colors and clear picture almost all of the time. A few speckles can be seen on the screen at any one time, clearly indicative of the age of this material, but nothing I considered overly distracting. Also: it may just be that my glasses need to be checked, but I thought that on occasion I could see a blurring of background lines, whenever the action moved rather fast.
Audio
Sound is good enough for what it's supposed to do; nothing you'll use for demo material, but more than up to the job. It's presented in simple stereo, but I couldn't detect much in the way of distinct sound coming from one channel or the other. It is clear, with no dropouts, and at a comfortable volume level.
Overall, the disc gets just-above-average marks for a clear presentation similar to what you expected to see on TV back in 1989, after rushing home from school. It's just a bit dated, as to be expected 13 years later.
DIC Entertainment utilized one of their best characters, Inspector Gadget, to be the "guide" to this DVD, available for help on any menu screen, to explain what the options are. If Don Adams wasn't pressed into service for the voice, then they sure got a heck of an impressionist! This feature is great for young kids who aren't familiar with DVD yet. Veterans will get tired of it before the first presentation is over, though...and there's no apparent way to kill it if you accidentally activate it!
The "trailers" consist only of a commercial for other DIC Entertainment product, including Inspector Gadget and many others that are not yet on DVD (although some are, like Mario's fellow videogame star, Sonic The Hedgehog). I only hope this means the rest are "coming soon" to DVD.
The trivia game and the "easter egg" bonus episode associated with it are responsible for the remainder of the rating for extras.
Summary
Overall, I give this disc above-average marks for the price. It doesn't represent itself to be more than it is: good fun to kill some time and relive your memories with. Me, my wife, and my 4-year-old son enjoyed watching this together. And then we went and broke out the NES console. Oh, joy!
