The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3: The Complete Series
Starring: Super Mario Brothers 3-Adventures ofStudio: Shout Factory Theatr
MPAA Rating: NR (Not Rated)
Format: Animated, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC
Running Time: 300 minutes
DVD Release: June 26th 2007
Buy DVD:
DVD Review
Premiering just six months after the release of the game that inspired it, the animated series The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 integrated elements from the game into a serial-style cartoon that pitted heroic plumbers Mario and Luigi against the reptilian King Koopa and a squad of new villains. Over the course of 13 double episodes, Koopa (who is also occasionally addressed by his American handle, Bowser) and his seven unpleasant children, the Koopa Kids (or Koopalings) wreaked havoc in both the Mushroom World and the "real world," including stints in Hollywood, Venice, Hawaii, and Washington, D.C. (which includes a guest appearance by then-President George H. W. Bush and First Lady Barbara Bush!). Coming to the defense are the heroic plumbers Mario and Luigi, as well as Princess Toadstool and her faithful friend Toad, who thwart the Koopa menace by using many of the power-ups and aspects of the Super Mario Bros. 3 game. As with the previous Super Mario Bros. TV series, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, Super Mario Bros. 3 is long on action and fun and short on logic, and while the animation and scripting has dated poorly, the nostalgia inspired by seeing these shows again after almost two decades should help in overlooking any flaws. Longtime fans should know that several original songs have been removed from the episodes and replaced by generic background music; also missing is the infamous guest appearance by Milli Vanilli in "Kootie Pie Rocks," though this was pulled during the show's syndicated run. The three-disc set includes all 13 double episodes on two discs, while the third disc is devoted to supplemental features like "The Writers' Bible" (a rather bland string of recaps that serve to familiarize viewers with the characters and situations), a gallery of background and concept art, and a menu of original songs from the series. -- Paul Gaita
User Reviews
Great series, but a rather weak DVD - Rating: 3/5
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 - The Complete Series (Aired 1990, DVD release 2007.)
INTRODUCTION:
Nintendo made its first successful foray into the world of animation with the Super Mario Bros. Super Show in 1989. With the success of this newfound medium in which to place their mustachioed hero, it's not surprising Nintendo wanted to do another Mario cartoon. The next year, they did just that. Just months after the release of the Super Mario Bros. 3 video game in America, a coinciding cartoon came out. And now it's hit the DVD format!
OVERVIEW:
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 - The Complete Series was released in DVD early in the summer of 2007. All 26 episodes of the series are included in two discs. A third bonus disc of "writer's bible" material is also included.
REVIEW (CARTOON):
This is many fans favorite Mario cartoon. Unlike the Super Show, Toad and the Princess do more that sit out on the sidelines here. Bowser has his Koopa Kids (for the first time in one of the major Mario cartoons), and there are plenty of other, interesting characters/items/etc. One thing this series has that the others don't are regular-basis "real world" visits, in which Mario and Luigi return to Earth for the storylines of numerous episodes. While this cartoon isn't remembered as well as the Super Show, it's no less excellent, and the cartoons themselves are actually quite the improvement.
REVIEW (DVD):
If you've seen any other Shout! Factory DVD of a Nintendo cartoon, you know what to expect here. The picture quality is crappy, without remastering of any kind. It looks better than my old VHS tapes, no question, but more could have been done here. All of the remade, popular music was replaced with the same "Mega Move" instrumental that the same stuff was done with on the Captain N DVD. The Writer's Bible bonus DVD has some interesting info, but a lot of it is pretty repetitive and pointless - I'm sure they could have condensed this material onto the episode discs and made the set a little cheaper - it was likely added on another disc to make it look like there was more in the set than their really was. One thing that annoyed me is that the episodes are NOT listed individually in the menus - they're listed as "pairs" as they originally aired. This means the "second" episode of the pair CAN NOT be selected for instant viewing - you've actually got to select the first episode, and hit "next" until you get to the second one. Pretty annoying.
The Milli Vanilli episode (Kootie Pie Rocks) seems to be the main source of debate here so I'm going to devote a paragraph exclusively to it. Honestly, the episode fared better than I thought it would. All references to the group are intact, and they are clearly referred to by name several times in the episode. From what I can tell, the only thing that has been changed is the music. The band's real music was featured in the original episode, which was replaced with the Mega Move instrumental generic music for the obvious legal reasons. This DOES create a few problems though. First of all, at the beginning, the group is playing "Blame It on the Rain" in the original unaltered episode. Because the song and all references to it have been edited out, Bowser's "Blame it on King Koopa" joke no longer makes sense. Likewise, in the Bowser's Castle scene, the group and the Marios say they're going to play Girl You Know It's True, but obviously the generic instrumental tune comes up instead. The song at the end is changed to the same instrumental, so the group's "tribute" to their rescuer loses a lot of its original importance. My last comment is that replacing it with a generic INSTRUMENTAL tune was a bad choice, since the duo is clearly singing in many parts of the music scenes. So, essentially, apart from the changed music making some inconsistencies and problems, all Milli Vanilli references (and the episode as a whole) is basically intact.
Like most recent Shout! Factory DVDs, this one does have some defects I feel need to be mentioned. All of these are in the Venice Menace/Super Koopa episodes. At one point the video "goes white" for a moment, and there are some audio glitches throughout the episode. It's nowhere near as bad as the "Queen of the Apes" fiasco on the Captain N DVD, but it's still a problem. However, I don't know if this one is the fault of the people editing the show to DVD or not - it's most likely a flaw with the master tape.
OVERALL:
Despite some issues this is a solid representation of a classic Nintendo cartoon on DVD. It's not the absolute masterpiece DVD presentation of the show I was hoping for, but I'm just grateful to have it on the DVD format. If you're an old-school Nintendo fan and/or someone who remembers and loved this classic show, pick up this set.
EDITION NOTES:
The set is gradually becoming available, and by the time you read this your local Suncoast/Best Buy/etc. will likely be stocking it. No word yet on whether or not Shout! Factory plans to fix the audio/video glitches in the Venice Menace/Super Koopa.
A great old Saturday morning series, with a moderate DVD presentation. - Rating: 3/5
This, by far, was my favorite of all of the Super Mario cartoons that were produced, even if it did have the most un-original title ever (the fact that the number 3 is in the title kind of makes it laughable).
It is a very fun show, and is based rather closely on the 3rd Super Mario game from the original NES. This had some very, very memorable episodes, and what I really liked about it was the presentation of the various powers that the Mario Bros. could use in the actual game.
Now, this was a show produced for kids, so if you are an adult, and didn't watch this when it was originally on, you may want to bypass it now, as it's something that you probably won't find much entertainment in at this point (with maybe the exception of anyone who is an EXTREME Super Mario fan, partiuclarly of the 3rd game, but somehow missed this show the first time around).
As far as I can tell, all of the episodes are intact, pretty much in there entirety.
There is, of course, the issue of the infamous Milli Vanilli episode, in which Mario, Luigi, the Princess, and Toad all go to the 'real world' to see their concert, and the music group gets kidnapped by King Koopa. Now, it is true that the music has been changed. In the original airing of this episode, Milli Vanilli are shown on stage performing "Blame it on the Rain". However, after the whole lip sync scandal broke out, this episode was re-edited with generic music in the place of the previous song. Unfortunately, this proved to make the concert scene make little sense because the generic music doesn't even have any lyrics, and yet Milli Vanilli are shown on stage moving their mouths and singing (or, lip syncing, if you prefer). Then, Koopa shows up to kidnap them, and makes a comment saying "Blame it on King Koopa", which is a joke that no longer makes sense in the edited version.
There's also a scene later in the episode where after being kidnapped, Milli Vanilli are supposed to do a private concert for Koopa's daughter, Kootie Pie (a.k.a Wendy, as she is known in the game.. the Koopa kid's names were different in the game and cartoon). Milli Vanilli point out that they have no back up band. In a rescue attempt, Mario, Luigi, Toad, and the Princess disguise themselves as a back up band to help rescue them. The joke here is supposed to be that none of them know how to play any instruments, so the music is supposed to sound bad with Milli Vanilli singing over it as they normally would. Unfortunately, this has also been changed, and oddly with the same generic music from earlier in the episode. So, the same music that everyone was excited about and dancing to at the concert is now supposed to sound horrible to everyone (except Kootie Pie, who is enjoying it).
It is true that the edited version is the one on this set. However, contrary to what another reviewer has posted, aside from the changes that I've listed above, everything else seems to be intact (at least as far as I can remember.. it has been years since I've seen this on TV). That other reviewer states that all references to Milli Vanilli are removed, and that is not true.
The name "Milli Vanilli" is mentioned frequently throughout the episode, and the Princess is even wearing a shirt that has their name on it. It is true that King Koopa at one point does refer to them as "Silly the Willies", but that's because he keeps messing up the name of the band and his kids have to keep correcting him.
Sorry for the long explanation for this one episode, but I thought this was important to explain for die hard fans of the show who remember this episode and are debating if they should get it or not.
The DVD presentation is a mixed bag. The menus of Discs 1 and 2 are nice. They are set up to look like the Mario 3 game. They feature Mario and Luigi respectively, and in both cases, it shows the character from the side, as if in the video game, and they hit a "?" mark block, causing things on the menu to change/happen when you make a selection. It is nicely set up.
Where the DVD disappoints (though, not suprisingly) is in the quality of the video. It has not been remastered, and there are even some brief parts (at least in a couple of the episodes I've watched so far) where it looks like the masters these were copied from may have been damaged to some degree. I noticed this damage issue in the final episode (or two episodes, if you count the fact that each one is made of 2 smaller stories). There are a couple of points where the screen just goes gray for a second. And it's not my personal disc, other people have had the same problem (apparently the master was indeed damaged, and from what I have heard there is nothing that Shout Factory can do about it).
The general video quality isn't suprising though, since most of the previous Shout Factory releases like the Mario Super Show and Captain N have not been remastered either. But, still, the video quality does knock down my review by a couple of stars. And the fact that the one episode has some damage is annoying.
The 3rd disc has some extra features, including character descriptions, and explanations about various aspects of the show. There is some interesting stuff, but is does get to be pretty redundant. While they are nice enough, the feature easily could have been split up and put on the first two discs. The total running time of them all doesn't seem to add up to enough to warrant a whole separate disc. I think they did this just to make it seem like you are getting more than you really are.
Still, all in all the cartoon is a lot of fun, so if you are a fan of Mario, and if you watched this show back in the day, I do recommend picking it up.
Edited Show??? No Thanks - Rating: 1/5
I appreciate the Amazon.com reviewer informing us that this show is edited. I don't see how Kootie Pie Rocks is intact with no Milli Vanill appearance; the whole episode is devoted to characters talking about Milli Vanill (Bowser calls them "Silly the Willies") & the Mario Brothers have to rescue them from Koopa Castle!!! Not seen it in ages but that and the edited music make this a no sale for me. Good thing I've got most of the episodes on tape. Hence, why would I waste my money to buy something I already have on VHS & could convert to DVD much more cheaply????
The best thing ever - Rating: 5/5
Im from England UK and these DVDs from this company are so great I have to import them! In the UK we have some Mario DVDs but they are not a collection, just random episodes and then they stop making them. Im thankful for NTSC TVs and multi-region DVD players. Its a shame there not avaliable in other regions cause I think they would sell like hotcakes. I remember this show in the UK on channel 4 on Saturday morning. I used to wake up to late and miss it at times.
AWSOME! - Rating: 5/5
This Show was one of the best shows ever! and I'm so glad its gonna be on DVD, also Captain N, Sonic, and the other Mario DVDs are great!
