Super Mario World (TV series)

Format

The series centers on Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool, now living in Dinosaur Land (sometimes also called Dinosaur World) with Yoshi, who is depicted on the show as a curious childlike dinosaur with a large appetite and several phobias. King Koopa (otherwise known as Bowser) and the Koopalings were also around, having followed the Super Mario Bros. and the Princess to Dinosaur Land.

Unlike in the game, Dinosaur Land was depicted as being populated with cavepeople, including a pre-adolescent caveboy named Oogtar, who replaced the role of Toad (Oogtar even had the same voice actor as Toad, John Stocker). Some episodes revolved around Mario trying to introduce a modern invention to the cavepeople in an attempt to make their lives easier, only for the Koopas to twist it into an evil scheme. It is unclear whether the characters had traveled back in time (in the episode "Rock TV", King Koopa mentions "there's no TV here in the Stone Age [because] it hasn't been invented yet"), or if Dinosaur Land was simply a "lost valley"-esque island that the characters had come to (in the flashback episode "Mama Luigi", Luigi simply mentions that he and the others came to Dinosaur Land for a vacation without any mention of time travel).

The show was originally aired on Saturday mornings on NBC in the 1991-92 season, the last year the network programmed an animated children's block before the launch of a Saturday edition of Today. It was featured in a half-hour time slot with a shortened version of Captain N: The Game Master, titled Captain N & The New Super Mario World (also titled Captain N & Super Mario Bros. World in the commercial bumpers). Episodes of Super Mario World were later shown as part of the syndication package Captain N and the Video Game Masters. Afterwards, the series was split up from Captain N altogether and shown in time-compressed reruns on as part of Mario All-Stars on Family Channel, and later USA Network. In the United Kingdom, however, the show was still broadcast as Captain N & The New Super Mario World.

Unlike the previous two Mario cartoons, the show was not widely distributed on home video in the NTSC region, where its only release was the inclusion of the show's Christmas episode on the 1996 VHS release Super Mario Bros. Super Christmas Adventures. Meanwhile, two PAL tapes were released in the United Kingdom. More recently, the series was released on DVD in Australia. This series is the most short-lived of the three American Mario animated series.

Differences between the series and the game

The series takes place in Dinosaur World, rather than in Dinosaur Land, where Yoshi lives with a preadolescent caveman named Oogtar. In addition, Yoshi's Island is populated predominantly with cavemen instead of Yoshis. Several names were changed from the game as well: the Forest of Illusion was called the Enchanted Forest, and the Vanilla Dome was referred to as the Lava Pits. Furthermore, enemies featured in the game were rarely called by their in-game names on the show: Bowser was called King Koopa. Furthermore, his castle says KOOPA instead of BOWSER. Also, Koopas are called "Troopas", and Chargin' Chucks are called "Football players". Many of these elements indicate the animators heavily relied on the Japanese version of the game than the official English release, as the series was in production several months before the game was released in North America. As in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, the Koopalings were still referred to by their nicknames. King Koopa still had his all-green appearance from the previous two cartoons. Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool kept their NES designs (red and green overalls for Mario and Luigi and red hair for Princess Toadstool).

Another notable fact was that when Yoshi hatched, the dinosaur was not born with his red shell, as revealed when Luigi told the story of Yoshi's birth in the final episode, "Mama Luigi". Yoshi also ate several enemies after he was found, but unlike in the game, Yoshi remained small.

Production

Another noticeable difference is that it was animated by a different animation studio, Pacific Rim Productions, Inc., hence the difference in character designs, not only for Princess Toadstool (the most obvious), but also for Mario and Luigi. An intro animated by a Japanese animation studio named Canvas, Inc. was also conceived for the series (due to the better resources and production values, it was better than the show's actual western animation). Like the third season of Captain N: The Game Master (which aired the same year), the animation and writing quality suffered, perhaps due to a smaller budget. The theme song for this show was written by Mark Mothersbaugh, who also wrote the music for Rugrats, which coincidentally, premiered in the same month and year.

Cast

Broadcast history

UK and US VHS history

DVD release

On November 13, 2007, Shout! Factory and Vivendi Entertainment released a Complete Series DVD set of Captain N & The New Super Mario World in Region 1. The series has also been released in Australia (Region 4) by Roadshow Entertainment. NCircle Entertainment (under license from Cookie Jar Entertainment) has also released the series in two volumes. They later released the complete series in one set.