Product Description

After sending the infamous King Koopa into the Banishment Zone, the heroic plumbers, Mario and Luigi, finally make it home to Brooklyn. But just when the Mushroom People think they’re safe, Koopa escapes and brings with him seven of the most vile creatures the world has ever known, the Koopa Kids! Now only the Super Mario Bros. can rid the Mushroom Kingdom of Koopa and his deviant minions…or can they?

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #6344 in DVD
• Brand: SUPER MARIO BROTHERS 3-ADVENTURE
• Released on: 2007-06-26
• Rating: NR (Not Rated)
• Aspect ratio: 1.33:1
• Formats: Animated, Box set, Closed-captioned, Color, DVD, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Number of discs: 3
• Dimensions: .65 pounds
• Running time: 300 minutes

Amazon.com
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

Customer Reviews

A great old Saturday morning series, with a moderate DVD presentation.
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.

Loved it - brings me back to my childhood
Not only do I love this show just as much as I did when I was a kid, but my son - who shares my Wii with me and plays the current games in the Mario franchise like Mario Galaxy, Super Smash Bros. Brawl, and Mario Strikers - really enjoys the use of these same characters in these short cartoons with very basic plots. This is not great storytelling, and the DVD set production could have used some more effort, but the cartoons themselves are overwhelmingly cute and enjoyable... I encourage you to ration the cuteness because it's very easy to get too much TV time.

P.S. It seems as though Nintendo has severely drifted away from using the koopalings in favor of Bowser, Jr. If I hadn't grown up so attached to the 7 koopa kids in SMB3, Super Mario World, and some other games, maybe I wouldn't enjoy them so much, but I think they are used very well in these cartoons. If you like them too, make it known!

BUYER BEWARE
Sadly I feel moved to write this review. I had greatly anticipated getting this dvd set. The episodes are awesome and are worth watching once or twice. However, disk #2 is defective on the super koopa episode. I'm on my 3rd copy of this and still having the exact same problem with this episode. I've actually contacted Shout Factory the producer of this dvd (310-979-5880) and thus far they haven't so much as called my back or emailed me back to acknowledge the problem. My advice don't buy this get it from your public library.