The Super Mario Super Show Intro Dissection!

For no real reason other than amusing myself, I dissected the intro to "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show". Usually the intro animation to a cartoon is a step up from the quality in the actual episodes. This is not the case with The Super Mario Bros. Super Show. The intro animation is actually some of the worst in the series. Check out some of these horrible shots...

A very 1950's cartoon looking Mario zips down the flag pole..



Luigi is no better. They animated him with very little detail. His eyes are just dots and his mustache and eye brows are all wrong...



And when Toad slides down, we don't even get to see his face. Also, he looks very, very odd...



In the next scene Mario approaches King Koopa, bashes some bricks and jumps off screen. The animation in this quick shot is all over the place. In one frame everything seems alright...



but, in the very next frame things go horribly wrong...



Then Mario gets a flesh colored glove up until Mario crouches to jump off screen...





Also, I noticed while doing this that the live action Mario Bros. aren't actually singing. I mean, not only is it not Lou Albano or Danny Wells singing but, the actors aren't even lip syncing. I've seen this intro probably hundreds of times and never noticed this.



Some shots later we see the Mario Bros and company riding on a magic carpet. Everyone is really off model here. I wonder if this intro was done before any concrete character designs were approved. This isn't just off model, it's just bad. Check out Toad's lower half. It's just a ball. Also, what's with Mario's arm? I can go on and on...





Also, something else I've never noticed before watching this frame by frame is that Danny Wells just stops running right before going off screen on the left. It's something you'll have to go to youtube and check out for yourself!

Next Mario reaches for the Star Man. Some of the shots right before he touches it are pretty terrible. Also notice the star has the pie-eye like he's suppose to but then after Mario turns into fire Mario (wait... what?!) the star has pupils...





And I know you're looking at that shot of them on the carpet and you're probably thinking "wow, that looks pretty terrible, I wonder why he didn't point that out". Well, it's because compared to what's coming up next, this shot looks like a Disney animated movie. Are ya' ready?! Here it comes!

Toad has eye balls!



Luigi is just a head!



The Princess's stunt double!



And with that the Mario Bros, the Princess and Toad fly off into what ever the fuck this is...



Seriously. What the fuck kinda place is this?! This doesn't look like the Mushroom Kingdom at all! I never even questioned it until really looking at it. It actually looks kinda scary. Maybe even something out of that movie Cool World.