Have you seen the "Kirby: Right Back At Ya!" episode "Un-Reality TV"? I have (I recorded it), and whenever I watch "Un-Reality TV", I get the feeling that the plot may have been inspired by this episode of Super Mario World.
The episode opens in the Neon Castle, where a bored Bowser is fishing for evil ideas. He says to himself, "what did I learn in the real word?" and thinks back to looking through a window in someone's household as the family inside was watching "Wheel of Fortune". I'm assuming that he happened to look through someone's window during one of the TAOSMB3 episodes that took place on Earth (maybe "Toddler Terrors of Time Travel" or "Super Koopa"). Bowser remembers that television rots people's minds, and he could use that on the cavepeople - if television were invented then. Little does he know, though, that the people of Bedrock would happen to have television (and telephones, and cars, and computers). But then he gets an idea on how to predate the Flintstones' ability to have television centuries before it was even invented.
Next we see Oogtar running around Dome City like a little idiot telling them to come see what he wants them to see. Everyone shrugs their heads and follows him to what he wants to show them. Lo and behold, a giant television set made out of Blocks is towering over them from the face of a cliff. Mario and Luigi make some bad jokes about the giant TV, and then we cut to Bowser behind the TV, which is actually a stage with horizontal walls. Ludwig and Larry are putting a human-like costume, which resembles a presenter, on him. Bowser goes up on stage and introduces himself as Robby Rockwell, telling everyone about Koopasonic Rock TV. For the uneducated, Koopasonic is Bowser's spoof of the company Panasonic.
Oogtar: "Rock TV? Hey man, what dat?"
Bowser: "You say 'what dat?' I'm glad you asked!"
Bowser makes a speech about the junk they can watch on Rock TV. "Great shows like 'Mr. Koopa's Neighborhood'!" he says, while dressed up like old retired PBS celebrity Mr. Rogers. Personally, I don't see what's so "funabunga" about "Mr. Rogers' Neighborhood", as Yoshi says. But then again, you have to remember that DiC thought that Yoshi was a baby, and therefore, he probably thinks kiddie shows are cool. Unfortunately, that kiddie show is the only show that Bowser spoofs. In "Un-Reality TV", King Dedede was able to spoof popular sitcoms (like "Everybody Loves Raymond" and "Star Trek: Deep Space Nine") and games shows (like "Wheel of Fortune" and "Who Wants To Be A Millionaire?"). Maybe if the Mario cartoons weren't limited to 11 minutes, the Koopas would probably be able to spoof more shows. I can just picture Kammy (from Paper Mario) and Kamek (from Yoshi's Island) swinging around like Kim Possible and Ron Stoppable, and calling their act "Kam Possible".
Next, Bowser says that Rock TV also shows "the World Famous Dinosaur Wrestling Federation". The Dome Citizens, who are apparently keen on seeing dinosaurs beating their brains out, cheer. Then Bowser plays with two cardboard figures, gets booed at, and says "OK, OK. Next time we'll have the real thing." He then spoofs two more cultural icons. "How about this? Totally hip... Rock Rock TV! With stars like Vanilla Ice Age!" Rock Rock TV is obviously the Rock TV counterpart of Music Television, AKA MTV. As for Vanilla Ice Age, the second Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles movie, which featured a rap song by Vanilla Ice, had been released earlier that year, so the Vanilla Ice reference is fairly obvious. By golly, Bowser's convinced everyone that they should get Rock TVs. Luigi asks how they can get one, Mario asks for the price, and Bowser answers. "You can get your own Koopasonic Rock TV..." But where, I ask? The Koopamart? "...And it's all yours for a measly ten Coins down, and a Coin a minute." What?! You have put a Coin in the slot on top of the set in order to watch one minute of a broadcast?! Does that mean a Red Coin is worth two minutes? And a Blue Coin for five minutes? Sounds like a rip-off if you ask me. King Dedede's TVs were free, and the Cappies didn't have to pay one Coin for broadcasting.
Soon afterwards (maybe ten minutes), everyone in Dome City is lining up to buy Rock TVs, which are basically miniscale versions of the gigantic stage. Well, that answers my question as to where you can buy a Rock TV. Mario is glad to know that they can buy quality television for such a low price, but Luigi is worried about what will happen once they get the bills for all the minutes they're going to spend watching the shows. He has a flashback about the trouble they got into with the "Speak to Santa" hotline in Brooklyn. What is a "Speak to Santa" hotline? Is it a phone number that allows you to have a chat with that fat red elf who lives at the North Pole and only comes out every 24th of December? We'll probably never know, but we do know that Mario and Luigi had to pay $1295.31 for calling so much. Personally, if I were drawing this flashback, I would have drawn the Marios the way they looked in the artwork for the Mario Bros. arcade game. Mario says they shouldn't worry, since in the Mushroom Kingdom, they just have to bash Coin Blocks in order to get money. At least this scene, along with Super Mario RPG and Paper Mario, proves that Coins are the official currency of the Mushroom Kingdom. I can't believe the Trophy writer for Super Smash Bros. Melee didn't know that! Anyway, Mario and Luigi pay ten Coins for their own Rock TV, during which Luigi points out that "Robby's" lips don't move with his dialogue, and Mario is told that they the remote control is on hold for a millenium.
Later that day, at the dome where Team Mario has to live in this series, Mario and Luigi have set up the Rock TV (I think they did), and they're gonna watch. Peach says "Well, count me out!" She has two good reasons not to watch: 1) the company name, and 2) she's taking a reluctant Yoshi for a nature walk. That's another similarity between this and "Un-Reality TV": Peach and Tiff didn't want to watch TV, while Yoshi and Tuff wanted to watch but wound up unaffected by the following hypnosis. So Mario and Luigi put a yellow Coin in the TV to watch, and then we cut to the interior of the tube and find out that there are no wires inside, but rather Magikoopas! The Magikoopas hiding inside the sets shoot hypnotic beams at the viewers, and then Bowser broadcasts his exercise program, "Koopa Sez". After making all the viewers do the exercises he says for them to do, Bowser gives a signal. This signal causes Mario and Luigi's Rock TV to break apart, and it also causes the Magikoopa who was hiding inside to exit without notice. While Mario and Luigi try to figure out why the TV's broken, Bowser brainwashes all the cavepeople with his evil demand: "Koopa Sez, everybody go to the Dome Castle, and get Mario and Luigi, and bring them to me!" The cavepeople turn off their TVs, pick up their clubs, and head out growling. Back at the so-called Dome Castle (which really isn't a castle at all), Mario throws the TV out the window and into the moat. Just as he and Luigi are heading off to get their ten Coins back, they're suddenly ambushed by an angry mob of cavepeople storming the "castle".
During the commercials, the cavepeople capture the Mario Bros. and bring them to Bowser around the other side of the giant TV-like stage, which has somehow resurfaced to the other side of the canyon it was towering over. Bowser taunts his lifelong enemies. OK, he actually says "Ah, my fine, flushing fools. You are two lucky plumbers. You're gonna be TV stars." Luigi asks for the name of the show they're starring on. Bowser's answer: "All-Star Prehistoric Tag Team Wrestling!" A huge crowd of cavepeople are sitting on rocks in front of the giant TV, and for no reason at all, they decided to bring their Rock TVs with them. Iggy and Lemmy ring a bell, and Morton goes up on the stage, which has turned into a wrestling ring, to announce the fighters:
Morton: "Welcome to All-Star Prehistoric Wrestling, a splendid gladiatorial spectacle, a fabulous fight to the finish! In this corner in the pink and purple trunks with the orange ruffles, weighing in at 90,000 pounds each, the totally terrible twosome, titanic, thunderous, thumping, throttling, towering, thrusting, tripping top heavy, top notch, top fight, tip toe, tip top, top tip..."
Bowser: "Top this, Turkey Mouth!"
Morton: "Wait! I'm just about to finish! This big, big, BIG finish!"
The big-mouthed Koopa Kid announces the champions to be none other than... WARIO AND WALUIGI!!! Nope, it isn't the Wario Bros. Rather, it's two giant Rexes named the Tyrannosaurus Twins, one green and one orange. Morton tries to continue, but he gets cut off by Bowser picking him up and throwing him so far he disappears in the twinkle of a star. He returns, surprisingly undamaged, and announces the challengers:
"Thank you, thank you. And in this corner, from the bucolic world of Brooklyn in that rollicking real world, these two loud, bungling, faucet fixing freaks, those forever foolish, fur-brained fish heads... Fish heads?"
One of the Tyrannosaurus Twins picks him up and tosses him...
Morton: "A foolish, flabby, bug-eating... YARG!" (ding)
Bowser: "Ladies and gentlemen, the Mindless Mario Bros."
The cavepeople, still under the effects of the Magikoopas, all boo the Mario Bros. Bowser pushes Mario into the ring, facing him against the Green Twin. The Green Twin pulls the fake handshake on Mario, picks him up, and spins him over his head. Then the Orange Twin sneaks up behind Luigi and bounces him off the ropes. The Green Twin finishes spinning Mario and tosses him right into Luigi. In an amazing color blooper, Mario's red changes to green, and Luigi's green changes to red. It's almost as if it's an effect of being slammed into each other.
This KO fest catches the ears of Peach and Yoshi, so they rush over to the stage/ring to see what's the matter. They push ahead of the crowd and see that the Mario Bros. (who have now given back their correct colors) have been pinned to the mat by the Tyrannosaurus Twins.
Mario: "I don't know how these guys do it on TV without getting hurt!"
Um, Mario, the wrestlers do get hurt when they're wrestling on TV. Peach states the obvious by telling Yoshi that it's terrible, and that they have to help them. They look up at the ceiling of the stage/ring and notice that it's made out of "?", "!", and "\ /" Blocks. She says that if she could jump up high enough, she could find a Cape Feather in one of the Blocks. Yoshi tells her to get on his saddle. He has an idea that works well in the Super Mario World game - the Super Yoshi Jump! (In case you want to know, it's a stunt you can pull off by pressing A to jump off of Yoshi while in midair.) Startling everyone (or not), Yoshi and Peach jump into the ring, as the song "(On The Tail Of) The Dinosaur", starts. Peach does the Super Yoshi Jump and bashes a Block, and out come... miniature Mario clones?!?!? What the hell are they for??! There's no part in Super Mario World where tiny Marios will come out of a Block. My little brother says that they're extra lives, but since no one ever needs a 1-Up Mushroom on the shows, I doubt it. The little Marios show what they're supposed to do by distracting the Tyrannosaurus Twins and the Koopalings. Oddly enough, Wendy is the only Koopa Kid who does not appear in this episode. Peach does the Super Yoshi Jump again, and this time hits a Block containing a Cape Feather. One of the small Marios distracts the Green Twin, allowing the real Mario to escape and get the Cape Power-Up. He Super Spin Cape Attacks Bowser and the Orange Twin, but surprisingly, the Green Twin vanishes. Maybe it just chased the micro Mario out of the episode.
Yoshi jumps out of the ring, hungry as always, and begins to eat the Rock TVs. He eats one Rock TV and spits out the Magikoopa who was inside. He then eats Oogtar's, and the caveboy shouts out a dumb line: "Hey, dumb dino dude! No eat my Rock TV!" Um, didn't he see Yoshi spitting out that Magikoopa? No matter, Yoshi spits out the Magikoopa inside the TV and reveals the works to Oogtar too. Then Yoshi looks at the stage/ring and says "Mmm... big lunch!" Beside the stage/ring, Mario (whose Cape Power has somehow worn off) and Luigi are thanking Peach for saving them back there. Then they watch as Yoshi begins to eat the Blocks that made the giant TV. Bowser tries to get him to stop, but the structure crashes down on him. Yoshi stupidly tries to save the guy who tried to ruin his home island as a toddler, but Bowser saves the moment by asking "Could you maybe eat a little faster?"
Super Mario Bros. are cool like sunglasses!
