Here it is, my latest cartoon review: "The Great BMX Race", episode 11 of the SMB Super Show.
Mario does his usual Plumber's Log thing, stating that he and his group were "crossing the Desert Kingdom when things really got hot for Toad". In more ways than one. The gang is driving through the so-called Desert Kingdom on a bizarre combo vehicle of a bicycle built for two and a bathtub with a built-in showerhead. We can see what Mario means about Toad, as the Retainer is doing crazy stunts with the showerhead and going "eeheeheeheeheehee" like as if he's on crack. As Toad continues on with his inability to sit still, we pan across and see Fryguy, the fourth boss of Super Mario Bros. 2, watching them from behind a cactus. It makes me wish Mario added on to his first line by saying "And I mean really hot!" The shades-sporting flamehead spits fireballs at the quartet, hitting their vehicle in a matter of seconds, and Toad is sent flying towards him. Fryguy claims that Toad owes him 60 Coins for a reason he doesn't bother explaining.
Peach: "But Toad can't pay you; Koopa took all our money."
If Bowser stole Team Mario's money, shouldn't they be chasing him down, trying to get it back? Or was that exactly what they were doing at the beginning of this scene? I'd have to go with the latter choice, because if someone stole all my money, I wouldn't travel a long distance for enjoyment so much as I would in order to chase him down and get it back. Anyway, Team Mario has only one solution left: kill Fryguy. C'mon, you guys, start heaving Mushroom Blocks at him, he's outnumbered! But before the good guys can consider turning Fryguy into steam, the blazer tells them that they could win the prize money in this episode's namesake - The Great BMX Race! So Mario and Luigi agree to enter the race, and they detach their bike from the bathtub and head for the starting line. And Peach and Toad head for the spectator's box, seeing how they're the only ones watching this race. In a deleted scene that never made it to any version of the episode, Fryguy takes out a cell phone and calls up Bowser, telling him he's lured the Mario Bros. into entering the race. "Excellent," Bowser tells him. "Now, 'Operation: Smash Em' begins..."
The Mario Bros. reach the starting line, and Mario's rather startled, as he and Luigi seem to be the only ones participating in this event. And Luigi is also wondering why Wario and Waluigi haven't entered this event. They spoke too soon, for at that moment, in comes a trio that I shall refer to as "Team Koopa": Mouser, Tryclyde, and a rather dim-witted Koopa Troopa. I call them Team Koopa because they are to Bowser what Jessie, James, and Meowth are to Giovanni - lackeys of the big baddie. Mouser insults them...
"Looks like you forgot your training wheel, sewer saps!"
...and he and his cohorts do the Beavis and Butthead laugh (and Mouser falls off his bike in irony to his insult). The Mario Bros. use their heads for once and dart off, thus gaining a head start.
Up above, in the spectators' box, Peach and Toad watch with binoculars as the Mario Bros. leave Team Koopa in the dust. Peach says she isn't worried about the Marios being stopped, as Bowser is "probably miles away", and the Wario Bros. haven't even bothered entering the contest. But she's soon proven wrong, as she pans her binoculars and sees, in a big dugout/hideout, Bowser going over plans with Wario and Waluigi! Nope, sorry, it's a few Koopa Troopas. Man, I always see SMB cartoon scenes that look ripe for the greedy brothers to appear in, but they couldn't, as the SMB cartoons went out of production by the time Super Mario Land 2 was released. If you have good eyes, you'll most likely notice that Bowser and the Troopas are in the wrong position in the background when Peach notices them (making it look as though they're standing on top of the house). Anyway, she and Toad sneak up to listen to him and find out what involvement he's got in this race, and also to get a better look at his biceps. They listen to him contacting Team Koopa (as he calls them; I guess I was thinking ahead when I decided on calling them that) via cell phone, telling them to "nail the Marios real nasty once they reach Deadman's Curve".
We cut to Mario and Luigi making good time on the race...
Luigi: "Hey Mario! You sure you know what you're doin'?"
Mario: "Sure! I'm doin' 60 miles an hour!"
Luigi: "Leapin' lasagna!" (wails as they ride down a hill)
Mario: "You OK, Luigi?"
Luigi: "I'd feel better if we went back and got my stomach."
At this point, Peach and Toad stupidly rush into the middle of the road, shouting "Hey!" like people at a Mardi Gras parade. Fortunately for their lives, the Marios drive right by them, and not over them as a scenario like this would cause.
Mario: "Sure makes you go faster when you have a cheering section!"
Luigi: "Yeah. I just wish we could hear what cheer they were yelling."
Peach and Toad's lives may have been spared, but now they've got more problems. Bowser's racing henchmen catch sight of them and, just as the camera fades to black as if in a cliffhanger, capture them. The result is that the Princess and the servant are taken to Bowser. The Koopa King, highly offended by their peeking at his biceps while discovering his evil plan, rolls them up in a sleeping Cobrat.
Mario, meanwhile, is so overconfident about his and Luigi's head start that he decides to drive their bike into a building and do some damage and destruction. Actually, it's a "Pasta Pitstop", but that still doesn't explain why Mario drives the bike right into the house. He pigs out for quite a while, and by the time they exit the restaurant, Team Koopa has overtaken their position. Mario isn't going to waste time slapping himself for wasting time pigging out on pasta, so he and Luigi give chase at full speed. They chase Team Koopa up the aforementioned Deadman's Curve, where the bad guys put Bowser's devious plan into action. Their plan is to turn around and charge at the Bros. head-on, knocking them off the cliff and to their doom. However, Mario and Luigi manage to hurl themselves off the curve without the help of the three nasties. At this point, the commercial break occurs, during which Bowser goes to the bathroom, and he spends a long time there. And he's still in there when the show comes back on. Just as the Marios are reaching the 400-mile point of the drop, Mario pulls a plunger/lasso and hooks it to the top of the cliff. So for once, the animators' ignorance of the law of gravity has done some good. The Bros. roll up, and as they're nearing the top, Luigi comments...
"Now I know why they call that a plumber's helper!"
Team Koopa, doing the Beavis and Butthead laugh again, haven't seen that Mario and Luigi have been climbing back up the mountain, and they soon realize too late that the Mario Bros. are back in the lead. Down below, Bowser returns from the lavatory.
Peach: "They're safe!"
Bowser: "WHAT?!"
Toad: "She said, (imitates Peach's voice) 'They're safe!'."
Bowser shouts into his cell phone (which has turned into a communicator) to his cronies to switch to phase 2, which Mouser calls Turbo Time. It's also something they should've done earlier. While Bowser and his Troopas watch as the team gears up, we zoom in on Peach and Toad, still stuck in the Cobrat, who is still snoozing on the job.
Toad: "Augh, dis is terrible!"
Peach: "Yes, Mario and Luigi really need our help."
Toad: "I meant da snoring; it's drivin' me bonkers! Hey, dat's it! We might be able to squeeze out when this thing lets out its breath."
Peach: "It's worth a try."
The sleeping Cobrat exhales, and Peach squeezes out. She gets Toad out and they rush off. Just as they've left the celluloid, the snoring Cobrat wonders why he feels more comfortable, so he stretches his tail in and realizes his prisonors are gone. He wakes up and bangs his head on the ceiling. Bowser looks at him, sees that Peach and Toad have escaped, and commands the nearby trio of Koopa Troopas to get them back. The three Koopa Troopas (whom there were two of when Bowser said "Trap 'em, Troopas!") are too inept to walk 20 centimeters without knocking themselves unconscious. I noticed that when they KO themselves, they're suddenly wearing biker gloves. Bowser calls them bumbling boobs and has to go after the escapees himself. Peach and Toad steal one of his bicycles (and Toad lets out another crack-made laugh) as "I Get Around" by the Beach Boys begins to play. Bowser tries to pounce on them but fails.
"Okay, that does it! You're all gonna be Koopatized!"
I have no idea what that means, mainly because you don't get to see an extension of this scene. Maybe if the SMB cartoons weren't limited to 11½ minutes, and this chase sequence used the real "I Get Around", we'd get to see more of Bowser chasing Peach and Toad.
On the other side of the cartoon, Mario is vainly combing his moustache when Luigi looks behind and sees Team Koopa on the warpath. Mario takes a can of tomato sauce out of the free clip-on lunchbox he got from that pitstop and lets it loose on the road. The tomato sauce stain on the road sends the baddies spinning, Super Mario Kart-style, and also screwing up Turbo Time. Things continue to get ugly, though, for then Mouser begins chucking Bob-Ombs at them. No problem. Mario hits the R button on the bike's controller and jumps over a Bob-Omb, letting the smoke of the explosion blow onto the face of Mouser, whose shades fly off and reveal his eyes for two seconds of film. More trouble, though. The Koopa Troopa tries a more tactical approach: defying gravity and weight, he somehow loads a large orange boulder onto his bike and lobs it at the Bros. They avoid this weapon too, but in an improbable event, it shatters like glass and punctures their tires.
Luigi: "What do we do now, call a tow truck?"
Mouser: "No, call an amb-u-lance!"
Mario: "Hey, no problem, it's two men against one mouse. All right, so now it's a fair fight."
Mouser: "Looks like you plumbers are plumb out of luck!"
Luigi: "I think I liked it better when we outnumbered them."
So what do our heroes do, now that their bike is rendered useless and Team Koopa has surrounded them? An immensely dumb solution! They spin their bike around, creating a dust cloud big enough to cover their escape. The Bros. then leg it to a nearby field of vegetables, which they start to hurl at Bowser's goons. Obviously, being assaulted by vegetables is too much for the mean trio to take, so they give up and go home. Mouser sums it up with one word: "Ouch."
Mario: "Hey, King Koopa! You can at least say goodbye! Heh, looks like we win the bike race by default."
Luigi: "It's not my fault."
Peach and Toad then ride up.
Peach: "Guys, you've been tricked! This race was one of Koopa's traps!"
Toad: "Yeah, da bill collect after my mushroom hide was just a phony!"
Luigi: "You mean I risked my neck for nothing?!"
Mario: "You mean I wasted my tomato sauce!??!"
Needless to say, Mario and Luigi are ticked off that their worries about Wario and Waluigi winning were for naught. They see Bowser trying to make a getaway on a tricycle. The four of them give chase after him, tossing vegetables at him and demanding that he gives them back the money he stole from them before this episode even began. And so they ride and rush off into the sunset.
Y'know, I think Deezer ought to put my cartoon reviews up on the cartoons category of the Mario Mania section of the website.
Super Mario Bros. are cool like sunglasses!
