Author Topic: Mario Cartoons compared... (Read 4996 times)

Mario Maniac · « **on:** June 12, 2000, 09:10:27 AM »

How come the Mario cartoons are so different from the games? King Bowser in the games is called King Koopa in the shows, The Koopa Kids all have different names in the Adenvtures of SMB3, Princess Toadstool has red hair in the cartoons and gold hair in the games, and King Bowser looks different in the cartoons than in the games. Why is that? Why did they have to change the characters' appearances and names?

Mario Maniac!!

Mega 2 · « **Reply #1 on:** June 12, 2000, 10:48:48 AM »

At least it's more like the games than the movie was.

Chocobo · « **Reply #2 on:** June 12, 2000, 02:18:08 PM »

I dunno...Maybe they wanted names kids could remeber easier. I know when I was just a wee lad and I watched the show, I never could've pronounced ludwing von koopa. Besides, those names are easier to remeber. Remeber the sonic SATAM cartoons? They had characters that never appeared in any games...Maybe these are the "other" koopa kids.

Kweeh! Kweeh!

Chibi Yoshi · « **Reply #3 on:** June 12, 2000, 04:28:37 PM »

It probably had something to do with buying the rights to the characters. There are a LOT of characters in the Mario universe, and if DiC(the maker of the cartoons) made all the characters look EXACTLY like they are in the video games, they'd have to buy the rights from Nintendo. Lets take the Koopa Kids for instance. The Koopalings belong to Nintendo, so DiC has to buy them from Nintendo. But, by changing the Koopa Kids' appearances slightly and changing their names, they don't have to pay Nintendo(well, not as much, at least). The same applies to many of the other characters as well. If they left each and every character EXACTLY the same, they'd have to pay Nintendo a WHOLE lotta money. (And DiC sucks, so they didn't really have much money in the first place)
However, this isn't the case for all of the characters. Some characters look different because of the way they were in the old NES games. Take Princess Toadstool for example. If you look at her in the original SMB2(US), she has red hair. King Koopa looks similar to the way Bowser looked in the original SMB. However, he also vaguely resembles Wart. Since he used a lot of Wart's minions in the cartoon, my conclusion is that the animators were trying to combine Bowser and Wart. Either that or they were just too lazy to draw the real Bowser. (Knowing DiC, it was probably the latter =)

I Don't Suffer from Insanity -- I'm a Carrier

act_it_29478@yahoo.com · « **Reply #4 on:** June 14, 2000, 09:12:19 PM »

Bowser (King Koopa) looks differnt and is never called Bowser because that was how it was in 1989. No one thought his name was Bowser. Just check your SMB-NES manual. He had no hair at that time either. He looks almost dead on to the SMB sprite with a few alterations. In The Adventures of SMB3, he was called Bowser, but not all the time, but by SMW this had stopped. The Koopa Kids Rights thing is a good theory but not a smart one (why would they buy rights to Koopa Troopa, Goomba, Buzzy beetle, Sleadge Brother)? My new theory is that when production or SMB3 started (late '89), the game had not yet been released in America. The names for the Koopa Kids had not been engraved in stone for the American version (to be released February '90) so they took creative rights and made them what they pleased. (This is the probably the case with the name of the lands in SMW.) Or didn't like what they were (Larry, Wendy O.) and changed them to better go along with their written personalities (Cheatsy, Kootie Pie). They're looks are not dead on because the artists at DIC are not the game designers at NoJ, and they took freedoms for a design they could animate with. None of the characters look like they do in manuals, etc. And Princess' hair is red in SMB the original, so they kept it that way for the toons till their demise, so as not to break continuity. Whew...

--Adam
act_it_29478@yahoo.com

TuxedoKen1386 · « **Reply #5 on:** June 15, 2000, 07:08:13 AM »

They refer to him as Bowser in one episode. The episode where that human family ends up in the Mushroom Kingdom is the one where they call him Bowser. He introduces himself to them by saying "I am King Bowser Koopa." And for the Sonic SATAM cartoon. They had 2 different Sonic shows. The one that they had on UPN a couple of years ago or so just had the characters from Sonic 2. Most of the characters from the one they showed on ABC I think are from the Archie Comic. But one thing to consider. They never changed the design of Robotropolis when they made Sonic Underground. And Snively is no where to be found in SU, even though Robotnik mentions Nagus. Just think of SU as the continuation of Sonic SATAM. The only other game character you see in SU is Knuckles. None of the other characters are from the SATAM cartoon.

Mega 2 · « **Reply #6 on:** June 15, 2000, 07:15:08 AM »

They also call him Bowser in the episode where he's trying to get elected as king of the Mushroom Kingdom or something like that. It seems like they called him Bowser a lot, I don't know why you're talking about this.

Mario Maniac · « **Reply #7 on:** June 15, 2000, 08:12:05 AM »

Thanks for all the info. Iv'e got another question, why did they cancle the cartoons? They recieved good enough ratings to stay on the air but why did they suddenly cancle them? And will DiC ever make another Mario cartoon series (based on Super Mario 64 or something)?

Mario Maniac!!

act_it_29478@yahoo.com · « **Reply #8 on:** June 15, 2000, 11:34:54 AM »

The cartoons stopped airing when the 1992 Summer Olympics began. After that, NBC dropped all their cartoons, leaving only Saved By the Bell (which I never cared about anyway). DIC was bought out by someone a few years ago last I heard. Check here (http://www.smbhq.com/users/cartoons/cartoons.html) for more.

--Adam
act_it_29478@yahoo.com