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in: Cartoons

Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

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CNAOSMB3 Title Card 1

Opening Title Card for Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

CNAOSMB3 Title Card 2

Title card at the end of the intro

CNAOSMB3 alt

Alternate Title Card

Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was the one hour TV program that ran on Saturday mornings on NBC from September 8, 1990 to January 5, 1991, and in repeats on NBC until September 7, 1991, when it was replaced by Captain N and the All New Super Mario World. It is the first season of Captain N: The Game Master to be paired with a Mario Bros. cartoon on Saturday mornings. After it left NBC, the two were split up, and Seasons 1 and 2 were rerun on the Family Channel, and both shows were played on Captain N and the Video Game Masters from 1992-1994, albeit as different programs.

Format[]

Captain N and the Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 was a compilation of the second season of Captain N, and a new animated series based on the mega-hit NES game Super Mario Bros. 3. The show ran in ABA format, with a 22-minute Captain N episode sandwiched between two Super Mario 3 cartoons. This resulted in Captain N being spread across two half hour blocks, probably to keep viewers from changing the channel and watching another network.

Changes[]

Captain N[]

  • The animation company for Season 2 was switched from Dongyang Animation in South Korea to Spectrum Animation in Japan, resulting in a better and more consistent animation style than Season 1. although the overall character designs are the same as season 1,however Season 2 has a much sharper bolder/fluid animation style with less Animation errors.
  • Jeffrey Scott no longer wrote for Captain N, resulting in much better, more consistent quality in writing, and the writers varied from episode to episode.
  • Episode length was increased by 1 minute, and standard running time was around 22 minutes, 15 seconds.
  • The soundtrack was changed almost completely, with the only song remaining being the password menu theme from Castlevania II: Simon's Quest. This was a result of Haim Saban and Shuki Levy, the composers for Season 1, leaving DiC due to a controversial falling-out that Saban had with the company in the 90s. They were replaced by Michael Tavera.
  • No pop songs were present in this season, replaced by similar sounding songs or original pieces possibly based on certain songs from the normal soundtrack.
  • Link and Zelda from the Legend of Zelda TV series made several appearances in 4 episodes. Their designs are significantly altered, and as a result, both look more mature, and their outfits are altered a bit.

Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3[]

  • Animation was still done by Sei Young as with the Super Show, but the animation style was drastically improved. As a result, the animation has a much bolder look to it, and fewer mistakes are made.
  • The character design for the SMB3 cartoons improved drastically from the earlier episodes to the later episodes, especially of Mario himself: in early episodes, he had the same black hair color he did in the Super Show, but from the third episode onward, his hair was changed to brown to resemble more of his later game counterparts.
  • This was the first of two Mario cartoons to feature the 7 Koopalings, although their names are changed to fit their personalities and appearances.
  • The Italian food-based puns from the Super Show are almost non-existent in this series, but are used occasionally.
  • Most of the voice actors from the Super Show were changed (with the exceptions of Harvey Atkin and John Stocker, who reprise their respective roles as King Koopa and Toad).
  • This is the only Mario cartoon to not have a song in the intro. Instead, the intro is narrated by the late Ernie Anderson with quiet orchestral music in the background, giving a darker and more serious feel to the series as a whole.
  • The popular songs from the Super Show are rarely used, and most episodes have original songs sung by the Koopa Kids. However, one episode did use the real version of "Blame It On the Rain" and "Girl You Know It's True".
  • The concept of a link from the "real world" to the Mushroom Kingdom via warp pipe from the Super Show was explored in greater detail in this series.

"Kootie Pie Rocks" and the Milli Vanilli scandal[]

When the SMB3 episode "Kootie Pie Rocks" first aired on Oct. 27, 1990, it featured Milli Vanilli (in name and appearance only; the voice actors used stereotypical German Accents for Rob and Fab) and two of their songs. The plot had Kootie Pie demanding her father to take the Doom-ship to the Milli Vanilli concert and abducting the band so she could have her own "personal private concert", and the Mario brothers, Toad, and the princess having to rescue the group to get them back to their concert in time. The song used two Milli Vanilli songs that were not covers, which was rare for the series. Several weeks later, it was revealed the Milli Vanilli were a lip-sync group, and in order to avoid any legal trouble, the second time the episode aired, the songs were replaced with generic pop-ish music, some lines were cut, and a scene at the end was removed, and the original version is rumored to have been destroyed/lost, but the songs were not edited out of foreign dubs and releases. All the other real songs were removed when it was rerun on "Captain N and the Game Masters" in 1992.

Episode List[]

Please note that the airdates/order may or may not be correct, and there is a "controversy" over their airdates/order.

* Also aired with "Up Up and a Koopa/7 Continents for 7 Koopas" at least once.

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