35TH & 40TH ANNIVERSARIES

 Millennials! We're getting real now. Continuing our anniversary celebration with the shows turning 35 and 40.

MARIO SEGALE DEAD AT 84

You can read the full story here.

While he may not be instantly recognizable to many, his name is definitely familiar. Segale was Nintendo of America's original landlord before they landed their first arcade smash hit, Donkey Kong. His leniency with their delinquent rent earned him the honor of having Donkey Kong's protagonist named after him in future appearances, who in turn would go on to become Nintendo's mascot: Mario.

SUPER MARIO CEREAL

SUPER MARIO CEREAL

Kellogg’s

           

Super Mario Odyssey was the first game in the Mario Bros. franchise to be released for the Nintendo Switch. Once again, Mario was tasked with rescuing Princess Peach from the clutches of Bowser. The game, released on October 27, 2017, saw a return to the 3D open worlds from Super Mario 64 and Super Mario Sunshine and a life meter last seen in Super Mario Galaxy. However, the traditional power-up system was replaced by a new ability/sidekick: Cappy. Cappy was a spirit that resembled Mario’s cap and allowed him to possess various beings in the world in order to use their unique abilities to complete objectives and pass obstacles. All the while, Mario had to collect Regional Coins and Power Moons in each level to progress and purchase new hats and costumes needed for certain tasks.

The game was a hit with fans and critics, being called one of the best in the series and taking home numerous awards. By the end of the year, it had sold over nine million copies. To help promote the game, Nintendo partnered with Kellogg’s to release a limited-edition cereal: Super Mario Cereal. This marked the first time Mario had headlined a cereal since Ralston’s Nintendo Cereal System at the end of the 1980s. The cereal was officially released in December of 2017 but didn’t hit store shelves until early 2018.

Back of the box.

Ironically, even though Odyssey doesn’t feature any of the usual power-ups from the franchise, the cereal based on it is full of them. The cereal pieces were shaped like Starmen with a hint of berry flavoring. The cereal also had marshmallows shaped like Question Mark Blocks, 1-Up Mushrooms, and Mario’s hat. On the back of the box, there was a maze game and Mario trivia amongst images of Mario, Bowser, Peach, Yoshi, coins, a goomba, piranha plants, Super Mushrooms and Fire Flowers (the latter two not even featured in the game).

A special feature of the box was that it’s also an amiibo that worked with the game. Amiibo are figurines that could be purchased to add content to various 3DS, Wii U and now Switch games by placing their base on a sensor. Similarly, the box has a chip located in a marked corner of the back of the box that can be held to the Switch’s scanner on the controller. Known as the “delicious amiibo”, it gave the players a number of coins and a heart, and could be used multiple times, and could be used with the in-game character Uncle amiibo for an extra Power Moon finder.

Comparison of the prototype box art and the newly released box.

In March of 2018, it was revealed that new boxes of Super Mario Cereal had begun hitting store shelves. These boxes closely resemble an early prototype, which featured Mario holding a spoon behind the cereal with the Mushroom Kingdom in the background. The official box included Bowser and Peach between Mario and the background. But, the biggest change seems to have been the removal of the amiibo functionality.

SUPER MARIO WORLD

SUPER MARIO WORLD

(NBC, September 14-December 7, 1991)

DiC Entertainment, Reteitalia, S.p.A., Nintendo of America, Inc.

MAIN CAST:

Walker Boone – Mario

Tony Rosato – Luigi

Tracey Moore – Princess Toadstool

John Stocker – Oogtar, Magikoopa, Monty Mole, Chargin’ Chuck

Andrew Sabiston – Yoshi

Harvey Atkin – King Koopa

Tara Strong (as Tara Charendoff) – Hip Koopa, Hop Koopa

Tabitha St. Germain (as Paulina Gillis) – Kootie Pie Koopa

James Rankin – Cheatsy Koopa

Dan Hennessey – Bully Koopa, green dinosaur, purple dinosaur

Michael Stark – Kooky von Koopa

Gordon Masten – Big Mouth Koopa

For the history of Mario, check out the post here.

            

            Despite the initial dominance of the original Famicom (known as the Nintendo Entertainment System in North America), NEC Home Electronics’ PC Engine (or TurboGrafx-16) and Sega’s Mega Drive (also known as the Genesis) began to overtake the aging console when they debuted in 1987 and 1988, respectively. Both systems were 16-bit and outperformed it in both graphics and sound. Nintendo commissioned the development of a new console to be dubbed the Super Famicom, or the Super Nintendo Entertainment System when it reached America, designed by Masayuki Uemura. While comparable to the other systems at the time, it was made adaptable to a variety of enhancement chips that would be integrated into game cartridges to further set the SNES apart.  The system was launched in Japan on November 21, 1990 to instant success; selling out its initial 300,000 units within hours and becoming the best-selling console of the 16-bit era.

            Super Mario World was one of the launch titles for the system, and was bundled with the North American version upon its release the following year. The game was directed by Takashi Tezuka and produced by Shigeru Miyamoto, with Shigefumi Hino as the graphics designer. The game was a bit of wish-fulfillment on the part of the production team as, after they had completed the original game, they wanted to have Mario riding on a horse. But that was not graphically possible until the SNES came around.

Dinosaur Land.

World (subtitled Super Mario Bros. 4 in Japan) had Mario, Luigi and Princess Peach travel to Dinosaur Land to recuperate from their battle with Bowser. However, Bowser had also chosen that place with his Koopalings to rebuild his forces and attack anew. Bowser had kidnapped the Princess again and imprisoned the citizens of Dinosaur Land—cute, colorful dinosaurs with long tongues known as Yoshis—in magical eggs. Mario and Luigi freed one of them, named Yoshi, and together they set out to stop Bowser, free the dinosaurs, and save the Princess.

Mario, Luigi, Toadstool and Yoshi.

            The game introduced several new elements to the franchise. Yoshi, for instance, could eat enemies and, depending on what kind of enemies those were, would gain a special ability like flight or fireball breath. Eating berries also caused Yoshi to lay an egg containing a power-up. Debuting power-ups included the Cape Feather, which gave the brothers a golden cape that allowed them to take off from a running start and glide through the air, and a Power Balloon that allowed them to inflate for a limited time and fly. New enemies included Chargin’ Chuck, a turtle in football gear; Dino Rhino, a slow-moving dinosaur; Dino-Torch, a small dinosaur that breathed fire; Fish Bone, a slow-swimming fish skeleton; Monty and Mega Moles, which were evil moles that came in small and giant size, respectively; and Wiggler, a happy caterpillar that became enraged when jumped on. The extra item system from Mario Bros. 3 was refined to include the ability to hold an extra item in the actual game screen rather than having to return to the overworld map to access it—however, the number of items held was reduced to only one.

Mario trying to teach the Cave People football.

            As a result of the new game and its popularity, DiC Entertainment and Reteitalia, S.p.A. began work on a new animated series incorporating elements of the game. Super Mario World was largely a continuation of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, featuring the same cast and most of the same characters. However, a new animation studio, Pacific Rim Productions, Inc., was used on the series resulting in similar but noticeably different character designs. The series would follow the game fairly closely while taking some liberties with the names of some locations and characters, as well as maintaining continuity with the earlier Mario Bros. shows such as the brothers retaining their colorful coveralls rather than the blue ones as in the new games.

Oogtar being eaten by a piranha plant.

            The series focused on Mario (Walker Boone) and Luigi (Tony Rosato) living with Princess Toadstool (Tracey Moore) in Dinosaur Land (sometimes called Dinosaur World). Unlike the game, the land was populated by cavepeople as well as dinosaurs. Mario often spent a lot of time trying to make the cavepeople’s lives easier by introducing modern inventions that they were currently living without, such as cars and television. Taking the place of Toad from the previous shows was Oogtar (voiced by Toad’s actor John Stocker), a pre-adolescent caveboy, since Toad wasn’t featured in the game. The heroes were also joined by Yoshi (Andrew Sabiston), a curious child-like dinosaur with a large appetite and numerous phobias that was discovered as an egg by Luigi. Oogtar was designed to be obnoxious and to help push the innocent Yoshi into precarious situations to cause drama. Following the Marios to Dinosaur Land was King Koopa (Harvey Atkin) and his Koopalings (who retained their Mario 3 cartoon names): Bully (Dan Hennessey), Kooky (Michael Stark), Big Mouth (Gordon Masten), Hip and Hop (both Tara Strong), Kootie Pie (Tabitha St. Germain) and Cheatsy (James Rankin). Of the entire cast, only Atkin and Stocker appeared in all three Mario cartoons. The Cape Feather made an appearance, used primarily by Mario, and the Fire Flower returned with a new design making it resemble an orange rose. Differing from the game, the Mario Bros.’ power-ups disappeared after a certain amount of time passed, rather than whenever they took “damage” from an enemy.

            Super Mario World debuted on NBC on September 14, 1991, making it the second (and, so far, last) Mario show to air on Saturday mornings. The show’s episodes typically ran 11 minutes and were paired up with episodes from the third season of Captain N: The Game Master for a half-hour block called Captain N and the New Super Mario World. Much like on the game it was based, it was originally going to be titled Super Mario Bros. 4 and featured a modified logo from Mario 3. Unlike the previous Mario shows, there was a large time constraint to get the series completed quickly. Instead of the process of writers submitting a premise, an outline, and then a script, all the premises were conceived by story editor Phil Harnage and assigned to the writers from Mario 3 to develop the full script. It was written by Harnage, Kristofor Brown, Eleanor Burian-Mohr, Paul Dell, Jack Hanrahan, Perry Martin, Martha Moran, Frank Ridgeway, George Shea, Brooks Wachtel and Steven Weiss. The series’ theme was composed by Mark Mothersbaugh and was played over an intro animated by Canvas, Inc. The intro featured a noticeably higher quality of animation than the rest of the show, which likely suffered the same budget cuts that plagued Captain N’s third season quality. Each episode also featured an original song that corresponded to an episode’s theme, composed by Michael Tavera and Monroe Michaels.

The show ran for a single season of 13 episodes and was cancelled along with Captain N as NBC sought to move away from animation into more teen-oriented programming following the success of Saved by the Bell. At only 13 single-story episodes, it is the shortest of the three Mario shows. World was later shown from September 1992 to September 1993 in the syndication package Captain N & The Video Game Masters along with Captain N, The Legend of Zelda and Mario Bros. 3. From 1994-1997, World was paired up with reruns of 40 of the cartoon portions of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show for the syndication package Mario All-Stars (named after the compilation game that included all the original Mario console games and later World). All-Stars aired six days a week on the The Family Channel and on USA Network on weekdays. From 1998-99, reruns of World and Mario 3 aired on the PAX KIDS block on PAX TV (now ion) and included a safety tip scene from DiC’s Inspector Gadget. Reruns returned in 2006 on British satellite channel Pop. It found new popularity when it became one of the sources of remixed meme material for YouTube Poops. In 2017, 227 animators came together to participate in the year-long The Mama Luigi Project, where they would reanimate the episode “Mama Luigi” in their own styles for every scene. It was dedicated to the memory of Rosato and Atkin. 

Mario World on DVD apart from Captain N.

            Unlike the other Mario shows, World didn’t see as wide a home video release in North America. “The Night Before Cave Christmas” was included on the 1996 VHS Super Mario Bros. Super Christmas Adventures from Buena Vista Home Video. Two VHS tapes were released in the United Kingdom, however. In 2007, Shout! Factory and Vivendi Entertainment in North America and Roadshow Entertainment in Australia released Captain N and the New Super Mario World to DVD after legal issues involving Yoshi’s use were resolved. In 2013, NCircle Entertainment released the complete series independent of the Captain N segments in two volumes, later collected into one volume. WildBrain, the current rights holders of the DiC library, have uploaded the entire series to YouTube on their official channel. Additionally, the series has been made available to stream on Paramount+ and Amazon Prime Video. It was also available to view on the Super Mario Bros. FAST channel on LG Channels and Pluto TV in the United Kingdom, The Roku Channel in the US, and Samsung TV Plus in Australia, New Zealand, the Philippines, Singapore and Thailand. In 2026, the series returned to television on retro animation network MeTV Toons in rotation with the other Mario shows as a tie-in to The Super Mario Galaxy Movie releasing that same week.

EPISODE GUIDE:

“Fire Sale” (9/14/91) – Kootie Pie kidnaps Mama Fireplant to heat up her ice palace.

 

“The Wheel Thing” (9/21/91) – Mario reinvents cars to help the cave people and ends up reinventing traffic jams in the process.

 

“Send in the Clown” (9/28/91) – Koopa, Big Mouth and Kootie Pie use a circus to lure the cave people into a trap.

 

“Ghosts ‘R’ Us” (10/5/91) – Yoshi must brave a haunted forest to save his friends from a Magikoopa.

 

“The Night Before Cave Christmas” (10/12/91) – The brothers attempt to introduce the cave people to Christmas, but Koopa steals all of their gifts.

 

“King Scoopa Koopa” (10/19/91) – Koopa’s new fast food proves dangerously addictive.

 

“Born to Ride” (10/26/91) – After being scolded, Yoshi runs off and joins a dinosaur biker gang.

 

“Party Line” (11/2/91) – Introducing the cave people to the telephone leads them to become addicted to talking on it.

 

“Gopher Bash” (11/9/91) – Cheatsy uses Monty Moles to steal the cave people’s crops.

 

“Rock TV” (11/16/91) – Koopa sells TVs to the cave people, which are actually devices meant to hypnotize them into his control.

 

“The Yoshi Shuffle” (11/23/91) – A wizard turns Luigi into an egg, which is promptly stolen by Bully and Cheatsy.

 

“A Little Learning” (11/30/91) – Hip and Hop enroll in the Princess’ kindergarten class.

 

“Mama Luigi” (12/7/91) – Luigi tells Yoshi the story of how he found him.

Originally posted in 2017. Updated in 2026.

NINTENDO CEREAL SYSTEM

NINTENDO CEREAL SYSTEM

Ralston

            In 1985, Nintendo brought its Famicom gaming system over for Japan and dubbed it the Nintendo Entertainment System. Boxed with it was the second game in the spin-off series starring Donkey Kong’s Mario: Super Mario Bros. The system, and game, became hits as kids helped Mario and his brother Luigi rescue the Mushroom Kingdom from the evil reptilian Bowser and his minions.

            Nintendo’s next hit came the following year with the Japanese release of The Legend of Zelda as one of the launch titles for Famicom’s new Disk System. Created by the same people who produced Mario, the game featured a young boy named Link who sought to protect the kingdom of Hyrule from the evil Ganon by uniting the pieces of a powerful artifact known as the Triforce. Who’s Zelda? She’s the princess in distress Link is often tasked with rescuing. When it was released in America in 1987, it became the first Nintendo game to sell over a million copies. The sequel was released in Japan in the following months and in America in late 1988.

Print ad for the cereal.

            With two hit games, Ralston saw an opportunity to give the best of both worlds. Acquiring the license to both franchises, in 1988 Ralston produced a fruity cereal for Mario and a berry cereal for Zelda. Mario’s cereal featured shapes representing Mario, Bowser, Super Mushrooms and the two common enemies Goombas and Koopa Troopas. Zelda’s cereal featured Link, health hearts, boomerangs, keys and shields.

            But the most unique aspect of the cereals was that Ralston combined them both in a single box. Dubbed the Nintendo Cereal System after the NES console, each box contained the cereals in their own separate bag inside and a perforation along the top flap allowed you to pour out one at a time. The boxes depicted several scenes from both the originals and sequels of both franchises, although in drawings meant to mimic the graphics rather than actual screenshots. During Ralston’s promotional offer for a hologram t-shirt, the box joined the others in Ralston’s line with special holograms of Mario and Link in place of the usual box art.

Trading card offer box.

            The cereal’s commercials were the first animated effort to feature the new Super Mario design for Mario and the first for Zelda, a year before they received their animated series as part of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! The commercial also made use of Koji Kondo’s score for the underground levels of the original Super Mario with lyrics talking about the cereal.

Several of the box designs.

            A regular feature of the box was the offering of tips for both franchises’ games on the side panel. The cereal also came with a variety of premiums, including 12 different trading cards to cut off the back of the box, a mail-away poster of either franchise, stickers, an iron-on transfer for clothing, a miniature pinball game inside, a chance to win the NES Power Set, a Game & Watch game or the Nintendo Power Glove, and money off of a subscription to Nintendo Power magazine. Unfortunately, the cereal didn’t prove as popular as the games on which it was based, resulting in its lasting a little more than a year on shelves.