So, uh, yeah. Looks like I finished up the first season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic. Took me quite a while, but I'm actually pretty proud of the achievement. I've been doing this a good chunk of this year now, and maybe it's time to look at something from my childhood.
Let's see, what's something simple I could do? I would prefer something that fits on a single DVD, something recognizable without being too "back in fashion" retro, and something I just haven't seen in a long time, of course. Something I have some somewhat warm feelings about from my childhood.
...okay, I did go into a little bit of detail on this subject before, but I suppose I could go into more depth. Plus, the DVD cost me two dollars, so the price is right. I enjoyed this show as a kid, so I should be able to watch it again and find what drew me to like it in the first place, hopefully.
Okay, let's give it a shot.
Conclusion: When I was a kid, I was stupid, had no good taste, and was apparently desperate to watch anything on television, because this is awful.
I don't just mean this is bad in a "it doesn't hold up" way. I mean bad In a "I as a child cared more about the quality of the show than the creators did, and I didn't care at all, I just wanted cartoons" way. I mean bad in a "at least Uwe Boll tried, in some remote way, to make this something like the source material" way.
You hear that Mario? You made me say something nice about Uwe Boll.
Simple words cannot express just how terrible this is without a point of reference. I'm going to have to take a look at this episode and break down this awful and derivative show.
How derivative? Look at the first episode.
It makes me angry that Phil Harnage got paid to write this.
But wait, it gets better. The synopsis on the back reads "In a galaxy far, far away, the evil Darth Koopa has built a crazy contraption to destroy Mario Skywalker.". Yet, I never heard of a single lawsuit coming from Lucas. Crazy.
But before I go on, let me point out something about the title sequence. It pretty much gives a synopsis of how Mario and Luigi found themselves in the Mushroom Kingdom. It's a gripping story of danger, adventure, and- man, my ability to be sarcastic is dying in the face of this episode.
The brothers get flushed down a tub while trying to unclog it with a plungers. Because that's how tubs work, right? You unclog them with the same thing you stick into your toilet, right?
But let's look at something. Who's unclogging the tub as it overflows? Luigi. Who's standing there holding a shower curtain and doing no work? Mario. Who gets pulled into the "secret warp zone" first? Luigi. Who desperately tries to keep from getting sucked in, possibly leaving his brother to face his fate alone? Mario. Who is first out of the pipe, and winds up destroying Koopa's forces? Luigi. Who's second and does nothing to save the Princess? Mario.
This must be one of those instances where destiny picked Luigi, but somehow Mario got to claim the credit because he's louder. Don't worry, Luigi, you're still my favorite Italian plumber brother.
Where was I?
Oh, right, Mario, Luigi, the Princess, and Toad were on their way to a space colony because Darth Koopa was going to blow up their planet.
...someone remind me to apologize to my parents for any of this stuff they had to sit through with me when I was a kid.
The good guys try to evade Darth Koopa (it hurts every time I have to type that), but his ship is being piloted by Mouser who ...for some reason speaks with what sounds like a bad German accent? Is his name now supposed to be a bad pun for the German gun "mauser?" I don't get it...he doesn't use a gun, he throws bombs.
I'm over-thinking this.
Koopa captures the good guys' ship, at which point Mario, Luigi, and Toad pull out their lightplungers and Princess Toadstool says "May the pasta be with you."
Oh god, I forgot about the fact that everything's a pasta pun in this show.
Mario and Koopa get into a really badly-drawn sword fight, and right when Mario has the edge, Koopa pulls out a gun and shoots Mario, encasing him in a block of ice. This ice ray completely ignores Mario's sword, which begs the question, "Why didn't you just shoot them to begin with?" Koopa captures the others, and sends Mouser to have them tossed in a giant garbage disposal with lots of spinning blades.
This is, of course, after he explains his master plan for no better reason than that's what bad guys do, I guess. Unless he's trying to break Princess Toadstool's spirit by letting her know, right before she dies, how she utterly failed her people.
Mouser gives a brief explanation of how the heroes are going to be killed, leading to the one single joke I smiled at in this episode: Mario turns towards the camera and says, "He's telling a plumber how a garbage disposal works?!"
Yeah, that's it. That's the one funny joke.
The heroes are dumped in, but Mario pulls out a plunger from... somewhere... and sticks it to the wall, using it to catch himself and the others. After Luigi throws some silverware at spinning blades on top of poles with no visible gears to clog, thus making the blades clog and stop working (sigh), the heroes wind up in an escape pod and blast off towards the Toadstool space colony.
The good guys land on the desert planet ("not Tattoine") and immediately get harassed by a sentient cactus and one of those giant snakes from the games. I forget what their whole deal was-
Oh, right, they spit bullets. Complete with the sound of a gunshot.
My head hurts.
But don't worry, Mario has a brilliant master plan to help them defeat the snake. Everybody gets up, runs towards the snake, and then runs around it in circles making it spin its head around and get dizzy. With it disoriented, they tackle it and turn it into their mount to ride across the desert landscape.
Back on Koopa's ship, Koopa asks Mouser how much time is left before his weapon destroys the colony and is told it should fire in sixteen minutes. He seems overj- WAIT A MINUTE.
SIXTEEN MINUTES?
THAT DOES NOT SAY SIXTEEN MINUTES. THAT SAYS "JUST UNDER FOUR AND A HALF."
Man, now this show's just making me angry. Dumb jokes for kids are one thing, but this is just being lazy.
Princess Toadstool talks to the colony leader about the fact that the world is doomed in "fifteen minutes" and asks if there's anything they can do. Mario suggests having lunch. Mario's a jerk.
Oh, and the leader's name is "Oba-wan Toady."
The good guys wind up in some fighter ships that look like a collection of loose pipes stuck together randomly, and the camera cuts to Koopa telling his forces to attack, and then the EXACT SAME COUNTDOWN SCREEN IS SHOWN.
Nnnnnngh.
Mario flies his ship inside Koopa's giant ship, opens his hatch, and chucks a bob-omb at what appears to either be a central support column or the power core, I can't really tell which from the animation. The ship blows up, and Koopa and Mouser are tossed into space in their escape vessel...a rubber raft. With nothing to help them breathe.
...I know it would seem like this show is more insane than My Little Pony, but for the most part there was a twisted logic to a show about magical ponies fighting monsters and learning about friendship. This show's just stupid.
We get back stock footage clipped over a view of the hanger bay, making Toad look like his ship is only four inches tall when he disembarks, and Mario announces that the pasta was with them and then demands lunch. The end.
The Good:
One joke about a garbage disposal. That's the only funny joke anybody made.
Image-wise, the only cute detail in any of the scenes was the fact that Koopa's giant interstellar space weapon of doom had a small hole in one side with the words "Unleaded Only" around it. That's cute.
Oh, and we get to see Captain Lou Albano dance during the end credits. I always loved how he stumbles at the last second doing his final pose, and someone went "Meh, good enough, leave it in."
Other than that, move along.
The Bad:
This show is so stupid, it's almost offensive. The animation is terrible, some of the voices are grating, the jokes are horrible, and it's completely unoriginal.
Even as a child, I should have been able to say "hey, how does being a plumber make Mario such a great starship pilot?" "How did they survive going through a planet's atmosphere and impacting the ground when they were just in a large trash can?" "WHY ARE THERE SO MANY PASTA JOKES?"
It's a cheap effort to make a quick buck off of children and milk a popular video game franchise. Shame on these people. SHAME ON THEM.
...and I get to review eight more episodes. Oh joy.
Overall:
I need a drink.
So yeah, maybe I didn't always have good taste in television, or maybe I really am just too old to appreciate something that is mindless entertainment for kids...except I just finished reviewing a show that's designed for kids and was intelligent, funny, and well-written with well-developed characters. We don't learn anything about the characters except that Toad's obnoxious, Princess Toadstool has the personality of cardboard, Luigi's a coward, and Mario is arrogant. But we already knew that if we played some of the newer games.
Oh, and Mouser's German. I guess that tidbit was new.
And can I just point out that not once does anybody refer to Mario as "Mario Skywalker?" You lied to me, DVD case.
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