YMMV / The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3

• Accidental Innuendo:
  • At one point in "Crimes R Us", all of the Koopalings are fighting with each other. Except for Cheatsy and Kootie Pie, whose position and grunts give the impression that they're doing...something else.
  • In "Life's Ruff", King Windbag yells this at his servant: "Duck! You turkey!" Change a letter and the punctuation and suddenly this insult becomes insanely vulgar for a Mario cartoon.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • Cheatsy is seen by some as a stoner due to his squinty eyes.
  • The orphanage nanny from "Tag Team Trouble" lets Toad sleep while collecting the first bag of coins and slips up that she already accepted it when he brings another bag over. Was she grabbing the Idiot Ball or was she taking advantage of Toad?
  • Was Luigi using an invincibility cheat code in Recycled Koopa? He took a direct hit from a bob-omb but didn't lose his power-up when the show had been very consistent with said rule both before and after this episode. He also showed no signs of turning into a koopa zombie later on, despite humans only needing to be exposed to a tiny amount of Koopa's garbage. Even Mario, who came into contact with just as much trash as his brother, wasn't immune.
• Anvilicious: The anti-racism message of "True Colors" is somewhat subtle up until the end when Mario and Luigi outright spell it out. The final shot of the episode even has Mario looking straight at the camera with a scowl.
• Awesome Music:
  • The intro/ending theme.
  • "Sizzle" and "Do The Koopa" are good, too.
  • The cover of "Girls Just Wanna Have Fun".
  • The instrumental backing track to "Speedy Gondola" proved to be so heart-poundingly catchy, that when chase scenes in Super Show had to be redubbed due to copyright restrictions, it often incorporated the song into them.
  • "My Frog Suit" somehow serves as the perfect song for a flooding rescue mission.
• Big-Lipped Alligator Moment: The end of "Recycled Koopa", which features the Statue of Liberty talking out of the blue.
• Broken Aesop: The parables towards racism in "True Colors" fall flat when one remembers that the problems in the episode (and the series as a whole) were caused by people of the koopa race, which is portrayed as Always Chaotic Evil. Not to mention the different-colored mushroom people revert to their original colors at the end anyway, making them all one "race" again.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Kootie Pie and Luigi's transformations in "The Beauty of Kootie", Lady Fetuccini Alfredo and Kassanova Koopa, have drawn in a lot of fans, with Kassanova Koopa especially receiving a bunch of fan art distancing himself from Luigi as his own entity.
  • Holly Mackerel from "The Ugly Mermaid" has a fair following of fans. Not only did she save Mario from near death, but she's such a Determinator in forcing Mario to love her that it crosses the line of being impressive in how she pulls it off, not to mention caring deeply for the citizens of Water Land. Plus, her design, in spite of being considered ugly, has led to a lot of fan art, both normal and beyond.
• Fanon: This series' portrayal of the Koopa Kids and their personalities were the de facto versions of the characters for many fans, even after their return to the main Mario games after a long absence.
• Foe Yay Shipping: There's plenty of this in "The Beauty of Kootie", which revolves around Kootie Pie posing as an attractive woman to seduce Mario, and Luigi doing the same to her disguised as a handsome Koopa.
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The infamous Milli Vanilli episode, which got struck by this hard (read: heavily edited) upon syndication because of their 1990 scandal, which happened less than two weeks after the episode aired.
  • "Reptiles in the Rose Garden": Mario accidentally sending the White House crashing on top of the Washington Monument became less funny when an earthquake affected said monument in 2011.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: See here.
• Jerkass Woobie: "Misadventures in Babysitting": Even though he's a brat and such a pain to Mario and Luigi, you can't help but feel bad for Junior when the Koopa Kids tricked him.
• Memetic Mutation:
  • "Permit me to introduce ya to... RACCOOOOOOOOOOOOOON KOOPA!!!!"
  • "I'D SAY HE'S HOT ON OUR TAIL!"^note This line inspired the very first YouTube Poop ever made.
  • "No duck here, turkey!"
  • "Hey, Mario! WAAAAAAAH!"
• Moe: Hip and Hop, the cartoon equivalents to Lemmy and Iggy, are arguably even more adorable than they are in the games. Not only are they "Well Done, Son" Guy Bash Brothers who are completely inseparable, but Hop is voiced by a young Tara Strong, and the glasses meant to make Iggy look psychotic make him look adorable.
• Narm:
  • The way Luigi says "WHOO! A Sledge Brother!" in "Never Koop a Koopa". Also the fact that his lip movement doesn't match up with what he says. Plus, in the very same scene, the Sledge Brother briefly transforms into King Koopa for a few frames.
  • Rob and Fab of Milli Vanilli voice themselves in their spotlight episode, and end up giving some enjoyably awkward line deliveries.
    "Nooo."
    "Weh nuhds!"
    "Weh dweebs!"
    "This is tewwable!"
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • The Koopa tanks and small airships only appeared in one episode each, for a short time each, and only the airships were relevant to the episode's plot. The battleships were left out completely, likely replaced with the Doomsub.
  • Lakitu made only one appearance in "Life's Ruff", tasked with distracting Luigi and King Windbag who have been turned into dogs from chasing Hip and Hop.
• Retroactive Recognition:
  • Kootie Pie and Hop are respectively played by Tabitha St. Germain and a young Tara Strong in one of their earliest roles.
  • James Rankin, who would later voice such characters as Mr. Owl, Frisky, Johnny Crawfish, Planet Pup and Sherman the Turtle Tank, among others, plays Cheatsy Koopa.
• Sophomore Slump: Of the three Super Mario cartoons, this is the one that seems to get recognized the least. Sure, it has its moments that are somewhat well-known, but the first cartoon has the edge of being the first iteration, and Super Mario World has the Fountain of Memes going for it.
• Special Effect Failure: At one point in "Recycled Koopa", Bowser puts a bucket over Big Mouth's head to get him to shut up. But instead of having the voice actor record some muffled sounds, they simply re-used on of his earlier lines from the episode, which is fairly easy to hear.
• Surprisingly Improved Sequel: As far as it was an adaptation, it was more faithful to the game than SMBSS was to the first two Mario games and it was a bit less formulaic.
• They Wasted a Perfectly Good Plot: This show's backstory about King Koopa supposedly getting trapped in a Banishment Zone, courtesy of the Mario Bros. almost sounds like where The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! left off, but that never happened there. A shame too, because it would have made a half-decent Grand Finale before we got this cartoon.
• Unintentional Uncanny Valley:
  • The Nipper Plants have some pretty unnerving teeth◊ and, for some inexplicable reason, look like Gilbert Gottfried.
  • Luigi's and King Windbag's dog forms in "Life's Ruff." They pretty much look like dogs with furry human faces.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Not only is this show based on the best-selling game of 1990, but the Milli Vanilli episode and the episode featuring the late Barbara Bush and George H. W. Bush (although not referred to by name) couldn't take place in any other year.
• Values Dissonance: "The Beauty of Kootie" has Kootie Pie becoming smitten with Luigi's Kassanova Koopa disguise, and Mario falls for her human alter ego Lady Fetuccini Alfredo. An episode like this likely wouldn't happen today considering Kootie Pie is canonically 16 and the Mario Bros. are significantly older.

---