It’s been a great month for unexpected Nintendo news. First there was Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto showing off an official Mario game for iOS at Apple’s iPhone event, and now we have The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 popping up on the Steam digital distribution platform. But hold up before you rush off to download it! That’s not the Super Mario Bros. 3, seller of 17 million copies and lauded as one of the greatest video games of all time. Instead, it’s a 26-episode series based on it that aired in the latter months of 1990.
And now 13 of those episodes are available for streaming on Steam for $17.81 or $1.99 each, amounting to what appears to count as Mario’s first appearance on the platform. Cinedigm, itself a major digital distributor, is responsible for the release. To give you a taste of what’s in store, here’s a YouTube version of “Sneaky Lying Cheating Giant Ninja Koopas,” one of the episodes included in the Steam package.
Videos by VICE
I remember liking it at the time, but of course I also remember loving Vanilla Ice’s “Ice, Ice, Baby” and M.C. Hammer’s “U Can’t Touch This” earlier that same year. So my judgement may be a little suspect in this regard. Oh, and at least one of those episodes has covers of two songs by Milli Vanilli.
So it’s not the legendary game. But it’s a fun romp anyway, taking Princess Toadstool and everyone’s favorite two plumbers to real-world locations from London and Venice to Los Angeles and Cape Canaveral. There’s even a bit of continuity between episodes, which was hard to find in 1989’s Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
One thing it lacks, though, is Lou Albano shuffling around in crimson overalls and commanding us to “Do the Mario!” Kids have it so much worse these days.
