Koopa's got kids

I've always loved the Nintendo cartoons produced by DiC in the late 80's and early 90's. To be fair, I've always been a fan of cartoons made by DiC. They really made great shows that I still watch regularly to this day. Their Super Mario Bros cartoons have always been a bright spot for me as... I freaking love Super Mario. Some of my favorite games of all time and I still have yet to get tired of playing any of them. At the time, media about video games was hit or miss. There was gaming magazines, but I wanted fiction. Prior, there was the Saturday Supercade and Pac-Man cartoons  that gave some extra life to those characters I liked on my Atari. That was much needed as in those days the plot was mostly a basic scenario. I was fully in love with the richer gaming worlds my NES gave me and just gobbled up the characters however I could.

Needles to say, thanks to the time they were made, the shows weren't very true to the source material. Like Saturday Supercade and others before it, some additional world building was needed to make a show out of the games. A boss in a game's personality back then was often a few sentences in a game manual. Not to mention, animation companies like DiC was provided material by the companies localizing the game from Japan. So whatever material they had to give them was likely pretty limited at the time as the game was probably being localized at the same time. We know him as Bowser here in the western world, but in Japan his name is Koopa. So he's King Koopa in those old cartoons. After hearing a Milli Vanilli song on the radio recently, I was reminded of that episode of The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 featuring them. Somehow that thought resulted in me wanting to write about the Koopa Kids from said cartoon and their name differences from game to cartoon. You can blame this post on the rain

Game/Cartoon
Larry Koopa/Cheatsy, he tends to be a cheater.
Morton Koopa Jr/Big Mouth, talks a lot.
Wendy O. Koopa/Kootie Pie, spoiled brat.
Lemmy Koopa-/Hip (twin of Hop), not very smart, but also genuinely innocent.
Iggy Koopa/Hop (twin of Hip), immature and childish, but a brilliant inventor.
Roy Koopa/Bully, calm and collective.
Ludwig Von Koopa/Kooky, mad scientist and elder Koopa kid.

Super Bowser Bros.

 

Video games are a weird thing sometimes. What may look like a throw away character might be a complete rabbit hole of it's own. Case in point: Bowser's Brother. Whats that? You didn't know Bowser has a brother? He does depending on the source. Super Mario Bros. 2 in Japan is a different game. It's essentially a harder version of the original game for 'advanced players'. Released here as 'The Lost Levels', Super Mario Bros. 2 is a VERY HARD GAME. One such challenge is 'fake' Bowsers popping up in locations for a quick boss fight. However hitting these 'fake' Bowsers results in minor villain appearing as he dies. That's because it's a fake, get it? 

However in worlds 8-4 and 9-3 you'll meet a blue Bowser who doesn't revert into a minor Koopa minion. Why is this one different? According to some manuals and guides, that was Bowser's Brother. Does he have a name? So far no, Bowser's Brother is all we have to go by. Maybe he's Kerog. He does have a fake version of himself in level D-4 like his brother. Bowser's Brother also appears in All Night Nippon Super Mario Bro's (a special limited release) and in the upgraded Super Mario Bros. game in Super Mario Bros. All-Stars. Though he's green instead of blue there and depending on the source either a fake Bowser or Bowser's Brother. The blue coloration is often used in various Mario games as an alternative color set for Bowser, and it looks great. It's just not as interesting as a character who only exists depending on who you ask.