Club Mario

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Everyone knows about the Super Mario Bros. Super Show. Watched it. Loved it. Did the Mario dance with Captain Lou during the ending credits.

Even if you didn't see it after school, two DVD collections are now available that contain all the cartoons and live-action Mario Bros. scenes.

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Tommy Treehugger and Co-M.C.

But did you know that there were alternate opening segments that did not feature Mario and Luigi?

For some of the cartoons, Captain Lou Albano and Danny Wells the live-action Mario brothers were not part of the Super Show

They were replaced by something terrible, cliched, and purely 90s: Club Mario!

Cast

• Tommy Treehugger - Chris Coombs

• Co-M.C. / Evil Eric - Michael Anthony Rawlins

• Tammi Treehugger - Victoria Delany

Tommy Treehugger and Co-M.C. were the hosts – two twenty-somethings pretending to be teenagers who owned a big-screen TV and "satellite surfed" between extreme sports clips and wacky interviews in their radical apartment.

Their "satellite" looked like an upside-down Chinese parasol, whenever they wanted to "satellite surf", they would make a big deal of adjusting the thing and there was a weird lady with big hair who occasionally appeared on their TV between clips.

The Cartoons shown where not new Mario cartoons they where the same ones from the super show.

On Fridays, (Legend of Zelda cartoon day!),Co-M.C. was replaced by his "brother", "Evil Eric", who loved to cause mayhem "Eric" and "Co-M.C." were played by the same guy.

Tammy Treehugger (Tommy's "little" sister, who happened to be over six feet tall) joined in the hijinx which involved ganging up on Tommy.

Tammy claimed she "ate a lot of cereal", which helped her grow so tall. Did I mention that she looked like an artificial Barbie doll (complete with blonde ponytail), chomped gum, and spoke in a grating valley-girl accent?

The segments were shot to replace the live-action Mario and Luigi (Albano and Wells) when the show ran into further syndication.

It’s likely that they were trying to win over the Saturday morning audience that was, at the time, consumed with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles and the like with all-new “hip” hosts. By adding wrap-arounds only, DiC could save money by creating a new “series” while using existing cartoons.

The show opened the same way we expected with a purple holographic screen and Mario's smiling head exclaimed, "Hey, paisanos! It's the Super Mario Bros. Super Show!" But electric guitars came in with a heavy drum beat then the camera angles went screwy. What the heck is this?

The visuals combined the Mario cartoon opening, scenes from the Mario episode "The Bird! The Bird!", and random shots of the Club Mario cast and set.

At one point, the digitized voice says "M-M-M-M-Mario", but it sounds like he's saying "Wario" (funny, because this was years before there even was a Wario). No Captain Lou dance at all. No sign of the famous plumbing shop and basement apartment.

In fact, the only thing Mario-related on the set was a Mario doll. There was a episode where the entire stage crew jumped onto the set and partied (whilst extreme camera angles ruled the day), one of the sound guys was dancing with the ugly Mario doll.

They could have turned the set into "Club" Anything. It was about as generic you can get.

The Mario rap intro song was replaced by a different theme, something loud with cheesy lyrics and extreme guitar riffs.

Theme Song

Name any place that you wanna go-o
We'll take you there, oh don't you know
We're at the Club
Club Mario
Come join the Club
C-C-C-Club M-M-Mario

Grab your seat, hold on to your ha-at
Satellite Surfin' is where it's at
Here at the Club
Club Mario
Come join the Club
C-C-C-Club M-M-Mario

Why did they decide to change the classic Super Show opening for this tripe? Maybe it was an attempt to make Mario & Co more radical and extreme like rival mascot Sonic the Hedgehog.

After all, Sonic was specifically designed to be everything Mario wasn't, and Sega's commercials said as much. There was a bitter rivalry between Nintendo and Sega in those days.

The segments aren't mentioned anywhere on the Super Mario Bros. Super Show! DVD collections from Shout! Factory and it's been left off the DVD archives.

Original Air Date 1990