Bedtime for Drain-Head
"Bedtime for Drain-Head" is a Super Mario Bros. comic featured as part of the Nintendo Comics System.
Plot synopsis
The story begins with Mario lying in bed after having spent 72 straight hours reading his favorite comics, Dirk Drain-Head. He moans that he would do it all over again if he could before falling straight to sleep. However, as soon as he dozes off, Luigi rushes in with disturbing news: Toad has been kidnapped by King Koopa. Mario tells him to "write a strongly-worded letter to the Mushroom Times...in the morning!" Luigi tells Mario he has ten minutes to get out of bed and stalks out. Eight minutes later, outside Mario's room, Luigi walks up with a plunger, bucket of water, and an alarm clock. He and Princess Toadstool walk into Mario's room, with Luigi telling her that this could "get ugly". Mario is up, but announces, "You're mistaken, my friend, I am Dirk Drain-Head!!!!"
Luigi tells the Princess about Mario's sleepwalking habit, but neither of them notice the fact that he is going out the window with his sheets as a rope. The Princess and Luigi find Mario's comic books all over the castle, and decide that they should stay home, as Mario will be fine, as long as he does not think he is rescuing Dirk's "teenage comedic sidekick" Snakey. Meanwhile, Mario is traipsing about on clouds in the sky, all while calling Snakey's name a total of eight times, ending with, "It's all my fault!", all while avoiding the Snifits swarming around him. Luigi and Toadstool seem to have changed their minds, as they are now coming after Mario.
Mario is now inside Koopa's castle, and smacking away Sparkies while droning lines such as "You must understand, my dire-yet-tragic foes, it is not you I am personally going after." Luigi and Toadstool are walking up to Koopa's home, amidst wreckage of Flurries, green Cobrats, and Bob-ombs. A crowd of enemies tell the two that "Luigi's brother" fights dirty, and they are reporting this to Koopa. Luigi is embarrassed about all the damage Mario has caused, and wonders how much trouble they are in with the Koopa King.
Mario knocks out Birdo, who gives him exact directions to Koopa. Upon arrival, he finds Toad is smart-mouthing Koopa, who wants to see his father on Kingdom's Most Wanted. When Mario knocks down the door with Dirk's catchphrase, "It's Plungin' Time!" "Dirk" and Koopa prepare for battle.
Luigi and Toadstool are unable to find Mario, Toad, and King Koopa, but upon return, they find the missing Koopa serving the Mushroom King, Wooster, and Toad grape sodas with paper umbrellas. With Mario being surprisingly strong, Koopa had decided to make a truce to avoid any further harm. The King slaps Mario heartily on the back, enough so that the sleepwalker awakes. Koopa, realizing that he was captured single-handedly by a sleepwalking plumber, storms off, humiliated, as do all the others. Mario, however, decides to read the comic book he hid in the royal throne.
Gallery
Cover art for the original print of the comic in Super Mario Bros. No. 3
Cover art for the comic's reprint in Super Mario Bros. Adventures
Characters
- Mario
- Luigi
- Princess Toadstool
- Toad
- King Koopa
- King Toadstool
- Wooster
- Goomba
- Piranha Plant
- Bob-omb
- Bullet Bills
- Shyguys
- Snifits
- Birdos
- Cobrat
- Ninjis
- Sparks
Notable mistakes and errors
- In the original printing, Princess Toadstool incorrectly refers to Luigi as Mario when mentioning that her father was once turned into a spider.
- In the original version, "you're" is incorrectly used instead of "your" when a Shyguy mentions that Luigi's brother is in big trouble with the Koopa King.
- In the Finnish translation, when Mario takes out the Dirk Drain-Head comic from inside the throne, the text is blue, but in the next panel, it turns blue. The text is blue in both panels of the original version.
- In the German translation, Mario incorrectly says that he spent 12 hours reading Dirk Drain-Head instead of 72.
Version differences
- In the Finnish translation, in the first panel, most of the text on Mario's Dirk Drain-Head comics is removed with the exception of "Subscribe!" on the comic Mario is reading.
Names in other languages
| Language | Name | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finnish | Drainhead unimaailmassa[1] | Drain-Head in the dream world | |
| German | Dirk Rohrkopf schlägt wieder zu[2] | Dirk Drain-Head strikes again | |
| Portuguese | Hora de dormir para Dirk[3] | Bedtime for Dirk | |
| Swedish | Läggdags för Slaskmannen[4] | Bedtime for Dirk Drain-Head |
Notes
- The phrase "With awesome power comes better-than-average responsibility" is a parody of Spider-Man's motto, "With great power comes great responsibility." Additionally, the phrase "The first man to raise a fist was the first one to run out of ideas" references a quote from the 1979 science fiction novel Time After Time.
