Magic Carpet Madness
"Magic Carpet Madness" is an issue of the Super Mario Bros. comic series published under the Nintendo Comics System imprint.
Plot synopsisEdit
As King Toadstool is watering his plants, the phone rings, forcing the King to go into the castle to answer it. It turns out to be King Koopa playing a prank, and the King immediately hangs up. Princess Toadstool comes in and shrieks, noticing the mud the King has trampled all over the rugs. Later, the carpet cleaners, really a trio of Pidgits, arrive and start cleaning up the floors. However, the carpets begin to fly, as Koopa laced it with Flying Carpet Juice. Princess Toadstool hovers above Mario and Luigi, and eventually flies so high that she is up in the clouds. The Pidgits appear and begin to hypnotize her.
Mario and Luigi, who are getting attacked by a carpet, swallow it up with a vacuum cleaner. They go out to the garden, where the King is oblivious to his daughter's missing status. Suddenly, Princess Toadstool appears, complete with a punk outfit and flies around Mario, Luigi, and the King. Mario realizes the Pidgits are controlling her, but does not know how to stop them. Princess flies around, crashing into a blimp (containing Koopa), and eventually slams into a beanstalk, which had started to grow as Mario had unknowingly sat on a sack of fertilizer, causing it to spill out onto the bean seeds. She falls to the ground, but is saved by King Toadstool and his plants. She comes to her senses and thanks her father, saying that he could trample mud in the house anytime he wanted.
CharactersEdit
- Mario
- Luigi
- Princess Toadstool
- King Koopa
- King Toadstool
- Mushroom People
- Pidgits
- Flowers
- Birds
GalleryEdit
Cover for the reprint of the comic in Super Mario Bros. No. 2 soft cover
Notable mistakes and errorsEdit
- When Princess Toadstool lands on a carpet after she falls from her magic carpet, the shackles on her wrists are missing.
- In the Swedish translation, when King Koopa is pouring the Flying Carpet Juice, the jug of Flying Carpet Juice he is holding has the original name of the liquid written on it, as opposed to the jug on the bottom-left corner of the panel that has the Swedish name written on it.
Version differencesEdit
- In the original version, when Princess Toadstool is lifted into the sky on the magic carpet, she passes through the "O-Zone" and the "Oh-No Zone" before arriving in the "Koopa Zone," all of which play on the word "ozone." In the Finnish and Brazilian Portuguese translations, "zone" is translated as "taso" and "zona" respectively, resulting in the pun being lost due to "zone" and "ozone" not being homophonic in these languages. (Ozone is "otsoni" and "ozono" in Finnish and Portuguese, respectively.)
- In the German version:
- In the original version, King Toadstool's flowers are referred to as "Bud," making a pun on term used to refer to a newly-sprouted leaf or blossom as well as a form of address. In the translation, they are referred to as "Petunia," making a pun on a type of flower as well as a given name.
- In the Finnish and Brazilian Portuguese translations, the name "Bud" is translated literally, referring only to a newly-sprouted leaf or blossom.
- In the Swedish translation, the flowers are called "Nisse," a given name.
- When King Koopa prank calls the king, the original version has him telling him that, if his refrigerator is running, he has to catch it. In the translation, he imitates an automatic answering machine. The Brazilian Portuguese translation leaves the line intact, though, as correndo and funcionando are not polysemic, the pun is lost.
- Koopa and the Pidgits speak normally as the Princess is lifted into the sky as opposed to singing, saying that she is going into the "big white sky."
- When the Princess reaches the "Koopa-Zone," her speech is not censored, unlike in the original version.
- In the original version, when the Princess says "Hmmm..." as she flies up past a couple of birds, the younger bird asks his father what kind of bird she is, to which he suggests that she is some kind of "'hmmm'-ingbird." The Brazilian Portuguese translation leaves this intact, though, as hummingbird in Portuguese is either "beija-flor" or "colibri," this results in the pun being lost.
- In the original version, King Toadstool's flowers are referred to as "Bud," making a pun on term used to refer to a newly-sprouted leaf or blossom as well as a form of address. In the translation, they are referred to as "Petunia," making a pun on a type of flower as well as a given name.
Names in other languagesEdit
| Language | Name | Meaning | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|
| Finnish | Lentävä matto[1] | The flying carpet | |
| German | Der fliegende teppich[2] | The flying carpet | |
| Portuguese | A loucura do tapete mágico[3] | Magic carpet madness | |
| Swedish | Flyg fula matta flyg[4] | Fly dirty carpet fly |
NotesEdit
- In the original version, when Princess Toadstool is lifted into the sky by a magic carpet, King Koopa and the Pidgits sing a parody of "The U.S. Air Force" song.
- The premise of bean seeds growing into a giant beanstalk is a reference to the fairy tale "Jack and the Beanstalk". Additionally, in the original version, when Mario and Luigi climb the beanstalk, the latter says that the last one up is a "jolly green giant," which both alludes to the giant in the fairy tale as well as the titular mascot of the Green Giant vegetable company.
- While flying on the magic carpet, Princess Toadstool crashes into a blimp with "Bad-Year" written on, which alludes to the Goodyear blimp.
- When the Princess expresses surprise upon entering the "Koopa-Zone," her dialogue is partially censored through the use of special characters, which usually indicates that a character is using expletives, making this one of the few instances of expletives being used in the Super Mario franchise.