Mario and Joliet

"Mario and Joliet" is the twenty-third episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!. Its corresponding live-action segment is "Fake Bro". "Mario and Joliet" is a clear parody of the tragic play Romeo and Juliet by William Shakespeare; who the episode's Plumber's Log, 1601, also references, as 1601 was the year William Shakespeare wrote another one of his plays, Hamlet. Additionally, the title and ending of this episode are unique, resembling an advertisement of sorts for a play.

Plot synopsis
In the Land of Romance, Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool, who had been called there by a friend of the Princess, are currently trapped in a rapidly crumbling build by several Snifits, half of whom are wearing red, the others wearing blue, and are shooting explosive projectiles at each other. As the Snifits continue to blast surrounding buildings with their exploding missiles, several Beezos appear and begin to swoop downward at Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool, who quickly run away into a nearby hole in the ground, causing the Beezo to miss impaling the group with their spears.

As the Beezos fly away, the group stick their heads out of the hole they are in, with Princess Toadstool stating that she needs to find her friend Joliet and discover what is causing all these reported feuds in the Land of Romance. As Mario, Toad and Princess Toadstool leave the hole they are in, Luigi decides to stay in the hole, only to be scared from it by having a wayward Snifit's missile almost hitting him and by having a large amount of dusty debris fall on him.

After digging himself out of a pile of dusty debris, Luigi catches up to Mario, Toad and the Princess, only to discover that they are all in an alley, which leads to a dead-end. At this dead-end, Luigi suddenly points out an Albatoss carrying a Bob-omb, which is rapidly approaching him, Toad, Mario and the Princess. Swooping downward, the Albatoss drops the Bob-omb it is clutching right on top of the group; before the Bob-omb hits them, though, the ground beneath them opens up, dropping them into the sewer below the street.

Getting up, off the floor of the sewer as explosions echo above him, Mario says that he, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool only narrowly manage to escape disaster that time. Evidently hearing Mario, Joliet and her fiancée, Romano, who are nearby, reveal themselves to Mario, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool. Seeing Joliet and Romano, the Princess asks them what is going on in the Land of Romance, only to get the response from Joliet that she and Romano were going to get married, until King Koopa came to the Land of Romance and started a feud between her and Romano's fathers, making them hate each other. Hearing Joliet and Romano's story, the Princess decides that, as the official princess of both Joliet and Romano's fathers, she could order them to stop their feud.

Sometime later, Toad, after moving a tile in the ceiling of the sewer, is raised above to the streets of the Land of Romance by Mario and Luigi; on the streets, Toad sees that the red- and blue-robed Snifits are still battling each other. Accidentally falling back into the sewer and on top of the Mario Brothers, Toad tells Princess Toadstool that the Snifits are still battling each other. Hearing Toad say this, the Princess has Mario and Luigi give her a boost to the streets of the Land of Romance, where she, upon landing on the ground, whistles for both the red and blue robed Snifits to stop battling one another.

As the Snifits stand in place, muttering to themselves in a confused manner, two men, carrying shields, which they drop, exit buildings opposite one another. Asking the two men to see Joliet and Romano's fathers, Princess Toadstool learns that the man commanding the blue-robed Snifits is Romano's father, while the man commanding the red-robed Snifits is Joliet's father. Angered that his battle against Joliet's father has been interrupted, Romano's father, after introducing himself, sarcastically asks if Princess Toadstool actually is Princess Toadstool and gets the response from Toad that she is.

After Toad introduces her, the Princess tells Romano's father and Joliet's father that Romano and Joliet love one another and wish to get married. Repulsed by Princess Toadstool saying this, both fathers refuse to allow their children to marry, only to be told by Mario that the Princess was not suggesting that Romano and Joliet be allowed to marry; she was ordering that they be allowed to marry. After Mario states this, the Princess makes a decree stating that the feud that is occurring is officially over and that Romano and Joliet are going to be married. As the Snifit minions of Joliet's father mull over this decree, Princess Toadstool orders the fathers to shake hands, which they hesitantly do, each one trying to crush the other's hand by squeezing it.

Elsewhere, in a castle, King Koopa begins to be enraged by the sight of Romano's father and Joliet's father, who he is watching through a mirror, shaking hands. After realizing that Princess Toadstool was the one who stopped them from feuding, King Koopa pulls a lever on his mirror, which shows his reflection, which actually begins to talk on its own. King Koopa's reflection begins to tell him that he has to stop the wedding of Romano and Joliet, then reminds King Koopa that, if Romano and Joliet manage to marry, his war-profiteering scandal will be ruined, with King Koopa being unable to sell Snifits, Albatosses and Bob-ombs to Romano's father and Joliet's father. Eventually, after some talking with his reflection, King Koopa is told that he could maybe kidnap Joliet and blame Romano's family as her kidnappers, an idea which he agrees to be brilliant.

In a cathedral, Toad, opening the door to her room, greets Joliet and tells her to hurry in her preparations, saying the wedding will happen soon. As Joliet begins to sing to herself while gazing in the mirror and holding her bouquet of flowers, an Albatoss suddenly swoops into the room through a nearby window. Seeing the Albatoss approaching, Joliet begins to panic while Toad attempts to battle the Albatoss, only to be knocked to the floor. As Joliet runs from the Albatoss, she is grabbed by its talons, and it hastily begins to leave through the window it came in. As the Albatoss furiously flaps its wings and soars away with Joliet, Toad makes an attempt to tackle it, only to fall on his face and be left to watch as the Albatoss flies away with the captive Joliet.

In the main hall of the cathedral, Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Romano's father, Joliet's father, as well as their Snifit soldiers, all are waiting for Joliet to appear with Romano. Suddenly, Toad rushes into the church's main hall and informs everyone present that Joliet has been kidnapped. Hearing of his daughter's abduction from Toad, Joliet's father begins to accuse Romano's father of being the one to have kidnapped Joliet. These wild accusations soon cause Romano's father to begin to bicker with Joliet's father; this bickering eventually escalates into a fight, which in turn, leads to the fathers to order their Snifit minions to begin to attack.

As the Snifits begin to shoot barrages of explosives, Toad, Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Romano can only watch as the cathedral begins to crumble from being hit by wayward projectiles. As the Snifits battle, Toad begins trying to convince the fathers to stop their Snifit minions, saying that the battle between the Snifits could cause the cathedral to collapse on top of everyone; they simply ignore Toad though, being too engaged in battle to notice him yelling. As the cathedral crumbles and Luigi begins to panic, Romano quickly grabs the handle of a trapdoor on the ground and pulls, opening it. As Romano holds the trapdoor's lid open, Toad, Princess Toadstool, Mario and Luigi quickly jump into the hole beneath it, with Romano following them. Just as Romano falls through the trapdoor, a large amount of debris falls onto its lid, burying it. In the sewers beneath the Land of Romance, Romano tells Mario's group that Joliet must be rescued and begins to contemplate who could have kidnapped her, only to be told by the group that it must have been King Koopa who did it.

At King Koopa's castle, Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Toadstool and Romano are disheartened to see that the drawbridge of the castle is up and that the castle's moat is filled with voracious Trouters. Getting an idea on how to cross the Trouter-infested moat, Mario jumps on a nearby pile of logs, knocking them loose. Rolling on top of these logs, Mario manages to use them as stepping stones to cross when they crash into the moat. Using the logs to pass the moat and reach King Koopa's castle, Mario tells the others to do so as well. Doing as Mario says, they use the logs as stepping stones; unfortunately, only the Princess, Toad and Luigi reach the castle, with Romano having fallen off the logs and into the moat. Flailing around in the water of the moat, Romano sees a Trouter quickly approaching him and he, in a panic, manages to narrowly avoid the Trouter and hop on several nearby logs, which he uses to reach the castle.

As Romano rejoins the group, Mario congratulates him on having reached King Koopa's castle; after he does so, though, a net is suddenly dropped from the sky by an Albatoss, who uses the net to capture everyone, who the Albatoss begins to fly upwards with.

In the dungeon tower of King Koopa's castle, Joliet begins to wonder and ask where Romano is, only to get the response from King Koopa that he is right there; after saying this, King Koopa has Grunt, his Super Troopa assistant, throw Mario, Luigi, Toad, Princess Toadstool and Romano into the tower dungeon with Joliet. After they are thrown into the tower dungeon, King Koopa and Grunt, the latter of whom has been charged with guarding Mario, Luigi, Toad, the Princess, Romano and Joliet, leave. As Romano and Joliet kiss, the Mario Brothers watch as Grunt lifts a set of heavy weights and begin to wonder how they will escape him. Hearing the brothers' concerns about how they will get past Grunt, Toad gets an idea and has Mario lift him to the barred window of the dungeon tower's door. Peering through the window, Toad begins to taunt Grunt, saying that he does not look too strong. As Grunt continues to lift a set of weights, Toad ridicules him, saying he has seen a Koopa Troopa lift twice as much as Grunt. Lifting two sets of weights, Grunt is tricked into lifting a third weight with his mouth by Princess Toadstool; as Grunt struggles to hold the weights in his hands and the one in his mouth, the floor beneath him begins to crack and eventually collapses under the combined weight of him and the heavy weights he is holding. With Grunt having fallen through the hole he made in the floor, Mario tells Toad his idea was great, but goes on to say that Grunt was the one who had the key to the door they are stuck behind.

As Joliet absentmindedly plucks some of flowers from her bouquet, the Princess suddenly notices that the bouquet is composed entirely of Fire Flowers. After hearing her say this, Mario grabs Joliet's bouquet and immediately transforms into Super Mario. Now more powerful, Mario blasts the door keeping them captive with a fireball, destroying it. Now free from their imprisonment, they all quickly begin to descend a nearby staircase, only to encounter King Koopa and his Koopa Pack, which consists of several Koopa Troopas. Seeing the group, King Koopa instantly orders his Koopa Troopa followers to attack. As the Koopa Troopas approach him, Mario tells the others to find another way to escape King Koopa's castle as he fights the Koopa Troopas. With the Koopa Troopas quickly approaching, Mario attempts to blast them with several fireballs, only for the Troopas to remove their shells and use them as shields against the fireballs.

Realizing his fireballs are ineffective against the Koopa Troopas, Mario, after shooting one more explosive fireball, flees up the stairs, at the top of which Luigi, Toad, Princess Toadstool, Romano and Joliet are in the process of lowering a door on to a pair of weights. After setting this door on the weights, they rush forward on the vehicle they have created as Mario continues to run from the Koopa Troopas. Just as Mario loses his Super Mario form, the others come careening down the stairs on their vehicle, which Mario jumps on. After narrowly crashing into several Koopa Troopas, they all encounter King Koopa, who begins to run from them. Reaching a nearby lever, King Koopa pulls it, which causes the drawbridge of his castle to begin to raise. Before the drawbridge rises completely, Mario, Luigi, Toad, the Princess, Romano and Joliet ride up it and use it as a ramp for their vehicle to leap across the Trouter-infested moat. As they ride away, waving to him, King Koopa is left to only roar in frustration atop his castle.

Back in the ruined cathedral of the Land of Romance, Princess Toadstool is just finishing pronouncing Romano and Joliet husband and wife. After Romano and Joliet kiss, their fathers shake hands and claim that their children's happiness mattered more than their pointless feud. Hearing them state this, Mario, Luigi and Toad say that in the end, everything worked out; it is only after they state this that they notice the fathers fighting once more, this time, over who their children will live with. Eventually, this fight escalates into a new feud and both Romano's father and Joliet's father begin a food fight, throwing several nearby pizzas at one another. As the fathers fight, Mario, who has a large amount of spaghetti on his head, can only stand nearby, saying that this is his kind of feud, before eating some spaghetti taken from on top of his hat.

Characters

 * Mario
 * Luigi
 * Princess Toadstool
 * Toad
 * King Koopa
 * Joliet
 * Romano
 * Romano's father and Joliet's father
 * Grunt
 * Snifits

Cast

 * Lou Albano &mdash; Mario
 * Danny Wells &mdash; Luigi, Romano's father
 * Jeannie Elias &mdash; Princess Toadstool
 * John Stocker &mdash; Toad, Koopa Troopa
 * Harvey Atkin &mdash; King Bowser Koopa, Joliet's father, Super Troopa, Snifits
 * Greg Swason &mdash; Romano
 * Joyce Gordon &mdash; Joliet

Animation and continuity errors

 * When first seen, the Snifits working for Romano's father are depicted as wearing blue robes, instead of red ones.
 * When the camera scrolls over to Grunt in the hallway chamber, he appears out of thin air.
 * This also happens a few shots later when the floor is seen cracking under the weight of the 3 dumbbells he is holding, whereas his foot appears out of nowhere.
 * When the floor becomes unstable and breaks, two dumbbells (of the three) roll into the newly created hole and (supposedly) onto Grunt, whereas later when the gang is building the "kart", they use two dumbbells as axles, which is impossible since two fell into the hole, leaving one left in the hallway.
 * When Romano and Joliet reunite in Koopa's dungeon after her capture, the close-up shot on the two shows that Joliet's neck emerges from behind her back instead of her upper chest.
 * When the gang (Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, Joliet, and Romano) escapes the dungeon chamber and darts down the stairway, Romano is not present in the shot where the gang gasps at the Koopa Troopa army.
 * When King Koopa pulls the lever to raise the drawbridge, it is quickly rising and nearly closed until the scene goes the gang riding on the "kart", where when the camera returns to the drawbridge, it is rising much slower and is half shut before the gang escapes.
 * In the shot when Luigi says,”We’re gonna be crushed!” The whole gang who are supposed to be standing there in that shot are totally missing.
 * When Mario grabs Joliet's bouquet, there is an error where it shows two bouquets; one in Joliet's hands and one in Mario's hands. This is hard to spot due to the close up bouquet covering up Mario's hands.

Trivia

 * Official summaries of the episode refer to Romano as Romero.
 * This episode is the only one with a unique title card design.
 * The net gag in the episode refers to the late Annette Funicello, a member of Disney's original Mickey Mouse Club in 1955.
 * The Albatoss that kidnapped Joliet sounds exactly like Patches from Pirates of Koopa.