Quest for Pizza

"Quest for Pizza" is the thirty-seventh episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! Its corresponding live-action segment is "The Painting". It is the first episode of the show where Luigi is the main character instead of Mario.

Plot synopsis
Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad arrive in Caveman Land searching for Mugga the Medicine Woman, who they hope will set the Mushroom Kingdom free. But King Koopa shows up first, and is now causing dinosaur-sized trouble. Almost immediately, they encounter a Mousersaurus Rex. Their attempts to flee the pursuing creature are thwarted by a Birdo-riding King Koopa, who introduces himself as Alley Koop. When Mario and the gang run in a different direction, Alley Koop tosses a red, poisonous snake that proceeds to pursue the Mario Bros. When the Brothers trip on a bone in the ground, the snake bites Mario in the leg, causing him to fall unconscious. Luigi and the others run to Mario's side and remove the snake, but cannot get a response from Mario. Alley Koop, the Mousersaurus, and a group of spear-wielding Koopa Troopas arrive to defeat the remaining protagonists. When the group finds themselves cornered in front of a waterfall, a caveman Toad swoops in from a vine and tells them in his own language to get behind the waterfall, away from the sight of their pursuers.

Behind the waterfall, the gang discovers Mugga the Medicine Woman, who the Princess hopes can help Mario. Mugga is shocked and disgusted by Mario's poor state, and shows the group a hieroglyphic depicting the unconscious Mario. Luigi, wanting instead to help the real Mario, attempts to revive him with a number of his favorite foods, including pepperoni cheesecake, a meatball sandwich, garlic ravioli, and prosciutto spaghetti. All of these fail to wake him up, and Luigi becomes inconsolable and starts crying after realizing that he is unable to wake his brother up. Mugga, trying to comfort Luigi, mutters the word "pizza", to which Luigi brightens up. Mugga then shows Luigi the rest of the hieroglyphics, which depict Luigi giving pizza to Mario. Luigi, realizing that this is the cure, decides to order take-out, but Toadstool informs him that there's no pizza parlors in the primitive Caveman Land, and that they'll have to make their own.

To get the milk necessary to make the cheese for Mario's pizza, Luigi goes to a Cowazaurus, using a stepladder to reach its udders. The beast's tail whips the ladder from under Luigi's feet, causing him to grab onto an udder. This squirts all of the milk they need into a conveniently-placed bucket. The Cowazaurus falls in love with Luigi, who now has to be rescued by a vine-swinging Toad. At a large tree, Luigi wonders if ground acorns would be compatible with a pizza. Right after Toad doubts Luigi's theory, a giant prehistoric squirrel confronts Luigi as he is hoarding the acorns. As the group is sent fleeing from the colossal rodent, Toad reminds the others that all they need is tomatoes for the pizza sauce, which should be easy to achieve compared to the previous ingredients. At a tomato patch, the group is discovered by Alley Koop and his gang, forcing them to take whatever ingredients they have behind the waterfall. Unfortunately, a trail of tomatoes is left behind, allowing Alley Koop to discover where the group keeps hiding out. As Luigi bakes an admittedly mediocre pizza, Alley Koop's Mousersaurus ambushes the waterfall with a giant log, flooding the secret city and ruining both the pizza and the fire. A triumphant Alley Koop is now sure of Mario's imminent doom.

It is discovered that the pizza survived the flood, but Luigi proclaims that it is not a pizza until it is cooked. With a char-covered stick from the ruined fire, Mugga draws a Fire Flower on her wall, informing everyone (through a translating Toad) that Alley Koop has a Fire Flower, but keeps it under heavy guard. Luigi then figures that if they can retrieve this Fire Flower, Mario can be saved. Alley Koop is already aware of Luigi's plan, and enlists his minions to stop him. At the end, Luigi gets the Fire Flower and turns into Fire Luigi and defeats Koopa when he lands in the marsh. Luigi is worried that the time is almost up and the cave-boy finally tells the three to take a shortcut. Then, they finally cook the pizza to wake Mario up. After waking up Mario, he stuffs the whole pizza in his mouth and says, "Only one pizza?", as Luigi starts to talk in caveman language, Toad and Princess Toadstool laugh as Mario is embarrassed.

Cast

 * Lou Albano &mdash; Mario
 * Danny Wells &mdash; Luigi
 * Jeannie Elias &mdash; Princess Toadstool
 * John Stocker &mdash; Toad, Mouser, mushroom
 * Harvey Atkin &mdash; King Bowser Koopa
 * Diane Fabian &mdash; Mugga

Animation and continuity errors

 * In the start of the episode, when Alley Koop throws a Cobrat towards Mario's friends, he has Mario's voice.
 * When Luigi misinterprets the Cave Mushroom's first line as being something about mashed potatoes, he has Princess Toadstool's voice.
 * When Toad looks over the picture of the Mousersaurus, the book spells it "Mouseraurus".
 * When King Koopa and the Koopa Pack start to run after Mario and his friends, King Koopa is not wearing his Alley Koop costume.
 * When Luigi cries, covering his eyes with his hands, his mustache has the same color as his skin.
 * When Fire Luigi looks at his watch, his arm is showing, but in the next shot the watch is over his shirt and the sleeves are blue, not green.
 * There are a few instances where the Mousersaurus's face turns maroon like his body.
 * When Luigi obtains the Fire Flower, his shirt is green, which are the colors of the shirt and overalls of his fire form from what they are in the franchise starting with Super Mario World reversed and it also resembles his sprite from Super Mario Bros..
 * When King Koopa follows Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad to the hidden cave, there were no tomatoes on the ground, but in the next shot, they appear.
 * When Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad first enter the cave, Princess Toadstool's broach is not colored correctly.
 * In the scene where Luigi, Princess Toadstool, Toad, and the Cave Mushroom are driving a dinosaur skeleton, the bones change color throughout shots.
 * The Mousersaurus's bandage swaps which foot it's on throughout the episode.
 * In one shot of this episode, King Koopa's bone is brown instead of white.
 * When Luigi turns into his fire form, his outfit resembles Mario's outfit from Mario Bros.

Profiles

 * Netflix: It's a prehistoric problem of delicious proportions when Caveman Alley Koopa poisons Mario, and the only way to save him is to bake a pizza.

Trivia

 * As a running gag, the Mousersaurus Rex gets his foot hurt 5 times throughout the episode. Three times by Koopa (twice accidentally and once intentionally), once by Luigi who drops a dinosaur skeleton bone on his foot, and once by Princess Toadstool, Toad, and the Caveman Toad when their vehicle lands on his foot.