Love 'Em and Leave 'Em

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! episode
"Love 'Em and Leave 'Em"
Production number	108
Airdate	September 14, 1989 (English) September 13, 1990 (French)
Writer(s)	David Ehrman Sean Roche
Plumber's Log #	1 - 0 - 5 - 11
Cover song(s)	"The Power of Love"
Replacement song(s)	"My Karoobi"
Title reference	Love 'em or leave 'em
Live-action segment	Will the Real Elvis Please Shut Up!
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Not to be confused with Lava or Leave 'Em.

“HELP! My life is over! I'm a prisoner of love!”

—Mario

"Love 'Em and Leave 'Em" is the eighth episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!. Its corresponding live-action segment is "Will the Real Elvis Please Shut Up!".

Plot synopsis

The gluttonous Queen Rotunda is about to marry Mario.

Inside a castle in the kingdom of Rotundaland, the land's queen, Queen Rotunda is in the middle of a conversation with another woman named Hildy, who is in the middle of brewing a potion. As Hildy continues to mix her potion, Queen Rotunda asks if Hildy's potion will make Prince Pompadour fall in love with her. Hildy replies that her Passion Potion will definitely make Prince Pompadour fall in love with Queen Rotunda, they just have to make sure that she is the first person he sees after they make him drink the potion. After saying this, Hildy proceeds to put some of the Passion Potion into a heart shaped container.

Outside Queen Rotunda's castle, Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad are standing on a grassy knoll; suddenly, a beeping and rattling noise cuts through the air, surprising Luigi, who asks what the noise is. Mario calmly responds to Luigi's question by saying the noise is coming from his Red-Hot Pepper Detector and proceeds to take a device resembling a chili pepper out of his overalls. As the Red-Hot Pepper Detector begins to shake in Mario's hands, he, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad run in the direction of Queen Rotunda's castle.

After some running, the quartet finds a large field filled with giant peppers. Luigi, having grabbed several peppers, begins to stumble backwards, only to stop from falling when he leans on to a recently thrown lance. While resting on the lance, Luigi suddenly notices three Beezos, one of which is riding an Ostro, wearing armor and wielding lances nearby.

As Luigi is forced backwards by two Beezos and their lances, he alerts Mario, Toad and Princess Toadstool of their situation. As they are surrounded by Beezos, the Beezo riding an Ostro tells Princess Toadstool that they are stealing the red-hot peppers of Queen Rotunda. Princess Toadstool claims their innocence, telling the Beezo that the peppers are growing in the wild (when in actuality, they are fenced in). The Beezo tells Princess Toadstool that everything in Rotunda Land belongs to Queen Rotunda and, despite them giving the peppers back, the Beezo says that they are to be taken to Queen Rotunda's dungeon.

Not wanting to be captured, Mario, grabbing a nearby pepper, throws it at the Beezo riding the Ostro, knocking it off its Ostro. With the Beezo distracted, Mario and the others begin to run, right into a nearby hedge maze. After some running, the group find their way out of the hedge maze and back together. Suddenly, the Beezos that had been chasing them appear and, using their lances, hoist them into the air and tell them that they are to be taken to Queen Rotunda.

In the castle of Queen Rotunda, Queen Rotunda herself is in the midst of thanking Hildy for her Passion Potion when one of her Beezo henchmen enter the room. Approaching Queen Rotunda, the Beezo tells her that she has prisoners in the throne room, who were caught stealing her royal hot peppers. Queen Rotunda, outraged by this begins to leave the room, only to be stopped by Hildy, who gives her some of the Passion Potion; gaining the Passion Potion, Queen Rotunda leaves the room, knocking her Beezo servant aside.

In the throne room, Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad are forced to their knees by several Beezos as a nearby chef wheels a cart filled with food into the room, which Luigi perceives as their last meal. Suddenly, Queen Rotunda enters the room and tells Luigi that he does not get a last meal before eating some icing off a cake on the cart. Eating the icing, Queen Rotunda suddenly kicks the cart of food away, with the chef, saying that the cake is imperfect for her wedding to Prince Pompadour. Going to her throne, Queen Rotunda is reminded of her new prisoners by a Beezo. However, Queen Rotunda simply orders them to be beheaded.

Mario, panicking runs up to Queen Rotunda to tell her that he has the solution to her wedding dessert problem. As Mario is held in place by several Beezos, Queen Rotunda listens to what he has to say; Mario offers to make Queen Rotunda some "hot pepper pistachio ice cream" for her wedding, which Queen Rotunda decides to allow Mario to make for her, before beheading him.

Later, after making his hot pepper pistachio ice cream, Mario presents it to Queen Rotunda. Seeing that the hot pepper pistachio ice cream at least looks good, Queen Rotunda decides to take a bite of it; unfortunately, the hot pepper pistachio ice cream turns out to be incredibly spicy, causing Queen Rotunda to frantically hop around her throne room yelling for water. As Queen Rotunda continues to yell for water, Mario, wanting to help Queen Rotunda, grabs the nearby bottle of Passion Potion on the armrest of Queen Rotunda's throne and pours it in her mouth, throwing the bottle away.

As Queen Rotunda begins to recover, Mario asks if she is alright and if she liked his hot pepper pistachio ice cream, only to be shocked when Queen Rotunda begins to confess her love for him. Grabbing Mario, Queen Rotunda begins to kiss him as Princess Toadstool finds the bottle the Passion Potion was in and discovers it to be a love potion after reading the label on the bottle. As Mario begins to run from the love crazed Queen Rotunda, Queen Rotunda orders her Beezo guards to put Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool in her dungeon.

Still running from Queen Rotunda, Mario exits her throne room and hides behind the door when Queen Rotunda follows him through. As Queen Rotunda continues to search for him, Mario tries to sneak away from her; unfortunately, Queen Rotunda notices Mario and pulls the hallway carpet from under him and proceeds to wrap Mario in it. Trapped in the carpet and Queen Rotunda's grasp, Mario begins to panic and yell for help as Queen Rotunda says she has to prepare her wedding to him.

Inside her throne room, Queen Rotunda is in the process of sealing the flavored wedding invitations for her and Mario's wedding; while licking an envelope, Queen Rotunda proceeds to throw it away, disgusted at its spinach taste. The envelope proceeds to land near Mario, who is being forced to use an exercise machine, who asks if he can lick it. Queen Rotunda suddenly refuses to let Mario lick the envelope, saying he has to stay on his diet for their wedding.

In the dungeons of Queen Rotunda, Luigi begins to bemoan the fate of himself, Toad and Princess Toadstool; as Toad tries to cheer Luigi up though, Princess Toadstool forms a plan on how to escape their cell.

Later, Princess Toadstool begins to yell to a nearby Beezo guard that Luigi and Toad have escaped. The Beezo, running to the cell, notices Luigi and Toad's absence and unlocks the cell door. As the Beezo enters the cell to look for them, Luigi and Toad, at Princess Toadstool's signal, suddenly drop from the ceiling of the cell and trap the Beezo in a blanket; as Luigi holds the Beezo in place, Toad grabs the Beezo's keyring and places it over the Beezo, keeping the blanket covering it in place. After Luigi and Toad finish trapping the Beezo, Princess Toadstool leaves the cell, with Toad and Luigi following her.

In Queen Rotunda's kitchen, Queen Rotunda is in the process of kissing and hugging Mario hard enough to hurt him; eventually releasing Mario from her rough grip, Queen Rotunda decides to have some more of Mario's hot pepper pistachio ice cream and begins to eat a nearby bowl of it, refusing to let Mario have any, saying he is still on a diet. After some begging though, Mario gets Queen Rotunda to let him have some; unfortunately for Mario, he does not get to have any, as Queen Rotunda, in a fit of rage, throws the only bowl of it at a Beezo which had appeared to inform her that Toad, Princess Toadstool and Luigi had escaped the dungeons.

As Queen Rotunda begins to reprimand and threaten the Beezo with a beheading, Mario begins to try and run-off to find his group. Before he can leave Queen Rotunda's kitchen though, Mario is forced back by a Beezo brandishing a sword; with the Beezo blocking his path, Mario is grabbed by Queen Rotunda, who begins to give him several forceful kisses as Mario yells for help from Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool.

In a hallway, Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool, having heard Mario's shouts for help, also overhear several Beezo guards sent to look for them saying that Mario and Queen Rotunda's wedding is in two hours. As the Beezos pass them, Princess Toadstool, Luigi and Toad enter a nearby room. Noticing the various magic potions surrounding her, Princess Toadstool gets an idea, another Passion Potion could be created and used on Queen Rotunda to make her fall in love with someone else.

In the courtyard of her castle, Queen Rotunda is in the midst of preparing her wedding to Mario as several peasants and Beezos look onward; inside the laboratory of Hildy, Luigi and Toad are creating a Passion Potion as Princess Toadstool reads the ingredients in the potion to them. Unfortunately, once Toad adds the odd ingredient of a Fat Boys record, the potion they are creating explodes, forcing them to start over. In the castle courtyard, Queen Rotunda has finally decided to begin her wedding to Mario, as a nervous Luigi watches them from a window. The trio finally manages to create a love potion.

As Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool begin to descend the tower to the courtyard below, Queen Rotunda begins to drag a pink colored tuxedo wearing Mario down the aisle towards a Beezo minister and a Beezo ringbearer. Seeing Luigi, Toad and Princess Toadstool approaching, Mario makes a distraction by pretending to tie his shoe, allowing Luigi to pour the Passion Potion from his flask into two nearby glasses resting on a table. Mario then proposes a toast to Queen Rotunda and the nearby Prince Pompadour and gives the two the two glasses. Drinking the Passion Potion, Queen Rotunda and Prince Pompadour instantly fall in love with each other. Proposing to Queen Rotunda, Prince Pompadour gets a yes from Queen Rotunda as a reply to his proposal and the two instantly embrace.

Mario, happy that he is not marrying Queen Rotunda, goes to thank Luigi, who is waving to him up above. Suddenly, the stair beneath him crumbles slightly, knocking him off balance. Before Luigi falls though, he is grabbed by Princess Toadstool, only to drop his flask of Passion Potion into the wedding's punch bowl. Hildy goes to get a drink of punch to propose a toast to Queen Rotunda for not marrying Mario. As Luigi tries to warn her, Hildy drinks the Passion Potion spiked punch and instantly falls in love with Luigi.

Seeing that Hildy has fallen in love with him, Luigi quickly begins to run from Queen Rotunda's castle and Rotundaland with Princess Toadstool, Mario and Toad, with the love-struck Hildy chasing them.

Characters

• Mario
• Luigi
• Princess Toadstool
• Toad
• Queen Rotunda
• Hildy
• Prince Pompadour
• Beezos
• Ostros
• Shyguy

Cast

• Lou Albano — Mario
• Danny Wells — Luigi
• Jeannie Elias — Princess Toadstool, Servant
• John Stocker — Toad, Beezo #1, Beezo #2
• Denise Pidgeon — Queen Rotunda,
• Greg Morton — Prince Pompadour
• Marilyn Lightstone — Peasant Lady
• Cam Clarke — Rotunda's Guards

Animation and continuity errors

• The large hill that Rotunda's castle rests upon first appears to be flat with a moat surrounding it prior to the episode's beginning, but zoomed-out shots of the castle depict the hill being almost spherical, with no moat in sight.
• After Hildy pours the Passion Potion into the vial for Queen Rotunda, the potion-making equipment atop the table is missing.
• When Luigi asks Mario to remind him when a plumber is in danger, the lance that almost skewered Luigi (which is now stuck in the ground) is noticeably vibrating.
• When Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad are commanded to stop "robbing" from Queen Rotunda's hot pepper patch, it is unknown why Toad is happy if the gang is in trouble.
  • In that same scene, the peppers littering the ground around the gang change positions whenever the shots change, such as a pepper still stuck in the ground suddenly appearing before Mario when the Beezo threatens to stow the gang in Queen Rotunda's dungeon.
• The door to Queen Rotunda's dressing room has very thin line that borders the leaf (the hinged wooden frame) of the door that is visible when the Beezo enters the room.
• The array of candies on Queen Rotunda's vanity suddenly vanish when she becomes enraged with Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad robbing her peppers.
  • The two beakers on the edge of Hildy's work "station" are not present when Queen Rotunda is handed the vial of Passion Potion.
  • This also occurs again when the princess, Luigi, and Toad peak into the dressing room to whip up another love potion.
• The visible hair seen sticking out of Hildy's cloak is not present when she has her back towards the screen.
• At first glance, the cake on the cart being pushed by the chef is simply brown with a white top with a red cream puff on the very top, but when the chef comes closer to Mario and Luigi, the cake is much more detailed and the puff on the top is white,
  • Additionally, the white cream puff on the top of the cake coverts to a cherry and the base is more white in designs before Queen Rotunda taste-tests the cake.
    • The cake changes once again when Queen Rotunda enters the throne room, making the cake more generic and small in design.
      • The cake alters in appearance a fourth time when Queen Rotunda pokes her finger into the filling to test the flavor, causing the cake to appear much like the second time it changed- having great detail but odd coloring.
        • The wedding cake alters a fifth time when Queen Rotunda loudly shames the royal chef for making such an "awful" cake, causing the cake to revert to its first "form".
• When Luigi asks Mario if the cake and pastries are their "last meal", the "L" on Luigi's cap is reversed, and returns to normal when he notices Queen Rotunda entering the room.
• The two cart wheels that roll in front of Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad that come from the collision vanish when Mario pleas with Queen Rotunda to not decapitate him.
• Before Queen Rotunda taste-tests Mario's hot pepper pistachio ice cream, all the excess pastries and sweets on the wheelie cart vanish, but later when Mario runs over to assist the queen, all the pastries and sweets are back on the cart, but the ice cream is now missing, and later the ice cream is the only thing present on the cart.
• The Passion Potion that Queen Rotunda set on the arm rest of her throne suddenly appears before Mario dumps it into her mouth.
  • After Mario pours the potion into the queen's mouth, she and Mario quickly "teleport" to the positions they had while Mario was duping the potion into Rotunda's mouth, and very quickly reverts back.
• Toad's shoes are unusually brown (much like the modern-day Toads) when he, Luigi, and Princess Toadstool watch the love-struck queen chase Mario through the throne room.
• Before Queen Rotunda bundles Mario up in the rug, the right strap on Mario's overalls vanish and quickly reappear.
• Albeit crumpling up the spinach-flavored wedding invitation, it is still present on the floor when Rotunda trundles over to Mario on the card-making invention.
  • Additionally, the stamp on the card is white when it is flying through the air, but turns blue/cyan when it lands on the ground by Mario.
• The shadowing of the dark prison cell suddenly appears on Toad when he addresses that the wedding is not over until Queen Rotunda gets her wedding ring, and vanishes when Toad finishes his sentence.
• The water glass on the table in the castle kitchen is only half the size of the bowl of hot pepper pistachio ice cream, but when Queen Rotuna guzzles down the water glass, it is much larger than it was originally.
• The ice cream splattered on the Beezo knight and the wall abruptly vanishes when Queen Rotunda orders it to capture Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad.
  • Although the Beezo's lance toppled on the floor when it was hit with the incoming bowl of ice cream, the lance is suddenly set upright when the queen walks over to it.
• It is unknown how the rug that Queen Rotunda captured Mario with is still in the hallway when the squadron of Beezos is in search of Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad.
• As Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad infiltrate Queen Rotunda's dressing room, the spots on Toad's cap are black aside from the usual red.
  • Another issue with Toad in the dressing room is his size when the princess and Luigi get to Hildy's work station, where he is much bigger in the background than normal, but in the next shot he is much smaller than his usual size.
• Albeit the large explosion that almost obliterated the queen's dressing room, the broken furniture suddenly disappears for the remainder of the episode after the three heroes fix up the second love potion.
• When Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad peer out from behind the rook overlooking the wedding, Luigi is humorously wearing Mario's red and blue attire.
• Although Luigi poured all of the love potion into the two glasses during the wedding, the vial is later half full when Luigi cheers after saving Mario.
• Princess Toadstool lacks lipstick when she narrowly grabs Luigi's overalls to prevent him from falling off the staircase.
• When Hildy decides to have a toast celebrating Queen Rotunda's marriage, the bowl of punch (now love potion) is behind the table and is much larger, but in the shot where she spots Luigi, the bowl is smaller and still atop the table.
• When the lovestruck Hildy chases Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool, and Toad at the end of the episode, Mario is seen in his normal clothes in one shot.

Profiles

• Netflix: Mario finds himself fending off unwanted advances when the gluttonous Queen of Rotundaland downs a love potion by mistake.

Trivia

• The copyrighted title for the episode in the United States Copyright Office is "Love 'em & leave 'em".
• This is the only episode of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! in which King Koopa does not make an appearance, although he is mentioned in the episode.
• It is unknown how Hildy deduced that Mario was a plumber, as he never mentions it to her or is seen working with pipes in the episode.
• One of the ingredients for creating the second love potion is "one Fat Boys record", which alludes to the real life singers.
• The Brazilian Portuguese dub for this episode was once distributed to Portugal on VHS format, but on that occasion, the episode names were not narrated during the episode, as they used to be. This was done because the episode titles as printed on the VHS cassette box were modified to better suit the European Portuguese pronunciation.

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning
German	Lieb sie und lass sie	Love 'Em and Leave 'Em
Italian	Amali e Lasciali	Love 'Em and Leave 'Em
Portuguese	Ame-os e Deixe-os	Love 'Em and Leave 'Em