Enter The Mushroom Kingdom!

Enter the Mushroom Kingdom is the two part pilot episode of the American animated television series. The Super Mario Show. Unlike the rest of the series, the first episode premiered on the Netflix Youtube Channel on the 5th of September 2023. The episode focuses on Brothers, Mario and Luigi being transported to the Mushroom Kingdom. Written and directed by Aaron Horvath and Michael Jelnic, The episode received generally favourable reviews, with praise given to the animation, characters, voice acting and faithfulness to the series, but some noted the slow pacing.

Synopsis
Mario & Luigi, two plumbers, end up in the mysterious Mushroom Kingdom after a plumbing job gone wrong.

Episode 1
The Episode begins with Bowser (an evil Koopa/ruler of the Koopa Kingdom) putting a plan in motion to rule the world, but is warned by a lone Goomba (who is coming from Kamek) that 2 Heroes who come from the Mushroom Kingdom will stop him, Bowser kills the Koopa before he decides to destory the Mushroom Kingdom so there are No More Heroes. Meanwhile, Two Twins who are Brothers/Best Friends (Mario & Luigi) work in Cranklyn, New Donk City as Plumbers who work for Foreman Spike, Mario reminiscing of the days being in a War in a remote Jungle and saving his Girlfriend (Pauline) from a raging Ape when worming with a Construction Site, Mario wants to live a life of excitement while Luigi is content with engineering and wants to keep working for Spike. The Bros are quickly called by their boss to investigate the sewers as weird Monsters are there and his other staff members haven’t been found, the 2 find Koopas, Sidesteppers and Fighterfiles in the sewers before the 2 enter in a green pipe and end up in the Mushroom Kingdom, they meet some of the Mushroom-shaped inhabitants of the Kingdom who are eating (namely 2 Brothers, Toad & Captain Toad) before meeting the Princess of the land, Peach.

Before doing anything however, Bowser attacks with his airships, turning the inhabitants in stone/bricks, Bowser asks the Princess where the Heroes are before Peach doesn’t know what he’s talking about, Bowser, infuriated, captures Peach and leaves the Kingdom in disarray. Mario vows to save the Princess while Luigi beckons they should wait for the heroes Bowser was talking about and go back home. Toadsworth (who has managed to survive the attack) tells them that there was a prophecy that 2 Brothers would save the Kingdom from evil, Mario says he and Luigi will go, Toadsworth laughs at Mario for thinking a plumber could be a Hero before saying he was talking about Toad and Captain Toad, Captain Toad realises the stakes and runs away before Toad believes that Mario & Luigi can help him, Toadsworth (reluctantly) agrees and gives them a Power Star incase anything goes wrong. The Episode ends with the trio going on an Adventure to save Peach as a blue koopa in robes looks from a glass ball.

Episode 2
The Episode begins immediately after the previous episode with Mario, Luigi and Toad journeying through the Mushroom Kingdom, eventually making it to a Castle where they think Bowser is, After using a fire flower, the trio discover that it’s fake Bowser who have captured Captain Toad who tells them that Peach is in Bowser’s Domain, Mario, Luigi and Toad head into a Pipe and enter a remote forest where they find a Yoshi (who eats Toad). Meanwhile Kamek warns of the Bros presence to Bowser who dismisses the warning, he goes to Princess Peach who’s in a cage and tries to interrogate who these Heroes are but she doesn’t let up, Bowser tries to be ruthless but fails and falls in love with the Princess to Kamek’s dismay, Kamek asks Bowser to ready the troops for An Airship attack to kill the plumbers. The 4 after exploring a Desert and an Icy Tundra (with Luigi barely surviving), camp in the Mountains near Bowser’s Domain. Mario looks at an abandoned Airship and decides to fix it to invade Bowser’s Domain while resting, Luigi wonders how Mario can be so optimistic when they’re being hunted by an Evil King, Toad tells Luigi that it seems no matter, he can find the good in anything, and always thinks fast and has a plan. Luigi looking at the Castle, getting scared, decides to leave to go back to New Donk City, putting a note in Yoshi’s mouth. In the Morning, Mario looks for Luigi, wondering where he is and thinks that Bowser has captured Luigi, Mario wakes up Toad and Yoshi to quickly fix up the Airship and invade Bowser’s Domain, entering the portal. Bowser, still trying to woo Peach, gets a warning that a rouge Airship is coming to the Castle.

Bowser, decides to get his whole armada to destroy the fleet once and for all. Mario, Yoshi and Toad try to destroy the entire fleet but are defeated by Bowser, who laughs at the fact that a Plumber, a dude with a Mushroom Head and a Green Dinosaur can stop him, before Bowser can capture them, Yoshi eats all of the guards there and escapes, dropping a note for Mario and runs away. Mario reads the note inaudibly, shedding a tear as he continues reading it, Bowser laughs as he takes the 2 with him, instead of killing Mario & Toad, he makes them his jesters so they are humiliated for the rest of their lives. Meanwhile, back in New Donk City, Luigi watches TV while getting ready for work when suddenly, Yoshi comes into his house and tries to tell Luigi that Mario & Toad are in trouble and need his help, Luigi thinking he can’t do anything useful stays in his chair, Yoshi, angry, then grabs Luigi by his tongue then runs out to a pipe.

The duo invade Bowser’s Castle in secret to find Mario, Toad and Peach as Mario reflects on how much of a bad Brother he was to Luigi. Luigi & Yoshi manages to successfully infiltrate the Castle and finds the cage the 3 where kept in. The Bros reconcile and escape on Yoshi with Peach. Bowser notices and gets his whole armada to find and kill The Bros and capture Peach alive, after a chase sequence, the group nearly escape but while on a drawbridge above lava, Bowser uses his axe to cut the bridge, leaving the group to hang on to the bridge, as Yoshi uses his tongue to not make the group slip, Toad decides to sacrifice himself so Yoshi can pull himself up. Mario & Luigi decide use the Power Star to defeat Bowser once and for all, after a gruelling battle, the group succeed and throw Bowser to the lava below, before shouting that he will be back to have revenge.

The group then return to the Mushroom Kingdom, mourning their friend Toad in a funeral when suddenly, they meet Toad in his house as they find out he ate a 1-up Mushroom unknowingly while eating dinner. Peach thanks the Bros for saving the entire Kingdom but tells Mario that Bowser will be back and they can’t hold him off for long, The 2 Brothers make a risky decision and decide to move into the Mushroom Kingdom in a remote forest where the continue their plumbing business as Royal Engineers and the official protectors of the kingdom, ending the 2 part episode.

Characters

 * Mario
 * Luigi
 * Princess Peach Toadstool
 * Kinopio "Toad" Shroom
 * Captain Toad
 * Toadsworth
 * Bowser
 * Kamek
 * Spike

Continuity
While the plot of the episode stands on its own, it also sets up much of the continuing plot of the series by including Easter eggs for events that do not occur until much later. For one in Partners in Time it's shown that Mario gives Toad a 1-Up Mushroom unknowingly as he's eating dinner. Additionally, in that same episode, Mario and Luigi travel back when the Mushroom Kingdom was attacked by the Shroobs for the first time (though it is not known it was them until the episode The Attack of the Shroobs and tell them about the prophecy.)