King Scoopa Koopa

King Scoopa Koopa is the sixth episode of the Super Mario World animated series.

Plot Synopsis

As Princess Toadstool begins serving lunch to Mario and Luigi, Mario begins complaining to the Princess about eating "rabbit-food" again, in other words, vegetable filled sandwiches. Soon after complaining, Mario begins to wonder where Yoshi is, he never misses lunch. Soon after wondering this, a large roar is heard, this roar sends Mario, Princess Toadstool and Luigi scurrying out of the Dome Castle to investigate.

Outside, Mario, Luigi and Princess Toadstool see a Rex dressed as a chef parading around a sign displaying the message "GRAND OPENING! SCOOPA KOOPA'S FAST FOOD, FREE SAMPLES". At the prospect of free-food, Luigi runs up to the Rex chef and grabs an egg-burger off the chef's plate. After Luigi gets his sandwich, Mario spots Yoshi in a line-up for food at a small concession stand, which is run by a Rex and King Bowser Koopa himself.

Proceeding to order a large amount of food, Yoshi watches as his meal is assembled by several Rexes and Dino-Torches. As Yoshi's food is being made, Bowser begins to gloat about how he'll make himself rich off causing the cave-people to become addicted to his food.

Getting his food, Yoshi realizes that he doesn't have any money. An annoyed Bowser proceeds to threaten Yoshi, until backing-off by the appearance of Mario. Asking how much Yoshi owes, Mario proceeds to give Bowser the apparently unfair sum of eighteen coins.

Leaving Bowser's concession stand, Mario, Luigi, Yoshi and Princess Toadstool find a stone table to eat lunch at. As Mario, Luigi and Yoshi scarf-down the food, Princess Toadstool refuses to eat anything, not wanting to even touch anything Bowser's had his claws on. After finishing their meals, the extremely bloated Mario, Luigi and Yoshi decide to gets seconds and waddle over to Bowser's concession stand.

Several days later, Princess Toadstool visits Mario, Luigi and Yoshi, who have all gotten fat off Bowser's food and are, oddly, acting somewhat like chickens. The Princess, seeing her friends in this condition, forces the three of them into a diet, by locking them in the Dome Castle.

Moments after leaving, Princess Toadstool is contacted by Mario. Mario reveals that Luigi and Yoshi have escaped and have apparently been mutated by Bowser's food, having grown several bird-like features, including wings. Watching as his costumers line-up for food, Bowser begins to realize that once all his costumers have mutated into Chickadactyls, he'll lose his cash flow. Its then that Bowser realizes he can just cook the Chickadactyls and sell them to dinosaurs in "Flew the Koopa's Fried Chickadactyl Stand". After having this thought, Bowser begins to laugh maniacally, stating "You can't ever be too rich... or too evil!".

Princess Toadstool and Mario manage to track Luigi and Yoshi down and try to knock some sense into them. Unfortunately, Luigi and Yoshi won't listen and begin chowing-down. Suddenly, Bowser appears, claiming theres no way to stop his plan of transforming everyone into Chickadactyls. Bowser than states to the severally mutated cave-people that Mario and Princess Toadstool plan on taking away their food, the enraged cave-people proceed to attack the fleeing Mario and Princess Toadstool.

Finding a Fire Flower, Mario manages to turn into Fire Mario and defeat several of Bowser's dinosaur minions, though Mario is turned back to normal after being hit by a Rex. Mario and Princess Toadstool are forced to flee to the Star Path as they are being chased by dozens of Chickadactyl-cave-people.

Transported to the ocean, Mario and the Princess manage to evade several Rip Van Fish and enter a nearby Warp Tube. Exiting the Warp Pipe, Mario and Princess Toadstool find themselves in a forest where Bowser has been dumping the garbage from his concession stand. Hitting a nearby block, Mario gains a feather and turns into Cape Mario.

Climbing-up Bowser's Warp Tube garbage-disposal, Mario enters Bowser's kitchen and begins to beat-up Bowser's henchmen. Using a Dino-Torch as a flamethrower against Mario, Bowser ultimately manages to escape by hopping-down a nearby Warp Pipe. After Bowser and his minions escape, Princess Toadstool drops Bowser's Chickadactyls down the pipe as well.

With Bowser gone, Mario destroys the Koopa King's concession stand and orders everyone to return home and eat some vegetables, "Dr. Mario's orders!". Back home, Luigi and Yoshi, returned to normal, begin eating a healthy meal of vegetables and fruit.

Trivia

• This episode could be seen as social commentary on fast food franchises and obesity in the United States. It can also be a commentary on the problems of drug addiction, such as Luigi and Yoshi stealing a treasure chest to feed their unhealthy habit.

• When Mario states "go home and eat some vegetables - Dr. Mario's orders!" at the end of the episode, he is apparently making reference to the game Dr. Mario.

• Throughout the episode, the colors of Bowser's Rex minions continually switch colors every few shots.

• A Super Mushroom can be briefly seen in a Roulette Block in this episode; this is, surprisingly, the first and only appearance of a Super Mushroom in the entire Mario cartoon trilogy.

• Bowser briefly mentions that he is a capitalist in this episode. Also, Bowser technically won-out in this episode, having successfully gotten away with the money of the cave-people and Princess Toadstool.

• Interestingly, the theme of eating the eggs of a variant of chicken and then becoming one of these chickens was later explored in the pilot episode of Courage the Cowardly Dog; in this episode, a certain type of alien chicken invaded Courage's owners' chicken coop and all who ate these chickens' eggs slowly morphed into human-like versions of them.

• Bowser's reference to no credit for actors and writers is probably in reference to the people that worked on the shows.

• When Mario grabs the Fire Flower, he gets a white hat and shirt with red overalls. In all of DIC's cartoon trilogy, Mario has been seen with a red hat and overalls and blue shirt. If Luigi had obtained a Fire Flower, he probably would have had the same colours/colors in the game. This probably hadn't happened, however, as the show only had 13 episodes.