Unlike its predecessor, the series dropped the use of live-action segments, Wart's minions and King Koopa's alter-egos, featured an entirely new cast (with the exceptions of
John Stocker and
Harvey Atkin, who reprised their respective roles as Toad and King Koopa), established a level of continuity in stories, and introduced a set of characters called the
Koopalings, based upon the same characters from the Mario games but with different names. Episodes were divided into two segments of around 11 minutes each, always opened by a title card featuring world-map footage taken from
Super Mario Bros. 3, and often featured the use of power-ups and other elements from the game.
Format The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 focuses on
Mario,
Luigi,
Toad, and
Princess Toadstool, who reside in the Mushroom World. Most of the episodes revolve around the four characters' efforts to prevent the attacks made by
King Koopa and the Koopalings to take over Princess Toadstool's Mushroom Kingdom. Like
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, the show was produced by
DIC Animation City, with the overseas animation being done at the South Korean studio
Sei Young Animation Co., Ltd., although the show was co-produced by Italian studio Reteitalia S.p.A. Since the show was based on
Super Mario Bros. 3, the enemies and power-ups were also seen in the show. In addition to being more faithful to
Mario gameplay, the series was given an established sense of continuity, something that the previous series lacked. Many episodes are set on
Earth (consistently referred to as "
The Real World" by the characters) and are set in locations such as
Brooklyn,
London,
Paris,
Venice,
New York City,
Cape Canaveral,
Miami,
Los Angeles, and
Washington, D.C. One episode titled "7 Continents for 7 Koopas" is about the Koopalings invading each of the seven
continents. This cartoon was originally shown in the hour-long
Captain N and The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 programming block along with the second season of
Captain N: The Game Master on
NBC, whose format involved having two
Mario Bros. episodes with a full-length
Captain N episode sandwiched in-between. All further airings of the series separated it from
Captain N when
Weekend Today aired in 1992. Also that year, it was included in
Rysher Entertainment's
Captain N & The Video Game Masters syndication package. == Voice cast ==