I'm the pain who plays the game
And knocks you for a loopa
King Koopa's Kool Kartoons is a very odd, often-forgotten spin-off of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!. It aired from September to November of 1989, and featured a live-action Bowser — we mean, "King Koopa" — hosting his own show for an audience of children known as Koopa's Troopas. Koopa read fan mail, held quizzes to win prizes, and did comedy skits with his puppet theatre and phone calls. The titular "kartoons" were often Super Show! episodes, or whatever was available in the public domain.
The cartoon is mainly known nowadays for the sheer amount of controversy it generated in its short run. The original actor for Koopa, Christopher Collins, made a racist remark towards an African-American child and was fired and replaced by Patrick Pinney. The reason for the show's cancellation is that Michael Eisner, president of Disney, wrote a letter of complaint that the show was ruining children's morals.
To this day, every episode of King Koopa's Kool Kartoons is completely lost. Very few clips of the show are available online.
It's my tropes now!
- Alliterative Title: King Koopa's Kool Kartoons.
- Body Horror: Variant involving puppets, specifically with two vegetables having an argument over who's healthier, to which King Koopa decides to prune them with scissors. Especially considering that they're alive.
- Bragging Theme Tune: The opening consists of Koopa bragging about his show and demanding the audience watch it even when they're grounded.
- Gross-Out Show: One memorable letter of complaint by a parent is that the "dirty underwear segment" of the show was disgusting.
- Hostile Show Takeover: The intro shows Koopa storming into a TV studio and taking over a show already being hosted by somebody else.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: Koopa's pet is a dog-rat creature named Ratso.
- WPUN: Ratso's trash can has a satellite dish broadcasting K-RAT.
