Episode 167 - SUPER MARIO BROS.

Everyone's favorite Italian plumbers trade the colorful fantasia of the Mushroom Kingdom for a grim cyberpunk dystopia in Super Mario Bros., the very first movie to be adapted from a video game. The film employs plenty of wild imagination in connecting the dots of Mario and Luigi's bare-bones backstory, and conjures up an inter-dimensional tale of dinosaurs, dictatorship, and de-evolution that certainly didn't feature in any Nintendo marketing materials.

Matt Schley joins us for some multiplayer fun, and helps us understand the movie's bizarre and undeniable legacy in his WWWW debut. Ready, player one? Let's-a go!

Super Mario Bros. (1993)
Directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel
Produced by Jake Eberts and Roland Joffé
Written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté, and Ed Solomon
Starring Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Samantha Mathis, Fisher Stevens, Richard Edson, Fiona Shaw, and Dennis Hopper

Episode 144 - POKÉMON

While the Pokémon phenomenon has been going strong for more than two decades, there's something especially magical about that first batch of 150-plus pocket monsters. A super effective cocktail of animal cuteness, competitive spirit, and pre-social media FOMO, the franchise conquered America--and the world--like few Japanese imports before or since, and left an evolutionary blueprint for others to follow.

Cartoons, video games, toys, trading cards, novelty raps: we catch 'em all in this episode focused on the Big Bang of a synergistic media universe. While we were recording, a wild Josh Lee appeared to make his WWWW debut, so boot up your Pokédex and join us in our quest to be the very best, like no pod ever was!

Pokémon (1998-present)
Based on the video game created by Satoshi Taijiri

Episodes included in this podcast:

"Pokémon, I Choose You!" (aired 9/8/98)
"Bulbasaur and the Hidden Village" (9/21/98)
"Pikachu's Goodbye" (11/20/98)
"Cyber Soldier Porygon" (unaired in the United States)