List of non-video game media featuring Mario — BrandWiki

List of non-video game media featuring Mario

The Mario media franchise extends out of video games into non-game media. Mario and themes related to the franchise have appeared in television shows, anime, films, comics and manga, merchandise, and musical performance.

Television

Saturday Supercade is an animated television series produced for Saturday mornings by Ruby-Spears Productions. It ran for two seasons on CBS, beginning in 1983. Each episode comprised several shorter segments featuring video game characters from the Golden Age of Arcade Games. Donkey Kong, Mario and Pauline (from the Donkey Kong arcade game) were featured in the show.

The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! is the first American TV series based on the Mario NES games. It was broadcast in syndication from September 4 to December 1, 1989. Based on Super Mario Bros. and Super Mario Bros. 2. The show was produced by DIC Entertainment and was distributed for syndicated television by Viacom Enterprises (full rights have since reverted to DiC through

Films

Bowser and the Super Mushroom appeared in the 2012 Disney animated film Wreck-It Ralph; Mario is mentioned by Felix but not seen in the film. Mario's original arcade game appearance in Donkey Kong makes a cameo in the 2015 science fiction action comedy film Pixels.[7]

Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (1986)

Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! is a 1986 anime film based on the Super Mario Bros. video game. Directed by Masami Hata and produced by Masakatsu Suzuki and Tsunemasa Hatano, the plot centers on Mario and Luigi, who go on a quest to save Princess Peach from Bowser. It is notable for being the first film based on a video game, predating the live-action Super Mario Bros. film by seven years.

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

Super Mario Bros. is a 1993 American science-fiction comedy adventure fantasy film[8] based on the Japanese video game series of the same name by Nintendo and distributed by The Walt Disney Studios through Hollywood Pictures, thus becoming one of several rare occasions where Disney and Nintendo have collaborated. The film was directed by Rocky Morton and Annabel Jankel, written by Parker Bennett, Terry Runté and Ed Solomon, and stars Bob Hoskins, John Leguizamo, Dennis Hopper, Samantha Mathis, Fisher Stevens, Fiona Shaw and Richard Edson. The story revolves around the titular Mario brothers, as they find a parallel universe, ruled by the ruthless dictator King Koopa, who seeks to merge the two dimensions so that he can rule both worlds, leaving it up to Mario and Luigi to join forces with Princess Daisy, the daughter of the world's displaced King, to stop Koopa.

Super Mario Bros. was shot in both New York City and North Carolina on a budget of $48 million. The film was released on May 28, 1993, in the United States and was unsuccessful both critically and commercially, receiving criticism for its storyline, characters, dialogue and unfaithfulness to the games. Bob Hoskins later stated in an interview in 2007 that the film was "the worst thing I ever did".[9] However, the film was nominated for two Saturn Awards (one for Best Costume, the other for Best Make-up).

Years later, however, commentators called it a cult film,[10] and has spawned a fan-made website,[11] a fan-made sequel comic,[12] and even a Blu-ray release in the United Kingdom.[13]

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

The Super Mario Bros. Movie is a 2023 animated film adaptation of the franchise, produced by Illumination and Nintendo and distributed by Universal Pictures. It is co-produced by Nintendo fellow and series' creator Shigeru Miyamoto and Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri.[14] The film stars the voices of Chris Pratt as Mario, Anya Taylor-Joy as Peach, Charlie Day as Luigi, Jack Black as Bowser, Keegan-Michael Key as Toad, Seth Rogen as Donkey Kong, Fred Armisen as Cranky Kong, Kevin Michael Richardson as Kamek and Sebastian Maniscalco as Foreman Spike; longtime Mario voice actor Charles Martinet features in a series of cameos.[15][16][17]

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)

On March 10, 2024, as part of Mario Day celebrations, Miyamoto and Meledandri officially announced "a new Super Mario Bros. movie", along with a release date of April 3, 2026 in the United States and more dates throughout April for other territories.[20] Horvath, Jelenic and Fogel will return as co-directors and screenwriter respectively; Meledandri stated that Illumination's team was in the process of storyboarding and "developing set designs for new environments."[20]

In October 2024, Keegan-Michael Key teased that the sequel will be "broader in scope" and feature "new folks and old favorites and some folks that [he thinks] are really deep cuts".[21] On May 13, 2025, the name of the sequel was revealed as Super Mario World in a press release released by NBCUniversal.[22] Later in September 2025, the name was confirmed to be The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.[23] The film was released in the United States on April 1, 2026.

Anime

Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. is a series of three direct-to-video OVAs produced by Studio Junio, licensed by Nintendo, and released on VHS tapes on August 3, 1989, exclusively in Japan.[24][25] The plot of the episodes involve characters from the Mario franchise in the stories of three fairy tales: Momotarō, Issun-bōshi and Snow White. Its cast includes Miyako Endō (Princess Peach, Kinopio, Morton Koopa Jr., Wendy O. Koopa), Tōru Furuya (Mario), Masaharu Satō (Koopa, Larry Koopa, Iggy Koopa), Naoki Tatsuta (Luigi, Ludwig von Koopa, Roy Koopa, Lemmy Koopa), and Toshiko Sawada (narration).[26] The openings for each video used a soundtrack cue from On Golden Pond, namely "New Hampshire Hornpipe". "p:Machinery" by Propaganda and "Snapshot", "Comes and Goes" and "Donna" by Art of Noise were also used.

Super Mario's Fire Brigade is a 1989 short fire safety public safety announcement video animated by Toei Animation and J.C.Staff, directed by Tatsuyuki Nagai and starring Toru Furuya as Mario, Yoku Shioya as Luigi, Saori Sugimoto as Kaoru, Yumi Tōma as Tatsuya, Chieko Saitō as Kaoru's Mom, and Daisuke Gori as Kaoru's Dad.[27][28] There was also another video produced about traffic safety, titled Super Mario Traffic Safety.

Super Mario World: Mario & Yoshi's Adventure Land is a 28-minute interactive video anime based on Super Mario World released for Bandai's Terebikko system in 1991. The Terebikko allowed viewers to interact with the anime using a telephone-shaped microphone to answer multiple choice questions, such as what will hatch from Yoshi's egg. The cast includes Tōru Furuya as Mario, Yū Mizushima as Luigi, Yuriko Yamamoto as Peach, Chika Sakamoto as Yoshi and Takeshi Watabe as Bowser.[29][30][31]

Super Mario: ABC Song Video is a 15-minute educational video produced by Alpha Eihan and released by Shogakukan in 1992. The purpose of the video is to teach Japanese children English, including learning to master the pronunciation of the alphabet and counting from 1 to 10. In addition, it contains three English songs, "ABC Song", "Ten Little Indians", and "Good Morning" (each with a karaoke version). Mario's voice was provided by Gerri Sorrells, who was well known for her role in NHK's educational programs.[32][33][34][35]

Mario Kirby Masterpiece Video is an 18-minute educational video released by HAL Laboratory in 1995 on VHS exclusively in Japan. The purpose of the video is to teach kanji to children by featuring two adventures starring Mario and Kirby separately, with still pictures narrated over by Mayumi Tanaka and kanji transcriptions.[36][37][38]

Comics

Super Mario-kun

Super Mario-kun is a Japanese kodomo manga series written and illustrated by Yukio Sawada (沢田ユキオ Sawada Yukio) and serialized in the monthly manga anthology CoroCoro Comic. Individual chapters are collected into tankōbon volumes by Shogakukan, who released the first volume on July 27, 1991,[39] and have released 60 volumes.[40] The series has been licensed in Japan; France, published by Soleil Manga;[41] and Spain, published by Planeta Comic.[42] It follows Mario and his friends through the plot lines of many Mario video games, starting in Super Mario World and reaching as far as Super Mario Odyssey. Courses created by Sawada for Super Mario Maker were released in November 2015, with a Super Mario-kun costume unlocked for players who clear them.[43]

Viz Media released the first English-language publication of CoroCoro's manga series in December 2020 under the title Super Mario Manga Mania.[44]

A second manga series of the same title written and drawn by Hiroshi Takase (嵩瀬ひろし) ran for five volumes on Shogagukan's Pikkapika Comics.[45] Because of the identical titles, Sawada's and Takase's series are easily confused.

A third manga series written and drawn by Kazuki Motoyama was published by Kodansha in Comic Bombom from 1988 to 1998.[46] The series is altogether called KC Mario by the public in Japan, as volumes are named after new Mario games at the time in place of a consistent title.[47] The series is substantially more well known by international audiences for its self-referential and subversively outrageous humor, with occasional use of innuendo not expected from a children's manga series; it also takes substantially more creative liberty than its contemporaries, introducing original characters and power-ups not seen in the games.[48] Luke Plunkett of Kotaku described the work as "a wild ride".[47]

Nintendo Comics System

The Nintendo Comics System was a series of comic books published by Valiant Comics in 1990 and 1991.[49] It features characters from Nintendo's video games and the animated series based on them.

Super Mario Adventures

Super Mario Adventures[50] is an anthology of comics that ran in Nintendo Power throughout 1992, featuring the characters from Nintendo's Mario series and based loosely on Super Mario World. The series was also serialized in CoroCoro Comic in 1993. Charlie Nozawa, the artist who created the comics,[51] is also known by the pen name Tamakichi Sakura.[52] Kentaro Takekuma was responsible for the story, which follows Mario and Luigi as they attempt to rescue Princess Peach (known as "Princess Toadstool" in the English comic) after she is abducted by Bowser with intent to marry her.

Gamebooks

Nintendo Gamebooks were gamebooks released in two series, Nintendo Adventure Books and You Decide on the Adventure, and based on video games created by Nintendo.

type	ova
producer	Shinichiro Ueda
writer	Juri Yagi
studio	Studio Junio
released	August 3, 1989
runtime	15 minutes each
episodes	3

List of non-video game media featuring Mario

Television

Films

Super Mario Bros.: The Great Mission to Rescue Princess Peach! (1986)

Super Mario Bros. (1993)

The Super Mario Bros. Movie (2023)

The Super Mario Galaxy Movie (2026)

Anime

Comics

Super Mario-kun

Nintendo Comics System

Super Mario Adventures

Gamebooks

Electromechanical games

Merchandise

Events

Theme parks

Music

See also

References