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 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.
King Koopa's Kool Kartoons is a live action children's television show broadcast in Southern California during the holiday season of 1989/1990. The show starred King Koopa, the main antagonist of the Mario series. The 30-minute program was originally broadcast during the after-school afternoon time-slots on Los Angeles-based KTTV Fox 11.
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3 is the second TV series based on the Mario NES games. It aired on NBC from September 8 to December 1, 1990. Based on the Super Mario Bros. 3 video game, the cartoon shows Mario, Luigi, Princess Toadstool and Toad fighting against Bowser and his Koopalings, who went by different names on the show. It was part of a 1-hour block with Captain N's second season, structured such that 2 episodes of Mario 3 would bookend the longer Captain N episode that made the "meat" of the sandwich.
The Super Mario Challenge is a game show which aired on The Children's Channel. It ran from 1990 to 1991 and aired at 4:30 p.m. every weekday. The presenter, John Lenahan, was a lookalike of Mario, and dressed in his clothes. Two guest players had to do tasks, all of which involved playing the Mario video games Super Mario Bros., Super Mario Bros. 2 and, after its release in 1991, Super Mario Bros. 3. Rounds included challenges to see which player could complete a level in the fastest time and who could collect the most gold coins on a certain level.
Super Mario World is an animated television series based on the SNES video game of the same name. It is the third and currently last Saturday morning cartoon based on the Mario series. The show was originally aired on Saturday mornings on NBC in the 1991–92 season. It was featured in a half-hour time slot with a shortened version of Captain N: The Game Master. Episodes of Super Mario World were later shown as part of the syndication package Captain N & The Video Game Masters. Afterwards, the series was split from Captain N altogether and shown in time-compressed reruns on Mario All-Stars.
Mario Ice Capades is a television special featuring a Mario-themed Ice Capades skating show, broadcast on ABC on December 28, 1989. It starred Christopher Hewett as Bowser. Jason Bateman and Alyssa Milano also appeared in the special.
My Mario is a television series that released in Japan on August 26, 2025, and will have an international rollout in 2026.
Films
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.''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 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". However, the film was nominated for two Saturn Awards.
Years later, however, commentators called it a cult film, and has spawned a fan-made website, a fan-made sequel comic, and even a Blu-ray release in the United Kingdom.
''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. 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. In January 2020, Nintendo's President Shuntaro Furukawa stated that the film is "moving along smoothly" with the film aiming for release in 2023. Furukawa stated that Nintendo would own the rights to the film, and both Nintendo and Universal would fund the production of the film. Meledandri called the film a "priority" for the Illumination animation studio.The film features an origin story for the brothers Mario and Luigi, Italian-American plumbers who are transported to an alternate world and become entangled in a battle between the Mushroom Kingdom, led by Princess Peach, and the Koopas, led by Bowser.
After the critical and commercial failure of the live-action film Super Mario Bros., Nintendo became reluctant to license its intellectual properties for film adaptations. Mario creator Shigeru Miyamoto became interested in developing another film, and through Nintendo's work with Universal Destinations & Experiences to create Super Nintendo World, he met with Illumination founder and CEO Chris Meledandri. By 2016, the two were discussing a Mario film and, in January 2018, Nintendo announced that it would collaborate with Illumination and Universal to produce it. Production was underway by 2020, and the cast was announced in September 2021.
The Super Mario Bros. Movie was released in the United States on April 5, 2023. The film received mixed reviews from critics, though audience reception was more positive. The film has grossed over $1.360 billion worldwide, setting multiple box-office records, including the biggest worldwide opening weekend for an animated film and the highest-grossing film based on a video game. It also became the second highest-grossing film of 2023 and the fourth-highest-grossing animated film.
''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. 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."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 are really deep cuts". On May 13, 2025, the name of the sequel was revealed as Super Mario World in a press release released by NBCUniversal. Later in September 2025, the name was confirmed to be The Super Mario Galaxy Movie.
Anime
Amada Anime Series: Super Mario Bros. is a series of three 15-minute direct-to-video OVAs produced by Studio Junio, licensed by Nintendo, and released by Amada Printing on VHS tapes on August 3, 1989, exclusively in Japan. The plot of the episodes involve characters from the Mario franchise in the stories of three folktales: Momotarō, Issun-bōshi and Snow White. Its cast includes Miyako Endō, Tōru Furuya, Masaharu Satō, Naoki Tatsuta, and Toshiko Sawada. 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. 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.
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". Mario's voice was provided by Gerri Sorrells, who was well known for her role in NHK's educational programs.
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.