Title- Ghosts R Us (10/5/1991)
Worlds- Enchanted Forest (Forest of Illusion)
Well here we are. I’d say there are really three must-see episodes in this series for fans of the game. The first is send in the clowns for reasons stated in that review, and this is another one. One thing I find really cool is that there’s an actual full on villain who isn’t Koopa in this episode. Instead we have Wizardheimer, a Koopa Wizard. Pretty funny considering the coincidence of Kamek, another Koopa Wizard being the main villain of Yoshi’s Island 4 years later.
This episode is the first one to feature truly noticeable misnaming. First there’s the Magikoopas becoming Koopa Wizards. Then there’s the Forest of Illusion becoming the Enchanted Forest. This is another one of the main things about this series, the misnaming of things from the games. Still it happens even now in the Pokemon anime with Lorelie/Prima.
One thing I really like is the fact that this episode explains why Yoshi never goes into the ghost house in the games. He’s scared and doesn’t follow Mario in, which adds to the cartoon, and makes the fact Yoshi actually enters a little stronger too.
Anyway, as for the main plot of the episode, it’s pretty fun, despite it introducing the biggest pain in the neck ever seen. Oogtar the Caveboy appears. Urgh. What’s worse is that this guy is supposed to be the replacement of Toad. While Toad can be annoying, he is GOD compared to this guy. It’s funny that when I was saying about how good it was that there was no ‘created for the show’ teen cool guy to familiarise the audience with the world in SMB3. But we get this in SMW and with his ‘bummer Dino-dude’ and ‘mega-Bummer man!’ it’s clear that this guy’s only going to annoy more and more.
Overall a really fun episode, and it’s great to have it set at the ghost house.
