A history in animation-Yoshi

Yoshi











It’s funny that I’ve always felt Yoshi was humorously never anything more than a glorified power-up or item. Don’t get me wrong, I love the little (and the original big) guy, but he was always just an item like a Mushroom or Fireflower you’d get out of a block. Since then, he’s evolved into a hero in his own right, able to take on adventures solo, and beating Bowser himself many times. In my heart though, I always feel Yoshi’s best when he’s simply rideable, which is why I’m excited he’s going to be in NSMBW and SMG2, and I’m curious, as to why people are angry he’s not playable in his own right. In my mind, the fun of riding Yoshi is greater than playing as him. And that rideable Yoshi, is the one who pretty much starred alongside Mario in the Super Mario World Animated series.







With Yoshi’s animated debut comes a couple of other animated debuts. Namely the animated appearance of the Yoshi egg (exciting, and no, I’m not going to say eggciting…) Anyway, two notable differences (even with something a simple as an egg?) Firstly the Egg Luigi gets turned into, seems to be an inverted version of the typical Yoshi egg. It has White spots on Green as opposed to Green spots on White. Secondly, the egg Yoshi hatches from in ‘Mama Luigi’ is pretty much perfect, yet for some reason they made the spots red, whereas that would be an egg for a red Yoshi, so another mistake?









Next up, we have Baby Yoshi’s animated debut. Don’t get me started on how since Yoshi’s Story, which starred Yoshi as a baby, he seems to have kept this appearance ever since, dropping his original lanky look. Anyway, Baby Yoshi only appears in ‘Mama Luigi’ in flashback form. He’s similar to SMW baby Yoshi in his look, except his eyelids aren’t half closed, and he has no shoes. Personality wise, he’s much more similar to the baby Yoshi’s in Yoshi’s Story, as he can walk around, feed himself and basically move around pretty quickly. In SMW though he would either grow up instantly from the egg, or stand still, relying on the player to pick him up and feed him 5 enemies to grow full sized.












Now for the main part of this article. We have Yoshi himself in adult form. As you can see, Yoshi’s main role in the original game was being ridden by Mario. As such he was usually portrayed as lanky, with small arms. I think that’s really about the only difference between the original art and the animated Yoshi, his arms were slightly more useful in the cartoon, although he still uses his tongue more often to do things. You can judge from the picture on the right as to how much lankier Yoshi was compared to today. Personally, I prefer the original, but I still like modern Yoshi too.









Yoshi’s character was pretty faithful to the game, he is a glutton, and also a slight coward, more so than Luigi (although sometimes they did both agree with each other about how dangerous something Mario suggested was) he actually keeps his fear of ghost houses from the game, and has a fear of water, which as I said in a review, may be reference to how he can’t swim well in the game. He also allows Mario to ride him in a couple of episodes, as well as the princess. In fact Luigi, despite the fact he was the one who first met Yoshi, is the only character to not ride Yoshi. Heck, even Oogtar gets to. The only real problem with Yoshi, is that he’s Yoshi, and that’s it, no mention of any other Yoshi’s is made, despite the fact that the game had about 4. It would be forgivable, if it didn’t result in us having the Cave people instead (urgh)

Finally the voice differences, which are almost always from games made after the cartoon shows. Yoshi has a pretty different voice to his cartoon one, the cartoon ones voice is a tiny bit screechy, however, the game Yoshi only says his name, much like a pokemon. When they speak in text however (such as the original and the Paper Mario games) they speak more intelligently than Yoshi does in the cartoons, using proper words and syllables.

A history in animation- The Koopalings

The Koopaling's

Well with the recent announcement of their new appearance in New Super Mario Bros Wii, I felt it was the right time to do a History in Animation of the Koopalings. Above is their artwork from Super Mario bros 3 on the left is their most recent appearance and on the right are the AOSMB3 versions. We will go through them all individually and compare their animated versions to game versions. Also note that I will not be saying much about their Anime appearances, as they barely even talk, and all are pretty much a perfect copy of their artwork. There’s no need to do individual comparisons for their appearances in the anime films.

The first main difference that applies to the whole group are that each of their names is different to their game names. The reason behind this I believe is that they didn’t have names in Japan. This means the names for them were created by Nintendo of America, thus the names based on various musicians. So when the series was started, the cartoon writers had to write their own names for them. Resulting in the differences.

Secondly they all have at least one difference from their game artwork. The reasons for this I can come up with range from them using the in-game sprites to base their appearances on, to them simply changing certain parts to animate better. I believe they actually did base them off the artwork as otherwise I’m sure the colours would match the sprites. Anyway, onto the individual kids…

Larry Koopa/ Cheatsy Koopa
Larry is, in the games, the youngest, but in the cartoon Hip and Hop are so Cheatsy’s somewhere in the middle. He’s quite often portrayed as weak, which could be said to be in his cartoon character too. Cheatsy has an overbite, squint and shorter untidier hair than Larry. Larry doesn't seem to have much character in the games beyond simply wanting to help his father and kill Mario. From the ending of NSMBW it could be suggested that he has very little stamina being the last one to return to Bowser. So we have Cheatsy who fittingly is the cheating scheming liar, something like a cross between a weasel and an insurance salesman. As such he’s pretty weak, and the sort who would pay the bullies to bully his enemies. He’s pretty small compared to his brothers and sister, except Hip and Hop. He’s seemingly Koopa’s second most common assistant (the name I give to the Koopa Kid he has with him in his schemes) and only Kooky seemingly ranks higher than him. He’s also fiercely intelligent in business and sabotage matters. In his most recent appearance he seems to be practically the same as his original artwork, with the exception of his shell now being blue and him losing two fangs. His voice is higher than the cartoon version but it has a sort of ducklike quality to it slightly... I really am not a good judge of sound...

Morton JR Koopa/Big Mouth Koopa
Morton has always been the odd Koopaling out to me. He’s huge but pretty weak (well at least in the first game) has a weird birthmark and a unique shell. Also he has the least character in my opinion (a real feat compared to his siblings). Larry’s the youngest, Iggy and Lemmy seem to be twins, Wendy is the daughter, Roy’s the big brute and Ludwig’s the oldest and seemingly most like his father in threat levels. Morton’s… the big but weak loser, the runt. That’s why I think the idea of making him a ranting wind bag is pretty good. He’s all bark and no bite and seems almost completely different in the cartoon. For one thing, he’s a lot smaller, and while he still has a unique shell, it’s purple as opposed to black. He still keeps the huge eyelashes and star, but his face is not as fat as before. He doesn’t seem to hang around with Koopa at all alone, and seems to always be with his siblings, most often Kootie Pie. When I said his barks worse than his bite, I didn’t mean just in strength, but in intelligence too. In the SMW cartoon, he seemed to only ever really play any roles as an announcer, beyond that he didn’t do much in the show, much like his siblings. In NSMBW Morton is pretty much the same as his original artwork, with the exception of having a black shell as opposed to a grey one. He's also a lot bigger, even compared to his siblings. Voice wise he sounds very stupid (I mean his character not that he has a stupid voice). Strangely he's actually the second last Koopaling meaning he's stronger than most of the others for once.

Wendy O. Koopa/Kootie Pie Koopa
Well Wendy’s the female, and that’s about it for her character. As for Kootie Pie, she’s a typical spoilt brat. In differences in design, her bow’s bigger, and her lips are smaller. Other than that, she’s pretty accurate. She seems to be smart in getting her way, but beyond that she’s pretty stupid as shown in ‘Venice Menace’. As such she’s usually simply causing Koopa’s schemes by screaming about wanting things which he then tries to get, such as taking over a country. As such she could be considered Koopa’s third in command, or even in command as she can control Koopa most of the time through whining. She looks exactly the same as her original art in NSMBW being the only Koopaling with no changes. Wendy's voice is slightly similar when she screeches and screams, but her regular voice is nowhere near as screechy as the cartoon version. Also in battle she dances around a lot which could perhaps be similar to Kootie Pie's character due to the whole Milli Vanilli episode.

Iggy Koopa/Hop Koopa
It’s funny. Iggy Koopa and Lemmy Koopa always were the twins in my view, but really that whole idea was from the cartoon. Sure they have similar hair colour, and similar strange eyes, but really Iggy has his own character. He looks pretty psychotic and is described in game as ‘demented’. Hop on the other hand, while he’s pretty similar beyond his age, size and eyes, is just Hip’s twin. That’s it, there’s really no unique characteristics. They’re both portrayed as more naïve than evil, but beyond that they have no real character, no funny comments, they’re just there. He was changed the most in NSMBW, now sporting green hair and being taller, he seems to be a more grown up version. I don't think there's a character change as drastic on here as Iggy, not only does he look different, he acts the complete opposite of the cartoon version and sounds completely different. He's insane in NSMBW and is the only boss to use a completely different method to fight, being on a Chain Chomp drawn carriage. His voice is loads of insane screams and insane laughter, but he has a much deeper voice than the cartoon version (of course not as deep as Roy, Morton or Ludwig.)

Roy Koopa/Bully Koopa
Roy is the big brutish thug. He jumps and causes shockwaves and is the third eldest I believe in the games. In the Cartoon, he’s the eldest, yet he really seems to be missing a lot. He only really ‘stars’ in one episode, and even then he loses it to Koopa. As an example of how little he appears, the anime version does more. I mean sure they appear for a few seconds, but at least he uses his strength to fight, Bully only uses his strength against Mario in the SMW episode ‘The Yoshi Shuffle’. Other than that he’s not really there. His design is practically the same as his artwork, except the neck collar and he only has one spike on his shell. He's pretty much the same in NSMBW except his shells Purple rather than pink now. He also has seemingly longer arms in the cartoon and NSMBW than the original games. His voice in NSMBW is slightly lower and he's lost the brooklyn accent.

Lemmy Koopa/Hip Koopa
Lets see. This guy’s the second oldest, the smallest and most seemingly insane Koopaling (a real accomplishment in this family). So how do we make him into a cartoon character? Well you make him a complete clone of his brother. Oh boy. For Hip’s description read Hop’s and replace each Hop with Hip. Got it skip? Anyway, he doesn’t have the cross eyes in the cartoon, and his hair is thinner. Also he has only one spike on his shell. At least his ball appeared for one small scene. He gains a ponytail and a yellow shell in NSMBW. His voice is almost exactly the same as the cartoon version, being the closest Koopaling's voice on here.

Ludwig Von Koopa/Kookie Von Koopa
Easily my favourite Koopaling. Ludwig is the toughest and oldest Koopaling. Often called the cruellest in game descriptions, he has all of his sibling’s abilities, and even his father’s fire. He’s as big as Roy but far more intelligent, even in the games I believe. Kooky kind of disproves my theory slightly, as why they’d use Von in his name without knowing his game name I don’t have a clue. Of course he is a mad scientist in the cartoon so maybe they just coincidently gave him the name Von as a reference to the many German scientists in history? Anyway, Kooky is just as awesome as Ludwig, and while he’s not the oldest now, he’s still the second eldest and more importantly, he is intelligent enough and big enough to beat Bully any day. That’s why he seems to be Koopa’s 2nd in command and is almost always involved in every scheme due to his genius inventions. The most immediate difference is his hair is much messier, and he’s smaller. He also only has one spike on his shell (like Bully and Hip). Luckily he still has the single tooth. He has an awesome voice I feel, especially the laugh and as I said earlier. He's pretty much the same as his artwork in NSMBW with his only difference being his shell is now dark blue. His voice is quite different, yet has similarities. He has a much lower voice (although not like Roy or Morton) but also seems to sound the most refined, especially just before his first boss battle. This fits quite well with Kookies type of speech, although he doesn't have his insane laugh.

And that’s it for now. Personally I think the Koopalings are great, and Bowser Jr being their replacement of sorts for a few years has made me yearn for their return even more. Good job they’re finally coming back. And that's it for the Koopalings.