Mario and company get tangled up with some magic beans and a giant sized King Koopa for this take on the classic children’s tale. In the live action segment, a foreign exchange student named Zolton Dracula (from Transylvania) comes to stay with the boys. They can’t put their finger on it, but something is very strange about their new houseguest that sleeps in a coffin and comes home covered in blood. Or is it just meat sauce?

Mario and the gang head to the Linguine Kingdom to attend a spaghetti dinner to raise money for orphan mushrooms in one of the show’s best ever cartoon segments. Do mushrooms normally have parents? Let’s just hope the whole thing isn’t some big trap set by King Koopa! Oh also in the live action segment, Mario hits his head and can’t stop screaming so Luigi calls up Doctor Sigmund Fruitycake and the actor seems to have just been cut from his local improv troupe because holy shit is this guy bad at co

Mario and Luigi get kicked off of a riverboat card game for cheating where they meet Mark Twain, er I mean Mark TWANG, and also this episode of Mario is kind of silly so Jeremy and Mark spend a decent chunk goofing about their real lives. In the live action segment, Mario and Luigi help out their new neighbor Dr. Frank N. Stein who, spoiler alert, is actually Dr. Frankenstein.

Holy shit we spoke to John Stocker who was the voice of Toad (and more!) in the original 1989 show, who is just incredibly cool and charming. John told us a ton about working on the Mario show and gave us his take on whether that’s Toad’s head or his hat. Plus, Mark and Jeremy discuss the podcast thus far and how they missed Mario saying “Fuck you Luigi” in episode one. This episode is sponsored by a man of mystery named Jesse.

A return to form! And our first Zelda episode. Did you think these were all gonna be Mario cartoons? Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me, Princess! Oh also it’s a Ghostbusters episode. Did we mention that? It’s about the Ghostbusters.

OK so Jeremy hates this episode and Mark thinks it’s about drugs, which it definitely is. As usual Mark, forgets most of the major plot points of the show he just finished watching, but there’s a pretty whiny genie who shows up and (twist) she’s pretty funny. Listen as Mark and Jeremy FIGHT over this episode (they actually just discuss it like normal but they disagree).

Mark and Jeremy discuss a shocking cover of Michael Jackson’s BAD that appears in this episode and Jeremy pretends he knows what’s happening even though he does not realize until he edited it that the song does not appear in the Netflix version of the show. Mario and Luigi hang out with a very sad orphan in the live action segment and that’s the guest star. It’s an orphan.

Join as Mark realizes a lifelong dream of having a conversation about Sgt. Slaughter with a WILLING PARTICIPANT. Also, Mouser makes his first appearance, but that’s Sheriff Mouser to you, you vermin! That’s because Mario and the gang have a bounty on their heads in this extremely thin reference to Westerns that actually really rules.

Oh Jesus Christ, Toad has been kidnapped by a goddang BIRDO but Hard Drive editors Mark and Jeremy on the case to figure out what the hell that even means, to be honest. Also there’s a pretty important discussion about how Pasta Man is a religious symbol and Nicole Eggert shows up in the live action segment.

Hard Drive editors Mark Roebuck and Jeremy Kaplowitz embark on a quest to watch and chronicle every single episode of 1989’s The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! starring famed wrestler Captain Lou Albano as Mario Mario. This first installment features the calm before the storm, as Mark and Jeremy wrestle with the ramifications of this journey they’ve embarked upon. To the bridge!