Debuting in late 1989, The Super Mario Bros. Super Show wasn't the first kids television show based on video games—that distinction belongs to 1983's Saturday Supercade—but it was the first for those who were a part of the so-called Nintendo Generation. And unless you were already too old for it, chances are you have fond memories of watching it every day after school even if you knew it actually wasn't all that good.
The Super Show was bizarre indeed, with a cartoon based on the Mario games book-ended by goofy live-action segments of actors playing Mario and Luigi (the former portrayed by professional wrestling pioneer Captain Lou Albano). Various of-the-era guest stars—both real and fictional—would pop up during those filmed segments, including Cyndi Lauper, Nicole Eggert, Sgt. Slaughter, Elvira, Norman Fell, and Inspector Gadget.
But for a lot of viewers, the most exciting part of a week of Super Show episodes was on Fridays, when the cartoon in the middle of the show would instead focus on The Legend of Zelda. While the Zelda cartoon would only run for 13 episodes and wouldn't follow the various subsequent incarnations of the Mario cartoons, it remains a fan-favorite for kids of the era and Zelda fans of a certain age. While the show's representation of a sassy Link, a rough-and-tumble Princess Zelda, a bumbling Ganon, and a frisky fairy sidekick didn't bear much resemblance to Zelda games at the time, they all still have an enduring legacy all their own—and even went on to inform the video games later on, believe it or not.
25 Link's First Horse
In the menu screen of The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, when Link is seen riding Epona across Hyrule Field, it was a game-changing moment for the series as it was the first time he had ever been an equestrian. But Epona wasn't Link's first horse, nor the first time he ever saddled up.
In the Zelda cartoon, Link had a trusty steed named Catherine.
And Link utilized Catherine plenty during the run of the series, for both transportation and as a partner in battle. This was close to a decade before Link hopped onto a horse in his games.
24 Not Your Shield
Beginning with (spoilers!) her alter-ego Shiek in Ocarina of Time, Zelda has frequently eschewed the notion of a video game princess being a dainty, helpless damsel and hasn't been afraid to get her hands dirty and take on bad guys herself.
But this was not how Zelda was characterized in the games that existed concurrent to the show, where she was little more than a princess to rescue at the end of the first game and under a sleep spell through much of the second. Zelda's tough demeanor in the show—criticized for not being accurate at the time—actually predicted the kind of character she would eventually become in the games.
23 A Taste Of Zelda II
When the Zelda cartoon was in production, the show's creative team largely had only the original Legend of Zelda with which to base its characters and stories. Much like what happened with the Mario cartoons, where each season seemed to advance to the next sequel in the game series, it was assumed that Zelda II (and beyond) would be represented in future seasons of that show.
Well, future seasons never happened.
Still, with Zelda II hitting store shelves during the first season's creation, the writers and animators were able to sneak in a few things from the game sequel—most notably, Ganon's transportation, a Lowder, which was an enemy type that debuted in Zelda II.
22 Pay It Forward
While no one person makes a cartoon by himself—unless that person is Don Hertzfeldt—the Zelda animated series definitely had a clearly-defined creative overseer by way of Bob Forward, who not only created the show but wrote all 13 of its episodes.
Forward was already something of a veteran by the time he got involved with Zelda, with writing credits stretching back to both He-Man and She-Ra. And he stayed prolific well after Zelda ended its run, doing writing work on Captain Planet (which he also co-created), The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, Biker Mice From Mars, Beast Wars: Transformers, X-Men: Evolution, Buzz Lightyear of Star Command, and Pac-Man and the Ghostly Adventures.
21 Please, Think Of The Children!
The 80s was the decade of lawsuits against the music industry over lewd content and the adopting of the PG-13 rating, all designed to prevent big bad mass media from corrupting young minds.
The long arm of censorship also carried over into kids' cartoons of the era.
You might remember how the guns in G.I. Joe all shot lasers instead of bullets in an effort to make the show seem less violent. A similar tactic was used on Zelda, with Link typically just shooting beams from his sword rather than actually using the blade much. This was also the reason that fallen bad guys were just warped back to Ganon's castle rather than actually perishing.
20 Hey! Listen!
While there were fairies in the Zelda games from the beginning, it wasn't until Ocarina of Time (sensing a pattern here?) that the idea of a constant fairy sidekick was introduced. And while Navi annoyed gamers of an entire generation with her incessant "Hey! Look! Listen!", there is no denying that she was a crucial introduction to the Zelda world.
Speaking of patterns, this is another thing the animated series did first by almost a decade.
In the Zelda cartoon, a fairy named Spryte served as the Tinkerbell to Link's Peter Pan, not only as a voice in his ear but pitching in with a little fairy dust when needed.
19 It's Called TRI-Force For A Reason
Much of the Zelda universe is built around the Triforce pieces, three triangular objects that, when brought together, represent the ultimate power in that world. The thing is, in the cartoon, they only ever mention the Triforce of Power and the Triforce of Wisdom, with Ganon having one and Zelda having the other—the conflict being that whichever side gets the other's piece will "rule this land forever."
But the Triforce isn't only named that because each piece is a triangle—it is called the Triforce because three pieces of it come together to form the bigger, main Triforce. To just leave one piece out of the show completely didn't make much sense to its origin or name.
18 Encore Performances
While the Zelda cartoon was relatively short-lived, that isn't to say that Link and Zelda never returned to the world of animation. In fact, the duo made three separate appearances on Captain N: The Game Master, a series that featured characters from many different NES franchises interacting together in a Disney Infinity kind of way.
Viewers with a keen ear noticed immediately that Link and Zelda retained their same voices on Captain N that they had in the original show, with Jonathon Potts and Cyndy Preston returning to reprise their respective roles.
17 Carry That Weight
It's a trope almost as old as video games themselvesvia zeldauniverse.netcharacters seem to have the ability to carry an almost endless amount of weapons and items in their pockets or pouches without any regard to the logic of space and mass.
The Zelda cartoon actually bothered to explain this phenomenon.
When Link would go to put an item in his pouch in the animated series, the item would magically shrink in order to fit inside the pouch. It was a nice little touch, even though it still required a pretty big suspension of disbelief.
16 It Inspired A Comic Book Series
Though the particular world presented in the Zelda animated series seemed to be retired when the show was, many aspects of it actually lived on in print.
The Nintendo-licensed Valiant Comics Legend of Zelda series that ran in the early-90s was clearly inspired by the cartoon in terms of overall art style; general tone and vibe; and in particular, the portrayal of Princess Zelda as a formidable warrior. For fans of the show that were sad to see it end so soon, the comics proved as a nice little spiritual successor to extend its life for another year or so.
15 ...And Some Truly Terrible Games
Unfortunately, the Zelda cartoon also lived on in a much more dubious way than a comic book series. The trio of dreadful Zelda video games for the Phillips CD-i console seemed to be much more inspired by the cartoon than the game series.
One wonders if the makers of those games even actually played the original games and weren't just told to make games based directly on the cartoon.
Even worse is that the developers seem to only take the worst aspects of the show—the subpar animation, Link's sarcastic attitude, a cast of weak supporting characters, and so on—and not only focus primarily on those but crank them all up to 11.
14 More Faithful Than Mario
There are people who saw the Friday Zelda cartoons as the weak Link (ha) of the Super Mario Bros. Super Show.
Well, everyone is entitled to their opinion—even though some opinions are clearly wrong.
The Mario cartoons on that show often barely resembled the games they were based on, feeling more like they were taken out of a book of stock, generic cartoon plots and had Mario characters badly shoehorned into them. Meanwhile, the Zelda cartoon actually stayed fairly faithful to the games overall and there was rarely a story or setpiece that felt like it couldn't have come directly from a Zelda video game.
13 Well-Orchestrated
While Zelda has always been known for its epic soundtracks, in the early days, that music had to be condensed into the limited audio capabilities of the NES. It would go full-orchestra in later games as the technology allowed, but in those first few games, the musical blanks had to be filled on by our imaginations.
Though orchestral versions of Zelda songs already existed on albums in Japan, the West hadn't yet been privy to arranged versions of the soundtracks in 1989—which makes the show's orchestral arrangements of the Zelda score the first time that many fans heard those tracks closer to how they were originally envisioned by Nintendo composer Koji Kondo.
12 A "Cheesy" Actor
A lot of people take issue with the way Ganon was portrayed on the Zelda cartoon, not liking the way he was more of a bumbling Bowser type and less of the menacing evil overlord that he's envisioned as in the games.
But that shouldn't take away from the solid performance of Len Carlson, who voiced the snorty antagonist.
Before stepping into the role of Ganon, Carlson was perhaps best-known as the pitchman for Kraft products on Canadian television throughout the 70s and 80s. The late actor also had a long lineage in voice acting, playing such characters as the Green Goblin in the 1960s Spider-Man cartoon, Professor Coldhart on Care Bears, and circling back around to video games late in life by providing the voices for Q and Hugo in Street Fighter III.
11 A Wild And Crazy Inspiration
It's kind of ironic that Link has barely said three words in his entire video game history—not counting the CD-i games, because those don't count—while he was a one-liner, catchphrase-spouting machine on the TV show.
His most famous line was inspired by the most famous line of a legendary comedian.
Link's exasperated delivery of "Well excuse me, Princess!" that dotted every episode of the show was very clearly an homage to Steve Martin's famous delivery of the line—sans the "Princess" part—in his stand-up act and in some of his movie and TV appearances.
10 Currency Exchange
One of the constants in Zelda games since the beginning has been the form of currency in that world—gems of varying colors denoting their monetary value, exchangeable for goods and services from both legitimate and questionable vendors, and mysteriously appearing from fallen enemies, sliced clumps of grass, and broken clay pots.
These gems are—and always have been—called rupees in the Zelda games. But, in one of the most blatant alterations of the games in the adaptation to an animated series, rupees became rubies. Why such a seemingly arbitrary change? It's simple—rubies is simply easier for voice actors to say frequently. Trying saying "rupee" out loud a few times and you will see that it sounds more awkward than you realize.
9 Always Hot Off The Press
In doesn't matter how much hate the Zelda animated series gets from an admittedly sizable segment of the gaming population—there is no denying that the show has fans, is warmly remembered, and has a legacy that endures to this day. For proof of this, look no further than the DVD releases.
As of today, there are still actively in-print runs of DVD collections of the Legend of Zelda animated series.
And any time a company that has the rights to it lets it lapse after their original deal is up, it never languishes for long and another company comes along and snatches it up. Currently, NCircle Entertainment is producing and selling the complete collection via their website and other retailers.
8 Gold Standard
Before making the jump to DVD, the Zelda cartoon came to home video—which these days, feels like an ancient form of media on a par with stone tablets—on VHS releases that each only contained a couple of episodes each and probably cost way too much money.
As a nice callback to the games, the Zelda VHS releases came in a sleeve that had a gold tint almost identical to the color used for the packaging for the NES versions of The Legend of Zelda and Zelda II: The Adventure of Link. Unfortunately, the VHS tapes themselves weren't encased in shiny faux-gold coating like the NES cartridges were.
7 Sharing With Mario
Not surprisingly, the Zelda and Mario cartoons shared a fair amount of cast and crew. The aforementioned Bob Forward, for instance, also did some writing for the Mario cartoons, and Link's actor provided "additional voices" for them.
But there was one main cast member that was shared by both the Zelda cartoon and the cartoon based on Super Mario Bros. 3.
Veteran voice actress Paulina Gillis—sometimes credited as Tabitha St. Germain—was both the voice of Spryte in Zelda and also Kootie-Pie Koopa (the TV version of Wendy O. Koopa) in The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3. Germain also has over 100 other credits on her resume, ranging from cartoon and video game voice work to live-action TV and movie roles.
6 Do You Even Lift, Bro?
When Link and Zelda joined the cast of Captain N for a few episodes, their voices and personalities were largely unchanged—but they were both given rather noticeable physical alterations. Zelda's clothes got a bit more risque, now sporting a bare midriff, but her basic physical look remain fairly similar.
Link, on the other hand, looked like he had spent a few months bench-pressing the Triforce between the Zelda cartoon and Captain N. His buffer appearance was likely an attempt to making him seem more physically imposing than Kevin/Captain N, playing into the pair's rivalry.