Welcome to a new recurring segment that we in the Writing Staff have coined "The Hall of Frame". What is that, you ask? Well, simply put, I felt given our site's history with finding and tearing apart several of the funny/bad/forgotten cartoons of yesteryear that it would be fun to look back and compile some of the most interesting, funniest, or flat-out badly drawn animation frames from the video sources that we've all come to love so much. Keep in mind that one of your favorite frames may not be in this particular batch, which is why we'll eventually revisit certain sources after a certain amount of time passes. So without further ado, let's dive into the first show, or rather, shows, to be featured in this segment: The Mario Cartoons.
It's no secret to anybody that has been involved with this site that these cartoons are notorious for having some of the laziest animation of any show. I don't think it's possible to watch through one scene without noticing at least one glaring animation blemish, whether it be weird, out of place, or just plain terrible-looking. For this reason, we decided to dig through these shows first in order to find some of the strangest frames of the bunch. We're most likely leaving out many other golden ones, since there are just that many infamous frames, so hopefully the ones we'll be showcasing will be among the cream of the crop.
SkyBlueFox's Pick:
The Mario cartoons often seemed to have that sort of thing happen during their runs, and while it's always fun to pick out wonky frames out of the many Mario episodes, I think it's rather notable to bring this frame up in particular as an example of what I mean. Take a peek into some other animated shows and try and see if you can find a similar frame to this one; a crowd scene where the people look notably less detailed or it simply looks less polished. I've seen it happen in a lot of other shows. It's perhaps lazy, but it's also a signal of the points when the animation team was already pushed to their limits as it was and couldn't bother to go any further with some things.
The reason this seems so interesting to me is because of the fact that, as anyone could probably tell you, the Mario cartoons' animation was quite poor. There were plenty of animation goofs and screw-ups that were inexcusably blatant. Therein lies the issue: the art-color-animation team was making plenty of actual mistakes in their work on the show, and they still felt compelled to lazily slap together frames like this for otherwise-unimportant scenes. So what that ultimately makes me wonder is this: what happened? Was the team so massively overworked that they used a typical time-saving trick and still had mistakes show up? Did the team not care enough at all to bother putting effort into the show? Was the team just not skilled enough in general? Things like this can be overlooked if the rest of the show looks nice and polished, but the Mario cartoons weren't. So what was the deal?
HerrVarden's Pick:
![Posted Image]()
Very few people know that am I actually quite the art connoisseur. I've seen it all from Nighthawks to the Persistence of Memory. I know the Van Goghs, the Rockwells, the Tanguys and I've carefully gazed upon their work and find within them that majestic beauty that they behold. Why do I share such information when the commoner considers that the animators of this DiC classic are not even worthy of kissing the feet of Jackson Pollock? By no means is it to undermine the skills presented by the animators, my comment towards my knowledge of art is merely an innocuous fact. If anything, such a background is what has been able to drive my careful consideration for the frame on which to elaborate on. The show has a fair amount of moments that one could divulge into, but I believe that the one that I have chosen is the most adequate one of them all.
If my memory serves me right, this was taken from the episode where Milli Vanilli made an appearance. That detail alone is what sparks the true genius of this frame. For one, it explains why the girls are screaming and the two Mario Brothers are covering their ears. That's simple enough, but if you look at the anatomy of the two women in the foreground, you notice that they resemble the style of Edvard Munch's "The Scream". The extended jaw and grotesque expression was to signify the anguish and volume that a scream would possess in the original painting, but under the context of the fanatics, it shows how controlled they are by their obsession with the band, almost as if they are under the influence of Satan. Each of the three fanatics' expressions shows the effects of the Devil impacting their lives. The left one appears to be more possessed, making her the one to be most feared, the middle one has become lunatic from the powerful will of Lucifer and the right exemplifies the emptiness that a slave of Hell eventually obtains. Notice also how the Mario brothers are wearing tuxedos rather than casual attire, indicating that they are more refined. Their juxtaposition indicates much more that simply a clash of class and sophistication, but rather how they choose to accept the holiness rather than succumb to the power of the devil. After all, they are Italian, who are not only devout Catholics but also hold the most sacred of religious institutions, the Vatican. So you see, this is much more than a frame. It is a masterpiece hidden amongst a whole slew of other frames that fastly flutter to create the wonderful effect of animation.
Crazy Luigi's Pick:
This episode came off of "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show," which is a more common, yet less talked about Mario cartoon when it comes to Hall of Frame worthy inductions. While it might not sound like much now, just the fact that it came from more "humble beginnings" makes it something to talk about. Still, that's not what I want to really talk about here. What makes this frame so great is how despite both of the Mario brothers have somewhat similar reactions, they both have differently awkward ways of looking at each others heads. While Mario may not look so bad at first, it's by looking closer at his head where you notice the things that start making it noteworthy; the plumber hat looking closer to a derby hat, detached eyebrows that look painted on the bottom of his hat, the eyes suspiciously looking similar to Pac-Man, and probably the most notable part of it all... the missing left part of his neck. However, it's through veering at the right side of the picture that the picture goes from awkward to Hall of Frame worthy.
As usual, the racist Luigi helps take this picture over the top and out of the frying pan. While forgiving Luigi's Pac-Man eyes and how his hat doesn't really look all that hat-like for a minute, the cream of the crop comes from the head that he brings out here. To keep it short and simple, if Arnold was an intentional football head from the horizontal point of view, then Luigi almost unintentionally represents that in a vertical point of view. However, it's through looking at it more that makes you wonder some things about it, such as whether the drawer was the first to think of Luigi's head as a banana or what really influenced the show to draw his head like that and give them the okay on it. Still, it's through the proper disdain of Mario and Luigi that helped make the picture more over the top than when I first saw it.
Nozdordomu's Pick:
It’s the expression. In the episode, Rob and Fab make those faces right before the Mario brothers start playing a terrible rendition of “Girl You Know It’s True” – so bad it’s actually painful to hear – so it’s easy to understand why they look worried. But that’s the thing. They look too worried. Is bad music really a good enough reason to abandon all hope and stare into space in utter despondency? Jesus Christ, Milli Vanilli, you don’t have sickle-cell anemia or anything. Lighten up. You can almost hear them saying "Zis is terrible" to themselves. But what's so terrible? You can make up any reason for why Rob and Fab look like that. I like to think that they made those faces when the whole lip-synching business came out, or when their song skipped at a live show, or when they realized that they had been tricked into starring in a third-rate cartoon based on a videogame. I guess some publicity isn’t good after all.
This frame isn’t too poorly drawn, but for some reason the little things stick in the mind. It could be the shitty outlines, or the awkward arrangement of the scene (where are they standing?), or the dumb-looking hats, or the dumber-looking shirts, or the episode context, or the fact that Rob and Fab appear to have unusually large biceps. For me, the goofy expressions seal the deal. I’m still wondering what was going through their heads at that moment. Poor Milli Vanilli.
Mashu's Pick:
In this case, we're given a frame from our beloved Super Mario World. Now, already, from just looking at it, several comedic errors can be seen; for one, Mario's head is absolutely giant (or is that his hat?), and he appears to be intently breaking a wooden stick with his mind, from the looks of it, while Luigi and Yoshi stare at him in bewilderment like he's some sort of madman. However, looking deeper into it reveals even more mistakes, each more hilarious than the next.
For one, Yoshi's body composition is subtly, yet still awkwardly, off place in a sort of skewed bent position. He seems to be much taller, and his arms are way lower than they should be, not to mention that his hands are in a flaccid position, giving an almost flamboyant, “oh no you di'int” attitude to it, completely contradicting the rest of his body language. Luigi's hair seems to be streaking down at the back, making it look like he has much longer hair than he does. The worst offender, however, is his body position. He's locked in a very default-ish demeanor, with even his hands completely flat. Because of this, however, it almost looks like he's suspended in midair, and much larger than Mario. Seriously, look at it for a while; once you see it, it's impossible not to see it.
Hell, once you get right down to it, everything in this frame is impossible to not see. It's the epitome of poor animation, and such is the reason why I chose this hilarious and “nonsensical without context” apathetic magnum opus. Kudos to you, Super Mario World animators, you lazy ol' fucks.
Mushrooms's Pick:
There's hardly any explanation as to why he looks like this. Luigi turns back into a human after being an egg, he's told that he was an egg, makes that face, and upon realizing he just made himself look like a total schmuck on international television, and lifts his finger with a nervous look on his face that says "oh god I hope nobody saw that", accompanied by the 1-up sound as the cherry on this awkwardly-assembled cake. The funniest thing is how this wasn't some slip up like that piece of the storyboard showing up for a split second in the Cave Christmas episode, oh no, they drew Luigi as a dumbass-lookin' muthafucka on purpose and slapped him in there, possibly as a symbolic representation of their intended audience.
Another thing I love about this frame in addition is how stupid the trees look along with Luigi. They look almost like kindergarten scribbles, but you know what? The animators knew what they were doing. To capitalize on Luigi's dumbass expression here, they made the trees look equally stupid to create one harmonious choir of stupid, echoing all throughout the second or so this frame makes its mark with the viewers.
Cantfly's Pick:
In order to cut to the chase, I'm just going to come out and say it: that is Luigi's ass. The artist that worked on this particular shot felt like adding in the detail of Luigi's gigantic ass cheeks bursting through the seat of his pants. There are plenty of cartoons that set prominent focus on a particular character's buttocks (Robotnik from AoStH, Red Guy from Cow & Chicken, etc) but in those shows it was clearly done intentionally for the sake of comedic effect and exaggeration to make those characters look even sillier than they already are. However, this is the Super Mario World cartoon that we're talking about here; absolutely nothing about the show is intentionally ridiculous enough for this to make any sense. So what exactly was the motivation behind focusing so much on an Italian plumber's dirty asscrack for the handful of seconds that this was onscreen? And why is it that, on top of this, Luigi and the Fire Sumo look like they're about to shit out their internal organs? It's all just so bizarre, and it may take a long time before anyone can ever find a true answer. But until then, Mama Luigi's Ass will remain the Eighth Wonder of the World. Step aside, King Kong.
It's no secret to anybody that has been involved with this site that these cartoons are notorious for having some of the laziest animation of any show. I don't think it's possible to watch through one scene without noticing at least one glaring animation blemish, whether it be weird, out of place, or just plain terrible-looking. For this reason, we decided to dig through these shows first in order to find some of the strangest frames of the bunch. We're most likely leaving out many other golden ones, since there are just that many infamous frames, so hopefully the ones we'll be showcasing will be among the cream of the crop.
SkyBlueFox's Pick:
The Mario cartoons often seemed to have that sort of thing happen during their runs, and while it's always fun to pick out wonky frames out of the many Mario episodes, I think it's rather notable to bring this frame up in particular as an example of what I mean. Take a peek into some other animated shows and try and see if you can find a similar frame to this one; a crowd scene where the people look notably less detailed or it simply looks less polished. I've seen it happen in a lot of other shows. It's perhaps lazy, but it's also a signal of the points when the animation team was already pushed to their limits as it was and couldn't bother to go any further with some things.
The reason this seems so interesting to me is because of the fact that, as anyone could probably tell you, the Mario cartoons' animation was quite poor. There were plenty of animation goofs and screw-ups that were inexcusably blatant. Therein lies the issue: the art-color-animation team was making plenty of actual mistakes in their work on the show, and they still felt compelled to lazily slap together frames like this for otherwise-unimportant scenes. So what that ultimately makes me wonder is this: what happened? Was the team so massively overworked that they used a typical time-saving trick and still had mistakes show up? Did the team not care enough at all to bother putting effort into the show? Was the team just not skilled enough in general? Things like this can be overlooked if the rest of the show looks nice and polished, but the Mario cartoons weren't. So what was the deal?
HerrVarden's Pick:
Very few people know that am I actually quite the art connoisseur. I've seen it all from Nighthawks to the Persistence of Memory. I know the Van Goghs, the Rockwells, the Tanguys and I've carefully gazed upon their work and find within them that majestic beauty that they behold. Why do I share such information when the commoner considers that the animators of this DiC classic are not even worthy of kissing the feet of Jackson Pollock? By no means is it to undermine the skills presented by the animators, my comment towards my knowledge of art is merely an innocuous fact. If anything, such a background is what has been able to drive my careful consideration for the frame on which to elaborate on. The show has a fair amount of moments that one could divulge into, but I believe that the one that I have chosen is the most adequate one of them all.
If my memory serves me right, this was taken from the episode where Milli Vanilli made an appearance. That detail alone is what sparks the true genius of this frame. For one, it explains why the girls are screaming and the two Mario Brothers are covering their ears. That's simple enough, but if you look at the anatomy of the two women in the foreground, you notice that they resemble the style of Edvard Munch's "The Scream". The extended jaw and grotesque expression was to signify the anguish and volume that a scream would possess in the original painting, but under the context of the fanatics, it shows how controlled they are by their obsession with the band, almost as if they are under the influence of Satan. Each of the three fanatics' expressions shows the effects of the Devil impacting their lives. The left one appears to be more possessed, making her the one to be most feared, the middle one has become lunatic from the powerful will of Lucifer and the right exemplifies the emptiness that a slave of Hell eventually obtains. Notice also how the Mario brothers are wearing tuxedos rather than casual attire, indicating that they are more refined. Their juxtaposition indicates much more that simply a clash of class and sophistication, but rather how they choose to accept the holiness rather than succumb to the power of the devil. After all, they are Italian, who are not only devout Catholics but also hold the most sacred of religious institutions, the Vatican. So you see, this is much more than a frame. It is a masterpiece hidden amongst a whole slew of other frames that fastly flutter to create the wonderful effect of animation.
Crazy Luigi's Pick:
This episode came off of "The Super Mario Bros. Super Show," which is a more common, yet less talked about Mario cartoon when it comes to Hall of Frame worthy inductions. While it might not sound like much now, just the fact that it came from more "humble beginnings" makes it something to talk about. Still, that's not what I want to really talk about here. What makes this frame so great is how despite both of the Mario brothers have somewhat similar reactions, they both have differently awkward ways of looking at each others heads. While Mario may not look so bad at first, it's by looking closer at his head where you notice the things that start making it noteworthy; the plumber hat looking closer to a derby hat, detached eyebrows that look painted on the bottom of his hat, the eyes suspiciously looking similar to Pac-Man, and probably the most notable part of it all... the missing left part of his neck. However, it's through veering at the right side of the picture that the picture goes from awkward to Hall of Frame worthy.
As usual, the racist Luigi helps take this picture over the top and out of the frying pan. While forgiving Luigi's Pac-Man eyes and how his hat doesn't really look all that hat-like for a minute, the cream of the crop comes from the head that he brings out here. To keep it short and simple, if Arnold was an intentional football head from the horizontal point of view, then Luigi almost unintentionally represents that in a vertical point of view. However, it's through looking at it more that makes you wonder some things about it, such as whether the drawer was the first to think of Luigi's head as a banana or what really influenced the show to draw his head like that and give them the okay on it. Still, it's through the proper disdain of Mario and Luigi that helped make the picture more over the top than when I first saw it.
Nozdordomu's Pick:
It’s the expression. In the episode, Rob and Fab make those faces right before the Mario brothers start playing a terrible rendition of “Girl You Know It’s True” – so bad it’s actually painful to hear – so it’s easy to understand why they look worried. But that’s the thing. They look too worried. Is bad music really a good enough reason to abandon all hope and stare into space in utter despondency? Jesus Christ, Milli Vanilli, you don’t have sickle-cell anemia or anything. Lighten up. You can almost hear them saying "Zis is terrible" to themselves. But what's so terrible? You can make up any reason for why Rob and Fab look like that. I like to think that they made those faces when the whole lip-synching business came out, or when their song skipped at a live show, or when they realized that they had been tricked into starring in a third-rate cartoon based on a videogame. I guess some publicity isn’t good after all.
This frame isn’t too poorly drawn, but for some reason the little things stick in the mind. It could be the shitty outlines, or the awkward arrangement of the scene (where are they standing?), or the dumb-looking hats, or the dumber-looking shirts, or the episode context, or the fact that Rob and Fab appear to have unusually large biceps. For me, the goofy expressions seal the deal. I’m still wondering what was going through their heads at that moment. Poor Milli Vanilli.
Mashu's Pick:
In this case, we're given a frame from our beloved Super Mario World. Now, already, from just looking at it, several comedic errors can be seen; for one, Mario's head is absolutely giant (or is that his hat?), and he appears to be intently breaking a wooden stick with his mind, from the looks of it, while Luigi and Yoshi stare at him in bewilderment like he's some sort of madman. However, looking deeper into it reveals even more mistakes, each more hilarious than the next.
For one, Yoshi's body composition is subtly, yet still awkwardly, off place in a sort of skewed bent position. He seems to be much taller, and his arms are way lower than they should be, not to mention that his hands are in a flaccid position, giving an almost flamboyant, “oh no you di'int” attitude to it, completely contradicting the rest of his body language. Luigi's hair seems to be streaking down at the back, making it look like he has much longer hair than he does. The worst offender, however, is his body position. He's locked in a very default-ish demeanor, with even his hands completely flat. Because of this, however, it almost looks like he's suspended in midair, and much larger than Mario. Seriously, look at it for a while; once you see it, it's impossible not to see it.
Hell, once you get right down to it, everything in this frame is impossible to not see. It's the epitome of poor animation, and such is the reason why I chose this hilarious and “nonsensical without context” apathetic magnum opus. Kudos to you, Super Mario World animators, you lazy ol' fucks.
Mushrooms's Pick:
There's hardly any explanation as to why he looks like this. Luigi turns back into a human after being an egg, he's told that he was an egg, makes that face, and upon realizing he just made himself look like a total schmuck on international television, and lifts his finger with a nervous look on his face that says "oh god I hope nobody saw that", accompanied by the 1-up sound as the cherry on this awkwardly-assembled cake. The funniest thing is how this wasn't some slip up like that piece of the storyboard showing up for a split second in the Cave Christmas episode, oh no, they drew Luigi as a dumbass-lookin' muthafucka on purpose and slapped him in there, possibly as a symbolic representation of their intended audience.
Another thing I love about this frame in addition is how stupid the trees look along with Luigi. They look almost like kindergarten scribbles, but you know what? The animators knew what they were doing. To capitalize on Luigi's dumbass expression here, they made the trees look equally stupid to create one harmonious choir of stupid, echoing all throughout the second or so this frame makes its mark with the viewers.
Cantfly's Pick:
In order to cut to the chase, I'm just going to come out and say it: that is Luigi's ass. The artist that worked on this particular shot felt like adding in the detail of Luigi's gigantic ass cheeks bursting through the seat of his pants. There are plenty of cartoons that set prominent focus on a particular character's buttocks (Robotnik from AoStH, Red Guy from Cow & Chicken, etc) but in those shows it was clearly done intentionally for the sake of comedic effect and exaggeration to make those characters look even sillier than they already are. However, this is the Super Mario World cartoon that we're talking about here; absolutely nothing about the show is intentionally ridiculous enough for this to make any sense. So what exactly was the motivation behind focusing so much on an Italian plumber's dirty asscrack for the handful of seconds that this was onscreen? And why is it that, on top of this, Luigi and the Fire Sumo look like they're about to shit out their internal organs? It's all just so bizarre, and it may take a long time before anyone can ever find a true answer. But until then, Mama Luigi's Ass will remain the Eighth Wonder of the World. Step aside, King Kong.