The Night Before Cave Christmas

Mario, Luigi and the Princess can't help but notice that Oogtar and all the cave people are total jerks. Instead of letting them feud themselves to death, Mario comes up with the suggestion of telling Oogtar about Cave Christmas, hoping the rest of the cave people will follow his example.

I'd just like to let that ridiculous storyline sink in for a moment.

While the concept of receiving stuff intrigues Oogtar, the fact it's only good kids who are rewarded disappoints him. "Dino bummer, dude."

King Koopa, for whatever reason, is hiding in a log to hear all this, and one of the Koopa Kids, Bully Koopa, takes interest in all of it, aside from the being nice part, naturally. Elsewhere, Oogtar continues being a greedy git and sneaks into the toy workshop to play with the goods, but Luigi, demonstrating that Dinosaur Land has no child abuse laws (and for good reason because Oogtar really is a jerk), simply throws the cave kid out the door. And Bowser pops up again in a window, oblivious to the characters and cackles again about stealing the toys. That's four times now, we get the picture.

Cave Christmas Eve, Mario and Luigi have a pointless dialogue exchange, and Oogtar is still determined to get himself some plastic entertainment, so while the brothers carelessly leave the door open, he sneaks in and aims to pinch stuff from the bag, but after hearing someone behind him, hides inside. Bowser is somehow able to enter Dome City, dander inside the workshop and make off with the loot and no one notices a thing. They are, however, able to immediately know who did it once they find one of his scales next to where the bag was, and aim to steal it back from the cantankerous corpuscle. Seriously, that's what Mario calls him. And the method of transportation...

Should have been expected.

Meanwhile, Bowser is unhappy with this prehistoric punk stealing the toys he already stole, so Oogtar throws a Bob-Omb at him. Confusion time! Bowser screams "stop! You weren't supposed to go off until Chrismas morning!" Given the fact he knows what time the bomb should have detonated, it sounds like he planted the bomb in the present, but to do so he would've had to put it in the bag, in which case he'd have to open it and see Oogtar inside. And then there's the matter of who the Bob-Omb was for. Was Mario just being a dick for a change and going to explode some unsuspecting cave kid? Was Bowser being a dick to his own children and giving one of an explosive surprise? Or was he going to return the bag back to the workshop with the Bob-Omb inside and explode Mario? For a ten minute long childrens' cartoon based off a game over a decade old, this is confusing stuff.

The King of Koopas, unhappy with this, grabs Oogtar and lowers him above a hungry dinosaur and places a candle underneath the rope supporting him, and tells us "remember, Oogtar spelt backwards is Ratgoo."

"Well, that was a random thing to say! Besides, everybody knows about name reversing."

"What are you gonna do, sue me for wanting to show off my knowledge of the English language?"

"FORGET ABOUT THAT"

Mario and Yoshi arrive on the scene, and after getting themselves in through a window, land themselves into awkward song time! All that happens is a minute of them running around and eventually getting a feather. Summary over.

They arrive in the nick of time, and after both Oogtar and Mario are nearly eaten by the dinosaur, they're both saved and Santa gives Oogtar a little pep talk. They head outside, and again in the nick of time, get Yoshi a pair of wings before the Koopa Kids come out and lynch them. Oogtar is tucked into bed, and in a total contrast to his usual nature, considers his life being saved the only present he needed. In the morning, Oogtar notices no present was left for Mario, so he gives him one, and our plumber hero just says "don't you wish every day was Christmas?" while giving a creepily over exaggerated wink at the viewers.

During the awkward song time, the blocks are pretty wacky.

They're ! blocks at first, and the middle is already hit, but then they become ? blocks and the middle becomes hittable on the next angle.

Gotta love how Bully Koopa has absolutely no input on the story or action at all.

Is it just me, or is this one of the more disjointed episodes? The first five minutes are wasted on getting the ridiculously simple storyline across, and then the second half has all these action pieces come along suddenly and with no warning, which made the ending a bit of a surprise for me because I thought there would be at least two more minutes.