Super Mario Bros. Z

Super Mario Bros. + Sonic the Hedgehog + Dragonball Z = this series.

Super Mario Bros. Z is a flash animation series by Alvin-Earthworm. The series is a Crossover between the Mario and Sonic universes in a plot that bears great similarity to Dragonball Z, in which DBZ-style abilities are granted to each character -- their strength, speed, stamina, etc have all gotten a massive upgrade from what is seen in their respective games, shows, comics and other media. Their abilities relative to each other remain largely intact, though (Sonic still runs faster than anybody else, Mario is highly versatile, etc.).

Combining references to games both old and new, physical comedy (mostly at Luigi's expense), and some rather spectacular battle sequences, the series has gained quite a following.

Hosted on Newgrounds, eight episodes were made, with a 9th one left unfinished. There was a 45 episode saga (3 seasons of 15 episodes each) planned, but the series was discontinued in March 2012 after nearly two and a half years since the release of Episode 8.

The official site -- which houses a guide, timeline, and other sundry details along with the episodes proper — can be found here.

As of March 26, 2012, he's officially announced that he has discontinued the series. Whether someone else will take over production remains to be seen, though Alvin has claimed that he is not keen on that idea (since it would likely produce a Super Mario Bros GT). The only official footage of the now forever-lost episode 9 can be seen here.

Tropes used in Super Mario Bros. Z include:

• Action Bomb: Waluigi shows why these should never be used as grenades.
• Apocalypse How: Planetary destruction and implied total extinction of life on Mobius and Regional destruction with Physical Annihilation in regards to Yoshi Island.
• Airplane Arms: Mario, Luigi, and Sonic. That is how they run in their games, however.
• Another Dimension: Mobius is this to the Mushroom Kingdom.
• Arm Cannon: Mecha Sonic's arm contains one of these. He usually uses it as a machine gun (with a shotgun-racking sound effect), but he can also fire missiles out of it (two at once, even!). He doesn't use it very often though, considering that most of his opponents are fast enough/skilled enough to avoid gunfire.
• Art Evolution: The difference in quality between Episodes 1 and 5 is staggering, and it has only gotten better since then.
• Art Shift: When the characters visit the Minus World, they all appear as 8-bit versions of themselves. This is Handwaved as an effect of the "negative energy" that created the area in the first place.
  • The most recent culmination of this is in Episode 8, where the art breaks from its pixelated bonds to use actual animated art in certain instances.
    • This is mostly due Alvin's decision to use Vector as opposed to hi-res sprites. Thankfully, Alvin is a pretty damn good artist in his own right so it all looks good.
  • In Episode 8, Mario and Luigi briefly get their Hotel Mario artwork, complete with a Lampshade.
• Avenging the Villain: Basilisx wants revenge on Mario because he killed his best friend, which by the sound of his description, was an unimportant Koopa in one of the castles of Super Mario World... although some have have noted that the details he provides don't match up with the game, throwing some suspicion on whether his motives are truthful.
  • Then again, because of the experiments done onto Basilisx to make him super-powerful, maybe the procedure really messed up his memories, and he could be talking about some other Koopa Troopa Mario killed. Another possibility is that the events in question are lies fabricated by Bowser to increase Basilisx's rage.
  • Then AGAIN, why on Earth would fabrication of such memories even be necessary? God knows Mario has killed enough Troopas in his time...
  • Considering who Basilisx might be based off...
• Badass: Mecha Sonic. Whenever he gets involved in the action, some serious ass-kicking is about to ensue. But then again, everybody has been badassed-up to some extent — even Luigi.
  • Everybody except for Peach, Wario, and Waluigi... so far, at least.
  • Basilisx, an original character who, in his introductory episode, not only disables Yoshi, Sonic, and Luigi but also defeats Mario in combat.
  • Anyone else notice one of Shadow's attacks being a backhand as strong as Mario's punch?
  • Smithy gets a moment despite not actually appearing in the series, when Axem Red states that one of the Chaos Emeralds doesn't have enough power to restore Smithy to his former level of strength. This when one of them is capable of completely turning the tide of battle.
    • This is, naturally, an implied Badass moment for Mario and his crew from the game in question, since they beat Smithy in the first place.
• Badass Mustache: Mario, Luigi, and Dr. Eggman.
• Bash Brothers: To an art form.
• Beam Spam / Bullet Hell: Inverted. With very few exceptions, the more projectiles used in a given attack, the less effectiveness that attack will have. Heroes and villains alike casually wade through a sea of beams or hammers without a scratch, but single projectile attacks nearly always hit.
• BFG: Axem Red's secret weapon. It doesn't work.
  • On a larger scale, the Omega Doomship Main Energy Cannon in Episode 8.
  • Between the two sits the Breaker Beam. Back in Super Mario RPG, it might, oh, take half your HP or so. But when Axem Red hooks up a Chaos Emerald, it levels the mountains on Yoshi's Island from a single shot. That didn't stop Mecha Sonic, though...
• Big Bad Ensemble: Mecha Sonic, Bowser, and Smithy, although the latter hasn't personally appeared yet. Also, Eggman is working for Bowser but seems to have his own agenda. Wart shows up in the anime opening, although he hasn't made it into the show itself yet.
• Big Damn Heroes: Sonic and Shadow in 2, Yoshi in 5, Shadow in 7.
• Big Red Button: Eggman's button.
• Bilingual Bonus: Professor Frankly's history lecture in Episode 7 reveals that several centuries ago the Mushroom Kingdom was ruled by Queen Pesca VIII. In Italian, "pesca" means "peach".
• Bishonen Line: Master Mecha Sonic, as indicated by the intro and supplementary material.
• Bizarro World: The Minus World.
• Blade on a Stick: Each of the Axems have these, combined with An Axe to Grind.
• Black Knight: Basilisx.
• Bolivian Army Ending: Kind of: In the trailer for Episode 9, showing the progress he made for the episode before cancelling it, Basilisx, after Luigi broke out of his rocky prison via the Tanooki Suit's powers and saved Mario from Basilisx, is last seen telling his soldiers to attack Mario and Luigi as the trailer ends. Because of the nature of the cancellation^[1], it's currently unknown what exactly will happen.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall:

Frankly: ...And you better listen, too. YEAH, YOU! Behind the computer monitor! You need to hear this as well!

• • This is actually more of a Shout-Out to Paper Mario 2: The Thousand-Year Door, where Frankly uses an identical phrase during an exposition session in the game.
  • Goombella mentions no one would remember the first "Over 9000" joke, since it was made a year and a half earlier.
• Bullet Time: Mario, Sonic, and Mecha Sonic do this a lot. Particularly notable in Episode 7, where Sonic and Mecha Sonic are fighting so fast that Mario appears to stand still.
• But for Me It Was Tuesday: Mario evokes this. See What the Hell, Hero?, below.
• Butt Monkey: Luigi, Wario, and Waluigi.
• Camera Abuse: Waluigi smacks into it while flying around after Wario pokes him with a pin. Bowser cracks it when Mario throws him out of the Grand Prix in Episode 2. This is a reference to what happens to him after defeating Cackletta back in Superstar Saga.
  • ...Aaaand then the lens is completely shattered in Episode 8 by a startled mook.
• The Cameo: Jeff and Hal of Bowser's Kingdom, another Newgrounds Mario series, make a cameo appearance in Episode 7.
• Canon Foreigner: Mecha Mario, Captain Basilisx.
• Catapult Nightmare: Sonic.
• Chekhov's Gun: Luigi's 1-Up mushroom; Professor Kolorado's Subconian stopwatch.
  • The former looks ready to be fired again. As hopeless as everything looks, E. Gadd packed the heroes a 1-Up and Sonic won another one killing enemies...
  • Also, Shadow mentioned in Episode 5 that he could sense Chaos Emerald energy from long distances when explaining why he is suspicious of the "emerald" that was barely 100 yards away. If it is true that Shadow will find at least one Chaos Emerald upon returning to the group, this might explain how he got it.
• Chrome Champion: Metal Bowser.
• Clasp Your Hands If You Deceive: Dr Eggman in episode 7. Complete with Scary Shiny Glasses.
• Cliff Hanger: Episode 8 ends with Mario at the mercy at Basilisx, the other heroes turned to stone, Eggman now working for Bowser, Peach kidnapped (as usual), Shadow no where to be found and Mecha Sonic still on the loose with half the emerald. How does it end? Well, despite Alvin cancelling the series before finishing episode 9, he did create enough of it to show how Mario gets saved, and Shadow's whereabouts.
• Cliff Stack: Sonic is a reoccurring victim of this.
• Colony Drop: The Death Egg crashes on Mobius, with some incredibly-devastating consequences.
• Color-Coded for Your Convenience: The Koopa Bros. Made infinitely more amusing when one looks back and realizes who fought who in the first battle against them-- particularly Red, Green and Black. The same can be said for the Axem Rangers, though they had one extra member.
• Cool Plane: Sky Pop Mark II. It doesn't use a runway for takeoff — It uses a slingshot!
• Combat Pragmatist: Basilisx has absolutely no qualms about using Poison Mushrooms to weaken his opponent or Luigi as a shield/bludgeon.
  • Subverted because Basilisx has the power of Stone Gaze. He states himself that he could "turn Mario to stone and grind him into dust", and judging by what he did to the others he is not bluffing. Yet he insists on fighting Mario without his Stone Gaze, claiming that killing a flesh-and-blood Mario would be much more satisfying.
• Combination Attack: The Koopa Bros.' finishing move; Axem Ranger Green and Black's spinning attack; Sonic and Mario's double attack when empowered by the Super Star.
  • Most of the fight scenes with more than one of the heroes feature these. Several, in fact, are throwbacks to the myriad Bros. Attacks in the Mario & Luigi series. Of course, due to the nature of this series, the attacks are taken Up to Eleven.
    • Luigi is particularly fond of these, using the Blue Shell and Tanooki Suits to transform himself into a weapon/vehicle for others to use.
• Conspicuous CG: The Doomship.
  • Alvin has admitted this was a kind of compromise, since fully rendering it would be a nightmare. He has tried to say that it has a sort of Narm Charm, since it kind of calls back to the SNES Star Fox graphics.
  • And the fact that fully rendering it would raise the file size, and Newgrounds updated the site just so he could upload Episode 8.
• Continuity Porn: This series takes most, if not all, of the Mario games as canon. Main series, the handheld gaiden games, the RPGs... The series started with a Mario Kart race, and once featured Mario in his doctor get-up. With Sonic, it appears to be the same thing, exempting Mecha Sonic who is the Sonic-bot from Sonic 3 & Knuckles but is apparently an entirely new creation.
  • Mecha Sonic is actually a combination of four of the robotic Sonics from the series: Silver Sonic from Sonic 2 and Sonic Adventure, Mecha Sonic from the Archie Comics Sonic Special "Mecha Madness" (who was actually Sonic after being roboticized), and Metal Sonic from Sonic the Hedgehog CD; their combined form is Mecha Sonic from Sonic & Knuckles.
• Contrived Coincidence: Sonic and Shadow's convenient timing on their arrival.
• Couch Gag: In the Newgrounds official releases, each episode (after pressing the "Play" button) features Mario gaining some powerup or another.
  • Or power-down, as the case may be in Episode 6. Poor Mario....
• Creator Breakdown: This has happened a couple of times, due to fans pressuring the release date of the next episode. The last time Alvin-Earthworm had one, he canceled the series. Thankfully, he made an apology and uncanceled it the next day.
  • Seems to have stuck for real this time. Though he cites it as the project being too time consuming and he did apologize to the fans for discontinuing the series.
• Critical Hit: Manifested as a double flash and a slight pause.
• Crossover: Mario and Sonic, of course.
• Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass: Luigi might be cowardly, but he can sure put up a fight when needed.
• Curb Stomp Battle: the series LOVES those, whether it's just one side brutally dominating the other (like Metal Sonic did to Yoshi, though Yoshi did manage to land a couple of hits) either it starts with one side dominating the other, then something miraculous happens and the other side crushes the opposition with equal ease (Mario vs Metal Bowser).
• Cut Short: The ultimate fate of the show.
  • Or not... as the trailer (showing what little of the episode he managed to accomplish) has the words "The End?", which would be an odd choice of words to use for cancelling the series permanently.
• Dangerously Genre Savvy: Basilisx.
• Deadpan Snarker: Shadow.
• Death From Above: Mecha Sonic's ginormous energy ball, which in appearance is a miniature Sun, which was hurled at Yoshi's Island.
  • Reference to Frieza's death ball which destroyed Planet Vegeta in DBZ.
• Death World: Moebius
• Deliberately Monochrome: Luigi's flashback in Episode 6.
  • Sonic's flashbacks to the destruction of Mobius at the hands of Mecha Sonic.
• The Determinator: Mecha Sonic.
• Didn't We Use This Joke Already?: An 'Over 9000' joke gets made twice; the second time, the perpetrating character is called out on it.
• Ditto Fighter: Mecha Sonic, again. It is explained that he can download the data of the hedgehogs and others he faces, so he can use the same moves as them.
  • Makes sense seeing as Metal Sonic, who fused with other Sonic robots to become Mecha, demonstrates this ability in Sonic Heroes and the Sonic Rivals games.
  • Meant to be a reference to Cell in DBZ and how he knows all the Z Fighters' techniques due to having their genetic material.
    • Coincidence?
• Diving Save: Mario for Sonic and Stuffwell.
• Do a Barrel Roll: Episode 8.
• The Dragon: Either Basilisx or Eggman to Bowser. It's hard to decide which.
• Drop the Hammer: The Mario Bros. and Axem Yellow. Mario gets a hammer barrage as Hammer Bros. Mario.
  • Mario and Luigi regularly bust out hammers as part of their RPG weaponry. They are just as likely to use them to launch their allies forward as they are to attack with them.
• Downer Ending: Episodes 3, 4, and 6.
  • 8 especially, now that the series won't be continuing. The final scene Alvin created for Episode 9 shows what happens to Mario and Shadow's current whereabouts, but Peach is still imprisoned by Bowser and Mecha Sonic is still at large.
• Dual-Wielding: Hammer Bros. Mario; Basilisx.
• Dynamic Entry: Mecha Sonic's answer to Mario's Diving Save. He basically just slugs the holy shit out of Mario at max speed.
  • Spectacularly done by Basilisx in Episode 8; It was strong enough to knock Mario entirely out of his Raccoon power-up.
• Elite Mook: Basilisx. It's been hinted that he's a Super Prototype as well.
• The End of the World as We Know It: Alvin has pretty much confirmed that Mobius, and everyone still alive in it, are screwed forever. That's what happens when a homicidal robot crashes a space station the size of the freaking moon into the planet...
• Era Specific Personality: In a visual gag from Episode 3, Mario encounters himself as rendered in Super Mario Bros, Super Mario Bros 3, and Super Mario World. All at once. Understandably, he freaks out.
• Everything's Better with Spinning: Practically dedicated to the concept.
  • Spin Attack: Sonic, of course, but any other character does this, even while Dual-Wielding hammers.
  • Spin to Deflect Stuff
  • Hurricane Kick: Sonic's Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku.
  • Do a Barrel Roll
• Evil vs. Evil: The Axem Rangers, Koopa Bros, and our heroes get in a three-sided fight for the Chaos Emeralds. When Mecha Sonic shows up however, it becomes VERY one-sided.
• Evil Laugh: By Bowser, obviously. Toadsworth wonders why villains feel compelled to do that.
• Exact Words: Meta-example. Alvin Earthworm during discussions on Episode 9 regarding Shadow, only said that Shadow won't return to aid Mario from Basilisx or regroup with the characters. He never said whether Shadow would appear in the episode itself or not, and Episode 9's trailer revealed that Shadow will appear.
• Expy: Several characters are intentionally reminiscent of characters from Dragonball Z as a Shout-Out. Shadow is clearly channeling Vegeta, while Mecha Sonic is based partly off of Cell.
  • The Yoshi tribe seem to be based on the Nameks, right down to their home being destroyed by what was essentially a miniature Sun and then being out-of-place refugees from then on out.
  • When the series began, Bowser was a expy of Freeza, complete with a powered-up Metal form. In Episode 8, the Koopas are now shown to be similar to the Red Ribbon Army, with Bowser becoming an expy of Commander Red. Better helps that Basilisx is reminiscent of General Blue, right down to having similar powers.
    • Basilisx also appears to be notably similar to the Shredder.
• Eyes of Gold: Sonic gets them after obtaining the Starman (Episode 6) and the Fire Flower (Episode 8) powerups.
• Face Fault: Several, including Sonic's death animation standing in for one.
• The Faceless: Eggman, though it's obvious who it is... or maybe it's Nega-Eggman from the Sonic Rush games? The shadow may also hide the fact that he's the Robo-Robotnik from the Archie comics.
• Family-Unfriendly Death: Mecha Sonic is the king of this. During the flashback showing him murdering Sonic's friends, each death is more brutal then the last: he snaps Tails' neck, fills Cream (and Cheese) with lead, beats down Knuckles and then fills him with lead, and what he did to Amy was probably just as bad. Nobody even knows how he killed Rouge, but if his trends are anything to go by it probably wasn't pretty.
  • Then there's his gruesome killing of the Axem Rangers. It's really saying something when being completely vaporized down to the last atom is the tamest death of a battle, although compared to decapitating Axem Green's head and then crushing it in his hand... anything is tame.
  • Somewhat subverted with the death of the Koopa Bros. which is not directly shown, but highly implied.
• Fastball Special: Wario attempts this with Waluigi in Episode 8. It doesn't exactly work out.
  • Mario and Luigi often use their hammers to launch Sonic, Shadow, or Luigi with his blue shell armor. Yoshi uses a variation where he eats an ally and spits them out as an attack.
• Faux Action Girl: As of Episode 8, Axem Pink was the only female character to participate in a fight. However, she only did one combo move on Luigi and then died. Based on the spoiler opening, however, Wendy may get some action in the future.
  • It should be noted that her canon counterpart was the Dark Chick of the Axem Rangers as well.
• Flanderization: Luigi's cowardice and ineptitude. It gets better by Episode 8, although his status as Butt Monkey of the series remains intact regardless.
• Flash Step: Mecha Sonic starting with his super form in Episode 6, though it seems to have become a permanent fixture in his arsenal by Episode 7. Shadow can do it, too.
  • In both cases, it's likely the two of them were using Chaos Control for brief, very short-range teleports. They also used flash steps in Episode 7 while inside the Minus World, which only prevented the "warping space" part of Chaos Control and not the "warping time" part. Either that, or they were using the ability you can do with 20 rings in Sonic Adventure 2: Battle's racing minigame.
    • Sonic does flash steps in both against the battle outside of the Bowser battleship and inside the battleship as Fire Sonic while he was kicking the shit of all those Koopas.
• Foe-Tossing Charge: Mecha, against the Koopa Bros. Followed by an exceptionally-brutal No-Holds-Barred Beatdown on the Axem Rangers.
  • In order to provide cover for their battle plane, Sonic and Mario jump off and perform one long, high-speed Foe-Tossing Charge to clear all enemies on deck. And it works.
    • Yet another one by Sonic after he powers up in the hangar. He probably knocked aside more Mooks than he and Mario did in total on the deck.
• Funny Background Event: Becoming more common as the episodes roll on. Often involving Luigi, his drinking tea animation is quite popular.
• Getting Crap Past the Radar: When Tanuki-Mario kicks a Bob-omb into one of the cannons on the Doomship's deck during his and Sonic's "boarding", a speech bubble above the horrified troops has the image of a pile of dung.
• Generic Doomsday Villain: Mecha Sonic. Justified (perhaps deconstructed) in that even when he was just Metal Sonic, Eggman didn't give him a personality beyond "make Sonic dead" and "blow up anything in my way", so he's running off nothing but what he's known how to do all along.
• Giant Mook: Thunderfoot.
• Gosh Dang It to Heck: When Mecha Sonic kills all of Sonic's friends, what does he say? "Darn you." Really.
• A God Am I: Mecha Sonic.
• Gotta Catch Them All: The Chaos Emeralds.
  • There's a good chance that the Star Spirits and Twinkmay also fall under this.
• Gravity Is a Harsh Mistress: Happens to Sonic in Episode 3...and Waluigi in Episode 8.
• Grievous Harm with a Body: Sonic's rolling form is often used for this, or utilized for a Fastball Special. Luigi himself was used (while transformed into stone) by the heroes and the enemy in Episode 8.
  • Turns funny in Luigi's case, because when he morphs out of his stone form, his inertia carries him into a really long Face Fault (while still knocking aside a few Koopas), ending with a groan and a flat face.
• Heroic Mime: Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi.
  • Humorously, they never have dialogue boxes, their speech being wholly composed of sound effects from the games, mostly the Superstar Saga series. And it works.
    • Wario and Waluigi also communicate solely out of voice natters.
      • Although they're not exactly heroic. And they sometimes use pictures too.
• Hero-Killer: Mecha Sonic.
• Hey, It's That Voice!: Observant fans might recognize Mecha Sonic's voice from Episode 6 onward as Cooler's, although it's just soundclips from the Budokai Tenkaichi games.
  • Newcomer Basilisx also sports first-form Cell's voice as well.
  • Yellow's scream in Episode 6 is Homer Simpson's.
  • Sonic's grunts and small bits of spoken word are a combination of his old voice, his 4Kids voice (mainly from the Sonic Rush series), and some Goku clips. Shadow is presumably mirrored with his old voice, his 4Kids voice, and some Vegeta clips.
• Hostage for Macguffin: Bowser plans to ransom Peach for the Chaos Emeralds.
• Human Shield: Stone!Luigi for Basilisx.
• Hurricane Kick: A regular move in Sonic's arsenal. Guess what he yells out when he does it?
• Jerkass: Shadow.
• Inertia Is a Cruel Mistress: Both Mario and Sonic are teleported off Yoshi's Island mid-freefall. They both splat into the ground at high speed after the teleport is completed.
• Invincibility Power-Up: The Super Star apparently has the power of seven Chaos Emeralds, since it simultaneously made Mario invincible and allowed Sonic to go Super Sonic, but only for a short time.
• Kamehame Hadoken: In a series based on Dragonball, this had to pop up somewhere. We have Shadow's Chaos Spear, Mario's fireballs (he even goes into the "Kamehameha stance" to throw really big ones), and Mecha Sonic in particular is fond of these (even performing the actual Kamehameha at one point to finish off Axem Red).
• Kick the Dog: Yoshi facing off against Mecha Sonic. ALONE. OUCH.
• Kick the Son of a Bitch: The Axem Rangers are easily the least sympathetic victims of Mecha Sonic, and their deaths were the only ones that weren't considered a Moral Event Horizon.
• Killed Off for Real: Sonic's friends, the Axems, and the Koopa Bros.
• Killer Robot: Mecha Sonic.
• Lack of Empathy: Basilisx, due to Bowser's objective of creating a merciless minion.
• Last of Their Kind: Sonic and Shadow.
• Laughing Mad: Sonic in Minus World, for a short time.
• Leeroy Jenkins: Shadow wasn't a team player in the games and he hasn't changed a bit in this series.
  • For some reason or another Shadow seems to end up kicking at least one of his teammates in pretty much every fight scene he's in except in episode 7.
• Leitmotif: Mecha Sonic has the most obvious one — it's Dark Samus' music from Metroid Prime 2: Echoes.
• Le Parkour: Sonic in the underground.
• Made of Iron: All fighters.
• Meaningful Name: Basilisx is a reference to the Basilisk, the mythological creature (lizard) that can turn a person into stone by looking at him/her...although the mythical Basilisk's eye-stare actually killed its victims instantly. The author stated that he deliberately invoked Taken for Granite to ensure the heroes didn't die. Of course, as certain games have been popularizing the stone gaze variant for some time, it's excusable.
• Melee a Trois: The big free-for-all between Mario and the crew, the Koopa Bros. and the Axem Rangers. And then Mecha Sonic joins in.
• Meteor Move: Mecha Sonic does this a lot during his fights.
• More Dakka: Mecha Sonic butchers Cream, Cheese, and Knuckles this way.
• Neck Lift: Mecha Sonic to Sonic in Episode 7, as well as part of Tail's death sequence in the Eppisode 4 flashback.
• Never Say "Die": Averted.
• No Ending: With the series discontinued in March 2012, the fate of Mario and the Mushroom Kingdom is pretty much left up to the audience now
  • Not so fast.
• No-Holds-Barred Beatdown: Mecha Sonic to the Axems, as well as Mecha Sonic to Yoshi in Episode 3.
  • Does Mecha Sonic actually do anything else?
    • Evil Gloating? But, considering the amount of pain he's capable of dishing out on our intrepid heroes (and anyone else who gets in his way for that matter), he's allowed to indulge in it.
• No Ontological Inertia: Averted; he may have lost the emeralds that helped him create it, but that giant fireball doesn't simply go away, and Mecha Sonic makes sure to launch it before he leaves.
• Not Quite Dead: Eggman.
• Not So Different: Basilisk invokes this, on how Mario has no right to say that using Luigi's stone body as a shield is unfair, when Mario himself is using the shell of one of Basilisk's comrades against another.
• Ocular Gushers: Peach does the full-on fire hydrant wail after the recounting of Sonic's tragic Backstory in Episode 4. Bowser does it with his tantrum.
• Oh Crap: Mecha Sonic in Episode 6 causes quite a few of these, including a Mass "Oh Crap" just by arriving on the battlefield. Luigi reacts this way quite often in nearly every episode, and gets one of the single best expressions ever during Episode 6. A few Mooks use an fitting image in their Speech Bubble during the assault in Episode 8; see Symbol Swearing.
  • Mecha Sonic himself gets one in Episode 6. After a powered-up Mario and Sonic bludgeon the Chaos Emeralds out of Mecha Sonic, Sonic prepares to finish him off with an energy blast. For a machine that doesn't show any expressions, Mecha Sonic's Oh Crap face was priceless. He's saved only by an ill-timed Power-Up Letdown
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Given the shortage of audio clips of Italian-accented "Sonic", when Mario says it it sounds distinctly British.
• Orphaned Series: As of March 2012.
• Petting Zoo People: Users of Super Leaves and Tanooki Suits become this.
• Playing with Fire: Mario and Fire Sonic.
• Plot Coupons: Chaos Emeralds.
• Poison Mushroom: Basilisx hits Mario with two. One to strip him of his Hammer Suit, the other to poison him.
• Power Creep, Power Seep: Everyone, most notably the Axems and Mecha Sonic.
• Power Echoes: "Here we go-o-o!"
• Power Glows: Mario, Sonic, and Mecha Sonic.
  • Mario gets the most variety in his, getting a DBZ styled one with the Cape Feather, a flaming one for the Fire Flower, and DBZ style with Sparkles for the Super Star.
• Power-Up Letdown: What Luigi seems to think of his Blue Shell upgrade in Episode 5, but before three seconds have passed it proves to be useful.
• The Professor: E. Gadd.
• The Psycho Rangers: The Axems
• Quirky Miniboss Squad: Two of them — the Koopa Bros working for Bowser and the Axem Rangers working for Smithy.
  • The Koopalings, too.
• Rapid-Fire Fisticuffs: Mario and Basilisx, done with hammers and Wolverine Claws.
• Real Life Writes the Plot: according to the SMBZ Wiki, a Real Life problem ended up making Alvin Earthworm put the series on hiatus. He had later resumed work on Episode 9, but ultimately decided that he no longer had the motivation to continue the series.
• Red Eyes, Take Warning: Shadow, Basilisx.
• Red Oni, Blue Oni: Shadow's the red oni to Sonic's blue.
• Right Back At Ya: Yoshi with one of Mecha Sonic's missiles in Episode 7.
• Robot Me: Mecha Sonic and Mecha Mario.
• Rule of Cool: This series runs on this Trope. For example, Yoshi alone arguably puts up as good as, if not a better fight against Mecha Sonic than Mario and Sonic combined.
  • Might be a case of Fridge Brilliance, as in his initial Mario appearance (Super Mario World), Yoshi is actually much more powerful than Mario himself.
  • Plus Shadow is never depicted as being much stronger than any of the others, yet he's the only one ever able to land an effective hit in a square fight on Semi-Super Mecha Sonic in their battle. (Mario manages to interrupt an attack with a chargedd fireball, but he took Mecha Sonic by surprise)
• Running Gag: The little banana man.
  • Something negative always happens to Luigi.
• Schedule Slip: There was a 16-month difference between the release of the sixth and seventh episodes.

Kolorado: I hate to break it to you, Goombella, but that joke had been done in the previous episode.
Goombella: Aw, come on, Professor! That episode was released, like, a year and a half ago! No one's going to remember what happened in it!

• • And then a 12-month gap between 7 and 8. This has been attributed to Creator Breakdown, though.
  • There has now been a full 2-year gap between the 8th and 9th episodes.
  • Friendly advice to fans of the series: Do not ask when the next episode is coming out. Alvin hates this and it lowers his motivation to work on the show.
• Shock and Awe: Luigi with his Thunderhand ability.
  • That hasn't been used yet, has it? In chapter 8, he just electrocuted himself on a computer in E. Gadd's lab...
    • If the series is anything to go by, then let's hope the Thunderhand gets some action later on.
• Shoryuken: Several. Mario does a non-flaming Shoryureppa. Interesting, since that's Ken's move.
• Shout-Out: To Dragonball Z.
  • And to many other series. The dancing banana has made several cameos, and the characters sometimes mimic other characters when they fight, such as Mario imitating Neo and Sonic doing the Tatsumakisenpuukyaku in Episode 5 or Mecha Sonic performing Akuma's devastating Shun Goku Satsu attack in Episode 6.
  • Not to forget Futurama:

Sonic: Bite my.... spiney... blue... butt.

• • In an attempt to get out of exploring a potentially-scary area, Luigi tries to leave, putting a cardboard cut-out of himself in his place. Said cut-out is Weegee (aka the memetic mutated version of him seen in Mario is Missing).
  • Some of Mecha Sonic's abilities appear to be based on Samus Aran, and the music played before he appears was originally used for the same purpose for Dark Samus.
  • The spoileriffic anime-style opening uses the second opening theme for Mega Man NT Warrior. This is a Shout-Out to TV Tome Adventures, which also used that song for its opening.
  • Ludwig von Koopa calls Bowser "King Dad", a reference to the Super Mario Bros. cartoons.
  • A musical Shout-Out to The Legend of Zelda is used when Mario gets the silver Emerald, immediately Lampshaded by Professor Kolorado:

Kolorado: Uh, Mario... I think that's the wrong video game series, old bean... [Cue Face Fault]

• • The sound effect Kolorado's stopwatch makes is Lavos' roar.
  • In Episode 8, a shout out is made to Hotel Mario, when the characters find a letter which Bowser wrote almost word-for-word as in that same game (including a crossed out portion about hotels), with an instruction book containing a lampshading and the terms for Peach's release included!
  • Episode 8 also features a shout out to Zero Wing "Main Screen Turn On" and also a Star Trek shout out with the minion who "jus' cayn't" push the stuck button to the Omega Doomship's BFG.
  • Basilisx owes a lot to Wolverine's moveset in the Capcom vs. Whatever series.
    • As does Axem Red's aformentioned BFG, which was lovingly ripped from Iron Man's moveset.
  • Another one from Episode 8 comes from Basilisx's final attack on Mario after the Poison Mushroom attack. It looks exactly like Vega's Ultra Special from Street Fighter IV, "Bloody High Claw".
    • Not to mention Sonic doing the Tatsumaki Senpuukyaku, from the same series, several times. Also, Mario doing the Shoryuu Reppa in Episode 8.
  • Robotnik holding his hands in front of his face, with his glasses shining.
  • There's a shout out to both Peanut Butter Jelly Time and Foster's Home for Imaginary Friends when Wario and Waluigi are exploring the Pipe Maze in Episode 7. They go down a pipe that Mario and friends just went down into. They try to go down the pipe when the PBJT Banana comes out, yelling out "I LIKE CEREAL!!!" It results in a massive explosion that makes Wario and Waluigi crash into the two main characters from Bowser's Kingdom (a now-canceled flash series made by one of Alvin-Earthworm's friends), Hal and Jeff.
  • The song played on Episode 8 during the argument comes from Skies of Arcadia. It's the song played when you enter Valua City.
  • When Toadsworth collapses because of Peach's kidnapping, a Scare Chord plays. Guess which one.
  • "Main Screen turn on." "We get signal."
  • A Mook with a thick Scottish accent says he can't fire the main cannon, as he doesn't have enough power.
  • And, for that matter, the Koopa Bros being "King B's ninja heroes in a half shell"
  • Wario using Waluigi to get to Yoshi's Island (as a life preserver) might be a Shout-Out to Superstar Saga, where Luigi is used as a surfboard, more or less.
  • While we're on the topic, the situation on Mobius ( most main heroes dead, the end of the world being imminent) smacks of the Trunks's future in DBZ.
  • I'm probably stretching this, but one Koopa Bro (I think it might have been Red, ironically...) spouts the "Smell ya later!" line, after their first encounter with the main team, a la Gary Oak/Blue/Green/whatever.
  • Semi-Super Mecha Sonic's response to Red's "You Monster!" remark is a direct paraphrase to Broly's infamous "I am the Devil" line.
  • During Mecha-Sonic's No-Holds-Barred Beatdown of the Axem Rangers, he quotes Garland. "I'll crush you!"
  • Basilisx's underhanded tactics, especially using loved ones as a shield, mirror those of Eis Shenron in Dragon Ball GT.
• Spoiler Opening: The anime-style opening was released after Episode 6. A number of characters appeared in it that hadn't shown up in the series at that time. That includes the Koopalings, Eggman, Wart, and the Star Spirits and Twink.
• Sssssnaketalk: Basilisx.
• Standard Establishing Spaceship Shot: The Omega Doomship
• Stepping Stones in the Sky: Mario Vs Red Koopa in episode 6.
• Stylistic Suck: The "SMBZ n00b style" short, created by Alvin Earthworm.
• Storming The Doomship: Gearing up to be played as straight as possible, with Basilisx, Mecha Mario, and potentially Eggman serving as Dragons, the Koopalings serving as the Quirky Miniboss Squad, Bowser (and again, potentially Eggman) as the arc's Big Bad, and the Koopa Troop serving as the hopelessly doomed Cannon Fodder for a spectacular Foe-Tossing Charge.
• Super Drowning Skills: Sonic in Episode 7.
• Super Mode: Mecha Sonic using the Chaos Emeralds, and the main characters with the Star Spirits.
• Super Soldier: Basilisx is one. He turned Luigi, Sonic, and Yoshi all to stone, then beat the ever-loving crap out of Mario with a combination of Wolverine Claws and dangerous genre savviness. Before the experiments to turn him into a Super Soldier, he was a Mook just like every other Koopa who got knocked shitless the scene before.
• Super Speed: The hedgehogs and Mecha Sonic.
  • Yoshi, Mario, and Luigi all have super speed too, but not to the same degree as the aforementioned hedgehogs.
• Symbol Swearing: Variation in Episode 8; when Mario kicks a Bob-Omb into a cannon, the operators all simultaneously scream and a picture bubble appears above their heads showing...a warm turd.
  • In other words, SHIT!
• The Sweat Drop
• Taken for Granite: Basilisx' power and Luigi's Tanooki Suit.
• Take That Us: The second "Over 9000" gag is pretty much this towards the Schedule Slip.
• There Is No Kill Like Overkill: Mecha Sonic is the all-time champion of this.
• Throwing Your Hammer Always Works: Used and Subverted all at once. A few times, when a single hammer is thrown (Usually by one of the Mario Brothers), it works rather effectively. However, if anyone attemps a mass-hammer spam, it never works, with the hammers typically destroyed at the handle just below the head.
• Time Master: Shadow, naturally, along with the rest of his Chaos arsenal.
• Tongue-Tied: Anyone, if they try to pronounce Basilisx's name. Go ahead, try it.
  • If you know how to pronounce "scii" in Esperanto, you can pronounce "Basilisx" with no problem. That's just why Esperanto is not that spread.
    • Failing that, how about phonetics? (Bay-Sil-Lis-Icks.)
• Totally Radical: The Koopa Bros.' phrases, in a Shout-Out to Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.
• Transformation Sequence: Sonic and Mario when they touch the Starman.
  • Solar/Fire Sonic, complete with badass music and an explosion.
• Troperiffic
• Trying to Catch Me Fighting Dirty: Basilisx does this to Mario in their fight when he uses Luigi (whom he had turned to stone using his power) as a shield/weapon to gain an advantage over Mario. He then justifies it by claiming that Mario did something similar to a friend of his in the past.
• Twitchy Eye: Yoshi when surrounded by Mooks they hadn't seen earlier.
• Villain Team-Up: Bowser and Eggman.
• Wacky Wayside Tribe: The Yoshis tribe.
• Wave Motion Gun: The Axems' Breaker Beam.
  • The Omega Doomship sports one as well in Episode 8.
• What Measure Is A Robot: The Axems are the only characters to be killed on screen so far - Mecha Sonic simply ripped them apart. It wasn't pleasant to watch. Still, they didn't bleed, and Smithy can always rebuild them.
• What the Hell, Hero?: Shadow finally gets called out for his excessively Jerkass attitude in Episode 8.
  • Basilisx does the same to Mario later, recounting how gruesome his best friend's death was at Mario's feet. As stated above, Mario just doesn't remember.
  • Here's the full quote, with enlongated "s" sounds edited out:

"So, it ends. And I am the last one standing. (Mario tries to get up) You sniveling pedlar. You have no right to be angry that I used your friend to my advantage, especially when you did the exact same thing with my friend's shell against him and his comrades that day. I couldn't even mourn him properly because he was burnt to cinders. Well, I'll make sure no one will be able to mourn you properly either. Your disgusting hypocrisy will vanish along with your hopes. Think about my words after I toss your severed head into your grave!"

• • • Of course, granted, whether Mario actually did this or not is debatable, as the koopa friend that Basilisx mentioned was "koopa #3 in Room 2 in Bowser's Castle", of which Room 2 doesn't even contain lava, and the only koopas in there are crawling on wire panels over a spiked pit.
    • Alvin Earthworm confirmed he didn't bother researching, and only did this to state a random Koopa Mario never heard of before.
• The Wiki Rule: Goongala!
• Wolverine Claws: Basilisx. Cue Wolverine Publicity.
• The Worf Barrage: Happens quite a few times. As befits its DBZ inspiration.
• You Monster!:

Axem Red: You...you monster! How could you do such a thing?
Mecha Sonic: Monster? I'm not a monster, I am a god!

1. ↑ Although Alvin Earthworm officially stated that he is cancelling the series, he also placed a "The End?" at the replay screen, implying that he may have plans to continue at a future point.