Overview
King Koopa's Kool Kartoons is a local, American live-action children's television show broadcast in Southern California during the Autumn of 1989. The show was produced by DIC Entertainment in association with Fox Television Studios for the Fox television station KTTV - 11 Los Angeles by Gerry Passwho developed and rolled out the Fox Kids Cluband DIC Animation City, in association with Nintendo. It was a live-action spin-off to The Super Mario Bros. Super Show!, a popular animated show based on the Super Mario video games. The show was discontinued after 65 episodes.
The show stars King Koopa, based on an animated version of Bowser, the central arch-villain from the Mario video game series. The 30-minute wrap around program was originally broadcast during late afternoon time slots, normally around 4:30pm to 5:30pm on the Los Angeles-based television channel KTTV Fox 11.
Format
The format of the show was one of the last in the tradition of classic children's television shows in the vein of Bozo the Clown: the show would begin with the same pre-recorded theme song and lead into a live studio audience of around 40 to 60 children bussed in from around Los Angeles at the beginning of the show. The audience of children were all given special hats shaped like Koopa heads and T-shirts with "Koopa's Troopas" printed on them (the children would actually get to keep the shirts, but the troopa helmets, as they called them, were claimed by the producers at the end of the taping and reused every show). Koopa would then start talking to the audience with a different theme every day.
The live-action Koopa would then act as emcee, introducing old, public domain animated cartoon shorts, wrapped around different live-action segments, including a segment with Ratso, King Koopa's pet rat, a segment with Koopa reading fanmail, a segment with Mr. Mean Jeans, and a joke segment. King Koopa would then end the show by telling the audience to be a good Koopa Troopa or he would "Koopa Youpa'. After that, he would give contestants prizes with an envelope given by Ratso, King Koopa's pet rat.
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