It's Always Fair Weather

Mario & Luigi setting up the banner.

It's Always Fair Weather is a Super Mario Bros. comic story published in the Nintendo Comics System. It was first printed in Super Mario Bros. #7, then reprinted the following year in Adventures of the Super Mario Bros. #1. It was also printed in the hardcover collection The Best of the Super Mario Bros. as well as the trade paperback Mario's Special Powers.

Synopsis

Raccoon Mario rescues the hot-air balloonists.

Mushroomland is hosting its annual fair, and Mario and Luigi are working there. After setting up the banner displaying the story's title, Mario heads off to have lunch, passing by the hot-air balloons and the plant show. Shortly afterward, Luigi arrives, wearing a Bowser Suit. It is then revealed that Luigi has been forced to play the role of Bowser in a dunking booth called "Douse the Bowser", where Toad is working to attract the customers. (Luigi, needless to say, is not happy with the idea.) After watching "a little Mush-runt" named Benny dunk Luigi into the pool, Mario heads off to judge the cake competition. Up above, Bowser is watching the fair from a helicopter and takes offense when he sees the "Douse the Bowser" booth.

Mario ends up eating all the cake he was supposed to judge and declares a four-way tie. He then takes a walk to the plant show and uses a piece of a plant labeled Magic Leaf Raccoonia as a toothpick, not realizing he's just become Raccoon Mario for the first time (this story is meant to take place before Super Mario Bros. 3). He then goes into the Fun House and, seeing his reflection in the mirrors, assumes that the raccoon ears on his hat are actually the work of the mirror.

Meanwhile, Bowser is storming around the fairgrounds, getting ticked off at the fact that everybody's mistaking him for the suited Luigi. Noticing the hot-air balloons, he throws a switch on his helicopter that creates a tornado from the propeller blades (hence the story's title). The tornado creates a world of turbulence for the hot-air balloons. Mario and King Toadstool come outside at this point and see the hurricane in action. In a feat that amazes the King (and himself, considering all that cake he ate earlier), Mario flies into the air using his new Raccoon powers and rescues the balloonists.

After landing, Mario figures that Bowser's behind this. But then Princess Toadstool gives him a kiss, and the lovestruck plumber stumbles right into Bowser and loses his Raccoon power. Bowser is at first pleased that Mario has just lost his flight ability, but Mario then turns the cyclone feature on again, this time creating a whirlwind that picks up Bowser and drops him into the "Douse the Bowser" pool. Later, Mario tells Luigi that he can take the rest of the day off (and not have to wear the Bowser Suit anymore), because "when it comes to funny-looking, I think I finally know how you feel!"

Trivia

• On page 9 of the story, Mario's hair is colored brown rather than black (as it usually is in the comics).