Party Line

Super Mario World episode
"Party Line"
Production number	407
Airdate	November 2, 1991 (English) October 16, 1992 (French)[?]
Writer(s)	Frank Ridgeway Phil Harnage
Featured song	"Listen to the Grapevine"
Captain N episode	"Nightmare on Mother Brain's Street"
<< List of episodes >>

"Party Line" is the eighth episode of the Super Mario World animated series. The title for this episode comes from the party line, a local loop telephone circuit shared by multiple telephone service subscribers.

Plot

While out for a walk, Mario, Luigi, and Yoshi begin discussing how dangerous it can be to live in Dinosaur World. As Mario says this, a dinosaur leaps in the group's path and shoots a fireball at them. Dodging the fireball as the dinosaur leaps away, Mario goes on to say that the citizens of Dome City have been having a lot of accidents lately. As if on cue, Yoshi trips on a used-up block and falls.

Princess Toadstool suddenly appears to bandage Yoshi's wound. After having several large band-aids put on Yoshi's tail, the group is attacked by the evil dinosaur. Running from it, Yoshi ends up running straight into a tree, and Mario begins to wish everyone could just have an emergency number to call on the telephone when they got in trouble. Asking what a phone is, Yoshi is subsequently bonked on the head by a falling coconut before Mario can finish explaining. Mario then gets an idea: using the two halves of a coconut and a vine, Mario creates a crude phone to use as communication equipment. Testing his invention out with Luigi, Mario is overjoyed when he realizes it works.

Princess Toadstool in the Phone Central.

Much later, Mario and Luigi have put together an expansive phone system across the city, with Princess Toadstool as the operator. Unfortunately, the phone-business gets out-of-hand: the Cave People are talking non-stop on their phones, the vine telephone-wires are growing all over the place, and the Princess is being completely overworked. To make matters worse, the Cave People have begun to neglect their duties, such as watering their crops.

Before Mario and Luigi can discuss matters further, they are suddenly attacked by a swarm of Caterpillars. While Mario is being chased by caterpillars, Luigi tries to call for help, only to get a busy-signal. Panickingly, Mario and Luigi climb up a nearby tree; this proves futile, though, as the caterpillars simply climb after them, eating vines along the way.

Princess Toadstool holding a coconut telephone.

Mario, trying to find something to fight the caterpillars off with, sees several ? Blocks floating in the air. Unable to reach a block, Mario is bitten on the leg by a caterpillar. This bite sends Mario leaping through the air, hitting a block and subsequently crashing down onto the ground, where he is surrounded by caterpillars. Grabbing the Starman that fell from the block, Luigi becomes invincible, grabbing all the caterpillars and throwing them into the tree. Luigi then grabs a vine hanging off the side of the tree and pulls it, which pulls the tree down, before letting go, literally flinging the caterpillars into space.

After defeating the caterpillars, Mario and Luigi are approached by Oogtar, who says his phone is out of order and demands the Mario Bros. fix it. Before Mario or Luigi can say anything, they receive a call for help from Princess Toadstool, who has become trapped in a mess of vines. After freeing her, Mario, Luigi, and the Princess see a horrific sight - the evil dinosaur from before is back and hungrier, and the Cave People, being too busy on their phones, are completely defenseless against him.

Telling Luigi and Princess Toadstool to warn the Cave People, Mario tries to distract the evil dinosaur. Lunging at Mario, the evil dinosaur falls when Mario simply jumps out of the way. Getting-up, the evil dinosaur sees Mario hitting several ? Blocks, looking for an item to help him in battle. Getting nothing but coins, Mario makes a feeble attempt at defending himself by throwing them at the evil dinosaur, who simply eats them and spits them out, disgusted, and disorients Mario by throwing one at his head.

The coin then hits a nearby block, which releases a Cape Feather. Mario tries to grab the feather and stumbles to the ground instead, stars circling his head. Luckily, Mario somehow manages to obtain a Starman from those stars; with the power of the Starman on his side, Mario grabs the evil dinosaur by his snout and hurls him into space, where he crashes into the same swarm of caterpillars that Luigi launched up there earlier. Mario then states "Call me Mario da Vinci! I've just invented the dino-copter!".

Rushing into a nearby house, Luigi and Princess Toadstool find a sleeping Oogtar, with a phone still to his ear. Taking the phone, Luigi and the Princess proceed to do the same with all the Cave People. All that is left to do is take down all the vines in Dome City, which Yoshi enjoys very much, as he gets to eat them all.

Cast

• Walker Boone — Mario
• Tony Rosato — Luigi
• Andrew Sabiston — Yoshi
• Tracey Moore — Princess Toadstool
• John Stocker — Oogtar the caveboy, Caterpillar #3, caveman #1
• Dan Hennessey — caveman #2, singer #2, dinosaur, Caterpillar #1, Caterpillar #2, Caterpillar #4, Caterpillar #9
• Gordon Masten — singer #1
• Catherine Gallant — female singer, cave lady
• Stuart Stone — Caterpillar #5, Caterpillar #6
• James Rankin — Caterpillar #7, Caterpillar #8

Animation and continuity errors

The dinosaur jumping from in front of the building.

• When Mario and Luigi point out that danger is everywhere, they have four fingers on each hand instead of five.
• The dinosaur that jumps out at the brothers at the start of the episode appears in front of the building out of nowhere instead of coming from behind it.
• When Yoshi is about to trip on a Block, the symbol on Luigi's cap is green instead of black.
• When Mario says, "Like right now, for instance!", the "M" on his cap is missing.
  • Luigi's "L" on his cap also disappears when he says, "That's the biggest dinosaur I've ever seen!" and after Oogtar says he is on the line with some girls.
• Like in many Super Mario World episodes, the "L" on Luigi's cap can be briefly seen white against a black background several times.
• When an excited Mario runs up to Luigi saying, "I've reinvented the telephone!", the last frame shortly before the screen transition is one that was previously used.
  • In the same scene, his left foot is layered underneath the telephone.
• When the screen switches from Oogtar to Yoshi as they talk on the phone, Oogtar remains for a short while.
• In various scenes of this episode, the color of objects, such as desks and ? Blocks, continually change from scene to scene.
• When Mario says that the vines are multiplying, his eyes glitch for a few frames.
  • In the same scene, Luigi's eyes are mostly closed.
• When Mario tells Luigi to call the emergency number, there is no ? Block near Luigi, but when Mario tells him to hit one, one appears.
• In one scene when Mario and Luigi are climbing the tree, Mario is climbing on thin air.
• When Mario and Luigi notice the caterpillars climbing the tree, one appears out of thin air.
• When Luigi gets the Starman, the sound of it being activated plays before he activates it, and shortly after, his left foot can be seen to be standing in midair.
• While Luigi is Invincible Luigi, the "L" on his cap alternates from flashing to not flashing.
• When Mario is holding off a caterpillar, the stripes on his gloves turn the same color as his shirt.
• When Mario and his friends are scared by the giant dinosaur, Princess Toadstool's eyebrows are black instead of orange.
• Right when Mario says, "...warn the Cave People! I'll distract...", Luigi's eyes are completely green.
• When Mario pulls on the giant dinosaur's tail, its face is completely purple. This also happens when Mario is about to launch it into space.
• When Mario is hitting some ? Blocks, one of them turns brown, but its top remains yellow.
• When Mario gets a Starman, it is in his left hand, but in the next shot, it is in his right.
• When Luigi says that this is his and his friends' chance to bring things back to normal, the stripe on his right glove turns blue for a few frames.

Profiles

• Koopa's Stone Age Quests DVD: Mario invents the telephone so the cave people will have a "911" line for emergencies. But the cave people spend all their time talking on the phone and Dome City starts to fall apart from neglect. They're oblivious to everything even a rampaging evil dinosaur!

Names in other languages

Language	Name	Meaning	Notes
French	Le téléphone préhistorique[?]	The prehistoric phone
German	Der Telefonnotdienst[?]	The Emergency Phone
Italian	Il telefono via Liana[?]	The Phone by Liana
Portuguese	Telefone nas cavernas[?]	Phone in the Caves
Romanian	Linia fierbinte	The hot line
Spanish (NOA)	Problemas telefónicos[?]	Phone problems
Spanish (NOE)	Línea de la Fiesta El teléfono (re-dub)[?]	Party Line The phone (re-dub)

Trivia

• This is one of the only two Super Mario World episodes where Luigi is seen using a power-up, the other being "Mama Luigi".
  • This is also one of the three episodes where King Koopa and his Koopalings do not appear, the others being "Ghosts 'R' Us" and "Born to Ride".
• In the space scene, when the caterpillars go after the comet, a Stone Age-style satellite can be seen.
• Tracy Moore's voice for Princess Toadstool is slightly lower-pitched in this episode, which continues in later episodes of the series.
• In the original NBC airings, Mario narrates the preview by saying, "I invented the telephone to make life easier for the Cave People, but now all they do is gab, gab, gab! When I call to them there's a dinosaur attack, the line's busy."