French

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The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! live-action segment

"French"

Production number

151

Segment

Airdate

November 21, 1989^[1]

Guest star(s)

Courtney Gibbs

Cartoon episode

"Escape from Koopatraz"

Zelda preview

"The Missing Link"

Episode chronology
← Previous "Goodbye Mr. Fish"	Next → "Two Bums From Brooklyn"
List of episodes

"French" is the fifty-seventh live-action segment ofThe Super Mario Bros. Super Show! Its corresponding animated episode is "Escape from Koopatraz."

Plot synopsis[edit]

At home inMario Brothers Plumbing,Luigi is pretending to act like a gentleman to an imaginary woman and consults a book that he is holding for advice. Quoting what he just read, Luigi speaks a few sentences in French, but he mispronounces all of the words as he transliterates what he reads into English. Luigi's practicing gets the attention ofMario, who had been working on the furnace, and he comes over. Giggling to himself, Mario asks Luigi why he has been acting so goofy, which Luigi denies.

Mario notices and picks up Luigi's French book, and questions him as to why he is trying to learn French when he can hardly speak English. Luigi argues back at Mario, saying that women happen to love a man who can speak French because it is romantic. Mario finds this ridiculous and tells Luigi that no woman would ever want to date him, no matter what language he speaks. Luigi prepares to prove Mario wrong and tells him he will be eating his words in a very rich, French sauce, then sits down to continue reading from his French book.

Later, Luigi is practicing French at the dinner table, making comments in French about pizza. Mario tells Luigi to give French a break as he is about to get a French headache. Luigi explains to Mario that he needs to practice his verb conjugation so that he can talk about pizza in French to ladies. Mario reminds Luigi that he will never be able to impress girls with French, to which Luigi explains that French is the language of love. Luigi asks if Mario ever learned about it in school, only for him to respond that he took up shop class instead.

Mario tells Luigi to go out and impress ladies with his French skills. Fed up with Mario, Luigi closes his French book, gets up, and tells him that he is a "grand peasante." Luigi then announces that he is going to the park so that he can practice his French without being bugged by a "grand fatso" like Mario. As Luigi walks up the stairs to the front door, Mario tells him not to return until he can talk like his brother again, and Luigi leaves.

While Luigi is gone, Mario uses the periscope to observe various monuments inParis, but he is unable to find any sign of Luigi.CooKoo Bird pops out of the wall, suggesting that Luigi may be in France. Mario then laments that he may have treated Luigi too harshly earlier.

Suddenly, Luigi, now wearing a beret, enters Mario Brothers Plumbing accompanied by abeautiful girlfriend. The girlfriend asks Luigi to speak in French again, and he responds by properly saying, "Bonjour, mademoiselle." She then tells Luigi that he is very romantic as he leads her down the stairs, and the two compliment each other on Luigi's French and the girl's beauty. Meeting up with Mario, the girlfriend asks if he speaks French, to which he says no. The girlfriend turns her attention back to Luigi, and asks him to show her his French etchings. Luigi agrees, then taunts Mario as he hands him a rose and walks off with his girlfriend.

Before leaving, Luigi tosses his French book on the table, and Mario sits down to read it. Impressed by Luigi's girlfriend, CooKoo Bird asks Mario if he is thinking the same thing. Mario agrees and starts thumbing through the pages. Mario struggles to read some French words followed by their English meanings, such as "Bonjour, mademoiselle," ("good day, madam") "fromage," ("cheese") and "Au revoir" ("goodbye"). Mario then discovers that at one point, Luigi called him a "vache espagnole" (French for "Spanish cow," a phrase used to tell someone that they are speaking French improperly, derived from the phraseparler français comme une vache espagnole, literally "to speak French like a Spanish cow"), which nearly baffles him.

Gallery[edit]

Title card

Characters[edit]

Dub edits[edit]

In the Latin American Spanish dub:
- In the original version,Luigi's girlfriend calls him her "little french fry." In the dub, she instead calls him her "little Frenchman." In the German dub, she instead calls him a "papillon" ("butterfly").
- Instead of callingMario a "vache espagnole" ("Spanish cow") when taunting him,Luigi calls him "adiposité" ("fat").