King Koopa is the main antagonist of the three Mario animated series: The Super Mario Bros. Super Show, The Adventures of Super Mario Bros 3 and Super Mario World. He is an evil anthropomorphic lizard master of disguise who rules over a vast army.
History[]
The Super Mario Bros. Super Show[]
In the first series, King Koopa appeared regularly as the main antagonist of every episode (with the only exception being "Love 'Em and Leave 'Em", where he is replaced by Queen Retunda). In this series, King Koopa is portrayed as almost having complete control over the Mushroom Kingdom, however (as established by the intro), due to the untimely appearance of the Mario Bros, he was unable to take complete control by kidnapping Princess Toadstool. Throughout the series, Mario and Luigi would traverse the Mushroom Kingdom with Princess Toadstool and Toad searching for a way to defeat Koopa whilst liberating various areas he had or was planning on conquering. Throughout episode to episode, the threat King Koopa posed to the world often shifted, as, in some instances, he would only appear as a minor annoyance while in others he would conquer or come close to destroying cities, towns or even planets.
In nearly every episode, King Koopa adopted various different aliases based on what he was doing or planning on doing to expand/enforce his rule, with almost all of said aliases being a parody of a real-life figure or a famous fictional character. Some of the most notable of these aliases being Count Koopula, Professor Kooparity, The Pied Koopa, Dr. Koopenstein, Koopenstein's Monster, Koopfinger, The Sheriff of Kopingham, Koopa Nemo, Koop-zilla, Darth Koopa, Koopa Kahn, Blackbeard Koopa, Al Koopone, Koop Tut, Billy the Koopa and Robo Koopa. Sometimes, he would wear a costume without an alter ego or disguise himself to impersonate others. He would also be assisted by Wart's minions. Towards the end of every episode, Koopa would be defeated (mostly in a very humiliating way) and would lose whatever stronghold of the Mushroom Kingdom he had, although he would sometimes manage to evade capture, usually by the aid of a Magic Potion that would transport him to a warp zone.
The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3[]
In the sequel series, it is established that, sometime between the events of the two series', Mario and Luigi managed to defeat and subsequently imprison Koopa inside a Banishment Zone before sealing it off with ten thousand bricks, freeing everyone from his rule before returning to Brooklyn. However, to everyone's shock, Koopa somehow escaped his imprisonment, completely ditching his alter-egos, abandoning Wart's minions and launched a massive attack on the Mushroom Kingdom using his new Doomship, also introducing the world to his Koopa Kids; Bully, Big Mouth, Cheatsy, Kooky, Kootie Pie, Hip and Hop. After the Mario Bros. came out of retirement to fight him, Koopa continued to devise new plans to expand his rule over the Mushroom Kingdom, however, knowing how his past direct confrontations with the plumbers had gone in the past, Koopa operated almost all of his schemes through his minions and children and dropped his use of aliases entirely.
While his goals of taking over the Mushroom Kingdom remained the same, Koopa's methods of doing so became noticeably stranger than what he had done in the previous series, such as when he tried to have his children capture Prince Hugo the Huge by transforming them into giant ninjas so he could turn the Prince into a poodle or when he tried to use a magical artifact called the Doom-Dancer music box to force everyone in the Mushroom Kingdom to dance. On top of wanting to conquer to Mushroom Kingdom, Koopa expanded his goals to include the real world on a regular basis as well, although he likely only wanted to do so in order to spite the Mario Brothers. Aside from attempting to rule both the Mushroom Kingdom and the real world, a variety of Koopa's appearances involved him trying to teach his children how to become villains like himself, such as when he broke infamous criminal "Crime Wave" Clyde out of prison and hired him to teach them how to be criminals or trying to please them (specifically Kootie Pie) at the expense of others. Like in the previous series, King Koopa would always be beaten towards the end of the episode, supposedly being fully defeated in the episode "Super Koopa" (although this is only because it was the last episode produced).
Super Mario World[]
In the final cartoon series, King Koopa and the Koopa Kids, after being banished from the Mushroom Kingdom yet again, somehow managed to escape into Dinosaur Land. As stated by Luigi in the episode "Mama Luigi" as Mario, Princess Toadstool and himself attempted to take a vacation in Dinosaur Land, Koopa attacked and kidnapped the Princess, although he was defeated thanks to Yoshi, and they decided to stay in Dinosaur Land as a result. Koopa's goals are portrayed on a significantly smaller scale than in previous appearances, as he is only ever shown trying to take control of Dinosaur Land, particularly Dome City, although it has no real benefits for him. In his last appearance in "A Little Learning", King Koopa was left in his bedroom as it was rapidly filling with lava, meaning that he could have potentially met his demise, although this remains unconfirmed.
Personality[]
Koopa is often dishonest and treacherous, as well as sadistically enjoying doing really horrid things, including trying to ruin Christmas for everyone, as he saw it as a "Bah Humkoop". While Koopa is not beyond keeping his word, he frequently does break it. Koopa will not hesitate to dispose of those who have outlived their usefulness to him. As seen in the episode Crimes R Us, Koopa's justification for turning on Clyde is that he, had his fingers crossed when he agreed to split everything stolen equally, thus allowing Koopa to cut Clyde out of the deal later on; These sorts of justifications are commonly employed logic for Koopa to get-away with nearly anything as far as he is concerned. His exact traits shift wildly though from episode to episode. He even takes on other villains and becoming an even bigger threat to the land they were targeting.
Gallery[]
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