SMG4 (series)

SMG4 is an Australian adult web animated series created by Luke Lerdwichagul, appearing on the channel of the same name. It is the second adult animated series to be produced in Australia, the first being John Callahan's Quads!, and the first completely produced in its home country. The series is a parody of the Nintendo franchise Super Mario Bros. where Mario, rather than being a hero, is usually an idiot (however despite this, he did do some heroic things in the older episodes). It had its first episode on May 7th 2011 with the first episode, the cake is a lie.

The humor at first was more dialogue based, but later on the series slowly changed to cartoony slapstick humor and pop culture references.

The series' origins date back to 2006 when other YouTubers started making Super Mario 64 machinimas by taking gameplay footage of a hacked version of the game and adding captions to make a cartoon. This was how SMG4 originally made his videos but then slowly over time he started using more Garry's Mod to actually animate the series. It currently has over 457 episodes.

History
Though the series officially started in 2011, the history dates back to 2006 when the Super Mario 64 bloopers started with a YouTuber named Megaman765 (the first generation of SM64 machinimists). They were basically gameplay footage of a hacked version of Super Mario 64 with added captions to make a cartoon. These were made by various YouTubers.

A young Australian kid named Luke Lerdwichagul used to watch these cartoons and one of them named Megaman765 inspired him to make his own bloopers. He uploaded his first video on May 7th, 2011. It was an episode called The cake is a lie and was rather unprofessional since it was rather choppy and only took up 1/2 the screen. Later that year, he introduced another episode type, War of the Fat Italians.

A year after the show first aired (in June 2012 to be specific), Lerdwichagul's got 1,000 subs and he introduced his next episode type Ssenmodnar. In February 2013, he reached 10,000 subs.

In the August of the same year he introduced yet another episode known as Retarded 64 (now known as R64). In the May of the same year, Luke got 30,000 subs.

In February 2014, SMG4 introduced his 5th episode type, Guards n' Retards. A month later he got a whopping 100,000 subs. Three months later, he introduced an episode type known as Sonic the Derphog .A little more than a year later he introduced  If Mario was in.. '.  '

In the autumn of 2016, SMG4 finally got 1 million subs. where he released a 20 minutes of Ssenmodnar (Deluxe Edition). Around the time, he started using more GMOD in his videos.

In 2017, he discontinued Retarded 64 and merged it with Bloopers since it was demonetized for the use of the word "retard" and YouTube's new policy about family entertainment characters, while the previous videos were rebranded as R64.

Premise
The show is a parody of the Japanese video game franchise Super Mario. It is about Mario, who in here is being depicted as quite a moron,getting in crazy meme-related adventures with his friend SMG4, who is a fictionalized version of the show's creator. The show usually revolves around cartoony slapstick comedy reminiscent of the Looney Tunes and Silly Symphonies, as well as pop culture references.

Main Characters

 * SMG4: The main character of the series who loves memes.
 * Mario: The utterly retarded other main character of the series who loves spaghetti.
 * SMG3: SMG4's arch-nemesis who hates his channel.
 * Teletubbies: SMG4's worst nightmare that are a bunch of weird aliens.
 * Bowser: Mario's main enemy who isn’t that bad.
 * Toad: The annoying mushroom who serves as Peach's servant and is very psychopathic.
 * Luigi: Mario's brother. He is often called gay by Mario and gets scared easily.
 * Peach: The Princess of The Mushroom Kingdom who is annoyed easily by Mario.
 * Dr. Eggman: Sonic's main enemy who likes saying “Pingas!”.
 * Nintendofan997: SMG4's friend who’s sometimes called “X”.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog: The main character of the Sonic the Hedgehog franchise who is a fast blue hedgehog.
 * Steve: The retarded main character of Minecraft who says “HI GUYS!”.
 * Wario: Mario's arch-rival who loves scamming for money.
 * Shy Guy: He Has a HUGE love for toast and he is a fairy.
 * Old Hobo: He Appeared as a minor character for a running gag and he is a pixelated sprite.
 * Waluigi: Wario's brother and Luigi's arch-rival who doesn’t like being rejected.
 * Fishy Boopkins: A jolly Spike that loves eating rocks and anime. He is friends with Bob.
 * Bob: A cloaked hobo who constantly wants SMG4 to be in his videos. He is friends with Fishy Boopkins.
 * Meggy: An Inkling who is friends from Mario and the others. She’s likes action and adventure but doesn’t like anime.
 * Saiko Bichitaru: An anime girl who was mentally unstable due to her wanting attention. But she eventually reformed.
 * Tari: A shy and quiet girl who’s a pro in video games.
 * Yoshi: Mario's pet dinosaur. He loves drugs, eating and committing tax fraud.
 * Rock: A wizard who does magic.
 * Toadsworth: Another toad that is Peach’s butler.

Humor style
At first the humor was based on dialogue and satire, however as time went on, the humor still had subtitles but also had cartoon slapstick and pop culture references.

Production
The videos are typically made using a variety of software such as Super Mario 64, Garry's Mod, sprites and models and stuff from games, movies, TV Shows, etc. and video editing software. They usually mix pure machinima with actual animation.

Episode types

 * Super Mario 64 Bloopers: The original and most popular variant of SMG4's bloopers. They are a genre of machinima that various youtubers made starting in 2006 and they were the first kind of blooper SMG4 made. They are about Mario and his crazy antics in the Mushroom Kingdom. They also involve Mario and SMG4 going on adventures of sorts and other things.
 * Retarded 64: Introduced in 2013, Retarded 64 is similar to the bloopers but a lot more stupid and surreal. The humor of them are similar to Looney Tunes. They were discontinued due to YouTube's new video policy, but they were merged with the normal bloopers. Previous videos were renamed to R64 instead.
 * Ssenmodnar: Ssenmodnar episodes are usually released to celebrate a milestone. They are a collection of skits that are over the top and well-received by fans. It is possible that it was a parody of asdfmovie.
 * War of the Fat Italians : A yearly special where SMG4 and Mario compete in wacky dares by commenters. Who wins is decided by a poll.
 * If Mario was in:  The episodes were crossovers between Mario and other video games, showcasing Mario ending up in different game universes and adventures with the characters, including Grand Theft Auto, Splatoon, Kirby,
 * Guards N' Retards:  Guards N' Retards is about two guards, Chris and Swagmaster, working at a spaghetti factory and going on crazy adventures.
 * Sonic the Derphog:  A spin-off obviously centered on Sonic the Hedgehog, showing his misadventures with his on-and-off idiot nemesis Dr. Eggman.
 * The Wacky Wario Bros: The Wacky Wario Bros revolves around Wario and Waluigi's wacky misadventures to obtain money and fortune.
 * SMG4: Since 2017, all episodes, with the exception of one-off videos, have been named SMG4. This series is responsible for replacing SM64 Bloopers and Retarded64.

Non-blooper episode types

 * The SMG4 Show : a series of shows hosted by SMG4 himself (in real life). It involves him in doing weird things, like kissing plushies and talking about weird things. Every episode but the first one was aired on a Wednesday. The first episode aired on July 5, 2016 and the last episode aired on August 10, 2016..
 * SMG4 PLAYS Merio Nernterndoes : The series of videos that involves SMG4 playing a bunch of random Mario children's games that he comes across on the internet, although a few adult games may also appear during an episode of this series as well. Many of the games SMG4 plays during this series vary from average, to weird, to creepy, to total retardedness, and even to total bootleg. SMG4 began this series on May 23, 2015 and an episode of this series has occasionally taken place.

Spinoffs

 * TheAwesomeMario: The channel where SMG4 puts his extra content such as shorts and extras. Since January 2018, it has not been in use.
 * Hobo Bros: The Lerdwichagul brothers' gaming channel, where they play either weird games or ROM hacks.

Criticism
In recent years (mainly as of October 2015) the series has gotten criticism for overuse and removal of various things. These include the removal of YouTuber cameos (and appearances), certain characters decreasing in appearances, recycling and rehashing plots, overuse of Garry's Mod, loss of character traits and flanderization, overuse of side characters (like Fishy Boopkins and Bob), removal of sub-series and overuse of voice clips that were taken from various YouTube videos and TV Shows.

Trivia

 * The series has somehow avoided controversy revolving around its explicit use of family entertainment characters unlike SuperMarioLogan, although some videos have recently become a target of demonetization. In addition, some public internet systems have restricted a majority of the videos.
 * Though the series doesn't have an official rating due to being a web series, IMDB says its rated TV-MA.
 * The series was referenced in an episode of SuperMarioLogan called Black Yoshi's Scam, where Mario can be seen watching a channel showing nothing but spaghetti, which mocks the fact SMG4's incarnation of Mario is addicted to spaghetti, which is a clear reference that Mario loves spaghetti in the Nintendo canon as well as referring Mario's Italian descent.