SMG4 (series)

SuperMarioGlitchy4 or SMG4 for short, is an Australian older kid and all teen 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, and the first completely produced in its home country. The series is a parody of the Nintendo franchise Super Mario Bros (though it also features some original characters). where Mario, rather than being a hero, is usually kind of an idiot (however despite this, he did do some heroic things in the older episodes and still does it today). It had its first episode on May 7th, 2011 with the first episode, The Cake Is a Lie!.

It first started off as dialog-based series that inserted captions over a Super Mario 64 Game-play, but as years went on, the directors started using more Garry's Mod to actually animate the series. It currently has over 500 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 got 1,000 subs and he introduced his next episode type Ssenmodnar. In February 2013, he reached 10,000 subs.

In August of the same year he introduced yet another episode known as Retarded64 (now known as R64). 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 Retarded64 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-American video game franchise Super Mario. It is about Mario, who in here is being depicted as quite a moron, getting into 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 (voiced by himself): The main character of the series who loves memes.
 * Mario (voice clips by Charles Martinet): The other main character of the series who loves spaghetti. He is also depicted as the ¨dumb guy¨ of the channel
 * SMG3 (voiced by Luke Lerdwichagul... once): SMG4's arch-nemesis and the main antagonist who hates his channel and would do anything to destroy him and take over the world.
 * Teletubbies (voice clips by Pui Fan Lee, Mark Heenehan, John Simmit, & Nikki Smedley): SMG4's worst nightmare that are a bunch of weird aliens.
 * Bowser (voice clips by Kenny James): Mario's main enemy where Peach is involved but otherwise good friend who isn’t that bad. He likes chicken and cooking.
 * Toad (voice clips by Samantha Kelly): The annoying mushroom who serves as Peach's servant and is very psychopathic.
 * Luigi (voice clips by Charles Martinet): Mario's younger twin brother. He is often called gay by his bro and gets scared very easily. But nonetheless, from friendly ghosts to knocking into strangers houses, he acts brave when he needs to.
 * Peach (voice clips by Samantha Kelly): The Princess of The Mushroom Kingdom who is annoyed easily by Mario and the gang´s stupidity but does have a good heart towards them.
 * Dr. Eggman (voice clips by Mike Pollock): Sonic's main enemy who likes saying “Pingas!”.
 * Nintendofan997: SMG4's friend who’s sometimes called “X”.
 * Rock: A wizard who does magic.
 * Toadsworth (voice clips by Charles Martinet): Another Toad that is Peach’s butler.
 * Professor E. Gadd (voice clips by Kazumi Totaka): A kooky and eccentric scientist.
 * Heavy Weapons Guy (voice clips by Gary Schwartz) a loud and tough man who loves his sandvich and is the main character in Team Fortress 2.
 * Sonic the Hedgehog (voice clips by Roger Craig Smith): 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!”.
 * Kirby (voice clips by Makiko Ohmoto) a pink gumball-like child who belongs to Pop Star and is good friends with Mario and The others
 * Wario (voice clips by Charles Martinet): Mario's arch-rival who loves scamming for money. He also seems to like chicken nuggets.
 * Shy Guy (voice clips by Kazumi Totaka): 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. He loves taking baths.
 * Waluigi (voice clips by Charles Martinet): Wario's brother and Luigi's arch-rival who doesn't like being rejected.
 * Yoshi (voice clips by Kazumi Totaka): Mario's pet dinosaur. He loves drugs, eating and committing tax fraud.
 * SpongeBob SquarePants (voice clips by Tom Kenny) a positive yet naive sea sponge who is the main protagonist of Spongebob Squarepants (tv series)
 * Donkey Kong (voice clips by Takashi Nagasako): A big dumb gorilla who loves bananas.
 * The Police: The Mushroom Kingdom's local law enforcement.
 * Fishy Boopkins (voiced by Kevin Lerdwichagul): A jolly Spike that loves eating rocks and anime. He is friends with Bob (or so he thought...).
 * Bob (voiced by Will from Afar): A cloaked Garo hobo who constantly wants SMG4 to be in his videos. He is friends with Fishy Boopkins (or so it seemed...). According to SMG4, he is the focus of a second arc that has started centering on his attempts at a career as a rapper but it caused him to strain his relationship with his friends especially Boopkins.
 * Shroomy (voiced by Luke Lerdwichagul): A mushroom scout from the Luncheon Kingdom who happens to be the best one yet. He often fights using a rocket launcher.
 * Meggy Spletzer (voice clips by Yuki Tsuji, singing voice by Ellyn Barclay): A former Inkling, and later anime-human, who is friends from Mario and the others. She likes action and adventure but doesn’t like anime. Her dream career interestingly is being a lawyer. She's a complete failure at cooking. She was transformed into a human upon being both removed of all her ink by The Ink Zuccer 2000 and being shot by Super Saiyan God's energy beam in SMG4: Final Hours.
 * Saiko Bichitaru (voice clips by Minako Kotobuki, singing voice by Ellyn Barclay): A teen anime girl who was mentally unstable due to her wanting attention. But she eventually reformed in SMG4: Luigi's Lesson and the Waluigi arc. She has started to become friends with Meggy and Tari, and the three have often been seen together since the Waluigi arc.
 * Jeeves (voice clips by Hironori Miyata): A large sentient fork who serves as a butler of sorts and has a short temper.
 * Tari (voiced by Celeste Notley-Smith): A shy and quiet girl who’s a pro in video games and tends to get hurt a lot. She's good friends with Meggy, perhaps due to Meggy's admiration of her shooting skills. She is also a cyborg.
 * Axol (voiced by Kevin Lerdwichagul): The most recent original character to be added to the SMG4 channel; an anthropomorphic axolotl and manga artist who created a special pen called "Inkweaver", which allows anime characters to come to life.

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 such as Sony Vegas. 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 (both voiced by Microsoft Mike & Microsoft Sam), working at a spaghetti factory that makes Mario's spaghetti and going on crazy adventures. Mario and the others sometimes have cameos in these episodes.
 * Sonic the Derphog:  A spin-off obviously centered on Sonic the Hedgehog, showing his misadventures with his on-and-off idiot nemesis Dr. Eggman. Mario and the other characters often appear in these episodes as well, but not typically as main roles.
 * 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.
 * HITBOX: A live-action comedy and martial arts combat-based series led mainly by SMG4's brother Kevin (who does martial arts) featuring the two brothers and others going on wacky real-life adventures that feature a lot of combat in addition to silly gags and jokes. The series parodies multiple franchises including Super Mario, Pokemon, and even SMG4 itself (Such as HITBOX: SMG4 in Real Life. Not to be confused with SM64: Mario in Real Life?!). It is based on the Hobo Bros 100,000 subscribers special named Super Hobo Bros that was also in real life and followed the same concept. The series was first teased in the SMG4 Direct in Summer 2018 and the first episode aired later that season. A new episode is released once a month.
 * Glitchy Vlogs: A series with occasional releases showcasing recent developments in SMG4 and Kevin's actual lives, such as a tour of their new house back in early 2018 or a trip to a bootleg toy store.
 * GLITCH PRODUCTIONS EXTRAS!: Videos showcasing SMG4 and his brother Kevin doing a variety of different SMG4-related things in real life, such as trying to make an episode in 30 minutes or competing to see who can draw SMG4 characters better. Glitchy Vlogs was merged with this series.

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, react to memes, or play 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 and obscene 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. This is also a reason to why there should be some kid-friendly videos on the channel.
 * Although the series doesn't have an official rating due to being a web series, IMDB says its rated TV-MA (M in Australia). This almost makes sense because the video’s ratings are mixed, with most being around TV-14. It's also worth nothing that IMDB says some episodes are TV-14 and even TV-PG. It is also possible this is based on the 2014-16 videos, which are commonly agreed to be the most explicit and mostly do warrant a TV-MA, especially in reference to the cleaner content post SMG4's focus on ad revenue.
 * 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.