Unlike some other old Super Mario Logan fans, I didn't grow up with SML because I never knew about it until many years after it started. I started watching it when I was 11 years old in December 2014, during the Junior era, and I loved it since then. However, I've also seen a lot of the classic era (2007-2012) videos years after they were uploaded and always liked them too. My favorite video has to be either Bowser Junior's Summer Vacation or The Big Thanksgiving. SML was funny, action packed, sometimes touching, had diverse characters, and inspired lots of people, including yours truly, to make their own plush videos, but it began to slowly go downhill when a new character named Jeffy came along. It's now a lot more mean-spirited, unfunny, formulaic, repetitive, and horribly written, some of the old characters have been flanderized and have no personality besides their archetypes (e.g., Mario/Marvin is now a boring, generic stressed out character who gets mad over the tiniest things, Rosalina/Rose is now an annoying wife who never sympathizes with her husband), the characters scream nonstop, the Nintendo characters were renamed and are now human puppets, some unlikable new characters had come along, the videos are rushed, and some hurtful and sometimes plain awful morals are present (e.g., greed is good, it's okay to force feed your kids foods they don't like, you should let people walk over you, etc.). There are too many things wrong with the current state, so I'll only go in depth about the most problematic aspects.
1. Jeffy. He started the downfall and caused numerous fans, including yours truly, to lose interest in the channel. He's the channel's cash cow, he hogs the other characters' screen time, and in multiple videos, he makes cameos and doesn't contribute to the plot but still has his name in the titles, likely just to get more views. I'm intrigued how Logan thought of a dimwitted kid with a bike helmet, a diaper outside his pants, and a pencil in his nose who yells "Oof!" while smacking his diaper. Jeffy's behavior can lead to temptation and making bad choices, and he's extremely immature for his age; he stuck his "pee pee" in Cheerio boxes (yuck!) and threw swearing tantrums nonstop from 2017-early 2019, makes Mario's life a living Hell, has little to no manners, breaks fragile items on purpose (e.g., plates, glass cups, vases, etc.), does the most dangerous possible acts (e.g., he once stuck a fork in an electric socket and burned Mario's hat in the house), wastes food, flips his desk at school, and more. One might think he'd learn from his mistakes and behave after getting grounded and called out thousands of times, but no; he's still the same brat, and he never finds any problems with the trouble he causes or learns anything from it no matter what. He's now 19 years old for Heaven's sake (for those of you who don't know, unlike numerous characters from other media, the SML characters' ages change every year like real life people). Jeffy SERIOUSLY should've shaped up a long time ago. To be fair, he has slightly matured since late 2019, and he's not as bad as he used to be, but still not too good. To make matters worse, he has badly influenced lots of younger viewers to act like him, which led to some controversies. He makes Caillou look more likable, more mature, and better behaved in comparison. I don't understand why Mario adopted him and still keeps him. The two of them had no happy moments together before the adoption, and Mario didn't want anything to do with Jeffy in the first place, which brings me to my next topic.
2. As I said, the show/channel is VERY mean-spirited now. The characters were still jerks to each other at times before the current state, however, they had great chemistry and loved each other like a family, but not anymore, and being jerks is all there is to them now. Characters like Mario, Chef Pee Pee, Cody, Brooklyn Guy, and Chives constantly put up with needless torture when they don't do anything to deserve it, even when they do things like express their personal opinions. Jeffy makes Mario look like a bad guy, and they have an antagonistic relationship. The former is now the main protagonist alongside Junior, despite the title, and the latter feels like an antagonist now because he's always opposing the former, getting angry at him, and "raining" on other's parades, despite being the original PROTAGONIST. He can be mean to Jeffy, and he's a bad father, but at the same time I feel sorry for him because his "friends" and family are often mean to him first, and good things rarely happen to him. It seems like Logan secretly hates him, which is ironic because he's been his favorite fictional character for the longest time and is what made him start YouTube. Jeffy, Rosalina, and sometimes Black Yoshi do everything they can to make Mario's life miserable. Junior and Joseph and Karen often do the same for Cody and Chef Pee Pee and Brooklyn Guy. For some reason, Mario always lets everyone walk over him and never stands up for himself. Why doesn't he divorce Rosalina, kick Jeffy out of the house, and un-adopt the latter? He and Rosalina clearly aren't meant for each other, so why stay married? Goodman comes over for house payments every month, and he always threatens to rip Mario's nipples off when he doesn't pay (ouch!). The former likes to torment the latter just for fun, and he cooks up a lot of schemes just to mess with the latter. Bowser owns the house, so he owes Goodman house payments, not Mario. Also, Goodman is extremely greedy; he makes fun of the poor just for being poor, and all he cares about is himself and money. He always spanks his butler Chives for making little mistakes, like cooking his food the wrong way (he could just clarify what he wants. It's that simple) or giving him a glass of water with fingerprints on it (to make matters worse, those were Goodman's own fingerprints), and he treats the latter like a slave. Modern Goodman is the definition of a mean person, and he has admitted that it hurts him to do anything nice, making his name misleading. In one episode, it is confirmed that Chives is the 14th butler he's had. Sounds like nobody wants to work for him, and it's as easy as 1-2-3 to see why. In the aforementioned episode, Mario asks him, "Don't you think your employees will want to work for you if you treat them nicely?" I was thinking the same thing. It has never been explained what led to Goodman's turn to evil, making it come out of nowhere. Hank Huckerdoo forces his family to be "clones" of himself, and he never lets them express themselves or their own opinions. He tries way too hard to be perfect and make his family a nice, happy family, but he does the opposite instead. He is also a huge showoff, and he once threw a hot pan of cookies at his kids for their horrible singing, grounded them, and angrily forced them to sing better. There's nothing wrong with expressing yourself, and there's nothing better to do than practice or try a different skill if you're lacking talent in something like singing. Besides, the world would be boring if everyone was the same. I'm very different from the average person in some ways, and I feel extremely privileged that I don't live in the SML universe, the current state that is, otherwise I could easily be bullied, tormented, or maybe even grounded for being different and expressing myself all the time. It seems as if having a different opinion is the equivalent of being Satan.
3. Unlike the old eras, there's little to no character development. The characters seldom learn from their mistakes, but when they do, they usually revert to their old ways in their next appearances and still make the same mistakes over and over again, as if they never learned from them in the first place. In Jeffy's Parents and Jeffy's 18th Birthday, Jeffy promises to be a good boy, and Mario starts loving him and promises to be a better dad, but they don't keep their promises, proving they learned nothing, and Mario only cares about Jeffy when the plot calls for it. In Zombie Jeffy, it is revealed why Jeffy hates green beans so much, and Mario promises to never force feed him green beans again. The latter kept his promise for a while, but the green beans gag came back in Jeffy's Good Day. What a hypocrite! In Goodman's New Life, Mario and Goodman switch bodies and learn what it's like to be in each other's shoes, and Goodman learns his lesson, but he disregards it in his later appearances and continues to torment Mario nonstop.
4. It's unclear who the target audience is. Adult content like swear words, dark violence, and heavy toilet humor are present and very noticeable, but Jeffy appears all the time because the bratty Jeffy fans, mostly little kids, are always screaming for him and won't give the other characters a chance. The homemade puppets look like they were bought at a toy store, and there's a lot of SML merch that only kids are likely to use, like backpacks and pencil pouches. Is it supposed to be a kid show or an adult show?
One might think Logan would learn his lesson and improve his content after being mentioned on Good Morning America, getting a number of his videos age restricted, 3 of his channels being demonetized, receiving a lot of complaints from parents about Jeffy badly influencing their kids, and being sued by Nintendo, but he's made little to no improvements to his content. He refuses to take advice from fans who've been watching him since the early days and are trying to help him, and he rarely ever keeps his promises. He may not be able to bring back the Nintendo plushes, but I'm sure he could improve his show, take his time, and start a more flexible schedule (e.g., 1-2 videos a month) if he tried. I barely watch the new content anymore, and it continues to get worse and worse overtime. I can't take it anymore. What's the point of still supporting the channel? The SML parodies are much better. Enough said.
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