SMG4 Crew, previously known as Mario Does Things, originally Mario Plays, is a Spin-Off of SMG4 featuring Mario playing games and reacting to videos with the help of the SMG4 cast, parodying Let's Play and reaction channels in the process.

While featuring the same cast and characters, the series isn't canon to the main SMG4 series, allowing things to be kept silly whenever the main series takes a dramatic turn.

After the new castle reveal in 2023, SMG4 also revealed that Mario Does Things has become its own brand and changed the name to SMG4 Crew.

Let's-a Go!

• All for Nothing: Mario spends the entirety of "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off" attempting to save himself (and his salami) from Swag's petty wrath over sunglasses, but just when wins the fight, a door closes on his salami, he goes Ax-Crazy, and causes the Humongous Mecha he's in to blow up.
• And I Must Scream: In Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 14 ft. SMG4, following the latter drawing comically large eyebrows on Mario, he retaliates by erasing SMG4's face with a pencil eraser, drawing a smiley face in its place. The latter is shown to visibly suffer through it, and is even actually screaming on the inside.
• Ass Shove: When Sonic and Lawyer Kong show up to DMCA Mario, Mario grabs Sonic and shoves his head up Lawyer Kong's behind before kicking them both through the roof.
• Audience Participation: While Mario reacting to memes that exist on the Internet take up a good chunk of the subseries, there are times where SMG4 tweets an invitation for his audience to send their own contributions.
  • "Mario Reacts To People Roasting Him" has Mario being roasted by the community.
  • "Mario opens Christmas Presents sent by YOU!" has fans sending images or suggestions for Mario's Christmas presents that would be made physical.
• Bait-and-Switch: Mario reacts in fear to seeing Mimi on the list of Smash or Pass, saying that dating her was the worst mistake of his life. In Super Paper Mario, her true form is a giant robotic spider, making the Mario fans in the audience think it was about that. In reality, it was much worse – She blue-balled him with Garfield lore.
• Berserk Button: Do not show Mario an Among Us meme, or attempt to Rick Roll him, or generally treat him as inferior to someone else, be it his brother Luigi, or Sonic the Hedgehog.
• Bottle Episode: It's an entire series of these. Mario Does Things episodes come out between normal SMG4 episodes and are typically shorter, take place mostly inside a single room, and have almost no characters besides Mario (and the occasional co-host).
• Brain Bleach: Mario, and his co-hosts at times, often see things they wish they didn't and react in over the top ways.
  • After being exposed to a Game Boy Advance Micro commercial where a lab rat mates with the console, Mario mashes an unsee button until his head explodes.
  • Upon seeing Glamdozer in the rankings of Smash or Pass, Mario calmly stabs his eyes with kunai.
  • When he sees a video of a woman with a Minion filter, Mario pours some bleach onto a toothbrush and furiously scrubs his eyes until they explode. He regards it as an improvement.
  • Meggy gets in on this with "Mario Downloads Internet Viruses". At one point, Mario sends all of his email contacts the "Love Letter" malware. When she gets it, she pulls out a lighter to burn her eyes and her computer. Some fans interpreted this as lowkey Ship Sinking of the popular but infamous pairing of Meggy with Mario.
  • Averted later in "Mario React To Nintendo Memes 11". While Meggy initially screams, "No! My innocent eyes!" as Mario drags her away, she gets into the meme content pretty quickly and soon convinces Mario to help her pull some of her own prank ideas.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Mario is liable to leap out of the world into the patterned background surrounding the video to interact directly with the video feed or to attack the audience.
  • Averted in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 6 ft. Tari" where they attempt to go into a Duck Hunt Meme, but both just crash into the computer.
  • Mario looks at the video title in "Mario Try Not To Cringe Challenge" to realize that the person dancing on his screen is a dude.
  • In "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes But If He Laughs He Dies", Mario manages to hide his laughter by heavily lowering the video's resolution, making the bomb unable to tell if it's a real laugh or not.
• Breather Episode: These videos often serve as this to the Darker and Edgier story arcs. "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 4" in particular was aired on the Saturday between the Wham Episode "Absolute Betrayal" and the Big Damn Movie Revelations, while "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 11 ft. Meggy" came between the penultimate and final episodes of the Lawsuit Arc.
• Brick Joke:
  • Mario reacts to a meme featuring Kirby falling off a cliff repeatedly as it being "lotsa fun". Two memes later, he watches a clip of an Inkling flying, and gets the idea to toss Meggy at the same cliff from the Kirby meme, to see if she can fly. She just ends up reenacting the meme.
  • One of the memes in the first video has Sora come out and threaten Mario at gunpoint, due to a massive legal fee he owes Disney. For the next meme, Sora reappears to show his Super Smash Bros. invitation to Waluigi. Then, a meme in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 2" has Mario gesture outside, where Waluigi and Sora are still fighting over Smash Bros.
  • While attempting to one-up a meme version of himself in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 3", Mario flies all the way into the ceiling of Rosalina's Comet Observatory. Later, Omni-Man sends him flying back against the Observatory, plowing yet another hole through the ceiling and prompting Rosalina to yell "Come on!".
  • During Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 14 ft. SMG4, a throwaway line by the latter leads to a cutaway gag where SMG3 reads a fan mail, one that leaves him disgusted and leads him to straight-up blow up the Earth. At the end of the episode, after crossing the Despair Event Horizon, Mario joins SMG3 in blowing up the Earth in the exact same manner.
  • In "Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes", Mario distrusts the veracity of a voice clip of Luigi screaming due to it sounding nothing like Luigi. Later, when Luigi thinks Meggy has murdered Mario, his scream matches that of the voice clip.
• Bullying a Dragon:
  • Calling Walter White "stinky" is a really bad idea, as Mario finds out the hard way in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 2".
  • The same video has an instance where Mario is in the giving end of this; when Scott the Woz tells him he does math "like a bitch", the next scene sees him chasing Scott down a forest with a chainsaw at hand. A screen then closes, with text reading "Scott the Woz is cancelled forever".
  • In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 3", Mario tells Waluigi off one too many times, causing the latter to chase Mario down while using his Rejection Power.
  • During "Mario Attempts TikTok Challenges", Mario winds up captured by Michael Myers, who reveals that he's been trying to reach out to Mario about his kart's extended warranty for some time. Fittingly, Mario tells Michael his girlfriend's "been trying to reach out and grab [his] extended weiner" and laughs hysterically. Michael takes out a comically oversized knife in response, and advances menacingly towards him, upon which Mario screams in terror.
  • Mario pulls off the "ifone" prank by kicking away SMG3's iPhone and replacing it with a toy phone. How does SMG3 respond? He pulls out a massive rocket launcher on Mario.
  • When Mario breaks in the room of an otaku/Discord moderator in "Mario Try Not To Cringe Challenge", he finds the guy watching a very questionable video (with Mario reacting appropriately). In response, Mario says to the otaku, "you'll never get the succ", and laughs at his face. The man gets offended and pulls out a katana at Mario.
• Call-Back: The spin-off isn't canon to the main series, but will still call back to events from it.
  • Mario is triggered upon seeing the game lined up for him is Five Nights at Freddy's, remembering the events of "Freddy's Spaghetteria".
  • SMG4 himself has a similar reaction to FNaF, remembering his real life counterpart suffering through the game on Hobo Bros.
  • When Mario sees the preview for Murder Drones where Uzi gets a hole melted in her hand, Mario dismisses her reaction saying he got stabbed in the hand two weeks ago and he didn't cry. Cue a clip from said episode where Mario cries out in agony (and Windows Shut-Down noise) when Melony accidentally stabbed his hand with her sword.
  • When Francis appears in Smash or Pass, Mario blasts his image with a shotgun and hi-fives Meggy. After all, Francis was the villain of the Anime arc and the one who hurt Meggy the most.
  • Waluigi takes on his Power of Rejection form from the Waluigi Arc when he's sufficiently pissed off.
  • Luigi is seen practicing Meditation after he picked up the interest in the Revelations Arc.
  • "Mario Joins Discord" features a bit where the characters order food. Just like in "Mario Waits For Pizza", SMG4 orders pineapple pizza, sending everyone else into a frenzy.
  • "Mario Does Pranks" has Mario's attempt to hide in a potted plant to prank Luigi fail, as Luigi's newfound interest in gardening from The Lawsuit Arc leads to Luigi replanting him right next to a Piranha Plant unawares.
  • In "Mario Plays Cat Mario But Every Time He Dies The Walls Close In", during the scene where Mario curses so loudly the entire Mushroom Kingdom hears it, we get a brief shot of Meggy in her room with her cat Loaf. Next to her bed is a shot of herself and Mario, Splattershots drawn, from "Mario React to Nintendo Memes 11".
  • In "Mario Delves Into Nintendo Anti-Piracy Screens", none of the jump-scares faze Mario at all. He even reacts to a Mario Zalgo Face by countering with a scarier meme. Zalgo-Mario then becomes a head of broccoli, causing Mario to freak out like he did a few weeks earlier in "Mario Goes On A Diet".
  • When Mario exerts his laughter in "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes But If He Laughs He Dies" by saying LMAO, which the bomb strapped to his chest is unable to make a verdict on, the video pauses as the Discord Moderator shows up to explain that LMAO does count as a laugh as Bob was previously eliminated from a "No laughing contest" in "Mario Does Japanese Gameshows" for saying LMAO.
• Catapult Nightmare: "Mario Googles Himself" has Mario wake up in a panic after he dreamt the whole episode, waking up next to Wario in bed. Which then turns out to be Wario's nightmare as he wakes up next to Wahllace.
• Cheaters Never Prosper:
  • In "Mario Plays Five Nights at Freddy's", Mario tries to cheat his way past his game using a button combination which skips him to the end of each night. Unfortunately for him, the animatronics, who are sentient in the game, realise what is going on and call SMG4, who beats up Mario with a baseball bat and forces him to play the game legitimately. Mario later tries cheating again by setting the difficulty of the animatronics to "0" for Custom Night, but SMG4 is quicker to realise what is going on and slaps Mario for it.
  • In "Mario Speedruns Super Mario 64", Mario tries to cheat by illegally downloading Power Stars instead of getting them for himself. Unfortunately, the game detects that he's cheating and activates "Dark souls mode", surrounding Mario with a horde of Mad Pianos and forcing him to redo his playthrough. Additionally, in spite of his other attempts to cheat, such as using an editor to remove Bowser from the game, his final speedrun time is still horrendously huge.
• Chekhov's Gun: In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off", Mario has to fool a computer into thinking he's watching a meme happily in order to get through it. Later, once Swag catches him using a device and drags him back, Mario exploits this by insulting the computer, so that it'll recharge the device and allow him to attack Swag with it.
• Christmas Episode:
  • "Mario Plays Cursed Mario Games", "Mario Plays Roblox DOORS", and "Mario Reacts To Cursed Mobile Game Ads" were all released during Christmas 2022.
  • "Mario opens Christmas Presents sent by YOU!" is the one for Christmas 2023.
• Continuity Nod: Despite being a spinoff, elements from the main series are referenced in this series, from arc events to Mario's experience with Five Nights at Freddy's.
• Continuity Snarl: The trope above notwithstanding, the sub-series isn't free of inconsistencies with the main series, or even with itself!
  • As early as the second video, Mario responds to a streamer taking pictures of his feet by quoting an Among Us meme, i.e. a game he abhors memes of.
  • During his play session on Roblox, Mario plays a graffiti game where he draws an orange, and a painting of an imposter killing a crewmate, on the same vein as above.
  • Any other episode of this and the main series will break it down to you that Mario's a fat Italian without a hint of muscle. Then comes "Mario Plays Cursed Mario Games" with Mario revealing a muscular form under his clothes for his brawl with Santa. It still does nothing in his favor, though.
  • Not even Mario's reactions are exempt from this! In "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 12", he sees the accidental innuendo on a Nintendo Tweet reading "Nothing feels better than the inside of a cat!", and reacts accordingly. In the next video, "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 13", Mario seems to actually find said Tweet funny, and even shows it to Karen.
  • On that note, "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 13" ends with Karen bombing Nintendo's headquarters over the aforementioned Tweet, which ends up erasing Mario along with it, and seemingly the rest of the Nintendo cast. "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 15 ft. SMG3" ends in the exact same manner due to Mario and co. pestering SMG3 with their elephant forms, but Mario's simply shocked about the destruction, and that's about it.
• Crippling Overspecialisation: Mario speedruns Super Mario 64 reveals that Mario's skill with the memetic Backwards Long Jump glitch is unparalleled, at the cost of him being useless at even the most basic of the rest of the game's speedrun strats.
• A Day in the Limelight: "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 6 ft. Tari" naturally features Tari as co-host with Mario and acting as a comedic foil. Later episodes have characters such as Luigi and Bob co-host.
  • Even after the SMG4 CREW brand was dropped, SMG3 still gets one of these in "Mario Reacts to Illegal Nintendo Memes", as an (unwitting, at it) co-host to Mario.
  • "Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes" sees Luigi, SMG4, Meggy and SMG3 get their own skits, with all of them having co-starred in previous Mario Reacts videos, alongside JubJub who was merely an extra in all of those. SMG4 even gets his own Running Gag.
• Denser and Wackier: Even more so than regular SMG4 episodes, if you can believe it. There's no connecting story between the gags outside of the Let's Player premise and Mario is even more of a deranged maniac than usual, liable to kill Luigi after mistakenly believing he's a Pokémon in one skit, then dying of cringe over an Among Us reference in the next before getting right back to it.
• Did You Just Romance Cthulhu?: Bob Bobowski managed to seduce a Cursed Peach image that Mario ran away from in "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 9 Ft. Bob".
• Disney Acid Sequence: Mario ends up in one of these during "Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes", after he pays a visit to JubJub's mind.
• Disproportionate Retribution:
  • Mario's response to Among Us jokes is to physically attack the person making them.
  • SMG3's response to Mario's ifone prank is by shooting him down using rocket launchers.
  • SMG3's response to a fan mail that leaves him disgusted is to straight-up blow up the Earth. At the end of the episode, Mario joins him in repeating this over a meme featuring incest between him and Luigi.
• Early-Installment Weirdness:
  • Chris Pratt (and Chris Pratt portraying him) did not appear to be a Berserk Button for Mario in early videos (in fact, the first instance of him appearing as Mario in a Nintendo Memes video had Mario simply ask where they got footage of him in a chiding tone). It wouldn't be until later that Mario would be driven into an Unstoppable Rage at the mere sight or mention of Pratt (particularly after the release of the first trailer for The Super Mario Bros. Movie, when the general public began to more sincerely question Pratt being cast as Mario).
  • In the first two videos featuring co-hosts (Tari and Luigi respectively), Mario encourages them to finish his introductory line by saying "Memes", and becomes disappointed at Luigi when he simply repeats "Nintendo". Even the next instance has Bob interrupt Mario to finish the line. Following two videos featuring Luigi that weren't meme-centric, the gag has been dropped.
• Earn Your Happy Ending: After constantly losing in "Mario Plays Baldi's Basics", Mario finally beats the game and ascends to Heaven, having fulfilled his duty.
• Epic Fail:
  • In an attempt to shrink himself down to chibi-size in "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 4", Mario makes a giant hand punch him repeatedly from above. This instead kills him, and for added insult, he enacts the Peter Griffin "dead pose", looking bigger than he was before.
  • "Mario Reacts To Mario Movie Memes" has Mario disappointed at a "Good Ending" meme where Bowser actually yields when asked, so Mario attempts to reenact the scene the intended way. To replicate the fire breath, he swallows a block of lava, only to end up dead after trying to breathe it in and out. This nets him the "Good Ending" he was trying to avert.
  • While recording a self deprecating clip in "Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes", SMG4 tries to dub over Mario's lines, due to the latter's reluctance to speak in anything but his usual Italian gibberish. The clip earns the grand amount of 4 likes, and 4 is less than enthused to see this.
• Everyone Has Standards: Turns out, even SMG4 Mario has limits.
  • "Mario tries Life Hacks" has Mario dumbfounded by how idiotic some of the life hacks presented are, like using tomato ketchup as a bookmark.
    Mario: WTF IS THIS
  • "Mario Reacts To Funny Tik Toks" ends with Mario being downright disgusted by the Dream fanbase after the questionable content he watched, claiming they should all touch grass, before tossing his computer at the outskirts and smashing it to bits.
  • "Mario Plays: Smash or Pass" shows Mario to have strange tastes in sexual partners, including himself, but he passes with prejudice on both Bowser Jr. and the Koopalings and he is straight-up horrified to find Baby Mario in the rankings.
  • And in the same video, he blasts Francis's image with a shotgun when he shows up due to what happened in the Anime Arc.
  • "Mario Googles Himself" shows Mario being absolutely revolted by art shipping him with his brother, or the mere idea of either of the two pregnant. Later installments delve somewhat further into said distastes, and the former even leads to his Rage Breaking Point in Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 14 ft. SMG4.
  • Innocent and pacifistic Tari straight up slaps Mario and tells him to cool it when he gets horny over a Kirby meme.
  • Not just Mario, but many other cast members of note including Jerkasses like Bob and Swag, show nothing less than total horror and disgust at the final mobile game in Mario Reacts To Cursed Mobile Game Ads ending with a rape as its game over.
• Exact Words:
  • In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 10", Mario is horrified when he finds out "Smash" can also be a Double Entendre used to rope people into having sexual intercourse. He tries to prevent Bob from doing this to Tari, only for Bob to literally smash Tari's Switch against the wall, with Mario proceeding to explain while ignoring Tari's anguished cries.
  • In "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes But If He Laughs He Dies", when Mario stifles his laughter upon seeing a video of a shiny Lycanroc from Pokémon Scarlet and Violet spinning in place to Super Sonic Racing, the bomb floats up to his ear and tells him to "Do it!". Mario gives an "Okey-Dokey!" before T-Pose flying out of the castle's roof like a helicopter and the bomb protests "That's not what I meant!"
• Filler: "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 4" and "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 11" were released on the Saturday before the Revelations movie and War of the Fat Italians 2022, as opposed to their usual Wednesday upload, to appease fans while buying time to work on these projects.
• Flat Scare:
  • A Goomba "jumpscare" sends Mario flying across the room in the first "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes" video.
  • Mario, after attempting to hype himself up to play Five Nights at Freddy's, is scared out of his skin by a still, non-jumpscare image of Freddy.
  • One meme in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 8" has Mario scared at a Kirby "jumpscare".
• Formula-Breaking Episode:
  • "Mario Reacts to Anime Memes" has Mario react to memes in an Egyptian tomb, instead of Peach's castle like normal.
  • "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 11" takes place at Inkopolis. Justified, as it features Meggy.
  • "Mario Delves into Anti-Piracy Screens" appears to actually be canon to the main SMG4 series, as it ends on a Cliffhanger wherein SMG4, having driven himself crazy trying to create the best video ever (a plot that started with main series episode "SMG4...Are You Okay?"), interrupts the video and throws Mario aside to continue editing his video on Mario's computer, with the usual end credits music being replaced with audio of SMG4 frantically typing away.
  • Not only does "Mario Reacts to Lethal Nintendo Memes" once again take place in a new location for reacting to memes—this time a Meme Facility—but Mario has a mission to find enough good memes to reach SMG4's Meme Quota.
  • And to really drive it home, every episode after "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Corruptions" not only merge with the default SMG4 brand, but also happen almost entirely away from the Showgrounds, with even "Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes" taking place on the outskirts instead of inside the castle.
• The Fourth Wall Will Not Protect You:
  • In-universe, occasionally (usually during his meme reactions) Mario gets harmed by what he views, such as getting shot on two different occasions or getting blown up.
  • Mario does a variation of this himself to Frankie, who's watching the episode on his computer.
  • Played straight in the Gainax Ending of "Mario Reacts to Bootleg Mario Toys ft. Luigi", which ends with the striped shirt bootleg Mario Bros toys reaching out for the viewer after assimilating everyone in SMG4's castle, with Heavy announcing that you are now dead (not big surprise).
• Gag Dub: In-Universe. Mario and Luigi perform one of these during "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 2", dubbing over a commercial featuring the two as babies, portrayed by clearly grown men.
• Gainax Ending: "Mario Reacts to Bootleg Mario Toys ft. Luigi" ends in a way that's flat-out insane even by the series' standards: The striped shirt bootleg Mario and Luigi plushes in the last image Mario and Luigi look at inexplicably start to multiply and then suddenly invade SMG4's castle, assimilating Mario and Luigi into more of them, and then going on to assimilate everyone else in the castle (and the viewer) with the implication that they will go on to assimilate the entire world...which then results in Bootleg Luigi being unlocked as a playable character.
• Gone Horribly Right: In "Mario Does Pranks 2", Mario tricks Luigi into believing that he's in a coma and that everything around him is part of his dream. Luigi decides that this means that he can do whatever he wants and starts singing about how sexy he is while flying through the air shirtless.
• Groin Attack:
  • Sora receives a handful of rocks to his crotch during "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 2", courtesy of Waluigi.
  • In "Mario Reacts To Funny Tik Toks", as Yoda is about to say the N-word, Mario stops him via kick to the balls.
  • Mario receives one of these in "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 4" when Meggy gets tired of him showing her memes where Inklings get hurt.
    Mario: Mario’s penis just went to heaven
  • The entire premise of "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off" runs on, well, Mario reacting to Nintendo Memes to keep his "salami" from being cut off by Swag. It's all for naught by the end of it.
• Guinness Episode: In "Mario Attempts World Records", Mario attempts to get a world record so that he can get a medal, but fails with much of the records he tries to beat. In the end, he gets one whilst trying to obtain the record for "Fastest Time Chugging Two Litres of Soda"... for "Most Aquatic Life Murdered".
• Halfway Plot Switch: "Mario Reacts to Spooky Memes but Dies halfway through" has Mario reacting to spooky memes until N from Murder Drones appears to attempt to murder him halfway through, and from there on out the rest of the episode is basically promoting Murder Drones.
• Halloween Episode: "Mario Reacts to Spooky Memes but Dies half way through", which is pretty self-explanatory.
• Happy Ending: The previously mentioned Mario Plays Baldi's Basics, where Mario beats the game without needing to go into an Unstoppable Rage and ascends to heaven, no catch involved.
• Has a Type: Mario Plays: Smash or Pass reveals Mario has a thing for being crushed by large women.
  (Mario imagines Queen Bean slowly lowering on to him)
  Mario: Now if there was a way I could choose to die, this would be it.
  (Mario is crushed)
• Late to the Punchline: In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 2", a Super Mario Maker Rickroll reprise leaves Mario with a lot to think through, as he goes about his day, and he only realizes what's going on when he's already gone to bed!
• Later-Installment Weirdness: The later Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes episodes have a more structured plot with Mario either seeking memes or using memes to his advantage instead of purely reacting to them.
  • Whenever Kirby was involved in a skit, it either meant him and Mario going head to head, if not indirectly annoying the latter, or Kirby-related content grossing out Mario (and co-hosts). In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off", Mario not only reacts positively to seeing Kirby (albeit a badly drawn version of him) in a simulation, he even grieves over Kirby when he's crushed by a waffle.
• Lethal Chef: Just in case you needed any proof Mario is a horrible cook, a few of these have him whip up culinary abominations capable of straight-up killing his cohorts, due to a combination of questionable substitutions of ingredients, poor use of cooking tools and lack of safety. Just to name a few — "Mario Bakes a """Cake"""", where his attempt at one poisons Tari, and to drive the point home, his failed frosting attempt has him craft "Meggy's Cooking". Then you have "Mario Cooks a Thanksgiving """Turkey"""", where while he does kill the turkey before cooking it (by removing the turkey's insides while it's still alive), his chain of mistakes ends with all of his friends dead.
• Loophole Abuse: Mario gets away with laughing in Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes But If He Laughs He Dies by heavily lowering the resolution, making the bomb unable to tell if it's a real laugh or not. He later says LMAO to much the same effect, which ends up being turned on him as a Discord Mod claims it does count as a laugh (though he does luckily counter-attack the Mod and send him flying before the bomb explodes).
• Major Injury Underreaction:
  • Mario's response to getting squashed by a whiteboard announcing "The Meme Games" is to yell "Oh, my ass!"
  • The Narrator's response to Mario ripping out one of his arms to make blood gravy? A flat "Rude".
• Mercy Kill: In Mario Reacts To Cursed Mobile Game Ads, Mario finds that Homer has been bastardized into shamelessly promoting mobile game ads to the point of institutionalization. When Mario finds Homer in this state, he is heartbroken when he has to put Homer down a la Old Yeller.
• Medium Awareness: In Mario Try Not To Cringe Challenge, Mario thinks a video of someone dancing is hot, but then remembers what video he's in (specifically, he looks at the video title).
  Mario: …That's a dude, isn't it?
• Missing Episode: Deliberately invoked with "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes But If He Laughs He Dies", the first MDS episode to air after IT'S GOTTA BE PERFECT. The frame story has Mario in the RV from "Breaking Luigi" and "My Roommate Mario" rifling through SMG4's Box-O-Memes and finding the episode on a videotape. This is why the episode proper shows Mario still in the castle. Luke himself clarified it in the comments just to stop any confusion.
  SMG4: "The castle isn't magically back, this was an unreleased episode we didn't get to upload until now. Hope you guys liked it"
• Mood Whiplash:
  • Provides a meta example where "Mario Plays Five Nights at Freddy's" came out right after an intense episode of the main series where Mario and SMG4 had been captured by the Zero-possessed Axol. The opening acknowledges this.
  Caption: Note: This video is not canon to the smg4 lore.
  Mario spinning in a black void: Weeeeee!
  • The ending of "Mario Delves into Anti-Piracy Screens" ends on a Twist Ending wherein the video is (or could be) actually canon to the main series, in a change from the norm, as it reveals that SMG4 is still running himself ragged trying to create the best video ever after the events of "SMG4...Are You Okay?" and he interrupts Mario's usual antics to use Mario's computer after he loses his internet on his own.
• Musical Assassin: Parodied in the opening advert of "Mario Plays Roblox". Saiko stands in for a character with music based attacks, but upon taking out her guitar as if to play it, she instead uses it as a melee weapon and bludgeons Waluigi's groin with it.
• My God, What Have I Done?: Played for Laughs in "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 8" when Mario decides to chase after a pig Pokémon but accidentally chases it off a cliff, leading Mario to have this moment.
• Near-Villain Victory: In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off", Swag has Mario right on the verge of losing a "No Laughing" contest to death, no-selling all the memes thanks to having been tortured through laughter before... then a meme mocking Mario pops up, Swag can't help but laugh at the fat italian's misery, and promptly goes out with a bang.
• Negative Continuity: Being mostly non-canon to the main series allows for many videos to end with Mario and/or other characters having died as a result of whatever Mario was watching/playing, or the castle or even the entire world being destroyed in absurd ways, without any consequences that carry over into the next Crew video.
• No Inner Fourth Wall: The videos and games Mario react to frequently cross over the blue background to kick his ass, and Mario in turn can leap back and toss away the video feed.
• Out of the Frying Pan: Swag lampshades this during "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes or else his salami is chopped off", after Mario fries the virtual simulation machine.
  Swag: "You may have escaped my machine. But you're still stuck in a highly armed military base!"
• Pineapple Ruins Pizza: "Mario Joins Discord" has the entire cast up in arms when SMG4 orders pineapple pizza (again).
• Rage Breaking Point: Expect sparks to fly when Mario gets stuck in games, or when he's bothered one too many times, directly or otherwise.
  • "Mario plays Unfair Mario" is forced to cut away when Luigi interrupts, assuring the audience that no Luigis were harmed in the making of the video.
  • Later in the same video, when he was playing Cat Mario and hit the info box (which at the time of release crashed the game) after suffering during the first level, he's completely frozen until Luigi shows up, which leads to him quite literally exploding with rage.
  • After Mario falls for a brutal Kaizo Trap in Five Nights at Freddy's 1, he uses Tari's powers to enter the game and tear the animatronics apart in cold-blooded fury.
  • Mario gets so furious after a series of cheap deaths in a Roblox Crash Bandicoot fangame, he reaches into the game and smacks Crash around.
  • After seeing one too many Among Us memes, Mario proceeds to charge towards the screen and attack Frankie while ranting that those memes are used so much that they're no longer funny. Frankie only makes it worse when he proceeds to reference those same memes despite Mario's threats, causing the plumber to once again explode with rage.
  • After a whole episode of getting himself hurt by TikTok challenges, Mario finally hits his limits when the next challenge is the "cut off your Pingas" challenge, smashing his PC to the floor and crashing the stream.
  • At the end of "Mario Reacts To People Roasting Him", Mario finally gets fed up of all the people insulting him and starts roasting all his friends before driving into a lake.
  • Overlaps with Despair Event Horizon. In Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 14 ft. SMG4, after an episode's word of being mocked and disgusted by the memes he watched, and even blowing up his computer and Bob, Mario is ultimately broken by a video of him and Luigi kissing, causing him to join SMG3 in his plans. Not helped by SMG4 weirding out the both of them with a badly-drawn fursona he made.
• Reaction Video: Half of the series is about Mario reacting to weird stuff online, whether that be spooky memes, TikTok videos, or strange Nintendo commercials.
• Retool: Once the gang acquired a new castle, SMG4 celebrates it by giving the spin off a new brand into "SMG4 crew" which heavily implies the gang will partake in comedic acts similar to how Mario does it!^note They haven't by the time the series ended, and besides an increased co-host inclusion through 2023 (with even that being almost entirely dropped circa 2024), the rest of the main cast don't get to shine in the same manner as Mario.
• Running Gag: Mostly in Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes.
  • Mario introducing his Nintendo meme reaction videos by holding on the "Nin" for a really long time.
    • This got a reference in "If Mario Was In… Splatoon 3" where, having been reverted to his canon personality by Lawyer Kong's firewall, SMG4 manages to break Mario's brain by showing him memes. Mario says this in response, proving He's Back!.
  • Mario dying in reaction to what he's seen.
  • Mario's intense hatred of Among Us references.
  • Mario showing Tari videos mostly involving the mangling, or overall harming of Pokémon, and Tari screaming in horror and then making puppy eyes in response. Mostly averted in the episode featuring her most prominently, and in most later installments.
  • Mario steals your Liver memes.
  • Mario getting Meggy hurt, directly and indirectly, whenever he reacts to a meme involving Splatoon.
  • Mario's complete inability to get some bitches, to the point that Bob of all people has better luck than him.
  • To a lesser extent, Waluigi's Butt-Monkey status, and him enacting revenge on those who wronged him via Rejection Power.
  • Also to a lesser extent, Luigi being unlocked as a playable character or the opposite.
  • In Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 14 ft. SMG4, Mario acting out Elephant Mario memes and SMG4's horrified reaction.
  • In Mario Reacts to the Best 2024 Memes, SMG4 interfering with Mario's search for the perfect 2024 meme with a search of his own.
• Screw This, I'm Outta Here: You'd be hard pressed to find a video with the "ft. X" suffix where the co-host doesn't back away or straight-up walk out on Mario, after the latter dies or goes "Coo-coo crazy". Even Mario himself does this at times.
  • In "Mario Tries Life Hacks 2 ft. Luigi", Karen teleports away upon realising that Mario intends to lick her.
• Self-Deprecation: In "Mario Plays Roblox", Mario plays "Zero" (WOTFI 2021's rap battle) in a DJ game, only to see that the other players left the room as soon as he started playing an SMG4 song.
• Surprisingly Happy Ending: Played for laughs at the end of "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 10", where Peach drags him away to the castle to flatten his pingas as he screams... only to find out he likes it.
• Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
  • "Mario Does Pranks" has Mario try to prank Boopkins, Meggy, and SMG4 with over-salted spaghetti. Boopkins is the first to try it... and completely No-Sell it. Turns out living in saltwater all your life gives you quite the resistance to the stuff.
    Boopkins: Guys, I live in seawater, that was nothing.
  • Attempting to swallow a whole block of lava doesn't do good to your body, as Mario learns the hard way in "Mario Reacts To Mario Movie Memes" while attempting to reenact a scene from the titular movie.
• Take That!:
  • "Mario Reacts to Spooky Memes but Dies half way through" has Mario complain about the memes not being scary enough. Cut to "Mario will be played by Chris Pratt". In general, Mario really, really does not like Pratt, never missing an opportunity to dunk on him.
  • A brief one during "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 3", as portrayed by Mr. Krabs and Plankton, goes towards the Wii's inability to run right without an SD card.
  • In "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 5", one meme has Mario's nose get more erect seeing Sonic and Megaman (representing Sega and Capcom)... and flatten at the sight of EA.
• Tempting Fate:
  • After Mario excitedly presents the very first "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes" video, the first meme in the series has an N64 version of him that shoots him dead.
  • The meme to open "Mario Reacts To Nintendo Memes 12" has Movie!Mario die from a heart attack, with Mario noting that would never happen. The very next meme, a short that can be chalked up to an essay objectifying Mario, causes him a heart attack on the spot.
• Thanksgiving Episode: "Mario Cooks a Thanksgiving """Turkey"""" for Thanksgiving 2023... which is odd, since SMG4 lives in Australia, which typically doesn't celebrate Thanksgiving.
• That Came Out Wrong: “Mario Plays Roblox” has Mario encounter an SMG4 roleplay game. He expresses joy at this and prepares to “play with himself”. It takes him a few seconds to notice the inherent Double Entendre.
• They Killed Kenny Again: Mario will get killed off by memes leaping out of the screen at him, from the consequences of his own stupid stunts, or from cringing to death, but be right back at it with no ill effects. His co-hosts, and even a few extras, also get in on the feat.
• Throw the Dog a Bone:
  • Pikachu is usually the butt of deadly jokes, but manages to catch a break in "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 7 ft. Luigi" when Mario inadvertently saves him from Joker, getting revenge on Luigi's behalf.
  • In "Mario Does Pranks", the ones he tries to pull off on the usual Butt-Monkies, Luigi and Fishy Boopkins, fall flat on their faces.
• Title Drop: Every "Nintendo Memes" episode starts with Mario (and co-hosts early on) calling the name of the section.
• We Are Not Going Through That Again: Mario tells the audience this after he kicked Sonic and Lawyer Kong into the sky to avoid a repeat of The Lawsuit Arc.
• What Measure Is a Non-Human?: Implied during the first "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes" video. One meme involves Cartoon!Link going for "smooching time" with a skeleton, which is met with Mario laughing and calling the skeleton a "scaredy cat". Link immediately appears to do the same to him, only to cue the Law & Order intro.
• Winged Soul Flies Off at Death: Mario dies after getting jumpscared by Freddy in "Mario Plays Five Nights at Freddy's", with his winged soul leaving his body and floating up through the sky. He doesn't make it far before SMG4 catches him with a rope and forces his soul back into his body to continue playing FNAF.
• Worth It:
  • In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 10", Mario becomes so baffled at a meme where he willingly gives his liver to a dying patient, that he proceeds to trick a dying patient by taking out his own liver, only to kick it away. Mario dies shortly after — not that he cares, since he says this trope verbatim while in the afterlife.
  • In "Mario Reacts to Nintendo Memes 12", SMG4, Luigi, and Meggy join in on Mario beating the crap out of Peach in a Joker-style Combination Attack. All three are then shown in jail during the victory screen, and while SMG4 and Luigi look none too happy, Meggy smugly holds up a sign that reads this.