WildBrain says its Super Mario Bros. Super Show! restoration is “human-led, AI-assisted” after fan backlash
WildBrain, the Canadian children’s media company that owns the DIC Entertainment library, confirmed on April 2, 2026, that it uses “human-led, AI-assisted” processes to restore classic cartoons after AI-upscaled episodes of The Super Mario Bros. Super Show! drew public ridicule on social media.
- Following viewer backlash over visual glitches on MeTV Toons, WildBrain has clarified its role in the controversial restoration process.
- The AI introduced visible errors, including a garbled title card reading “The Suele Mario Bros. Super Show”, sparking criticism across social media.
- WildBrain told Cartoon Brew it was actively working to correct the distortions and described its process as supervised by human editors.
- The story arrives as a broader industry debate about AI upscaling of vintage animation continues to intensify.
The controversy began when MeTV Toons started airing the beloved 1989 series, which blended animation with live-action segments, on March 30, 2026. Viewers quickly posted screenshots showing distorted character proportions and a badly corrupted title card.
The show’s animated intro had its title visibly mangled by the AI process. According to the Super Mario Wiki’s list of controversies, the word “Super” was replaced with “Suele”, a clear AI error that made it into the broadcast version.
What WildBrain actually said
WildBrain issued an exclusive statement to journalist Jamie Lang at Cartoon Brew on April 2, 2026, confirmed via the Super Mario Wiki’s citation of the article, archived April 3, 2026. The company described its method as using AI to “enhance” resolution and color across its archive catalog, and acknowledged that distortions can occur when source materials are limited.
WildBrain said it was actively correcting the affected episodes. The statement framed the workflow as supervised rather than fully automated, positioning a human editorial layer as central to the process. Critics, however, noted the on-air result suggested minimal human review before broadcast.
“The AI upscales were done by WildBrain and can be viewed on their website. MeTV is just happening to air them.”
— Community observation widely shared on ResetEra, April 2026The scale of the backlash
Screenshots spread rapidly across social media. Nintendo Life reported that characters including Mario, Luigi, Princess Peach, and Toad appeared noticeably off, with textures smoothed into an uncanny plasticity.
Kotaku also noted the broader irony: the original 1989 series already had famously loose animation, making the AI’s interventions all the more visible against that baseline.
Brian A. Miller, a producer on the original DIC series, responded publicly on X, expressing disbelief that the quality could be made worse than the production’s already-modest original. ToonHive (@ToonHive) shared the reaction on April 1, 2026.
MeTV’s role — and where the blame sits
Multiple industry observers made clear that MeTV Toons was not responsible for the upscaling. The network licenses content from rights holders and airs the prints it receives. WildBrain, as copyright owner of the DIC catalog, created and supplied the AI-processed version.
Community research also found that WildBrain applied similar AI upscaling to The Adventures of Super Mario Bros. 3, with those prints reportedly stretched into widescreen, a separate issue from the visual distortions in Super Show!
Why this matters beyond Mario
The episode is arriving at a particularly charged moment. The debate about AI in media restoration has intensified across the industry, with studios increasingly turning to automated upscaling as a cost-efficient route to producing “HD” versions of catalog content.
Restoring 35-year-old broadcast-tape animation is genuinely difficult. Physical masters degrade over decades, and many productions from the late 1980s were never archived on film, leaving low-resolution videotape as the only surviving source. In cases where cel scanning is not possible, AI upscaling is one of the few practical options for preparing content to meet modern HD broadcast standards. The problem, critics argue, is not the tool itself but the absence of frame-by-frame quality review before the material goes to air.
WildBrain’s case illustrates what happens when that workflow skips sufficient human quality control, especially on properties with devoted, technically literate fan communities who can compare broadcasts frame-by-frame against YouTube originals.
The timing is commercially awkward, too. The Super Mario Galaxy movie opened in theaters on April 1, 2026, and Super Show!‘s MeTV return was clearly intended to ride that wave of Nintendo enthusiasm. Instead, the restoration became the story.
Reported from publicly available interviews and verified press sources. Last reviewed April 9, 2026.
Lewis Calvert Founder & Editor, BriefLedger
Lewis founded BriefLedger and has six years of experience covering film, TV, and entertainment news. He leads the site’s Movies and TV sections and runs the news desk — always with a straight-talking British take.
