The show is a guilty pleasure. It's not perfect, sure, has incredibly cheesy moments, and pretty baaaaad animation but I do love how much attention they paid to the Mario games, such as inserting music and sound effects from said games. I think they were at least trying their best to be a Mario cartoon. You know, unlike how pandery some license holders get with their licensed content.
cough cough Super Mario Bros. Movie cough cough
Oh, and yeah, one more thing, the less you mention their portrayal of Mario and Luigi as babies, the better (to be fair, Baby Mario and Baby Luigi weren't conceived yet)