02.06
Okay, it’s my turn to take a whack at one of these, and for my first one, I chose to do one of my favorite childhood cartoons, Tiny Toon Adventures. Rather than doing an episode that is regularly regarded as great by fans, like Animaniacs! or Sepulveda Boulevard, I decided to do the rarely spoken of specials that aired after the series had ended it’s normal run; Tiny Toon Adventures Spring Break Special and Night Ghoulery.
First off, both of these hour-long episodes aired in primetime on Fox; Spring Break Special on Sunday, March 27th, 1994 and Night Ghoulery, strangely enough, on Sunday, May 28th, 1995, five months before Halloween. Reportedly, both of these specials only aired once and for unexplained reasons were never to be seen again(Why Nickelodeon or Cartoon Network never re-ran the episodes is beyond me). I myself did not see these episodes until very recently. I should also take this time to apologize for the picture quality of the images I’m posting here, particularly Spring Break Special’s, because the copies I had to work with were taped off a Fox affiliate in North Carolina(a promo even mentions that a brand new episode of The Simpsons would be premeiring that Thursday, March 31st; this episode would be the fifth season ep. Bart Gets an Elephant).
Now to the good stuff, with Spring Break Special up first, and Night Ghoulery coming sometime soon. The premise of the episode is explained in the newly animated intro, with the students at Acme Looniversity looking forward to a break from school in order to spend a week in the Southern sun in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida. After this modified intro, we get a mock infomercial from Plucky, who during this trip to Ft. Lauderdale is planning on making a ton of cash with his new Tan Meister 6000, a tanning chair. It then cuts to Buster and Babs Bunny, who are covering the trip on the Tiny Toons Music Television network, which is a parody of MTV’s famous Spring Break coverage(and was also featured in an earlier episode of the same name). The events leading up to the departure, from Hampton’s intial wish to stay home and partake in spring cleaning, to the trip being revealed as to being a 8000 mile trip, end with the Tiny Toons finally hitting the road singing a song to the tune of the theme.
As the bus heads south for Florida, they come up on two Beavis and Butthead look-a-likes named Beaver and Hoghead, who are hitch-hiking to Ft. Lauderdale. Hoghead notices that the bus is the Tiny Toons’, and that their show stinks, which Beaver replies to with “Yeah, we like shows that stink!”, followed by the pair doing an exaggerated parody of their trademark laughs.
Meanwhile, while the gang is headed south, Elmyra has plans of her own. She is shown in a lair with a video monitor watching Buster and Babs preparing to leave, and she notes that she is constantly after the two “hippity hoppers”. However, her plans turn out to be more sinister, as she is looking to capture the best hippity hopper of all, the Easter Bunny, partially for his cuteness, but mostly for his candy. Elmyra then goes on to explain that after some investigation, she has determined that the Easter Bunny is none other than Buster Bunny himself. She then sets out to capture Buster, first getting some help from Tommy Lee Jones as a Federal Marshal, giving him Harrison Ford in exchange(a parody of the film The Fugitive).
The TTA gang arrive at Ft. Lauderdale, first amazed at their 5-star hotel, but the truck carrying the billboard of the hotel pulls away, revealing a hotel that is a dump. Plucky sets out on his own to try and sell his Tan Meister 6000, but after no success, he gives up the venture to chase after a Baywatch-inspired female duck, but gets dragged along with Hamton to hang out with Hamton’s grandparents, who live in a retirement community called Jeriatric Park, which he eventually ends up escaping from.
Meanwhile, Elmyra and Jones arrive at the hotel and proceed to give chase to Buster and Babs, who eventually find out what Elmyra’s intentions are and come up with a plan of their own, which involves them traveling to the White House to find the real Easter Bunny. But when the Easter Bunny turns out to be Rush Limbaugh in a costume, they continue running, using their Acme Loo knowledge to draw a tunnel on the Washington Monument to escape. Upon arrival back at Ft. Lauderdale, Buster and Babs put a set of bunny ears on an orca whale and convince Elmyra that this is the Easter Bunny, which turns into a Free Willy parody ending with the whale jumping over and purposefully landing on Elmyra during it’s getaway.
On the last night of the trip, the gang throw a party, complete with a performance by Micheal Molten-Lava. Hamton shows up in a limo, revealing to Plucky that he sold his Tan Meister 6000 as a hot dog cooker, Elmyra shows up and resumes her chase, and Plucky continues looking for the female duck, which, thanks to Buster, ends up with Plucky in bunny ears being dragged away by Elmyra, and the female duck hooking up with Hamton.
The gang heads back to Acme Acres, along the way coming across a pair named Rank and Stinky, parodies of Ren and Stimpy. Beaver and Hoghead return, this time warning Rank and Stinky to look out for the bus or they’ll get hit. Rank responds “Get out of here, you disgusting excuse for a cartoon!”, and not heeding the warning, they get ran over by the Tiny Toons’ bus. Onboard the bus, the gang wraps up the events of the trip in song, and explain that while the trip ended too soon, they’ve only got three more months until summer vacation. The special wraps up with Plucky shown in a cage in Elmyra’s room, and Babs and Buster discussing how dumb it was for Elmyra to suspect Buster of being the Easter Bunny, with Buster winking at the camera as soon as Babs walks away, which leaves the truth of the whole matter up to the viewer.
One thing that I walked away with was just how much the TTA crew really did like using Elmyra towards the end of the shows run. She appears often, being more of a main character than the supporting character she was originally supposed to be, and at times appears downright hell-bent on capturing Buster and/or the Easter Bunny. Another thing of note is Buster himself, as this was after his original voice actor, Charlie Adler, had departed and was replaced by John Kassir. To me, Kassir’s Buster voice is really quite flat, and not nearly as high-pitched and cartoony as Adler’s was.
And of course, what would this special be without the parodies and pop-culture references. Aside from some of the parodies already mentioned, we also get references to such things as Nightline, Howard Stern, Rodney Dangerfield, The Clintons, Rush Limbaugh, Ross Perot, Sonny the Cocoa Puffs bird, Roseanne and Tom Arnold, Jaws, Micheal Bolton, and Micheal Jordan. And with special cameos, we also get appearences by Pinky and the Brain, who appear in a cage in Elmyra’s basement, and Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, who are being chased in a scene at the White House by Ralph the security guard. There’s also a few music videos thrown in to keep it faithful to a MTV spring break special parody, which include Sgt. Plucky’s Lonely Hearts Club Band singing “Nothin’ Could Be More Fun” and Elmyra singing a parody of The Police’s hit “‘ll Be Watching You” entitled “I’ll Be Chasing You”.
Overall, this special was pretty fun to watch, even if Elmyra does get annoying after a while. Some of the exploits are remeniscent of How I Spent My Vacation, particularly what happens with Plucky and Hamton. The animation itself, done here by Wang Film Productions, is pretty good, and quite a bit of a step-up from their work earlier in the series. Yes, it’s no TMS, but it’s a heck of a lot better than any of the Kennedy-animated episodes.
The special is a bit hard to find though, since unlike other specials like How I Spent My Vacation, It’s a Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas, and even Night Ghoulery, it never got a home video release. It is up on YouTube and it is available for download in various places if you look, but unfortunately the quality is terrible, with the visuals becoming nothing but static in some parts. Hopefully WB will come to their senses and finish the season sets with the special on it, or release it as part of it’s own set.
Originally posted on Sunday, August 1, 2010.