Capitol Critters

[Mr. Big]

Now this is an obscurity. Capitol Critters was one of the prime-time cartoons from the 1990s created in the wake of the Simpsons' success.

The show was a co-production between Hanna-Barbera and Steven Bochco and ABC aired it as mid-season replacement in 1992, but it was cancelled after seven episodes were aired. Then in 1995 Cartoon Network started running it, including the six episodes that never saw the light of day on the alphabet network.

I think the show was good, but I think part of the reason why it got poor reception was that the show was really a dramedy (ABC promoted it as comedy). Also, the character designs are just too reminiscent of the kiddie cartoons from the likes of Don Bluth and Disney, which is a big minus for the prime-time adult audience they were trying to attract.

Does anyone remember this show?

[Goldstar]

Yeah, I think one big reason why Capitol Critters failed to attract an audience is because adults saw the character designs of anthropomorphic mice and roaches wearing T-shirts and baseball caps and then wrote the series off as being a Saturday morning kids' cartoon and didn't tune in, when CC was, in fact, a dramedy produced by Steven Bocchco(sp?). Some of the subject matter got pretty dark, such as one episode in which a rat gets killed by the Presidential Cat, which promotes the character of Jammet (voiced by Charlie Adler) to get a gun, and another with features a drug-addicted squirrel named Opie (get it?). These are 2 of the episodes that didn't air on Cartoon Network when CN aired the reruns of CC.

[Spark Of Spirit]

This and Fish Police were the two shows from that era that I never actually got around to watching even though I always hear people talking about them.

[Mr. Big]

There was also "Family Dog", based on a short film by Brad Bird. The executive producers were Steven Spielberg and Tim Burton, who also designed the main character.

The show was plagued with production problems, having to redo a ton of animation. It finally premiered in Summer 1993 on CBS, two years after the original announced date.

[Goldstar]

I only saw one episode of Fish Police, and I don't remember much of it other than that John Ritter and Ed Asner both did voices on the show. I did see a few episodes of Family Dog, though. Honestly, the series was never as good as the episode of Amazing Stories that inspired it. I think that the problem was largely because Family Dog: the Series came in the wake of The Simpsons, so FD's producers tried to make the show as much like The Simpsons as possible.

[Spark Of Spirit]

The Family Dog short is really good. But I don't remember the series coming close to it at all.