Animation Revelation's Animation Blog

Yes, this series was finished months ago. Yes, no one heard about it or cared enough to watch it. Yes, I’m going to post a review for it.

Have you ever been having sex and as you were nearing orgasm an obese hobo thrust himself into the room and ejaculated all over your face? No? Well, neither have I. But that theoretical semen… that semen would be Ookami Kakushi. This series not only proves that Ryukishi07 can rehash Higurashi, it proves that he can turn it into utter shit in the process. Had I been working at the network which aired this catastrophe, not only would I have had it pulled from the schedule, I would have fed every print, every storyboard, and every concept drawing to the wolves – pun absolutely intended.

Let’s start with the story (1/10). At first, it merely seems like a pathetic and shameless knock off of Higurashi; reminiscent of what Friedberg and Seltzer (don’t know them? look ’em up) would probably do if they were given the opportunity to produce Cicadas Movie. But no, this is just the tip of the shit iceberg, because it gets worse. It begins with a flash-forward to a point later on in the series (OH GEE WHERE HAVE I SEEN THIS BEFORE), which is painfully stupid without the proper context and even worse once you know what’s actually going on.

The story really starts with our hero, Hiroshi, moving to a new town with his father and lame sister. “Lame” has a double meaning in this case, by the way, as not only do her legs not work, she is probably one of the least interesting characters in the show (and that’s really saying something). Hiroshi is the new kid on the block, but it isn’t hard for him to make friends; in fact, every character in the show save the ubiquitous creepy Furude Rika-lookalike seems to crave the taste of his dick. See, this is due to a special pheromone his body unwittingly produces that makes the local yokels hungry like the wolf. There are multiple scenes involving one of his (or perhaps his only) male friend(s) trying to make out with him. Under normal circumstances, I’d consider this blatant wish fulfillment on the part of the writer, but after seeing how big the boobs were on EVERY FUCKING CHARACTER in Umineko, I’m convinced that it’s just fanservice.

Chaos erupts throughout the city. Citizens begin slowly turning into wolves like honest, hard-working Americans turned into dirty Commie bastards during the Cold War. Not that the show really gives a shit about the outbreak, as only about a minute per episode is devoted to these scenes. There’s some secret, ancient society devoted to exterminating these furry pests, but we wouldn’t be able to focus on the supah kawaii antics of Hiroshi and his mini-harem if the story decided to expound too heavily on their history or their work, so it doesn’t. Eventually, some guy – who might as well be sporting a curly mustache and evil smirk – randomly stumbles into the series and announces that he will be the antagonist from this point forward. I’d compare him to Takano Miyo, but that would be too easy, since they’re pretty much the exact same fucking character (except this guy is completely one-dimensional with tacked on motives and makes Genocyber look like great literature).

I’ve already talked quite a bit about the characters (1/10), but there’s something I need to make perfectly clear; as you may have noticed, there is a recurring theme throughout this review: aside from Hiroshi, I haven’t mentioned any characters by name. This is because every single character was so terribly written and developed that I was never able to actually learn any of their names or differentiate between them by anything other than their voices or looks. Let’s do a quick break-down (with the aide of MAL to help me match names to faces):

Hiroshi – Our protagonist. Accidentally castrated instead of circumcised at birth, which explains his appearance, voice, and lack of courage or assertiveness. One of the least likable characters in the entire series due to his bratty attitude and general stupidity.
Mana – Hiroshi’s sister. Cries a bunch. Probably wants to fuck her brother. Unimportant story-wise.
Masaaki – Hiroshi’s dad. Loves to tell stupid stories. Probably the best character in the anime, but not because he’s interesting; he’s simply less uninteresting than every other character. Unimportant story-wise.
Isuzu – Shameless Rena clone, personality-wise, but without any of her good points. Probably the worst character in the series.
Kaname – The smart one. Has no personality to speak of. The most boring character in the series. A piece of cardboard would be more interesting to talk to.
Nemuru – Anti-social girl who acts like a prick to everyone.
Kannon – Anti-social magical girl who acts like a prick to everyone and kills wolves in her spare time. Has the same voice actor as Nemuru (see where I’m going with this?).
Kaori – Plays music. Has some kind of terminal illness that is never really explained. Disappears from the series without much explanation near the end. Unimportant story-wise.
Issei – Gay for Hiroshi. This makes him a bad guy. Way to reinforce the anime being homophobic stereotype, guys. Isuzu’s brother.
Sakaki – The bad guy. Has stupid plans that never really amount to anything and is incapable of using a gun properly.

Detracting from my enjoyment (1/10) even further, the final episode is a comedy special. That’s right, not only is the story slow-paced and mind-bogglingly boring, it can’t even fill up an entire half-season. This episode is about as funny as being force-fed a popsicle made of frozen diarrhea. If you thought Higurashi’s comedy was bad, well, just imagine it without the lovable characters. Now make it ten times worse and add in some poorly-done fanservice. That’s the final episode of Ookami Kakushi in a nutshell.

The art and character designs (1/10) are so unabashedly generic that you won’t be able to tell the difference between this series and every other half-hearted, mediocre anime out there. The animation is about on par with Filmation or Studio DEEN on a bad day.

The sound in general (5/10) isn’t anything to write home about, but none of it is bad. The OP and ED are unmemorable but inoffensive and the voice acting is fairly standard.

TL;DR:
Story – 1/10 (Beyond awful)
Characters – 1/10 (Boring enough to put you to sleep)
Enjoyment – 1/10 (Not one bit)
Art/Animation – 1/10 (Walt Disney is rolling over in his grave)
Sound – 5/10 (Passable)
Overall – 1/10 (I’d marathon Umineko in its entirety before I’d subject myself to another minute of this bullshit)

–Foggle

Originally posted on Friday, July 23, 2010.

So what have we learned, kids? Disney is awesome and have made some great stuff in the 80 + years of the studio’s existence, and their old syndication block is up there with some of their best moments.

I can watch a show like DuckTales again and still catch bits to laugh at, as well as subtlety’s I haven’t even considered. I can put on Darkwing Duck and think that there aren’t that many cartoons with jokes as varied as it on television now. These two, in my opinion, were the heart and soul of the block. Gargoyles may be my favorite series overall and Gummi Bears holds up better than I would have expected, but DuckTales is something special, a very strong combination of humor, adventure, and heart that other studios wish they could make, while Darkwing has enough of all of the above to make it a worthy successor.

These four series would make my ideal Disney Afternoon block. While these four did not air on the same lineup together, some of them have aired together; DuckTales and Gummi Bears were a part of the first season in 1990-1991, while DuckTales remained on the block for the second season to join Darkwing Duck in 1991-1992, and Darkwing stayed on for the fifth season in 1994-1995 to join Gargoyles, and also returned for the seventh season in 1996-1997, with Gargoyles still on.

If I had to make a schedule, it would look like:

3:00- Darkwing Duck
3:30- Gummi Bears
4:00- DuckTales
4:30- Gargoyles

And yes, I do encourage those who read the blog to make their own dream schedule.

Thinking about it, DuckTales and Darkwing Duck, alongside Chip ‘n Dale Rescue Rangers, were among the block’s most popular series and instantly come to mind when discussing one or the others. I would say this is similar to Dexter’s Laboratory, The Powerpuff Girls and Ed, Edd, n’ Eddy for fans of the Cartoon Cartoons; The Flintstones, The Jetsons and Scooby-Doo for fans of classic Hanna-Barbera; and Rugrats, Doug and Hey Arnold! for fans of classic NickToons(or Ren & Stimpy, Rocko’s Modern Life and The Angry Beavers for “weirder” kids). The good memories of one will likely bring up the other two for people, and it’s not hard to think that someone can enjoy all three equally.

As for the block’s history, the last real line-up seemed to be the 1996-1997 season. There were technically two more seasons afterwards, but the name(which was already shortened to merely TDA at that point) was removed, as was the last half-hour. Most of the shows were already taken off for the 1997-1998 year; from the previous year, only Quack Pack remained, while Saturday morning component 101 Dalmatians: The Series was added to the package as well as repeats of DuckTales. The following year 101 Dalmatians stuck around as well as repeats of Hercules and Doug from ABC’s Disney-owned Saturday morning block, One Saturday Morning. The Disney Afternoon was virtually dead at this point, and would remain that way as UPN would air repeats of One Saturday Morning cartoons for them in 1999, taking away the need for a syndication block.

Why did the Disney Afternoon end? It seems that as the years went by and cable networks were utilizing their advantages more efficiently, the need for syndication for new programs was not necessary. Not every market contained Disney Afternoon broadcasts and that hurt potential ratings. As the years went by less series premiered new episodes on unreliable syndication schedules and the practice is rarely used now.

You can also blame better options for why TDA ended it’s run. When Fox Kids added a weekday block and upped their original lineups with popular series such as Power Rangers, X-Men, and Animaniacs, there was more reason for kids to tune into their block. Many consider the Disney Afternoon to peak with Darkwing Duck and consider most of the shows after it’s release as filler, so perhaps around that point kids started tuning in less, not to mention that you could also see such series as Darkwing, Goof Troop, and Aladdin elsewhere, be it on Saturday morning schedules or on Disney Channel.

The Disney Afternoon didn’t have as sad of an ending as I made it look, however. Some of these series still aired on the Disney Channel for a little while longer, and in 1998, Disney made the channel Toon Disney. This network was meant to air most of the studio’s many animated programs as well as some acquired ones, such as the DiC properties they owned. For a few years the Disney Afternoon programs still aired regularly on here, but as the channel progressed, newer series were put on from One Saturday Morning as well as the Disney Channel, which would cut back on airings of series such as Darkwing Duck and Bonkers, while some shows such as Gummi Bears were eventually taken off entirely.

In 2004 things for the channel made their biggest change yet by adding Jetix, a nightly block that aired shows more pumped up on action for older boys. The shows on Jetix mainly consisted on series from Fox Kids newly acquired by Disney(oh, the irony!), as well as a couple of action-oriented series they already owned such as Gargoyles. With the need to air newer shows such as Brandy & Mr. Whiskers, Recess and Kim Possible during the day cutting some of the Afternoon series to later at night, there wasn’t much of a home for the shows.

Some shows stayed on the network for a couple of years after the impending success of Jetix, such as the aforementioned Gargoyles, as well as Aladdin, which based off of the success of the original film and the Princess line lead it to stay on a block with The Little Mermaid, usually focusing on episodes involving Jasmine. Even as far as 2008, Rescue Rangers, TaleSpin and Goof Troop showed up sporadically on the network.

The chance for just about all of these series to remain on the block came to an end in early 2009, when the channel was taken over for Disney XD, a spruced up, “boys” take on Disney Channel. Combine Jetix’s action shows with some of the less girly Disney Channel originals such as The Suite Life of Zack & Cody and Phineas & Ferb, and some new programs, and this is what we have. Just about everything from Toon Disney’s previous schedule that didn’t have much guy appeal was taken off, and that includes the Afternoon programs. Gargoyles still airs nightly in late hours, which is seems destined to do for a while, but that is the sole exception.

Now, not every animated series by Disney post Afternoon was bad, mind you. In fact, there were quite a few shows since then that I enjoyed, and I do plan to write a follow-up article on some of them, but most of the shows don’t compete to DuckTales or Gargoyles in my opinion.

For a while, there was a chance to watch some of these series again, but that seems to be gone, and since the DVDs don’t seem to have been too successful, there isn’t much of a chance to watch these shows on our TV again, unless you have old tapes of them. We should always remember the good times we had with the Disney Afternoon, as well as any television series we loved. I look for likable characters, sharp writing, and well-developed locations in my TV, and most of these shows filled my need for just that. If you want to order one of the DVD that are available, check out my links in previous blogs or look outside for a good deal. I guarantee that your purchase would be worth the money.

If I could have, I so would have gone here.

Originally posted on Sunday, July 4, 2010.

Ho boy.

As great as the Disney Afternoon was when the block was started, things went south in the span of a few years for Disney‘s television animation department. Gone were the days of Gummi Bears, and on went mediocre shows like the Mighty Ducks, a tude-filled action show featuring a team full of hockey-playing ducks who fight crime, that aired on ABC’s One Saturday Morning block as well on the block(which I personally won’t be going through), and Quack Pack, which I’ll be talking about here.

You see, even nearly a decade past the airing of DuckTales, the show was still popular, so Disney still continued to keep a home for it even years after it was taken off the block. It seemed like making a spin-off of sorts in continuation of some of the characters would be a good idea. Maybe make it a little closer to the source material than Darkwing Duck.

So the idea was to bring Donald back from the navy. Scrooge realizes that one day Donald will take over the McDuck fortune, so Don should have an idea of what it’s like to handle such responsibility, so he leaves Huey, Dewey, and Louie back with him. They are older now but are still the kids who used to look up to him and think the world of their Unca Donald, who just finished basic training. Donald should try to do his best to take care of the nephews while he gets reacquainted with Daisy and works in his new job.

The show was initially called Duck Daze, but for some reason Disney didn’t seem to be as keen on this idea as Jymn Magon, the person behind DuckTales, was, so the series went through some revisions and was retitled to Quack Pack.

For one thing, even though we’re still in Duckburg, the only DuckTales characters who appeared were the nephews and Donald(Daisy never appeared nor was ever mentioned in the series). In fact, now humans walk alongside the ducks for whatever reason. This contradicts with the DuckTales/Darking Duck/TaleSpin/Goof Troop mentality that humans do not exist in their world, but rather the animals act like humans. Now both live together with no qualms. This isn’t like Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers where the animals live in a world mostly full of humans but interact with the beings as little as possible, which made sense. I don’t get why humans and ducks walked together with no problem myself, but that’s not really the only problem with the show.

I believe there’s even an episode in which it is stated that Donald is the only one of the nephew’s uncles still alive, saying that Scrooge and Gladstone are either dead or just plain forgotten. Even though we don’t necessarily need all of DuckTales’ characters on the show, having something like this said is disrespectful to the characters and fans of the show in general.

Not to mention that the new series was also given a “modernized” feeling. Rather than sticking to a time-tested family-friendly environment like DuckTales stayed in, Quack Pack’s environment looked and felt like it was stuck in sensibilities of the mid-90’s. The nephews as well as most of their peers dressed hip for the time, baseball caps, undershirts without regular shirts, and all, and also used “cool“ phrases to make them sound relevant. This doesn’t really work for the sake of the show and makes it look even more dated today than DT does, despite the 9-year gap between the two shows.

Another thing I don’t get is that Huey, Dewey, and Louie now have their own voice actors. They used to share one, Russi Taylor, who would play all three of them very similarly to each other. This is fine because the boys don’t really have much of a separate personality. They are good characters, mind you, but having a uniform performance for each of them helped to distinctify their characters from the other kids in town.

Now a voice actress plays one exclusively; Jeannie Elias, Ginger’s little brother Carl from As Told By Ginger, took on the role of Huey; Pamela Adlon, best known as the voice of Bobby Hill, was Dewey; while EG Daily, who did Tommy Pickles in Rugrats and it’s spin-off All Grown Up as well as Buttercup in The Powerpuff Girls, played Louie. All of which are good voice actresses, I am a fan of each of the series mentioned(well, not All Grown Up, but I still like the original Rugrats) and I also think that they do a decent job as each of the ducks, but I don’t see the point that the nephews would need their own, distinctive voice actor when they still act very similarly to each other. There is more of an attempt to focus on one of the nephews in particular in some of the episodes, but they still act like copies of each other.

Since they are a little older, the nephews should obviously act a little different than they previously did in DuckTales. If you can recall some of the original Donald Duck cartoons with the nephews in them, Huey, Dewey, and Louie tended to be a pain on Donald’s backside, while in DuckTales and Barks’ comics, the boys gave Scrooge a bit of respect that Donald didn’t see as much. Granted, Bark also softened Donald and the nephew’s relationship, but there were layers of admiration and obedience that the boys had for Scrooge that Donald didn’t see as much of. I think this is because Scrooge is older, has gone from more than Donald, and knows just what the boys need. The boys tended to get Donald into adventures in the cartoons and comics, Scrooge lent the boys to (generally, or at least tried to make them) fun, safe experiences that they will never forget.

The nephews acted kind of like how they did in the original cartoons; they were rowdy, rebellious, disrespectful, but they still cared about their Unca Donald. They also were a bit more lethargic than their previous selves, at least until they go on an out of town experience and something catches their interest, usually a girl, since the boys are just going through puberty. This isn’t too bad of a character trait, but I miss the loving, daring character traits they had in DuckTales. Here they’re just like every other boy their age, back in Duck, they were your desired golden boys, something we don’t get in many TV shows today. There is nothing wrong with sass, but DuckTales had more heart than your usual kids show will today, and the nephews were a big reason for that.

I think the episode that everything is as closely put together as best as the staff could make it be was the first episode, “The Really Mighty Ducks”, when the nephews have fantasies of being super heroes and fight off super villain Donald who keeps on nagging at them to clean up their room. It is unlike most of the series but there is enough charm in the silly Darkwing Duck-like comic book spoofs to make it stand out on it’s own. I think my favorite part is when Donald merely yells at the boys to “Clean up your room!” when fighting them, just to have the nephews fight back. Donald is still Donald and even at the show’s most mediocre can be the best part of the series.

On the other hand, though, a lot of the episodes are not like what the rest of the show is. There is some variety in the show occurrences, but not in a way that I think is for the better. Some episodes will take place in Duckburg and occur almost sitcom-like. There’s definitely some Goof Troop influence in the series, which does make sense since Jymn also was responsible for that as well as this and DuckTales, but I don‘t think that Quack Pack ever reaches the same heights as Goof Troop on it‘s worse. I say this because the show can turn into a paranormal investigative series nearly as fast, sometimes taking the ducks as far as the other side of the earth. Donald and Daisy’s news crew jobs often contributes to the adventures this time. Sometimes they go to the Far East to record an archaeologist’s clay army, or they will just stay at home and try to rehabilitate a previous enemy. I think adding in odd stories like these don’t do the show any favors, since it’s obvious that Disney was trying to cash in on the surreal factor that was going on in the mid 90’s and would peak later on when Ripley’s got back in top form with the public, but it fails in that regard as well.

Overall, it seems like Quack Pack tries to be quite a few different things and fails at all of them. It tries to be a successful part of Disney’s television animated canon, but fans of DuckTales and kids in general didn’t like it(only 39 instead of the typical 65 episodes were made, and syndication wasn‘t as kind to Quack as some of the block‘s other programs). It tried to be a wacky, goofy kid show but wasn’t really wacky or goofy, and certainly wasn’t very funny. It tried to have a lot of peculiar situations handled in classic Barks fashion but lord knows that couldn’t happen. Quack Pack overall just wasn’t a very good show and was quickly forgotten. You could possibly blame it on too much executive meddling, or too much tinkering with the basic formula, but overall I just find little about the series to praise.

While writing this review, I decided to rewatch some episodes of DuckTales, Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers, and Aladdin. These still hold up and even at their dullest were still more fun to watch than the average Quack Pack. There was more heart put into them, as well as stronger writing and more careful character definitions. It’s a shame that the block started to end around the time Quack Pack hit the scene because the Disney Afternoon did end on a rather weak note with it.

Like Goof Troop, three random episodes were put together in one volume, and there doesn’t seem to be much of a chance for the rest of the show to be released. If you are interested in collecting any of the show, this disc is the best chance you have.

Originally posted on Thursday, July 1, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dumGj-qDlIs

Or if you’d rather

Oh, this song. It is hard to ignore the popularity of this song, especially during the mid-90’s when Lion King mania was huge. “Hakuna Matata” is one of the most popular songs of the past twenty years just as The Lion King is one of the most popular movie in the past 20 years, so continuing to market the film for years after it‘s arrival seemed like a no brainer.

As much as audiences gravitated towards Simba’s story, it seemed like there wasn’t too much to do with him and his friends after the movie. Some creative members of the direct to video staff proved that life after Simba’s return to home can work after all, but for now, Disney needed something easier to come up with to work with. Since Timon and Pumbaa, the likable meerkat and warthog duo who were responsible for the aforementioned song, made a lot of kids laugh and sold their fair share of merchandise, it seemed like a good day to give them their own series.

The Lion King’s Timon & Pumbaa premiered in 1995, airing on both the CBS block on Saturdays as well as Fridays on the Disney Afternoon, taking over Gargoyles spot. The show stated on CBS for a couple of seasons and stayed on TDA for the following season on it’s own slot.

I’ll admit it now, I never watched most of this show. As much as I like The Lion King and the two main characters of the show, I couldn’t get into the actual series. Granted, “Hakuna Matata” is my least favorite of the songs that stuck in the movie, so that probably contributed with my lukewarm feelings towards the show. Watching some of it again for the first time in a while, I see why else I’m not so hot on it.

I haven’t found too much of the series to watch again, so this will probably be a pretty brief retrospective. Take the common idea of The Ren & Stimpy Show(two eccentric characters go through absurdly entertaining adventures on a daily basis, often in different environments), but tone down the titular characters so that there isn’t as much malice or gross-out humor in this one. Timon & Pumbaa can be called a tamer Ren & Stimpy, but something was lost in translation.

I don’t think that Timon & Pumbaa is very clever. Granted, Ren & Stimpy sometimes went too far with it’s “stupid to be stupid” mentality, especially when John K was taken away from his show, but the original Spumko episodes had enough wit in it’s absurdity to make it work. Many of Timon & Pumbaa’s story ideas seemed to come out of nowhere for the need to fill a season order. There is just something strange about a show that jumps from having the two characters stay in the jungle that we met them in for a batch of episodes than jump out to a mall set in the middle of suburbia the next week. Considering that these characters originated from a film where their home was definitely in the jungle, I’d prefer to have them stay there.

Timon and Pumbaa also just aren’t too great by themselves. They were fine as supporting characters in The Lion King because that’s what they were, supporting characters. At the end of the day, Timon is a hotheaded moron who has moments of greatness that are balanced out by some annoying comic bits, while Pumbaa is a walking gas bomb. Sometimes his sweetness lets him become a more likable character than he should be, but it’s hard to stick up for a guy whose flatulence is commonly where his laughs come from.

A lot of jokes rely on old cartoon stand byes of puns and visual humor, along with the expected weirdness and grossout humor. There are solid jokes to be found here, but usually it’s not worth sitting through a half hour of Nathan Lane impersonators try to talk their way to his audience.

I think the show works it’s best when other Lion King characters show up in the show. Rafiki and the hyenas are the most likely to appear, and they have their moments about as much as Timon and Pumbaa do. When Simba or Zazu show up though, then you know that things are going to get good. When Simba’s in the stories are bound to work better than usual and Zazu still has solid dialogue for the most part.

If I had to pick one episode that I thought worked in particular, it would probably be “Hakuna Matata U.”, in which the two decide to sell their proverbs off for a living as a college-like course. They pick two squares to be a part of this class; one of which tends to overanalyze everything he’s given, while the other takes “no worries” just a bit too far. It’s not an original premise, but the series is at it’s best when Timon and Pumbaa aren’t the most annoying people on the show, which the pupils here certainly are. We are given a lot of oneshot or odd guest star appearances throughout with this being the case, and “Hakuna Matata U” has one of the best examples of that episode idea

Really, if you want to see the two characters used to their full potential, watch the 2003 DTV The Lion King 1½. In it, we see why Timon leaves his clan of meerkats to find his best warthog friend. This was the before picture, as the after has the two go through many of the most memorable events of the original Lion King, as they give their commentary throughout. I don’t want to spoil for you how they affect the movie as a whole in this revisioning, but I will say that ”Circle of Life” might just be ruined by what happens when the two show up.

Parts of this movie get tiresome, but you probably won’t find Timon and Pumbaa in a funnier situation without going back to the original movie. If you love The Lion King and want more of it, I’ll definitely recommend that, as well as The Lion King II: Simba’s Pride, which is the most effective of the “child of the lead characters from the original go through their own adventure similar to their parents past” formula that Disney used for some of it’s sequels, especially since the Romeo & Juliet cues in it work perfectly with the originals‘ callbacks to Hamlet.

As for Timon & Pumbaa, I can’t say the same. If you’re a big fan of the two characters, it’s worth checking out, but I don’t think it’s too great. It’s around this point that Disney’s TV animation started to drastically decline, and for the most part wouldn’t reform back to where it was nearly a decade ago.

No episodes of the show were released stateside, and The Lion King films are trapped in the vault, so there’s currently no way for fans to buy any of the series on DVD.

Originally posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ljeP0jrpF-w

I mentioned this on the blog once, but Aladdin is one of my very favorite Disney movies. The Little Mermaid and Beauty and the Beast are fine movies, I liked them as a kid too, but I’m not a girl, so there wasn’t as much to attract me to their bandwagons, not to mention that the former came out about a year before I was born and I was barely over a year old when the latter came out. Aladdin I was just about old enough to catch in theaters and revel over it’s video tape. It had it all; a clever male lead with a love interest who wasn’t a sap on top of a smoothly threatening villain and a goofy, shapeshifting genie, with some of the best songs in the Disney canon. As a kid, it hit all the right notes that a movie should, and while The Lion King would do it a little better on top of a much bigger hype train, Aladdin came first and naturally had a spin-off series come out first(don‘t worry, Lion King‘s is next).

Disney started dancing with the idea to make sequels to some of their properties as far back as 1990, when they released The Rescuers Down Under, a modestly budgeted sequel to the 1977 classic. It didn’t set the world apart at the box office, not making anywhere near Little Mermaid or Roger Rabbit money, but at least made it’s budget back to prove that there may be some interest in making more sequels to their animated features.

Rather than spending as much money on the sequels as they do for their original canon titles, as well as distract from their ever-growing theater schedule for these movies, Disney decided to put most of these sequels out straight to video, and rather than having the people behind these movies come back to work on them again and mess with the schedule, Disney usually had the people from their Australia division work on the animation, while various TV people throughout would take over the stories. Since Aladdin broke records as the highest grossing animated movie of all time, also being the first to gross over $200 million, it seemed like a natural choice to use it as their first subject for a second go around.

Even better, why not continue Aladdin, Jasmine, and the gang’s adventures beyond movies? Since Disney’s Little Mermaid show on CBS, which followed Ariel’s life prior to being a part of our world, did well for them, it seemed like a natural idea to do a continuation of Aladdin’s story, following him and Jasmine during their engagement days, while the sequel film would become an opener to the show.

The Return of Jafar, Aladdin’s sequel, went to video on March 20, 1994, while Aladdin’s own series joined the Disney Afternoon block for it’s 1994-1995 season, replacing TaleSpin. It stayed on for the next two and debatably last seasons. During which, it also aired another batch of episodes on CBS’ Saturday morning block, and also aired another season of episodes made for CBS.

I always considered the Aladdin sequels(that wasn’t an error; I’ll get to the other one, later) to be among the best of Disney’s direct to video sequels, since even though the animation in them weren’t as sharp as that of the original’s or later sequels, nor or the songs as memorable as the original, Aladdin and his friends seem to have a rich sense of characteristics that lend them to adventures beyond the movie they premiered in. I feel the same way about the series, but to a lesser extent. Aladdin the TV series tended to have a very hit or miss range, with some episodes containing nearly as much entertainment value and character depth as the movie, but others not as much.

As much as I love Aladdin the movie, I haven’t seen much of Aladdin the series in a while. Doing this article gave me the first chance in years to rediscover the series. I’ve only seen a handful or so of episodes so far, but I have enjoyed what I’ve seen, for the most part.

On the good, the characters are pretty close to their original personas from the movie, from what I’ve seen at least. Even then, it’s mostly the main two I’m talking about. Aladdin has gone through a little bit of a change from the movie. Rather than living on the streets like he did in the film, Aladdin lives in the palace with his beloved Princess Jasmine, who he is still engaged to.

Jasmine is still the desirable beauty that she is. I’ve always considered her to be the most attractive looking princess and when she’s drawn right, she can really strut her stuff. Until we met Tiana from The Princess and the Frog, Jasmine was also my favorite of the Disney Princesses in terms of personality as well, because she didn’t take crap from just about anyone, but wasn’t too aggravating in her plight. She’s mad about having to find a suitor she doesn’t like, but she does want to get married. She just wants a choice in this. She can tend to let her impulses get in the way however, but this also contributes to her being more than a Sue. I don’t get why so few people liked her on the series while Aladdin got the attention of all the ladies. Even the suitors who still go to Jasmine even after she becomes engaged to Al think she’s hard to deal with. Jasmine is still smoking hot and freely speaks her mind.

While Aladdin and Jasmine I still find to be likable, the supporting characters aren’t as much. Maybe it’s because comic relief only can be funny for so long, so characters meant to kill tension with humor can get old. The Sultan is fine, but Iago(who parts with his old master in The Return of Jafar to join Al and his gang) and Abu aren’t as much. Mostly they get departed from the action and work together to get back to Aladdin, which gives Iago enough time to complain about their current predicament and Abu try to calm him down in his creepy monkey voice. I thought Iago was hilarious in the movie, and Abu had really smooth animation on top of humorous side relief, but together they don’t blend well.

The Genie can still be funny, but he grates a little more in the series, since he isn’t always as necessary as a character in the show. What really hurts Genie’s character is losing Robin Williams, who took the best aspects of his stand-up routine and put them into his character. Williams had some dispute with Disney, so Dan Castellaneta, best known as the voice of Homer Simpson, took over as the Genie for Return of Jafar and the sequel. Castellaneta does his best, but sometimes his Genie sounds more like his Homer or Megavolt(which he also voiced) voices, which interfered with his performance.

The original characters don’t gel as much. Since Jafar was done with, they couldn’t rely on him forever in the show, so new villains were made for it, and most of them were lame.

Abis Mal, whose name is pronounced exactly as you read it, came from Return of Jafar. He is a pathetic thief who frequently attempts to earn some kind of wealth in the show. He often gets foiled during his schemes relatively early on, and isn’t much of a threat for the gang. Despite Jason Alexander voicing him(or perhaps in spite of), Abis Mal isn’t a very good character, just kind of a stock villain the writers can come back to when they need someone.

Another popular villain is Mozenrath, a young sorcerer similar to Aladdin in terms of origin and design. More or less an evil Aladdin. Mozenrath has some solid ideas but is ruined by horrendous dialogue and a weak performance by Jonathan Brandis. He sounds more emo than threatening, before emo was a way to describe someone.

Then we have Mirage, who is a catlike Egyptian sorceress. She uses her power to trick the gang with her name sakes, as well as other kinds of trickery. She has some really good episodes but at the end of the day doesn’t really do as much as she can. If she’s so powerful, why can’t she just kill Aladdin and Jasmine and get on her way? She doesn’t even seem to fight back too often.

Probably the series finest episodes involves her, “Eye of the Beholder“. In it, Mirage makes a bet that she can destroy love, which she attempts to do with Aladdin and Jasmine’s. After a recent argument, Jasmine thinks that Aladdin only cares about her looks, so Mirage, in a new human form, tricks her into buying some skin cream. The cream is actually one of Mirage’s potions, which turns Jasmine into a snake. When she discovers this, she starts worrying that Al won’t love her anymore, which Mirage wants. Aladdin tries his hardest to help Jasmine return back to human, to no avail. Jasmine only becomes more unlikely to become human again, and becomes increasingly poisoness. Mirage is hoping that Al will leave her as the chances of her becoming human are next to none, but Aladdin then throws a curveball at her, as he uses the rest of the cream become a snake instead, only proving his dedication.

Episodes this sweet prove that a good story can overshadow a mediocre villain, which Aladdin had to do often.

It’s also worth noting that after the series ended, another direct to video movie was released, Aladdin and the King of Thieves, in 1996. In this one, Aladdin meets his father, who is revealed to be Ali Baba, calling back to his Arabian Nights roots. It’s also important as not only do Aladdin and Jasmine finally get married, but Robin Williams returns as the Genie.

King of Thieves is a solid ending of the Aladdin saga, just as Return of Jafar is a solid continuation, and the Aladdin series is a solid follow-up. Measure in the good and the bad and you have a decent franchise based off of one of Disney’s strongest classics. Now to go to Timon & Pumbaa…

While no actual DVD releases have been made of the show, a few episodes have been put into some of Disney’s Princess DVD titles. I’m not sure which episodes are on which discs, but I’ll assume that they are mostly Jasmine related, and I do know that “Eye of the Beholder” is in one of them. If you’re able to accept buying a Princess DVD, you can look out for those.

Originally posted on Sunday, June 20, 2010.

Has there ever been something that you enjoy so very much but can’t necessarily put into words why you like it so much? Even if many agree with you, there’s just something about it that you can’t touch yourself.

Gargoyles is that for me. I’ve seen most of the original 65 episodes multiple times and never tire of it, but for some reason, I just can’t put into my own words how much this series means to me. As you can tell, I love many of the Disney Afternoon series, I like how balanced the characters can be, how varied the humor on these shows are, and I appreciate a lot of the different studios who handled their animation. Gargoyles may not look as sharp as DuckTales or Goof Troop, but it has a unique layout, containing great twists on Scotland ground and New York. The sense of the humor on the show is light, subtle work but pleasing when it shows up. The characters and the stories they go through, however, is what draws Gargoyles to me.

Being one of three series planned for the Disney Afternoon’s 1994-1995 series, Gargoyles would air on Friday during Bonkers’ 4:00 slot when it‘s 13 episode first season aired, and took the 4:30 slot the following year when it’s second 52-episode season aired, and stayed in repeats for the block‘s 7th and arguably last season. A third, non-canonical season exploring the life of the clan past the original episodes, subtitled The Goliath Chronicles, was made for the 1997 Saturday morning season for ABC. These episodes didn’t air on the Disney Afternoon block, and the less said about them, the better, do I’ll be looking over them.

Looking at the five part pilot, “Awakening”, there’s a lot to get about the show. We travel to Avalon, a Scotland-like island, in 994 AD, during which humans and gargoyles lived together. The lead gargoyle, Goliath, and his nameless clan help protect the castle that they turn to stone on during the day from oncoming enemies. Despite the good they do for the Scots, there is still prejudice among the stone warriors, as some of the head hierarchy still don’t respect the good the gargoyles do for the kingdom. One day a rival Viking bitter attacks most of the gargoyles as stone, while an angry wizard from the castle turns most of Goliath’s clan to stone for a thousand years, after a tragic misunderstanding. Goliath and his beloved are the only ones to survive. His companion leaves to claim her vengeance while Goliath decides to wait for when his clan comes back to life.

In 1994, multi-billionaire David Xanatos picks up the remains of the castle for himself, and moves it back to his native New York. Finally, the clan awakens and storm through New York, exploring their new location. While the nameless are exploring Xanatos’ area, Goliath finds a local police officer, Elisa Maza, on the ground. He befriends her and shares some of his clan’s secrets with her, including the existence of them. It is at this point that Elisa decides to name the other members of the clan, mainly after parts of the state they take claim in now; the wise, old gargoyles decides to name himself Hudson after the river; the big, fun loving one goes by Broadway; the small, technologically savvy one goes by Lexington; the clever second-in-command names himself Brooklyn; and their trusted dog-like gargoyle goes by Bronx.

The gargoyles find Goliath’s lover again after years of isolation when Xanatos calls for her. She comes to them and reveals that she goes by the name Demona. She has the gargoyles attack a data storage facility, while telling them of her lack of need for mankind. While this confuses the gargoyles, who have already grown close to Elisa, they return to Xanatos, who decides that they have outlived their usefulness. This is when they learn that David Xanatos is not a good person, but one of the reasons that Demona despises humans, which is ironic, considering that Xanatos is the only human Demona trusts.

Notice something I mentioned in the episode description? “Awakening” was a five-part pilot, something Disney hasn’t done in a while. DuckTales and Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers, Disney’s first 2 syndicated series, were given five parters to introduce the series to audiences (DuckTales also got two five parters to introduce new characters Bubba and Fenton, like mentioned in it’s article), but the number of debut episodes were cut down after these series. TaleSpin’s pilot only had four parts, while Darkwing Duck, Goof Troop, and Bonkers were cut down to just 2 parts. I suppose since Gargoyles had more to tell with it’s premire, it was given the full five parts that the show needed to debut.

There were many more multi-parters in the show’s run, as well. While most of these series didn’t have too many episodes that drifted into more than one part beyond their pilots, Gargoyles had quite a few two, three, and even a particularly great four part episode. Like most of the show’s original episodes, little time on screen was wasted with fluff, and many of these episodes further advanced the ongoing story and multi-dimensional characters.

The big one has got to be “City of Stone”, the four-part epic. Creator Greg Weisman(I told you that name would come up again), initially planned this to be a movie, but Disney opted it to become a four part episode instead. In it, Demona tricks Xanatos into allowing him to air a television broadcast that gave her the chance to turn all humans who view it into stone at night, reversing the situation that her kind goes through at day. During this, Demona begins her rampage on the humans. In the mean time, her old enemy, MacBeth(yes, that MacBeth) comes to New York in search of her. We are flashed back to both of their pasts in the mean time, and learn that Demona and MacBeth are cursed to live eternally, because of a freak accident. They both resent each other for this and MacBeth frequently comes back to try to gain his vengeance on this curse.

Out of all the highlights of the series, this story arc is the biggest of them. If any episode can capture Demona’s rash hatred of mankind as well as her torching flame for Goliath, this would be it. This also captures the complexity of the surviving members of Avalon, not just the clan but the remaining members. MacBeth’s character, as well as his group, will come back to haunt the gargoyles later in the show’s run, as well as many seemingly one-time events.

To write about each of the characters and their worth would take me eons, so rather I should focus on arguably the four most characters on the show.

Goliath is the leader of the clan, whose motives are the center of the series. He sees the tragedies that his people went through and tries to ensure that each of the newly-minted Manhattan clan don’t have to go through an ordeal such as what happened to them 1000 years ago again. Goliath sees what Demona and other humans think of him but tends to ignore hem for his own thoughts, usually of equality. Goliath can get quick to anger though, which can help him in combat but also cause him to claim vengeance needlessly. Goliath tries to be the best leader that he can be but never feels complete. He is the best that there can be but may just never be satisfied until he regains their castle.

Elisa Maza, the gargoyles’ best human friend, realizes what Goliath has to go through every night for his clan, being a cop herself. They both have to protect the people, through good and bad, and because of this strange bond they share a growing relationship with each other. They both had an interest in each other that started brewing since the beginning of the show, but the fact that Goliath is made out of stone but Elisa isn’t has the two question their potential until the end of the series. The two go through a lot during the show’s run, especially thanks to Demona, who still harbors feelings for Goliath and despises Elisa for how they treat each other.

Elisa is a particularly special character, as she is one of the few truly powerful female forces in kid’s entertainment who isn’t a Sue. Despite how fast she can solve a case, she gets too personal in her cases, which also leads to rage, similar to Goliath. More importantly, she is one of the few black/Native American mixes in animation. It is rare to see an African American character who wasn’t a caricature or stereotype, but rather existed because she did. If anything, it’s a powerful element of the show for Elisa to be two of two different breeds, as equality is one of the themes of the series.

Xanatos is a great antagonist himself. He is not evil nor simply grumpy. His schemes are done merely for gain; he wants immorality for himself, his wife Fox, and his son, as well as wealth beyond his current financial state. He is a brilliant, highly determined character who can get whatever he wants without lifting a finger. If anything, he is one of the best chess players out there; five steps ahead of everyone else, everything he does has a purpose. He is also quite sufficient in combat, particularly karate and judo, and has even stood up to Goliath in a suit made just for the odd occasion.

My favorite character is probably Demona. She is filled with emotions, many of which she won’t bring out at first. She is angry at humans because of the bad experiences that she has gone through with them. She is jealous of Elisa’s relationship towards Goliath since she still has unkempt feelings for him. She still cares for Goliath but at the same time resents him for leaving her for a thousand years. When she learns of her daughter Angela, who she and Goliath are responsible for, she expresses her love more openly than she had before. Despite some of the actions that she has done during the series run, Demona isn’t completely stone in character, as she has enough emotions to spare.

Everything in Gargoyles adds up to one thrilling, layered experience after another. I could write much more on the aspects of the 65 episodes that I love to death, but I want to keep this as brief as I can. To see some of the strongest written characters in any television series go through some of the toughest ordeals to imagine, you would have few better options than looking into Gargoyles. It’s a lot darker than your average Disney show, which helps to make it as unique and outstanding of an experience that it is.

Disney has released sets of the first season, as well as the first half of the second season, but stopped after these. There is an especially active interest in releasing the rest of Gargoyles from fans, but Disney won’t take the initative by themselves, so if you want the rest of the series on DVD, order these sets if you already have not. There were also recent comic book continuations of the series, which are encouraged reading for fans, as Greg Weisman tackles most of it.

Originally posted on Tuesday, June 15, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CbqFGapihP0

Contrary to popular belief, Bonkers was not originally planned as a TV series for Roger Rabbit that was changed at the last minute due to complications. Rather, Bonkers was developed as a fully original cop drama spoof set in Toontown, based on the success of noir-esq Who Framed Roger Rabbit?

Taking Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers off of the block, Bonkers premiered on September 3, 1993, during it’s third season, and lasted on the block until it’s sixth season in 1996. New episodes stopped airing spontaneously on December 21, 1995, ending with a basic 65 episode run.

Bonkers tends to be a show with a relatively low fan base, in terms of the Disney Afternoon block’s standards. While a few people consider Goof Troop to be the end of the block’s peak, quite a few more tend to consider this to be that show. Myself, I’ve always been a fan of the show, but mainly a specific part of it. You see, there are three different shows in Bonkers, and while two of which are similar to each other, it’s good to consider that these are still different.

Bonkers was planned as a full half-hour show on the block to begin with, in which a popular cartoon character, Bonkers D. Bobcat, has his show cancelled After wallowing in his own self-pity, he realizes that life on the force must be for him, so he goes to work on the street. He’s given a partner with Miranda Wright, an attractive no-nonsense cop. The two share an odd-kilted relationship with each other.

Meanwhile, Disney took a look at the 19 episodes that survived of the Miranda episode and realized that the show needed a bit of an overhaul. In favor of the particularly flat Miranda, the harsher, more aggravated Lucky Piquel was made to be Bonker’s partner instead. Proving to be a more popular endeavor for Disney, 42 of the Lucky episodes made it on screen.

Between the planning of both series, it came to the attention to the production staff that perhaps some of the original cartoons that Bonkers starred in prior to getting the boot should see the light of day. Alongside follow-up segments for popular Belgian comic strip character Marsupilami and a new random group of shorts entitled Totally Tasteless Videos were also planned for a new show called Raw Toonage. Made for CBS, 12 episodes were made, including segments for each series. Each episode was hosted by wrap around segments featuring popular characters from some of Disney’s animated series at the time, such as Don Karnage, Scrooge McDuck, or The Little Mermaid’s Sebastian. Why this show was made for CBS when only The Little Mermaid aired on the channel’s Saturday morning block makes little sense to me, but hey, they were entertaining anyway.

Check this baby out.

Due to a smaller production schedule and conflicts with the original series, Raw Toonage made it on the air before Bonkers did. Despite this, the 12 Bonkers shorts that aired as a part of Raw Toonage were put on the actual show as 4 episodes containing 3 of them per episode.

Twenty One of the Lucky episodes made it to the market first as, alongside the first Raw Toonage compilation, the first season. Nineteen of the Miranda episodes, including a new episode bridging the gap between the two eras of Bonker’s line of duty, were fit into a second season. Another 20 Lucky episodes as well as the last three compilations made up season three, while the last 9 Miranda eps became the show’s fourth and final season. This is a pretty confusing run considering the frequent jumps.

Greg Weisman, one of the head producers of the show during the Miranda run, considers his the a good combination Roger Rabbit and Hill Street Blues, while resenting the Lucky run. He seemed to be so proud of his episodes that he would use a similar relationship between Bonkers and Miranda for his own show, which I’ll get to at another point in this series.

You see, while I am one who is big on creative control on a series by the people behind it, I think Bonkers is one of the very few times a show actually benefited from having executives mess with the final product.

For one, the animation is definitely sharper in the Lucky episodes. Look at Bonkers designs from the Miranda and Raw Toonage episodes, than compare it to his look in the Lucky episodes. Bonkers had big red spots in his original look, blue eyes ears that looked like golf clubs, and a pretty small tail. With his newer look, Bonkers has smaller black spots, black, cartoony eyes a bigger, striped tail, and shorter ears. Personally, I think this design looks better, a bit fuller, more out there, which is exactly what he needs to look like. The old design looks fine, but the new one looks crisper and more huggable. A good fit for the show. Too bad I don’t have a plush version of Bonkers, because I really like both of his designs.

Compare this

To the final version

Bonkers’ old design doesn’t seem to work as well as animation as his newer one does, or at least he just isn’t complimented with fresh work. There are Miranda episodes that look as great as the Lucky episodes, which tend to look quite good, such as Disney’s own studio in Japan, but for the most part, work on the Miranda episodes seemed uninspired. When Australia touched the Lucky episodes though, it was like magic. The show looked and felt as cartoony as it needed to be, and had a perfect beat to it. It seems like for these series, only TMS could compare to Walt Disney Animation Australia’s department, and since TMS cut back on their Disney work by the time Australia started their work, there was one undisputed king on the later show’s work.

But the real problem of the Miranda episodes are, of all things, Miranda. A little Bonkers goes a long way. Hr can be funny by himself, but a half hour of one obnoxiously goofy cartoon character could get old. That’s why Goofy had Max and Pete balance his character out in Goof Troop. Lucky is a great contrast for Bonkers, as well as the various other cartoon characters he has to deal with. Lucky tends to get easily aggravated when Bonkers opens his voice, almost ready to snap his neck. Bonkers and Lucky’s chemistry can be compared to Roger Rabbit and Eddie Valiant‘s, although Lucky isn’t as bitter as Eddie. Obviously, Lucky can’t be an alcoholic like Eddie, and Lucky has a family of his own, while Eddie was a loner, but they share a dislike for cartoons and an oddball relationship with their toon counterparts. There isn’t any malice between Lucky and Bonkers, just a bit of annoyance.

Miranda, on the other hand, doesn’t really do anything. When Bonkers goofs up, she responds meekly, often with just a response like “Bonkers, get serious now”, if anything. There isn’t really much of a connection between the two, or much of a character for Miranda. It’s a good thing for the human characters to be more restrained than the cartoons, but the straight man should have some kind of personality of their own. Lucky is a human who tries to be the best cop he can, but has a fair amount of anger issues which causes him to get over the edge. Miranda doesn’t really have any issues of her own, and is basically a flat Mary Sue.

Both parts of the main show do have a similar sense of humor, but I think Bonkers and Lucky’s chemistry gives Bonkers the edge it needs. The episode that probably uses Lucky’s character best is “Once in a Blue Toon”, when the two work on trying to reform the Louse, a giant cartoon character who eats everything in sight. While Bonkers and the Louse have a strange, albeit caring relationship with each other, the Louse doesn’t seem to care too much for Lucky and messes with him throughout the episode. Thanks to clever writing, Lucky becomes both relatable as he tries to prove to the goofy, gullible Chief of Police Kanifky that they are successfully doing their job, but can still be funny as he tries to avoid the Louse’s actions. Louse’s actions towards Lucky, like calling him a “dweeb” also can be entertaining as the bits of mischief he occurs aren’t intended to be cruel, but happen due to the character’s size and lack of sensibilities. To me, it seems as if the Louse just wants someone to befriend, which he found in Bonkers and Lucky. He doesn’t seem to do anything that is exceedingly harsh, so he can still be funny.

As for the Raw Toonage shorts, I can’t say much on them as I haven’t seen too many of them. From what I have seen though, most of the shorts are mediocre attempts to revive the atmosphere of theatrical shorts from the golden age of animation. One of these shorts, “Petal to the Metal”, even was shown before Touchstone Pictures’ 3 Ninjas, but it as well as the few that I have seen pale in comparison to the Roger Rabbit shorts made for theaters around this era. It is interesting to see where Bonkers came from, as well as some of his cartoon chums, but I prefer the actual episodes of the show to them.

Bonkers is not a perfect show, but at it’s best was a quick, highly enjoyable program. Maybe it wasn’t the perfect show for the block, but I for one enjoyed seeing classic Disney characters such as the Mad Hatter and Dumbo on screen again, even if only for odd one-off episodes. Check it out if you’re a fan of Disney animation, but don’t expect a masterpiece throughout the series run.

Originally posted on Thursday, June 10, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iqE74c54Nfc

I think it’s safe to assume that DuckTales was the king of the Disney Afternoon block. Having 100 episodes and being Disney’s first big syndicated hit, it’s not hard to understand why it would be. When the show’s time on the block was coming to an end in 1992, it wouldn’t be surprising that the heads at Disney figured that they needed a big show to follow up on it(it’s also worth noting that DuckTales would return to the block for it’s 1997-1998 season, but that wouldn’t be for another five years. Even before then, some markets still aired DuckTales before the block, sometimes just before it). What better way to replace one of Disney’s seminal animated series than with a new series starring one of Disney’s seminal characters.

Although using characters from Walt’s classic theatrical shorts to these shows wasn’t a terribly new idea(Huey, Dewey, and Louie were stars of theatrical cartoons/pests of Donald for years, as were Chip ‘N Dale, and Humphrey the Bear appeared in a memorable Rescue Rangers episode), besides Donald showing up in a few DuckTales episode in the show’s original 65 episode run, Disney’s biggest names were kept to a minimum on their shows. As Disney’s animated programs continued to prove to be a big success for the mouse house, it seemed like it was time to give one of their big five their own program.

But who, however? Mickey was probably a bit too big to have a new show take away the attention he gets from the happiest place(s) on Earth, so maybe not him. Minnie is a package deal with Mickey, so she’s out. True, there could be the odd special such as Totally Minnie, but that worked better as a one-shot than an ongoing series. Who wanted to see a show staring a girl, anyway? Unless it involved mermaids, that didn’t seem like Disney’s thing at the time. Donald is great, but they already put Darkwing Duck out the previous year, so having two semi-spin-offs to DuckTales air on the block would seem unnecessary; why spend so much money on new properties when you can just make new DuckTales? His time would come soon enough, anyhow. And while Pluto is a great asset to many of Mickey and the gang’s cartoons, as well as some of his own, could he really handle his own TV series?

What about Goofy? He’s funny, likable, and at that point, had proven to be an eternally popular character. Doing a show where the Goofster messes up for a half-hour or attempts to show us how to do mundane everyday activities wouldn’t do so well, so why not change things up a bit? This is where Disney came in; they gave Goofy a son and made him move next door to good ol’ Pete, who got a family of his own, to boot.

This is how we got Goof Troop, a show that became one of Disney’s biggest successes of the early 90’s. It’s run on the block started in the 1992-1993 season and continued until the 1995-1996 season wrapped up. The block broadcasted a 65-episode season while ABC simultaneously aired a batch of 13 episodes, as well as a memorable Christmas special.

Some Disney TV animation fans consider Goof Troop the end of the block’s peak of excellence, considering that Goof wasn’t as big on adventure as DuckTales or TaleSpin was and focused primarily on laughs. While looking at it again, it isn’t as strong as these shows, but I think Goof Troop holds up all the same, if for different reasons.

As it goes in the two-part premier “Forever Goof”, Goofy, everyone’s favorite klutz, finally lands himself a job in Spoonerville, his old home town. He and his son Max head back, but first they need to find a house. When Goofy finds his old best friend Pete’s house, he talks to his loving wife, Peg, who agrees to let the Goofs stay at their house until Goofy can fix the house they bought next door. Pete resents this himself, as he can’t stand the nutball, but Peg puts him in his place and reminds Pete that a bit of hospitality goes a long way. Max makes good friends with Pete’s son, Pete Junior, who prefers to go by P.J., which Pete himself also resents. Anyone who was born as the son of a Goof must be a nuisance, after all.

This doesn’t bode well with Goofy, who has Max not talk to Pete’s family either. The two kids try to find a way to have Goofy and Pete reconcile. This doesn’t work out, as the two dads make Max and P.J. compete with each other rather than to decide who’s the better kid. After a few silly games, Peg gets Goofy and Pete to calm down, and both families settle down to have a barbeque with each other.

From the description of the pilot, I paint this out to sound a bit like a sitcom. While the imitational comedy had went through some development in the past few years, making the family sitcom seem a bit outdated, I’ll go on the record to say that Goof Troop works better as a family comedy than most of the ones put out around the time it debuted. I believe this to be so because I have an affection for most of the characters. Granted, Goof Troop has a relatively smaller cast than most of Disney’s series from the time, mostly due to a lack of antagonists, but it helps that two of the main characters have a rich history with the mouse house, and I have grown accustomed to the others.

Granted, most plots of the show are basic sitcom material, like overweight Pete trying to deal with a diet in an area surrounded with food, or Max having P.J. fake sick so the two can skip a day of school without Pete being the wiser, but Goof uses the many advantages of animation to make these stories feel fresh, not to mention use the show’s well-defined characters make the best out a seemingly mundane situation. What could have been trite feels fresh, like having Goofy practice his ninja skills a la his classic “How to …” cartoon shorts while Pete goes through his diet, or having Pete go on a wild goose chase to catch up on Max and P.J. while they go on their day off, being none the wiser.

These episodes also wouldn’t be what they were without the magic of clear, precise animation. I’ve been laying off writing about the animation in these series, so I should probably take the time to mention that Disney went through a change in their animating methods in the few years exceeding Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers. Instead of outsourcing their animation to places such as TMS or Wang like Disney did with some of their earlier series, the studio started to focus it’s attention on using their own animation studios in France and Australia. They still occasionally used studios such as Kennedy or Sunwoo, but France and Australia became these show’s main attenders.

It’s worth noting that both animation studios have come a long way since their mediocre joint custody work in the DuckTales movie, which was too choppy, and France’s work on the TaleSpin “Plunder and Lightning” pilot, which moved very slowly and awkwardly. Their work on Darkwing Duck started to become more lively and cartoony, which fit right in with the show, but France and Australia’s work on Goof Troop’s work was something else. There were weak episodes animation wise on Darkwing, but I’m hard pressed to think of a Goof episode that doesn’t look near movie quality. It seems to me that Walt Disney Animation Australia’s division, who gave out the show’s best work, especially took an interest in the characters, as each one seems to have their own unique bits of character movement that only the animators there could handle, be it Goofy’s clueless shuffle or little Pistol’s hyper bounces.

But solid character animation is nothing without solid characters. You have Goofy, the lovable nut who has been a cartoon star for a good 60 years before the show premiered, and is as lovable as ever in the show. Goofy attempts to be the best dad for Max out there, but he can’t hide the Goof in him, and constantly embarrasses Max. Max himself is especially fascinating as he attempts to become the anti-Goofy. He goes to school, passes his classes, and gets everything at check with ease, while Goofy has difficulties getting the mail. Max is a great thinker that can make great inventions at the drop of a hat. As much as Max tries however, he can’t completely hide his Goof genes, and occasionally messes up. This allows Max to bond closer with his father when he does, and help him get the picture that as clever as he might be, Max is a Goof at heart

Pete‘s family is just as entertaining, the big man especially. What makes Pete so great is his larger than life, commanding personality. Although he’s about as brainless as Goofy, he constantly brings himself out to be a much smarter, charismatic person. Look at how pathetic he is at golf in “Tee for Two”, or how clumsy his is in “Buddy Building”. Pete is as dim as Goofy, but can make himself look much better instantly. He’s been put in his place several times in the show by his loving wife, Peg. She tends to be a bit annoying wither her commanding, but considering how she must be suffering living with a money-grubbing, harshly interrogating jerkwad of a husband, I find it hard to fault her when she stands up for herself.

Their kids are fine. P.J. is a bit more socially awkward and confused than Max, which makes him more impressionable. It also makes sense that Pete has been able to control him to do everything he wishes of P.J. without a word back from him, at least before Max came into his life and helped P.J. stand up for himself more. Then his sister Pistol is adorably chaotic. She’s more likely to make Pete break due to how precious she is, and break him she shall. Younger siblings tend to be hit or miss in TV shows and movies. Either they’re delightfully adorable or enjoyably menaceful, or too sweet or too sadistic. Pistol is a good balance, as she’s sweet but not too sweet, nor is she too much of a menace to her brother, but is rightfully able to goad Pete. Pistol is often a great asset to P.J. and Max when needed, and rarely too much of a nuisance.

Max seems to be the highlight of the show, however. Giving Goofy an opposite from his basic character to balance out his oddity adds more to his character, especially considering that he has a son to give guidance to. Goof Troop spends time on both father and son, giving both Goofs their chance to shine in the light. We hardly even got to see Max and P.J. at school, something you wouldn’t expect from a kid’s show today.

It’s also worth pointing out that there are two movies staring Goofy and Max, adding age to Max while further expanding his relationship with his dad.

The first is 1995’s A Goofy Movie, released in theaters. We follow Max three years after Goof Troop takes place as Max and P.J. finish their last day of middle school in style. Max acts out his musical hero, Powerline, during his school’s final assembly, which causes the principal to freak out and call Goofy to warn him about Max’s future. Goofy takes what the principal says at face value and decides to take Max on a fishing trip to Lake Destiny, Idaho, rather than let Max stay in Spoonerville to take his crush, Roxanne, to a party. The two go through an awkward road trip across the nation where Goofy tries to reacquaint with Max, but fails to in the process until the end of the movie, where they get a great chance to show off.

This is followed up in 2000’s direct to video An Extremely Goofy Movie, when we follow Max, P.J., and their friend Bobby as they head off to college. On a nostalgic trip during work, Goofy messes up the product line’s work, and loses himself a job. At unemployment, he is told that since he was one year away from earning a college degree, it would be next-to-impossible for him to get a job in today’s economy. He heads off to the same campus Max and his friends are enrolled in to make up that one year of school. The two initially don’t get along well, especially when Goofy, after another classic freak accident, pulls a decidedly crazy skateboarding stunt which catches the attention of Max’s extreme sports rival. Goofy ends up joining the opposing team while Max and his team continue to practice. After a year of studying, extreme sports, and even a little romance for Goofy,. Max’s freshman year is over, and Goofy heads off. It seems as if the hostility between the two had been cut back from what Max used to think of his father.

Both of these movies are highly enjoyable, if you’re a fan of Goof Troop or even if you’re not. They’re solid follow-ups to the show, even if Peg and Pistol are missing(it’s highly likely that Pete and Peg split up with each other, and Peg took Pistol while Pete got to keep P.J.), while both are funny as their own movies. If you’re a fan of the character of Goofy, even if you’re not a big Goof Troop fan, these are highly recommended, as Goofy’s character continues to be advanced in them.

Overall Goof Troop is a nice, worthy addition of the Disney Afternoon lineup. If you’re able to accept some less than original plots in favor of bright animation and classic slapstick humor, it shouldn’t be too hard to enjoy the Goof.

Disney hasn’t bothered releasing a box set of the show, but a single disc three episode volume is available to purchase on DVD, as are both movies. A Goofy Movie comes with an episode of the show, sans intro, but that and the single release are as close as you can currently get to owning the show on DVD.

Originally posted on Tuesday, June 8, 2010.

He is the terror that flaps in the night. He is the switch that derails your train. He is… the star of one kick ass show.

DuckTales was done around the time Disney was looking for another new series to put on the Disney Afternoon block, but was still a favorite among kids. Instead of keeping a show along past 100 episodes, why not introduce a new, exciting series with one or two of the characters from DuckTales that kids have grown to love. But having a few popular characters return in a new series would mean nothing without a great premise behind it.

So before bringing any DuckTales over to this new show, Tad Stones, the man behind Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers, needed to think of something that the block could use. He recalled a particular DuckTales episode, “Double-O-Duck”, in which an international spy who looked very similar to Launchpad trades places with Scrooge’s own personal pilot to interrogate the Foreign Organization for World Larceny(yes, F.O.W.L.). Stones figured that this would be a good idea for a series, but Disney wasn’t so sure if a show spoofing secret agent pictures would do well, since 007 pictures weren’t en vogue at the time. Instead, they decided to turn this into a super hero parody, specifically for Batman, whose recent feature film endeavor was a huge success at the time. Launchpad could stay, but a new hero had to be invented.

Here comes Darkwing Duck, protector of St. Canard, doer of right, righter of justice, just the coolest duck out there. With his sidekick/personal chauffeur Launchpad McQuack, his loving adopted daughther Gosalyn, and a slew of other helpers, not to mention a well-balanced rogue’s gallery, DW had a great cast who molded together in a hilarious spoof of the super hero genre.

Darkwing Duck is one of the best series to ever run on the Disney Afternoon block, bar none. It started it’s classic run in the block’s second season in 1991, kicking off Gummi Bears but started a legacy that would help it run for another three seasons. Although it ended it’s initial Afternoon run in 1995, it came back for the 1996-1997 season for another batch of reruns, ensuring it‘s popularity. During the show’s original batch of 65 syndicated episodes, another collection of 13 episodes were broadcasted on ABC, to later air on the block. Another 13-episode season aired on ABC in 1992, giving the show a total of 91 episodes, more than Gummi Bears, Rescue Rangers, and TaleSpin’s 65 but less than DuckTales’ groundbreaking 100.

What makes Darkwing such a strong show is how funny it was. Slowly Disney started to broaden their show’s humor a little than before. Gummi Bears and DuckTales mainly focused on strong dialogue to get a laugh, while Chip ‘N Dale Rescue Rangers and later DuckTales episodes incorporated more usages of slapstick than before. TaleSpin had Don Karnage, who was more of a Warner Bros. cartoon character in that he was a maniac goof ball than a fairly controlled eccentric a la Disney’s classic characters. Darkwing reveled at slapstick and insanity to get a laugh, and succeeded with the titular character and some of his most memorable villains.

It also gets into it’s roots, making the show as action-packed, corny and sentimental as anything. Look at the pilot 2-parter “Darkly Dawns the Duck”, in which crime lord buffalo Taurus Bullba aims to use a powerful experiment to help him break out of prison and take over the world. He doesn’t know the password, which will give him the access to do so, when he discovers that the late inventor of the machine’s granddaughter, Gosalyn, is stuck in an orphanage. He has his goons attempt to steal her to get the code, but Darkwing, who learns of this plan early, capture her before they can. He keeps her at his house to make sure Bullba and his goons don’t capture her, until she escapes and becomes kidnapped. DW, alongside his biggest fan, Launchpad, leave Bullba dead in his tracks, while Darkwing as his alter ego, Drake Mallard, adopts Gosalyn and accepts Launchpad’s request to be his partner.

A classic origin episode, this also introduces the family aspect of the show that worked for it, similar to TaleSpin’s. Their relationship is a bit more like a wacky sitcom from the time period, but tends to be more effective. Darkwing has Gosalyn as his daughter and tires the best to treat her like one. Gosalyn doesn’t act too much like a girl her age, and acts more like a boy, so therefore she likes to follow DW and Launchpad on their patrolling. Darkwing resents this but allows her to do so for an odd bit of bonding time. Since Gosalyn doesn’t care much for dolls or dresses or whatever every other little girl her age likes, she enjoys things involving action, and since DW tends to save the day by violent means, she especially looks up to him. Gosalyn likes to be a part of the action and helps the two in their missions. It also helps that she’s much smarter than either DW or Launchpad, as DW is a klutz, albeit with a good heart, and LP is dumbed down here as opposed to in DuckTales. That’s great for Gosalyn, since she has a father figure in Darkwing and a manchild friend in Launchpad.

As interesting as Gosalyn’s character can be, Darkwing Duck steals the show himself. Imagine a frank spoof on pulp heroes of yore such as The Shadow along with a mocking sense of pseudo-psychological angst like Batman, and we have one of the most endearing super hero parody characters out there, along with The Tick and Freakazoid. He has a fresh supply of goofily corny one-liners to make the unsuspecting witness groan than burst into uncontrollable laughter within the blink of an idea, and has the prowess to boot. Despite how clueless he can be to the ongoing situation, Darkwing always makes it on top by getting dangerous.

And let’s not forget about the villain‘s list. Only looking at the Fearsome Five, you have one heck of a rogue’s gallery. Most of these are based off of popular villains from other properties, usually from Marvel or DC.

There’s Megavolt, the electricity obsessed fiend whose been a pain in Darkwing’s side since the beginning. In fact, in Drake Mallard’s class reunion episode, aptly named “Clash Reunion”, it is confirmed that not only have DW and Megavolt have been fighting since Drake was in high school, but Megavolt was really Drake’s old classmate the entire time, who switched out around their prom, when both Darkwing and Megavolt went into action for the first time. Not only that, but Elmo Sputterspark, the student that became Darkwing’s most notorious antagonist, was also obsessed with the magic of electricity at the same time. Megavolt gives DW a run for his money as the most quotable character on the show, as Mega’s charged puns range from insufferable to hilarious. Shocker with a bigger lip.

Then we have Bushroot. Imagine Victor Frankenstein with triple the emotional baggage to balance out his insanity, and you have Bushroot. Before a freak accident from his own experiment, Reginald Bushroot was a fairly respected plant scientist. One experiment gone wrong later and he turned himself half-plant, half-duck, and has therefore decided to take his vengeance out on the world by controlling all the plants out there. It’s all there in his origin story, “Beauty and the Beet”, and his character continues to grow as humorous villain in further episodes as his issues continue to make him freak out. Take the concept of Poison Ivy, drop the sex appeal and boost up the disdain for modern living, and that’s Bushroot.

We have Liquiadator, a former spring water salesman turned outlaw. Bud Flood poisoned his competitor’s water to glorify his own, and when his scheme was caught by Darkwing, he ends poising himself, and becomes a watery creature. Liquidator uses his trademark marketing skills to bring terror on St. Canard, usually by using his liquid form to scare everyone off. Liquidator is basically an all wet version of the T1000.

Quackerjack is a strange cross between the Toyman and the Joker. A former toy maker gone insane, Quackerjack uses his toys to feed his whims and take down Darkwing. Although not everyone who still collects toys is necessarily childish, Quackerjack still acts like a kid with parent issues. As a toy maker, his schemes tends to get Gosalyn’s attention more than the usual villain would, which gets into DW’s skin more than anything.

Darkwing Duck’s most fearful enemy, however, must be Negaduck. Originally created by Megavolt by a freak strike of lightning to Darkwing, Negaduck is DW’s evil twin, so to speak. He is definitely Darkwing’s opposite, however, as he’s darker, more competent, and not as clever. Despite that, he still has some great lines, mostly as he tries to be a threatening character in such a goofy show. Jim Cummings, DW’s voice actor, also plays Negaduck. As Nega, he rasps his voice up a bit, which allows him to sound more threatening, kind of like his Dr. Robotnik voice from the Saturday morning Sonic the Hedgehog show. Negaduck can best be compared to Superman’s Bizarro, who was also a complete reversal of Supes’ character.

Oh heck, just watch this video.

Negaduck is the head of the Fearsome Five, who formed in the fan favorite “Just Us Justice Ducks” two-parter. In it, the five team up to take out Darkwing together rather than fail by themselves. Although former bad girl-gone-good witch Morgana(whose ongoing relationship development with DW is another classic part of the show), dull-witted dinoduck Stegmutt, girl of the sea Neptunia, and DuckTales alumni Gizmoduck(who surprisingly wasn’t a stranger to the show by the end of it’s run) try to help him, Darkwing refuses the help, and tries to take out the Fearsome Five by himself, but fails, only to wake up to a St. Canard ruled by the five. Darkwing attempts to get the comrades who tried to help him by forming the Justice Ducks, but Negaduck takes them out anyhow, without the help of the other five. When Negaduck changes the group’s sharings to his gain, the Fearsome Four, sans Negaduck now, get tired of his totalitarian methods of commanding them and attempt to kill them when Darkwing, dressed up as Negaduck, walks in. The two ducks fight their way to ensure the fates of the rest of the Justice Ducks as well as St. Canard.

This is one of the series best episodes, as it’s comic book indulgence at it’s finest. A lot of series have had multi-part crossovers, usually some that cross into other books, which bring popular or increasingly unpopular characters together to solve a caper they can’t by themselves. Most of these characters have already established themselves on the show(or would, thanks to inconsistent airing orders), but together, they formed a force that would continue to remain memorable for fans of the show.

While they appear in other episodes, probably the Justice Duck’s strongest appearance as well as one of the strongest episodes of the show is “Life, the Negaverse, and Everything”. In a parody of the equally classic alternate dimension storylines you’ll often see in comics, Darkwing and Negaduck are taken to another version of St. Canard where Nega is the respected hero in town while Darkwing is the outlaw. He finds his house, where a sweet version of Gosalyn, a biker take on Launchpad, and steam punk takes on the Muddlefoots, Drake’s lovingly ignorant neighbors. Even the fearsome Four, without Negaduck, are the Friendly Four, who Darkwing uses to help him stop Negaduck’s reign of terror. You have a spoof as fresh as any episode of DW, but with more than enough heart to share, as Darkwing realizes that Negaduck is Nega-Gosalyn’s adopted father, and he knows that she needs a father who isn’t corrupt. When he saves the day, the Friendly Four volunteer to take Nega-Gosalyn under their wings, giving her the family that she needs. It’s these moments of sweetness that take Darkwing Duck into more than just satire, but into a fully realized and gifted series.

Darkwing Duck is a clever, highly original spoof of the super hero genre. One that doesn’t mind reveling in the tropes that make the comics it’s inspired by so endearing, and one that starnds the test of time nearly 20 years on.

The first 50 some episodes are on DVD in two volumes. While there are are about 35-40 episodes left, needing two volumes to be collected, Disney currently shows no interest in putting them out. Perhaps if you buy these sets, Disney will realize that there’s an interest in releasing the rest of the show.

It’s also worth noting that these sets are put in airing order based on the Disney Afternoon’s run, forgetting ABC’s run which aired simulaneously with the syndicated run, so you’ll be missing some episodes to make sense of certain parts of the show. Even then, the Disney Afternoon aired many episodes out of order, which will still make it a bit hard to sit through. Darkwing Duck has always been a show that purposely neglects continuity though, so think of this as more of a right of passage than intentional neglect.

Boom Comics, who own the rights to make comic books for Disney’s properties, will be making a Darkwing Duck comic book that will be released during the summer. I recommend checking it out to support interest in having series such as these continue in one way or another by Disney.

Originally posted on Monday, June 7, 2010.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7_cMaGt52QE

Many a cartoon have had a weird premise in our time, but still became successful. Seriously, imagine some of the pitches that have occurred before.

“So imagine this. A lonely professor tries to create three girls, so he combines sugar, spice, and everything nice. Then he adds in chemical X, and he has these crazy super hero girls who kick butt! It’ll be an action-comedy, with more of an emphasis on comedy. Oh, and their rogues gallery can include an evil monkey, an effeminate devil, and a pink fuzz ball hick.”

Sounds like it will have cross appeal. Sold!

“Okay, so I read this comic. It’s about a group of mutated turtles who learned the art of ninjitsu. They were taught by a mutated rat who used to be a human, and his old rival is a Darth Vader rip-off with a shredder as his helmet. It’s really cool, but also really bloody, so let’s tone down the action and focus more on wacky alien subplots.”

Sounds so good, it could work twice. Sold!

“Okay, we all love The Jungle Book, right? So take Baloo out of the jungle and put him into the 30’s, so he can be an aeroplane pilot. We can keep Louie in as a bartender, and maybe have Shere Khan be like Hans Gruber.”

Just what we need. Sold!

Just thinking about the basic plotline for TaleSpin makes me wonder how something like it made it to the air, and proved to be so successful, at that. With TaleSpin we have the final component to the original Disney Afternoon block, and a damn worthy addition. In certain ways, TaleSpin stands out as a more unique and more adult program than the other series that have aired in the Disney Afternoon block, and stands out as it‘s own show entirely.

Despite similarities to short-lived ABC series Tales of the Gold Monkey, there wasn’t anything like TaleSpin on children’s TV before it aired, and nothing like it would be made after it’s arrival. How many other kids shows can you think of that represent a lost era of 30’s lore, lovingly crafted like a screwball comedy at air from the time frame, with enough modern sensibilities to make the show feel as fresh as anything?

TaleSpin had more going for it than just a one-of-a-kind premise. In terms of strong characteristics, Tale is hard top.

Look at Baloo. In The Jungle Book, he’s a lovable swinger, a sly daddy-o. He initially starts out as a loner, but when he finds Mowgli, his character starts to change a bit. He becomes more open as a bear, a more caring person. He still keeps his street smart mentality but uses his brains for good more than anything. Baloo in TaleSpin is mostly like this himself, as in the show’s grand pilot four-parter, “Plunder and Lightning”, Baloo starts off as a rogue pilot, but after he finds fell rogue Kit Cloudkicker and when his pilot agency gets bought out by the determined Rebecca Cunningham, Baloo begins to open up and prove to the characters that he has hopes and fears like everyone else. It’s fair to call Baloo childish when we first meet him in “Plunder and Lightning”, but later in the episodes he shows that he has feelings for Kit and tries to do the best for him that he can. He still remains the desirable badass throughout, a wise cracking goof who’s a dream in the skies, but he’s as caring as anyone.

His relationship with Kit is a key part of the show. Kit is basically the show’s Mowgli, in terms of how the two act with each other, but Kit probably is a more interesting character overall. He starts off as a runaway, escaping Don Karnage’s air pirate gang, when he finds Baloo and hides in his safety. Throughout the movie, their relationship grows through spurts, to when Baloo basically adopts Kit as one of his own. Baloo becomes a father figure to Kit while Kit attempts to make the best of his current situation. He’s still a free spirit, but he’s given more of a chance to play like the kid he is, like when he rides alongside Baloo‘s Sea Duck

Then we have Rebecca, the no-nonsense owner of Higher for Hire. She constantly tries to keep the place on top and her employees the best they can be, not to mention trying to give her daughter Molly the attention she deserves. In an age when women were still mainly second fiddle to men, Rebecca comes to work every day to prove her worth to the big boys, while still trying to be the best mother she can be. Rebecca takes a bit of guff among Baloo and her clients, but she has enough wit and compassion to let her stand up from whatever she’s given any day.

Molly also is interesting. While she acts like many other girls her age, it’s seeing how she copes with her potential growth as a character. Rebecca tends to overlook her during the show for her work, which Molly resents. She wants not just her mother’s attention, but to have the full attention of anyone who can keep up with her, and thankfully she gets enough development among the Higher for Hire staff to get the attention she needs.

The aforementioned four characters learn to become a family throughout the course of the show. Obviously this is nothing new for Rebecca and Molly, and I mentioned Baloo and Kit’s growing relationship, but it’s fun to see the others grow with each other. Kit is a good older brother for Molly; both know how to have fun, which Kit lets Molly do, but he’s had a lot of experiences in his life, so he looks out for Molly to make sure that she won’t have to go through any of that. Meanwhile, Rebecca realizes the connection Baloo and Kit has, but knows that he needs a women’s touch to him, so she keeps an extra eye on him. Baloo then tries to give Molly a male influence in her life by giving her someone else to comply to her while also making sure that he can fend for her.

Then we have Baloo and Becky, I mean Rebecca. She hates the name Becky. The series best reflects a 1930’s screwball comedy when they’re on screen together. In fact, I think comparing their own working relationship to Peter Warne and Ellie Andrews from the original screwball rom-com, It Happened One Night, isn’t too far off. At first it seems like they hate each other, Baloo because Rebecca bought his sea deck, Rebecca because Baloo’s an independent slob, but even at the beginning they have a peculiar chemistry towards each other that delves from playful ignorance to serious pondering as they go along. It seems as if they one day might finally hook up, but we’ll never know if they do, as the show tactfully ended before they could. The mystery of this decision finally come through or not makes their relationship with each other even more interesting. Personally, I prefer that they don’t necessarily hook but still remain close to each other, and work together as a pair of parental units towards Kit and Molly.

The main four get off fine, but what about the rest of the show? While Louie and Wildcat stay more concrete as characters, they’re still key components to the show. Louie isn’t necessarily as active in the show as he is The Jungle Book as “the jungle VIP”, as he’s toned down to a bartender for oncoming pilots. Despite this, he’s still an interesting, fun part of the show, as he’s pretty much Rick Blaine in orangutan form. Like Rick, Louie has a lot of good stories and dialogue to share, while Wildcat is equally as useful. Baloo hired Wildcat before Rebecca’s takeover as his mechanic. While Wildcat is a bit dull, he’s a gifted handyman who gets his job done in the lick of a second. His slow-witted charm makes him more of an endearing character that he would be.

The best character on the show, by far is the one that doesn’t necessarily match with the show; that great air pirate himself, Don Karnage. Karny has been a pain on Baloo and the gang’s side as far as “Plunder and Lightning”, and continues to bug them throughout, usually to steal whatever Higher for Hire is delivering this week. Karnage is a strange creature. He has an undetectable accent, an strange mix between Italian and Spanish, which sounds one of a kind. Karny uses this to his advantage with some of the best dialogue out there, balanced with an equally memorable walking style, given to him from the animators who tend to love Karnage more than anyone. Practically everything Don Karnage says and does is priceless, which makes him the best villain on the show without a doubt, and one of the most memorable aspects of the show period.

With each of these characters, TaleSpin has one of the strongest casts out there, and are given some great stories to indicate their richness. In one episode, “Stormy Weather”, Kit is persuaded to perform some of the daring aerobatic cloud surfing moves he has become recognized by from fans of the show, hoping to earn some pay. This hurts Baloo, since Kit’s stunts are becoming increasingly dangerous, and he knows that Kit will get ripped off by the man. He defies Baloo anyway and joins the man’s group and quits Higher for Hire. After realizing that Baloo was right on both regards, Kit returns to HFH. This episode helps to confirm some of the uncertainties that Baloo and Kit were going through in their relationship, allowing Kit to accept Baloo’s job as the “papa bear”.

Then we have an overwhelmingly popular episode of the show, “The Old Man and the Sea Duck”. Baloo and Kit fly through a dangerous route to make it home on time. While they make it when they wanted to, Baloo ends up banging himself on the head on the Sea Duck’s deck. Baloo ends up losing his memory, including how to fly, the thought of which scares him. While Kit and Wildcat try to help Baloo regain his ability to fly, Baloo is still horrified by the notion. An old man named Joe McGee understands Baloo’s plight and tries to help him. Without spoiling the episode’s gripping ending, I want to say that this is overall one of the most moving experiences I’ve seen in a Disney TV series.

There are plenty of good TaleSpin episodes to share, but these two are among the best.

Before I finish this retrospective, I should mention the differences between TaleSpin and The Jungle Book. Well, I’d be here all day if I had to, but I do want to say that I love little references to Jungle Book in the show, like when Baloo occasionally states “I’m gone, man, solid gone”, as well as call Kit “little britches”, while Kit calls Baloo his “papa bear” back.

If you’re a big fan of one, will you like the other? As much as I love Disney’s animated feature films, The Jungle Book isn’t necessarily a favorite, but it is one that I still like a bit. I think TaleSpin has entertained me more overall, and is an experience worth checking out all the same. If you were a fan of TaleSpin as a kid, I can tell you that the chances are very good that it will hold up for you There’s a lot to enjoy about it no matter what age you are.

This, however, is one of the best sequences of any Disney movie.

Disney has released two volumes of the show on DVD. While only 11 episodes have yet to be released, Disney currently hasn’t expressed an interest in releasing the rest of the series on DVD. Perhaps if you buy these two volumes if you already haven’t, Disney will get the idea that there is an interest in having all of these series on DVD.

Originally posted on Sunday, June 6, 2010.