Tranzor Z (aka Mazinger Z)
Enter Gary K. Wolf, author of a novelty novel which, while probably not rising to the ranks of a well-known work, apparently got some notice in the right circles. The title of his small book was “Who Censored Roger Rabbit?” It was an odd and unique concept – an attempt to merge the hard-boiled world of private detective yarns with the imaginary world of living cartoon characters, in a murder mystery. It was considerably different than the final feature work with which most of us are familiar – especially in that the cartoons involved in the story were not of the animated variety, bit print comics out of the pages of newspapers or pulp. In fact, their speech would appear above their heads in word balloons, just like in the Sunday funnies. Numerous principal characters whom we now recognize from the feature were absent, and Jessica Rabbit (the human-toon wife of Roger), had considerably different and more evil personality and motives. Don’t read the book expecting to take away much of the storyline that became a film – it is a very different vibe, but at least established the germ of a idea – live film-noir meets the “toon’ world.
Producer/director Steven Spielberg became aware of the work, and ultimately saw possibilities in it far beyond the concepts (and possibly, contractual rights) that Wolf could have envisioned when penning his work. What if, instead of comics characters, classic motion picture animation and studios provided the setting? What if, instead of dealing with flat 2-D creatures with speech balloons, the animated “toons” were so realistic (in the manner that Disney would have wanted), that they had taken on three-dimensional lives of their own, and actually resided in their own private city just outside of Hollywood – a mere walk or short commute from home to the studio? And what if, instead of using unknown characters that were restricted in their existence to this one-story project, one could cut through the legal red tape of cross-negotiating with the major animation studios of the past, to license the appearance of nearly all the classic characters from the Golden Age of theatrical animation to appear on the screen together as residents of Toontown?
Some pretty-high concepts here – something that anyone with a lesser reputation and knack than Spielberg, used to producing mammoth blockbusters, would probably have balked at as feasibly and financially impossible. Yet this unlikely and seemingly unattainable dream somehow “hopped” forward into reality, in Touchstone films’ 6/21/88 release, Who Framed Roger Rabbit. Amazingly, no expenses were spared, no corners were cut, no quality level compromised in the final presentation, which lived up to, passed, and exceeded all the hype, hopes, and wishes that any animation fan could have for the project. Matching of animation with imaginative live-action sets and living detectives and suspects proved virtually flawless, using modeling, lighting effects, glitz, glitter, and every means of visual dazzlement, such that the old processes of Ub Iwerks used in “Song of the South” were virtually put to shame. Although all “toons” were rendered in traditional 2-D animation, they looked like they had actually stepped out into the real world, casting shadows, stepping from darkness to light, and interacting with three-dimensional objects as if they BELONGED in our world. And the new storyline, loaded with sight gags, memorable dialogue one-liners, totally unexpected plot twists, and even considerable drama and suspense, was sheer brilliance. For those of us who had bever given up our love of the classic masterpieces of the past, it was clear from the start that another masterpiece had been forged, worthy of standing among the ranks of the best of the past, and clearly driving home a message which would reverberate throughout the industry in years to come – animation is a timeless art and craft to be respected, and meant and intended to entertain not merely wee widdle kiddies, but fun-and-fantasy loving general audiences of all ages, hist as it did in the classic days of the 1940’s.
There are so many, many remarkable scenes, high points, irresistible cameos, and classic lines contained within this work that it is literally impossible to cover them all comprehensively in a scene-by-scene description as often occurs in these columns. Fortunately, the entire film is available online and imbedded herein for view (albeit a little low in frame rate on the transfer). Many, and I hope most of you, may have seen it before, so have some familiarity with its content. For those that somehow haven’t witnessed this one-of-a-kind classic, your viewing attention is strongly directed to the video, and I won’t spill any major plot spoilers. A little basic scenario is however appropriate. The film opens by placing us in what appears to be the typical opening of a classic movie-theater program of the days of yore – with a guitar glissando, a sunburst and head shots of characters, and a series of red concentric circles – suggesting a classic cartoon from the vintage days of Warner and/or Disney. The short is billed as a Maroon Cartoon, starring Baby Herman and Roger Rabbit. The episode, Somethin’s Cookin’, is a rapid-fire non-stop homage to the utter zaniness of a Tex Avery cartoon (complete with such touches as a “Hoternell” stove, Roger running around the walls of a room in three concentric spurals leaving a smoke trail behind him, and a “Suck-o-Lux” vacuum cleaner. Roger plays nursemaid to Baby Herman, a toddler intent on the dangerous quest of reaching a cookie jar high atop a tall refrigerator, in a kitchen bristling with open flames, cabinets full of knives and cutlery, deep sinks overflowing with water and laden with fracturable China, etc. Of course, we can’t have harm befall a baby, so it’s Roger who takes all the lumps as he speeds around the kitchen in maniacal panic. At the end of the short, the whole refrigerator smacks down on Roger’s head. The door of the refrigerator opens, to reveal Roger’s head inside (having punctured a hole through the refrigerator’s floor). However, there is something wrong, and a loud bell sounds, as the shout of “Cut” is heard from an offscreen director. The camera pulls back, and we find ourselves in a sound stage of the Maroon Cartoon studio, with a full cast of live-action director, cameraman, and stage hands present on the set of the cartoon we were just watching. The director steps up to Roger, as Baby Herman is discovered to be not such a baby after all, but more like a fully-mature (except physically) midget, shouting “What the hell was wrong with that take?” The director shows him what was wrong. Flying around Roger’s dazed head are tweeting birds. But the script clearly reads, “Rabbit sees stars.” This same kind of mistake has been happening all afternoon. Herman storms off in a huff, to take a break in his trailer. Roger follows the director, insisting he can give him stars, but seeming to get everything else as he repeatedly smacks himself on the head with a mallet, such as bells, spirals, etc.
A live detective (Eddie Valiant) is hired by studio mogul R.K. Maroon to tail Roger’s wife, one Jessica Rabbit. Seems that Maroon believes that Jessica is “poison” to Roger, and breaking his heart by fooling around playing “patty cake”, causing the rabbit to fall into his recent rut of “blowing his lines”. Eddie attends a performance at a night spot called the Ink and Paint Club, where toons from Toontown put on a nightly review for an all-human audience. Eddie enters the club with the notable password, “Walt sent me.” While several recognizable Disney characters are seen in walk-on cameos in earlier shots at the Maroon studio (Touchstone being a division of Disney), we are treated at the club to our first signs of heretofore unthinkable cross-licensing between the famous cartoon competitors of all time. A comic piano duet is being performed onstage (to the familiar strains of the Listz Hungarian Rhapsody) by two characters who have never otherwise met in their entire careers – Donald Duck, and Daffy Duck! They throw one-liners at each other, with Daffy complaining that this is the last time he will work with someone with a speech impediment. Another crossover shock follows, as the club’s cigarette girl turns out to be Max Fleischer’s prime star, Betty Boop (with Mae Questel in her final voicing of the character). Betty is presented in classic black-and-white, and explains her presence there with the line “Things have been kind of slow since cartoons went to color.” But yet a further shock is to come. Jessica Rabbit appears for her star number. Valiant expects a fuzzy bunny, but instead drops his jaw at a sight he can’t believe. “Rabbit” is only Jessica’s married name. She is instead a toon human, drawn in the most voluptuous dimensions possible from a pen (a direct tribute to Preston Blair’s animation of “Little Red” from the classic Tex Avery cartoons, but with curves even Avery might have flinched at in attempting to get past the censors). Her seductive performance of Benny Goodman’s “Why Don’t You Do Right?” not only raises the perspiration of Valiant, but draws the particular attention of Marvin Acme, owner of Toontown and king of manufacture of all the classic props for golden-age cartoons, at a nearby ringside table. Acme visits Jessica in her dressing room after the show, and Valiant, snooping at the window, snaps a few photos of the two of them, playing “Patty-cake” – not like you might expect, but the literal clap-hands nursery rhyme game of long-ago childhood. Still, the photos, shown to Roger in Maroon’s office, are enough to raise the rabbit’s moral outrage, and he smashes through Maroon’s window, leaving a silhouette hole therein, with a sworn vow that he and his wife will be happy, one way or the other. Next morning, Marvin Acme is found dead at his warehouse, the murderer apparently a toon, indicated by glove paint found upon a safe dropped upon Acme’s head. Roger is prime suspect, and sought for elimination by the sinister Judge Doom, a newly-elected judicial official intent upon reining-in the insanity of Toontown by making toons respect the law – and inventor of a chemical solution of paint-removing substances of the type used to clean animation cels, known as “The Dip” – the only thing that can kill a toon. As the “rabbit hunt” commences by Doom and a paddy wagon of weasels recruited for the task, Valiant returns to his office, only to receive respective unexpected visits by Baby Herman and the fugitive Roger, who both insist that Roger is innocent, and that someone is making Roger the fall guy in a big frame-up, to somehow get their hands on Toontown. Intrigued? I’ll say no more to unravel the mystery which follows, and the memorable visits to Toontown itself, where the illustrious stars of most of the major studios dwell, play, and wreak havoc all day together – including another unthinkable summit meeting between Mickey Mouse and Bugs Bunny. I’ll also mention two take-away lines as later spoken by Jessica Rabbit. Her classic remark upon her own irrepressible image: “I’m not bad – I’m just drawn that way.” And her response to Valiant’s inquiry as to what she can possibly see in Roger: “He makes me laugh.”
Perhaps the only flaw of the feature could be called a bit of over-inclusion, by opening its ranks of cartoon cameos to a few who were not consistent with the film’s setting in 1947. A human character makes a verbal reference to Chilly Willy. A prototype of the character had appeared in Walter Lantz’s Swing Symphony, “The Sliphorn King of Polaroo” in the 1940’s, but the name would not become attached to the character until approximately a decade later. Speaking of penguins, the penguin waiters from “Mary Poppins” of the 1960’s provide service at the Ink and Paint Club. Goofy appears in an actual clip from one of his cartoons – but it is from Goofy Gymnastics, produced in 1949. And the real voice of Frank Sinatra is featured from the animated head of a “Singing sword” – however, he is singing his Capitol recording of “Witchcraft” – not recorded until the 1950’s. Almost surprising that these few flubs were allowed to remain. Nevertheless, only a few of us thought about it on initial screenings, and it did not seem to take anything majorly away from the overall impact of the production. The only other weakness of the film – and most certainly not the fault of Spielberg after all the effort made to obtain cross-licensing of characters – was that some studios did not agree to permit their classic characters to appear. No character from Terrytoons is represented. Neither are any from Charles Mintz, Screen Gems, or UPA (the latter, of course, not in well-known theatrical existence at the year set for the story). Nobody thought to go back to the forgotten works of Ub Iwerks or Van Beuren. None of the Paramount characters owned by Harvey Comics appeared, nor did King Features’ Popeye. Probably no one thought to seek out rights to Little Lulu. One of the most inexplicable absences was no appearance by Tom and Jerry – though MGM did cooperate in licensing Droopy, not only for the feature but as the unofficial mascot of the series for the later short subjects, providing a link between them and their Tex Avery-style roots. Perhaps the Tom and Jerry rights were somehow mixed up in the production of one of the many television knock-offs which went around from time to time, and someone else had a temporary exclisive. There are some quite interesting storyboard drawings from a deleted sequence of the funeral of Marvin Acme, that reveal that several major missing characters were originally envisioned as making appearances. Pall bearers would have included Popeye, Bluto, Goofy, Felix the Cat, and even Herman the Mouse. Eulogy was to be delivered by Foghorn Leghorn. And several others from the Famous and MGM stock characters were to be briefly seen in the backgrounds, including Katnip from Paramount and Avery’s wolf and George and Junior from MGM. (No, Little Red would NOT have met Jessica Rabbit.) I can think of an interesting opportunity missed (though how would you write it into the film?) if still more characters had been included. What if Max Fleischer’s Superman had ever engaged in a contest of powers versus Terrytoons’ Mighty Mouse? Since both seemed to have unlimited books of powers capable of meeting any situation, any determination of who was the most versatile would seem to have resulted in a dead heat.
Despite rumors of plans and discussions for same, there was never a feature-length sequel to Roger’s success. However, three largely-brilliant short subjects were produced as Maroon Cartoons, two distributed by Disney and one by Touchstone due to its PG rating.
Tummy Trouble (6/23/89) places Roger in charge of Baby Herman once again – but Herman won’t cut out the crying. Roger produces a sky-blue rattle for Herman to play with. In a matter of a few shakes, Herman swallows it. “Somebody call 911″, yells Roger in panic, the camera zooming right into his screaming mouth, where his red tongue transforms into the flashing light on a toon ambulance (resembling Benny the Cab from the original feature), delivering Roger and Herman to St. Nowhere hospital. In a private room, Roger gives Herman a sip tom a bottle, then attempts to burp him. Herman’s burps cough up a tin can, an old boot, and a kitchen sink he has previously swallowed unnoticed, then finally the rattle, floating upward into the air inside a drool bubble. But the bubble pops, and the rattle disappears down Roger’s gullet. Despite the discomfort, Roger begins shaking his booty to entertain Herman, until a hospital attendant enters, in search of the patient who swallowed the rattle. Roger is obviously the new patient, and is strapped to a Gurney and raced down the hospital corridor, through swinging department doors that announce every kind of “-ology” known to medical science, and finally through a door marked “Burbank” – into the operating room. Roger attempts to break loose, hiding in a drawer of medical supplies. A surgeon grabs his tail, and Roger responds, “Hey, lay off the cotton, ya swab!” Roger is restrapped to the table, and a surgeon revs up a power saw to begin the operation. Only the noon whistle for lunch saves Roger from the unkindest cut, as the surgeons stampede out the door for chow. But Baby Herman appears through the door, following a rolling baby bottle dropped off a cart by nurse Jessica Rabbot. He sees a large tank of radioactive substance as a “Big bottle”, and heads into more danger. Strapped Roger does his best to save Herman despite being strapped down, avoiding the rays of an Atomic Hare Splitter diverted towards him by Herman, and saving Herman by catching him upon his ears. But the runaway hare-splitter smacks into Roger, knocking him from his bonds into what becomes a jet-propelled wheelchair, through a bumpy ride into an elevator shaft (elevator operator Droopy crashing down upon him, then remaking, “Gruesome, isn’t it?”), and finally into a cluster of explosive oxygen tanks. The blast sends the characters into the sky, and back down through every floor of the hospital complex, but finally, the rattle is knocked free of Roger’s throat. “Thank goodness for medical science”, declares Roger – until a cashier presents him with the bill for services. In duplication of a series of the best of Avery’s shock takes, Roger faints dead away – and Herman ends the film by swallowing the rattle again. For once, the two actually get to reach the end of a picture, appearing with their heads poked through a “The End” card. But Herman’s head is stuck, and as he is released from the card with a blow to his head from a stagehand’s mallet, Herman complains to the director that “If I have to swallow that rattle once more, I’m gonna puke my guts out.’ Jessica waits in the wings for Roger, and suggests they go home and play – patty cake – as the sound stage lights are extinguished, and the set locked up for the night.
Roller Coaster Rabbit (6/15/90), originally distributed through Touchstone, was a bit of a very-expensive cheat. Realizing that the Baby Herman setups for the series were strikingly similar to Popeye’s recurrent effort to rescue Little Swee’pea, the film essentially lifts its plot from the Paramount cartoon, “Thrill of Fair” (1951), embellishing the gags, adding new pay-offs, and an new elaborate ending. Roger minds Herman at a county fair, while Mother has her palm read at a psychic booth. Roger attempts to tie a red balloon to Herman’s carriage so it won’t get away, but only succeeds in knotting his fingers around the carriage handle, while the free balloon sails skyward. Roger is off to get a new balloon to silence Herman’s crying – but Herman has his own ideas, spotting another red balloon in a dart throwing booth. Sequences are quite closely mirrored from the original Popeye short of Herman crawling through a shooting gallery, and into the enclosure of a prize bull, in quest for the balloon, with Roger one step behind to take the painful consequences. Some new situations then arise with the fair’s amusement rides. Roger gets completely knotted-up in the massive gears of the Ferris wheel, and once around the wheel itself, like an elastic band. Then action moves to the roller coaster (possibly hinting at another homage to Popeye’s “King of the Mardi Gras”). The initial climb raises the characters to a height where they can look down on about five states. The downhill runs periodically sets Roger’s feet on fire as he attempts to apply them as brakes. Jessica makes an odd cameo as a damsel tied to the tracks, the ride’s car making a last-minute leap over her. The villain who has tied her in the first place turns out to be Droopy, wearing a silk hat and fake handlebar moustache, stating in underplay, “Curses. Foiled again.” The ride enters a darkened “Mystery Tunnel”, where all we see is zooming wheels and eyeballs – the eyeballs seeming to come loose from any sockets and run around helter-skelter in independent life of their own. Finally, the ride crashes into an end of the line barrier placed at the entrance to the Maroon studio sound stage. Roger is flung from the car, crashing into the camera that has been photographing the whole affair, knocking loose and exposing the entire reel of film inside, destroying the director’s work. The irate director demands that Roger shoot the whole thing over, but Roger, in no mood to go through that again, quips back to the balding director, “Not this hare, Cue-ball”, and zooms off the set through the “The End” card, again leaving a perforated silhouette-hole of his running self. Grumbling Baby Herman crosses the scene, as a live shapely female nursemaid joins him in the shot, reminding him he forgot something, and handing him the red balloon. Herman, smoking a stogie, turns the lighted end to the balloons surface, popping the balloon loudly, to the girl’s surprise and startlement. “What’s a-matter, Toots?” says Herman in condescending and suggestive tone. “Afraid of a little – bang?”
The final Roger short was Trail Mix-Up (3/12/93). Mother, Roger, and Herman are roughing it in the great outdoors of Yellowstain National Park. Mother goes hunting, and warns Roger that if he commits any more slip-ups in caring for Herman, rabbit season opens today. There are as usual nice little extras in the animation, with Roger briefly rolling one ear atop his head to resemble a Davy Crockett pioneer hat, and attempting to start a fire using a violin bow to rub against the sticks. Jessica makes her cameo as a seductive forest ranger, who, despite her reminder that “Only you can prevent forest fires”, generates enough internal heat in Roger to cause him to rub the sticks at super speed, burning his firewood and himself to a crisp. Herman is on the move again, first exploring a beehive in a tall tree, then closely following a beaver who bores through massive tree trunks in under one second. Needless to say, Roger endures his usual shps and welts while trying to keep up with his young charge. Roger lands in a lake, and to his surprise is pursued by a shark fin. The fin is merely propelled by a pole hooked to an underwater tricycle, ridden by Droopy, who comments to us, “Gets ‘em every time.” The beaver leads Herman into major peril in a mammoth sawmill, in a sequence with wonderful dimensionality as Roger faces chomping high-speed sawblades wide enough to fill the entire wide-ratio screen. Everyone winds up on a wild log flume ride into the river, where a fishing bear is picked up as an additional passenger in water-ski fashion. Everyone heads for the waterfall, then somehow are sprung out of one peril into another, with the cast plugged into Old Predictable Geyser. The geyser erupts on cue, but with more force than natural due to the plugging. The camera pulls back to show the Maroon Cartoon sound stage, as the eruption blasts the cast right through the studio roof. All fly non-stop through the air from Hollywood to South Dakota, where they crash “head-on” with the sculptures of Mount Rushmore (which all react in shock takes before being obliterated). Out of the dust and rubble march our cast, battered and bruised with some in bandages, and Roger (wearing only shorts) carrying a tattered American flag, resembling the marchers of the famous image of the Spirit of ‘76. Herman (who is entirely nude, having lost his diaper and covering his private places with his hands), resorts to his mature toon voice, and chews out Roger. “You star-spangled bonehead! You ruined a National monument.” “P-p-please!”, responds Roger, “Don’t het bent out of shape. It’s not like it’s the end of the world.” Roger plants the flag in the ground and salutes it. Only he planted it a little too deeply. The camera zooms back into outer space, where we see the entire Earth puncture like a balloon, and zip around through the cosmos at near-lightspeed as it deflates, the scream of Roger heard as it passes the credits scroll.
The Roger shorts were so good and so lavishly produced, it is a downright pity that they weren’t continued as a prestige project. It’s also quite amazing that none of them won any Oscars, nor were even nominated! Some opportunities were missed by not continuing the series run, as it might have been interesting had someone come up with scripts to match the fake lobby posters of other Baby Herman shorts seen on the wall of R.K. Maroon’s office in the original feature – the most intriguing of which might have been the wartime short, Herman’s Shermans.
Of course, in the wake of Roger, there were the inevitable knock-offs. The most blatant and intentional of these was Ralph Bakshi’s Cool World (Paramount. 7/10/92). The basic premise: create an alternate Toontown, set in the sleaze and profanity of an underground comic. Copycat basic elements of the Spielbarg project, such as a film-noir angle (Frank, a live-action cop dropped into the Cool World, attempting to maintain law and order), and an irresistible femme fatale (Holi Would, played by Kim Basinger). And drop in an occasional character walk-on of some Toon so old as to be in public domain, and hardly noticeable to any but the die-hard animation buff (such as Toby the Pup). From there (as if that’s not enough), the similarity ends. The film in all fairness wasn’t entirely as miserably bad as it could have been, and was played Bakshi-light without quite so much bordering on porn and with somewhat less foul-mouthed language than usual, and did entertain in places, getting a laugh of two. However, it is still a convoluted mess, with plot points that make little sense, and a story resolution that seems too out-of-left-field and a mere creation of a writer’s convenience in his need to find some quick way to wrap things up.
The Cool World is a dimension in a parallel universe, supposed to be a realm for “doodles” (cartoons) to exist in their own plane, but which somehow reacts from time to time with our dimension, so that there is some history of cross-overs in inhabitants, particularly live humans crossing into Cool zone. A doodle professor-type is experimenting with a device called the Spike of Power to bridge the gap at will between the worlds, and intervenes to rescue Frank, the victim of a motorcycle accident in our world. For some reason, the intervention somehow restores Frank to health, and, though he either cannot (or chooses not to) return to the human world, Frank takes up a new career in law enforcement in Cool World. Odd, as this would seem to be less than a choice profession in that plane, considering the penchant of most inhabitants, toward crime, mayhem, rackets, and general disturbance of any peace). Among Cool World’s principal inhabitants is Holli, another of those girls not only “drawn that way” to be bad, but in this instance as bad at heart as her drawing might suggest.
Despite her attractiveness to everyone in the joint, she has grown tired of the local crowd, and longs to cross the divide to the human dimension for real thrills. (Her animation, it should be noted, comes nowhere close to matching the sophistication and perfection of Jessica Rabbit, relying entirely upon literal dimensional rotoscoping, rather than upon truly animating idealized female features which allowed Jessica to remain cartoony and beyond realism in all her scenes.) With no explanation provided as to how this law was established or the need for same ever discovered, it turns out that Cool World’s oldest law is that doodles must never – shall we say, have intimate relations – with a “noid” (their slang for human), or the doodle will become real, and somehow disturb the time-space continuum between the doodle and noid worlds. This is precisely what Holi sets out to do, by drawing into the Cool World a convict from the human world, with some means of thought projection (never explained) into his head of visions of Cool World, causing the convict to create a successful underground comic therefrom which he thinks is his own creation. Now out of jail, the visions get stronger and stronger, until finally, Holi’s hands reach out from the drawn page, to drag the ex-con in. (Makes a whole lot of sese, huh?). An inevitable bedroom meeting, and Holi becomes human, and is somehow able to make the leap with the cartoonist back to the live-action world of Las Vegas. But things get even more chaotically unexplained, as characters begin fluctuating randomly between toon and reality, as the fabric between universes is disturbed. It also conveniently occurs that the professor has hidden his Spike of Power, the only item which seems capable of stabilizing the worlds, at the pinnacle of a Las Vegas hotel complex. Is this getting to the point where you’re losing track? I certainly am. By insane and convenient happenstance, not only are all our cast finally transported back to Cool World, but the two humans are transformed permanently into doodles, so now than can mix freely with its inhabitants (much to the disappointment of Holli, back in doodle form, who has lost her ticket out of here). It was a weird and bumpy ride, carrying you along for brief moments, but ultimately leading to nowhere. I think about the only take-away I found memorable about the film was the character of Nails, a spider sidekick to Frank’s police work, who is one of the only characters played entirely and traditionally toony, as if he might have fit into any family-friendly cartoon for comic relief His sequences were sadly much briefer than the character’s merits deserved, but I found him quite entertaining – and a memory of what Bakshi might have been able to entertain us with, had he stayed on the straight-and-narrow with some better budgets following his work in the Terrytoons days.
Disney would soon capitalize further upon its own property, adding to its Disney Afternoon lineup “Bonkers”. The show was a spinoff from a series of shorts produced for CBS’s “Raw Toonage”, featuring the character of Bonkers Bobcat – a toony Avery-type character as close to mimicking Roger Rabbit as could be allowed without paying author Wolf further royalty. To spread the idea into a weekday series block, Bonkers was taken from his short-subject film world, and given the boot with his show cancelled. Without work in Hollywood, he wanders in the world between Los Angeles ad Toontown, and inadvertently foils a mugging of Donald Duck. Hus interpreted acts of heroism land him a position in a revolutionary new division of police work – the city’s first toon cop. Two different animation units confusingly produced episodes, featuring Bonkers assigned with entirely different human partners – a series of competently-zany episodes featuring the comic and long-suffering up-and-comer Officer “Lucky” Piquel (whom everyone mispronounces as “Pickle”), and a second series featuring a considerably humorless female officer named Miranda Wright. I would usually tune out on the Miranda episodes. The Piquel episodes were also much moe prone to make use of actual Toontown settings, with occasional cameos from recognizable characters, including repeated appearances by the Mad Hatter and March Hare of Alice in Wonderland. (Disney was fortunate at the time to have acquired among its performers at its California theme park a young man (anyone knowing his name is invited to contribute) who was absolutely adept at channeling the voicings and eccentricity of Ed Wynn, and was among the first impersonators of Disney characters at the park to actually be allowed to speak to visitors in character, his performance being so convincing. This provided a major asset to the voicing provided by the same actor in the show.)
One episode. I Ought To Be In Toons (11/2/93) went so far as to focus upon an abduction of – Mickey Mouse. However, with Mickey having to date never appeared in the flesh in an animated Disney television series, the episode takes the odd move of never mentioning Mickey by name, and having him appear only by casting a shadow upon the windowshade, and through several lines of dialogue heard from within a locked animal carrying case of the airport dog-carrier variety. (It would be a few years yet before Disney would trust its television units to create new shorts for the mouse, in the higher-budgeted “Mickey Mouse Works” for ABC.) An odd premise of the episode is that the world’s most famous mouse is on the verge of being lured away from Disney studios, with an irresistible contract deal by rival Corkscrew Pictures. Shortly before the anticipated date of signing, Mickey disappears, and images seen only by the viewers on the windowshades of the Mouse’s mansion clearly alert us that foul play is involved. But no ransom note is received. Piquel and Bonkers’ Toon Patrol are called in on the case by the executives of Corkscrew, but while about to leave the office to start investigation, Bonkers recognizes an old face. A toon-human janitor is cleaning up, whom Bonkers recognizes as “Babyface”, formerly a juvenile toon who was known for being adorable, but who outgrew the role, becoming tall, fat, paunchy, and as ugly as he is uncouth. Babyface asserts his own theory that there will be no ransom note, and that the whole thing is a publicity stunt – with the Mouse probably hiding right back at his own mansion. “It’s a dirty business – and I oughts know. I clean up after it.” Sure enough, Bonkers and Piquel find “the Mouse” at the mansion. However, something seems different. The mouse, who at first refuses to be seen in full light, has somehow grown to three times his normal size, is fat and paunchy, and talks in deep gruff tones very obviously like – Babyface. But Piquel is so blinded by the shining hope of a promotion if he delivers the mouse to the contract signing, he remains entirely oblivious to all of the mouse’s un-Mickey qualities. Only Bonkers, whom Piquel shoos away to conduct his own business, remains suspicious, and on further investigation within the mansion, encounters a vicious orange bulldog on guard. Bonkers (again without naming character names) quickly notices that this dog is not the lovable Pluto. The dog, however, announces he is the pet of the “new mouse”, who has promised him a part in pictures if he keeps the place well-guarded. Bonkers is locked in a basement, and hears a familiar voice in the same plight. Mickey is located, locked in an animal carrying case. The two plot to fool the dog, Mickey giving the dog a verbal tryout and run-through to see if he can perform standard doggie tricks – especially, playing dead – allowing Bonkers to escape while the bulldog puts on his performance. Bonkers arrives at the studio, and eventually intercepts the loudmouth mouse’s attempt to take pen in hand. A chase ensues, and the mouse costume is ripped from the imposter, exposing Babyface, who remains determined despite being revealed to place his signature on the contract – his only chance to return to stardom in toons. After a chaotic chase for the paper down a fire escape, the contract is snatched away by an unexpected paw – Babyface’s dog, who has found it is more fun working for the real mouse than for him. The contract is safely tucked through one of the air holes of Mickey’s animal carrier, and Babyface is foiled and arrested. Mickey ultimately does not sign off to the rival studio, and stays with Disney, and presents Bonkers and Piquel with honorary Mickey Mouse ear caps. Piquel claims he doesn’t know what to do with the gift, and might as well give it to his daughter, but as soon as Bonkers is out of the room, puts on the hat himself, with a childish smile.
• “I Oughta Be In Toons” is on Dailymotion
Slightly off the subject of Toontown, another Bonkers episode is of note for following in the tradition of the 1930’s “Magic Pencil” genre. Imagine That (2/14/94) finds LA the victim of a rash of toon graffiti – pictorial symbols that largely mean nothing to a human, but translate as the vilest filth to a toon. Bonkers is immediately on it with cleaning solutions, sandblasting, and anything that will remove it – even if it takes destroying the walls and objects it is written on. Piquel thinks it isn’t such a big deal, until Bonkers makes a commotion to the chief, who responds by assigning top priority to rounding up the culprit. The perpetrator is a toon pencil who stays one step ahead of our heroes by drawing trap doors to escape through and the like. Bonkers figures the only way to catch a toon pencil is to recruit the services of another toon pencil – one Scribble, who is among the playthings of Piquel’s daughter Marilyn, and whose behavior is above reproach. However, the graffiti culprit overhears the plan, beats the cops to Marilyn’s room, and ties the real Scribble up inside a sock, taking his place. Bonkers and Piquel ask the wrong pencil for assistance, and are sent on a wild goose chase by his advice, staking out a grape field at midnight in scuba gear and rolling in cookie dough(!), while the evil pencil paints the town. But Marilyn catches him returning late to her room, and suspects something is different about him. The pencil draws a hatchway in Marilyn’s wall, and escapes to an all-toon dimension closely resembling Bob Clampett’s Wackyland, with Marilyn following. Eventually, Bonkers and Piquel are tipped off upon finding the real Scribble, and follow into the strange toon world, of intersections between Squash and Stretch Street, giant musical instruments looking like leftovers from “Make Mine Music”, and all manner of surrealism. Marlyn eventually catches up with the evil pencil, and gets him to admit his charade as an imposter. The pencil admits his goal is to cover everything with his foul work, and doodles over an entire wall hust to show what he can do. He is shocked when instead of being offended, Marilyn states she thinks it’s pretty. Marilyn claims he has real talent, and challenges the pencil to draw her. The pencil does, and well, and Marilyn grabs a spray can that the pencil had briefly used in his evil artwork, and sprays a frame around the image – placing the idea in the pencil’s head that his artwork could be displayed in frames inside homes instead of all over the outside. She finally calls him an artist – something the pencil has never heard, and the villain’s heart softens. Eventually, all find their way back to the real world, and the evil pencil is reformed into a new career as a mural artist. However, Piquel still has no peace, as the first home to be entirely redecorated within by the artwork is his own.
• “Imagine That” is also on Dailymotion
Though we’ll be discussing several episodes of the series next week, we’ll finally himp ahead to a mid-season episode of Spielberg’s/Warner Brothers’ “Tiny Toon Adventures”, for another direct homage to the legacy of Roger Rabbit – Who Bopped Bugs Bunny? (12/14.90). The premise for the episode is a clever one – actually having a root in fact. When Bugs Bunny won his Oscar for “Knighty Knight Bugs” (a cartoon which, in all historical fairness, was not truly the best of his career). His film beat out the only episode of Gene Deitch’s Silly Sidney series to ever be nominated for the award, “Sidney’s Family Tree”. So who should hold a grudge against Bugs for the upset all these years, but Sidney. In as close approximation to the character as possible without literally stepping of Terrytoons copyright (and perhaps as a backhanded way of getting even for CBS’s refusal to license the Terry cast of characters for use in Roger Rabbit), the writers and animators create the character of Sappy Stanley, an elephant just as awkward and dumb on the screen as Sidney, but offscreen having an ego as large as his girth, and full of himself as the consummate master of low comedy. After his defeat to Bugs at the “Schlosscar” awards, Stanley ships out to France, abandoning the American film industry as “brain pudding for the common rabble”, and is embraced by the French as a cartoon genius. (This deviates far from the reality, but still harkens to Gene Deitch’s return to Czechoslovakia after being let go by Terrytoons, and the subsequent fame of Rembrandt Films, though no further Silly Sidney cartoons were produced there.) Despite his foreign fame, Stanley still covets Bugs’s award, so devises an elaborate plan when the opportunity arises for a foreign award to be presented to Bugs, with Stanley as the master of ceremonies. Developing a robot-duplicate of himself which can also be worn to cover his own presence within when needed, Stanley, wearing the robot, walks out on stage to an audience populated with classic Looney Tunes icons, and also by visiting junior emissaries Buster and Babs Bunny, Hamton Pig, and Plucky Duck (invitees of Bugs for the trip). Bugs readies himself for the presentation, still carrying his Schlosscar lovingly for good luck, in a dressing room next door to which Daffy Duck, set to co-host the award presentation with Stanley, has a dressing room refurbished from the janitor’s quarters. While Stanley and Daffy are onstage, the real Stanley slips out of the robot suit via a stage trap door, leaving the robot to continue the presentation. Assuming a feminine disguise, he makes his way back to Daffy’s empty dressing room (upsetting Buster and Babs whom he knocks down in the lobby as he passes), enters Bugs’s dressing room through a hidden panel behind the mirror shared between rooms, and bops Bugs cold with his own golden statue. Stanley drags away Bugs and the Schlosscar, then returns via the trap door into the robot on stage. To add a final touch to the crime, Stanley uses the vainglorious Daffy as fall guy, planting a fake Schlosscar duplicating Bugs’s in the back pocket of Daffy’s suit. Bugs fails to show up on stage, and his disappearance is discovered, The fake statue falls out of Daffy’s pocket, and Daffy is arrested for the disappearance. The perfect crime.
Not if the Tiny Toons have something to say about it. They split up into two squads. Hamton and Plucky determine to investigate the police files in search of further clues, but regrettably choose to enter unlawfully as Ninjas. All they succeed in doing is being thrown into the same cell as Daffy, who calls them “Nin-herks”. It’s up to Buster and Babs. Assuming the costumes and mannerisms of a double-set of Columbos, they begin a systematic program of interrogation to drive Stanley crazy. Stanley nearly fools them, again using his twin robot at his private chateau through radio remote control to impersonate his mother (as seen by Buster and Babs in the theater lobby) to provide an alibi. But by sheer perseverance and some unexplained dumb luck, Buster and Babs lay hands on the empty packing box of an Acme do-it-yourself robot kit, and even demonstrate to Stanley how simple it is to use, as the faces of the two investigating rabbits flip open to reveal robot workings inside. The real Babs plays a further hunch, tickling Stanley under the trunk, and forcing him to sneeze out – Bugs’s Schlosscar. Stanley tries for a quick sports-car getaway, but Buster and Babs are already in the glove compartment. The car crashes through the door of Stanley’s chateau, Stanley himself smashing a hole through an inner wall, revealing the location of Bugs – tied to a chair, and being tortured by being forced to watch an endless succession of Stanley’s old cartoons. Reuniting Bugs with his award saves Bugs’s sanity, and he, Buster and Babs jet home, though Buster feels they’ve forgotten something. Indeed they have, as Daffy, Plucky, and Hamton are still in prison, now joined by Stanley, stamping out license plates, the one produced by Daffy reading “The End”. Daffy closes with the curtain line that this ending is des-picable.
• “Who Bopped Bugs Bunny” is on ok.ru
NEXT WEEK: More Tiny Toons, and other examples of animation developed as producer and audience interest returned to the realm of classic animation following Roger’s success.
