A rundown of the shows on the Disney Afternoon, a syndicated programming block from the late '80s and early '90s.

Kids had it pretty rough in the 1980s, before cable television was thoroughly embraced by the public.  Instead of having a wide spectrum of cartoons available at all hours of the day, kids had to wake up early in the morning, then hold out until after school, for their fix. 

 

At first, the golden hours of 3:00PM to 5:00PM were a random grab bag of shows, featuring everything from comedy classics like The Pink Panther to modern hits such as He-Man, Transformers, and Voltron.  However, in 1985, an island of order arose from this raging sea of chaos. 

 

Eager to expand its influence into the world of television, The Walt Disney Company first dipped its toe into weekday afternoon syndication with The Adventures of the Gummi Bears.  The series was moderately successful, but lacked that heavily promoted but elusive Disney Magic that viewers had come to expect from the company.

 

Undeterred, Disney followed up the series with DuckTales two years later.  Based on the Gold Key comics starring Uncle Scrooge and his three nephews, DuckTales was a huge hit thanks to its clever storylines, lively animation, and most importantly, a familiar cast of characters. 

 

The message to Disney was clear... instead of making entirely new shows like Gummi Bears and the failed Saturday morning series The Wuzzles, putting classic Disney heroes in fresh situations was the path to victory in the weekday afternoon ratings wars.  This sparked the creation of Chip 'n Dale's Rescue Rangers in 1989, and a fantasy series starring the cast of The Jungle Book two years later.

 

Now, Disney didn't just have a hit... they had an entire afternoon of them!  Shows from competing studios like Rankin-Bass, Claster, and Filmation had all been pushed out of the nest, leaving Disney in control of the 3-5PM time slot on hundreds of networks. 

 

The company made their dominance official by establishing The Disney Afternoon.  This programming block had a rotating schedule, with new shows added to the mix and less popular ones pulled out every year.  Most of these series followed the tried and true formula of “old stars, new settings,” with the rare curveball thrown in to capitalize on cartoon trendsetters like Batman: The Animated Series and Ren & Stimpy.

 

The Disney Afternoon remained popular for years, until a number of factors contributed to its dissolution in 1999.  Disney had purchased ABC from Capital Cities, causing a shift from weekday to weekend programming.  Shows like Mickey Mouseworks and Recess that would have debuted on the Disney Afternoon found their way to ABC's One Saturday Morning (now ABC Kids) instead. 

 

A second shift from Saturday morning television to cable occurred when Disney unveiled a dedicated cartoon channel in 1998, then acquired Saban's library of children's programming from 20th Century Fox two years later.  When Disney could offer its viewers cartoons every hour of the day on its own dedicated network, there was no longer a need for a syndicated programming block.

 

Furthermore, the purchase of Saban properties like Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers had convinced the company to target an older demographic and produce faster, edgier shows.  The Disney Afternoon was out, and a new action-oriented programming block called Jetix was eventually offered as its replacement.

 

What was once a daily staple for millions of children had met its end thanks to a shake-up in the television industry and the demands of a new generation of viewers.  That era may have come to an end, but there's nothing wrong with looking back on what the Disney Afternoon had to offer back in its heyday!  Here now are reviews of all the shows that were featured on the programming block, in order of personal preference.

GARGOYLES  


The most unexpected series in the Disney Afternoon line-up was also hands down its best.  Gargoyles seemed to come out of nowhere, with no advance promotion from Disney and little indication of the company's involvement with it.  With its moody art direction, muscle-bound, gravel-voiced characters, and complex story arcs borrowing heavily from the work of William Shakespeare, Gargoyles was such a departure from Disney's usual fare that it would have been easy to mistake it for the work of another studio!

 

However, Disney was a lot more willing to take credit for the show's creation after it attracted a loyal following.  After a brief test run on weekday mornings, the studio slotted it into the Disney Afternoon, giving more viewers a chance to appreciate its strong writing and quality voice acting.  The voice cast was perhaps the most appealing of Gargoyles' many charms, featuring outstanding performances by Keith David and nearly a dozen Star Trek cast members.  The characters were also a highlight... TMNT-inspired sidekicks like Lexington, Broadway, and Brooklyn prevented the storylines from becoming too dark or pretentious, while thankfully keeping the comic relief understated.

 

There was just one problem with Gargoyles... namely, its final season.  After series creator Greg Weisman left the show, it took a turn for the worse with a sanctimonious story arc and lackluster animation provided by Canadian studio Nelvana.  The strong voice acting that made Gargoyles so appealing in its first season kept viewers from abandoning it in its last, even when the producers had defanged Xanatos and offered Ku Klux Klan action figures as the substitute  villains.  Nevertheless, it's a safe bet that Gargoyles fans will remember the series for its groundbreaking early days, rather than the surprisingly mediocre Goliath Chronicles.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Ghoulish statues come to life after a thousand year nap to defend New York from the schemes of an evil genius.

AIR DATE:
1994-1997

EPISODES:
78
TRIVIA:
Series creator Greg Weisman was an English teacher prior to being hired by Disney, explaining the show's frequent references to Shakespeare.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Goliath and members of The Pack tangle with the Egyptian god of death; Eliza Maza cleverly foils a mind control spell; the show's spectacular crash and burn after its creator left Disney.

 TALESPIN  

This was the first high concept Disney Afternoon series, taking place in a world where airplanes are the preferred mode of transportation and the 1920s are still alive and roaring.  Speaking of all things roaring, the main cast featured animals from the film The Jungle Book, with some slight modifications.  Carefree sloth bear Baloo became an ace cargo pilot, while his sidekick Mowgli was replaced with the plucky and street-smart orphan Kit Cloudkicker.  Fun-loving orangutan Louie was put in charge of a juice bar on a distant island, while Shere Khan stepped into the role of a Machiavellian business tycoon.

 

Along with 1930s science-fiction serials and classic Disney movies, the producers took inspiration from one more source… later seasons of the sitcom Cheers.  By the end of the five-part premiere, Baloo is stuck in an uncomfortable business relationship with an uptight entrepreneur named Rebecca Cunningham.  She’s got the deed to his plane, and the only way he can keep his butt in the pilot’s chair of his beloved Seaduck is to ship cargo to her clients.  Sound familiar?  It should if you spent any time watching NBC in the late 1980s.  Just switch “Cunningham” with “Howe,” “plane” with “bar,” and “ship cargo” with “serve drinks” and you’ve got the post-Shelly Long episodes of Cheers.  Rebecca even looks like Kirstie Alley, or as much as a bear could before Kirstie herself started eating like one.

 

Crass fat jokes aside, TaleSpin deserves mad props for taking a wide spectrum of ideas, then merging them together as a single, sharply focused whole.  It’s got the same gentle humor and intrepid exploration as the first season of DuckTales, with deeper characters and far more exciting action scenes.  When Baloo’s not using his piloting skills to outsmart motley sky pirates and socialist pigs, Kit’s hanging behind the Seaduck on a metal foil that’s part surfboard and part hang glider.  Some of the characters are hard to stomach (Wildcat and Molly, I’m looking at you) and the animation tends to be wildly inconsistent due to the involvement of several very different art studios.  However, neither of these flaws detracts much from the second best and certainly the most clever series in the Disney Afternoon canon.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Animals from a Rudyard Kipling novel stand upright and fly turn-of-the-century aircraft.

AIR DATE:
1990-1994

EPISODES:
65
TRIVIA:
Two episodes were taken out of the rotation due to terrorist references and unflattering racial depictions.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Rebecca falls in love with a ghost lion; one of Shere Khan's flunkies tries to steal Louie's bar, only to be thoroughly humiliated.

 HERCULES  

The mighty Greek hero as a gawky teenager?  It doesn't sound especially enticing, and indeed, it failed once with Universal Studios' short-lived Young Hercules.  However, Disney managed to make the idea work, thanks in large part to a cheeky sense of humor and a cleverly chosen voice cast.  

 

The first smart move was hiring all the celebrities from the film to reprise their roles.  Tate Donovan returns as a well-meaning but awkward teen Hercules.  Similarly, James Woods is back as the silver-tongued Hades, sounding more like a fast-talking car salesman than the king of Hell.  Matt Frewer and Bobcat Goldthwait play Hades' hapless minions, and Philoctetes is... not Danny DeVito.  However, Robert Costanza is so close to the real thing that you probably won't notice the difference.

 

However, the true brilliance of the casting is most evident in the peripheral characters.  Spastic comedian French Stewart plays Icarus, whose brain was fried after flying too close to the sun.  Dan Castelleneta is Homer... the original Homer, not the big yellow dope from The Simpsons.  Kathie Lee Gifford steps into a familiar role as Echidna, the mother of all monsters who constantly dotes on her horrible creations.  You know, just like she did when she was hosting that talk show with Regis Philbin.

 

More than any other series in the Disney Afternoon, the celebrity regulars and cameos are responsible for Hercules' success.  Sure, the animation is competent and the writing puts a fun spin on Greek legends, but it's the pompous bluster of David Hyde Pierce and the arguments between cranky old Jewish comedians that really puts this one over the top.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Legendary hero still geeky teen zero; hangs out with fellow outcasts while battling celebrities cast as monsters.

AIR DATE:
1998-1999

EPISODES:
65
TRIVIA:
Doesn't actually exist as a Greek god, no matter how much Ben Stein tries to convince you otherwise.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Hercules teams up with Aladdin to defeat a resurrected Jafar; Alan King bickers with Carl Reiner as he snacks on his liver.

 ALADDIN  

Before I begin this review, I'm going to take the opportunity to vent about how harshly Dan Castellaneta was treated when he filled in for Robin Williams as the Genie.  There was no way Disney was going to convince a major celebrity like Williams to continue the role for a low-budget television series, and an experienced voice over actor like Castelleneta was as good a substitute as they were going to find.

 

A more legitimate complaint about this continuation of the film is that Aladdin himself is kind of a jerk.  He constantly barks out commands to his friends, who are surprisingly tolerant of his Type A personality.  He's lucky they're so willing to take his abuse in stride, because without their assistance, Al would be an easy target for his foes.  That includes not only genuine threats like Mozenrath and Nasira, but the bumbling comic relief as well.  If you're so vulnerable that even Jason Alexander (as Abis Mal) presents a danger to you, it's probably not smart to leave your house, let alone defend your city from towering minotaurs and volcano monsters!

 

Aladdin's sense of self-entitlement and constant reliance on the Genie aside (didn’t you get your three wishes already?), this is one of the better shows on the Disney Afternoon.  Like TaleSpin, the quality of the animation tends to be inconsistent, but the writing is always strong, taking full advantage of the Persian setting and surprising the viewer with unique situations and unexpected plot twists.  The voice work is excellent as well, with most of the talent from the film along with the occasional celebrity guest.  And hey, despite all the flack he received for taking the role, Dan Castelleneta makes a darned good Genie!

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
The original prince of Persia defends his city with help from a genie, a carpet, and Gilbert Gottfried.

AIR DATE:
1994-1996

EPISODES:
86
TRIVIA:
Additional episodes of Aladdin aired exclusively on CBS before Disney purchased the network's rival ABC.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Epic fights with skeleton-handed sorceror Mozenrath; Aladdin slays a misguided plant creature only to regret his impulsiveness later; the wimpy Sultan dons magic samurai armor and becomes a ruthless warrior.
STRAIGHT TO VIDEO:
Armored & Dangerous Pt 1


 DUCKTALES  

After a false start with The Adventures of the Gummi Bears, Disney went straight for its stable of classic characters while developing its second afternoon television series.  The end result was DuckTales, an adaptation of the Uncle Scrooge comic books by Carl Barks.  In this lighthearted action series, Scrooge traveled the globe along with his three nephews, hunting for treasure while defending his bulging money bin from thieves.  Scrooge's endearing Scottish brogue, supplied by Mr. Ed's Alan Young, added a great deal of charm to the series, and the best episodes had a spirit of adventure matched only by an Indiana Jones film.

 

DuckTales made a slight misstep in its second season, when it strayed from its source material and introduced original characters like prehistoric preteen Bubba Duck and accountant by day/science-fiction superhero by night Gizmoduck.  The grand sense of adventure that made the first season so thrilling was also sacrificed for an irreverent sense of humor that seemed like a better fit for Rocky and Bullwinkle than a Disney series.  It's not nearly as jarring after Hercules and The Emperor's New Groove, but in the more innocent 1980s, it just didn't feel right.

 

Despite blunders in the eleventh hour of this show's production, DuckTales remains a defining moment of the childhood of millions.  It was also the first series to define the direction of the Disney Afternoon, setting the stage for many shows to come.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Scrooge McDuck and his nephews hunt for treasure and outsmart the Beagle Boys in this comic book adaptation.

AIR DATE:
1987-1992

EPISODES:
100
TRIVIA:
Before DuckTales, Scrooge's rival Flintheart Glomgold was originally of Dutch/South African descent.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
A lengthy story arc involving a wealth-gathering contest between Scrooge and Flintheart; the origins of Gizmoduck; "A sea monster... ate... my... ice CREAM!"

DARKWING
DUCK		  

Here’s a fun fact for you!  TaleSpin was originally designed as a spin-off custom-made for Uncle Scrooge’s dimwitted pilot Launchpad McQuack.  If you were ever wondering why Baloo’s plane was called the Seaduck and not the Seabear, well, that’s the reason!

 

The switch to Baloo happened when the producers of the series came to the sudden realization that Launchpad wasn’t a very good pilot.  Still eager to find an outlet for one of DuckTales’ most popular characters, and hoping to skim a little profit off the top of the first Batman movie, Disney went to work on another series called Darkwing Duck.

 

However, Launchpad wouldn’t headline the show.  The airheaded aviator would have to take a backseat to the title character, Drake Mallard.  When not caring for his adoptive daughter Gosalyn, Mallard moonlights as the nocturnal vigilante Darkwing Duck.  Conceited, theatric, and more than a little hapless, DW is a composite of several different cartoon and comic book stars.  Batman and Daffy Duck are his most obvious influences, but you can see The Phantom and The Shadow in his double-breasted purple jacket and cape.

 

Darkwing’s opponents are just as familiar.  Steelbeak is a rooster with aspirations of becoming a James Bond villain.  The Liquidator combines Ron Popeil with gooey thugs like Clayface and The Sandman.  Bushroot is Poison Ivy without the sex appeal, and Negaduck looks and acts like he stepped straight out of Star Trek’s Mirror Mirror universe… all he’s missing is the stylish goatie.

 

Whether this is playful satire or copyright infringement is entirely subject to interpretation, but there’s no debate that Darkwing Duck was one of the better shows on the Disney Afternoon.  The animation is livelier than the typical Disney offering, and when the writers were at the top of their game, the storylines were strong enough to make the best cartoons from the 1990s stand up and take notice.  For instance, Duck Blind was a key source of inspiration for the Batman episode Blind as a Bat.  Some have even concluded that Duck Blind was better thanks to its omission of gadgets that defeated the purpose of the plot… truly an example of the student becoming the master.

 

With all this praise, you’d think that Darkwing Duck should be higher on the list.  However, there are issues with the show that kept it from scaling to the top.  The first is that Darkwing Duck tries much too hard to be zany; the same overcompensation that was evident in Goof Troop and Bonkers.  The second is Gosalyn’s defiant independence.  She’s not as irritating as some cartoon tagalongs (Jade from Jackie Chan Adventures immediately comes to mind…), but the series would have been better off by scaling back her screen time.  Finally, the show jumps around so wildly at times that you’re tempted to force-feed your television a Ritalin.  Again, this was a recurring problem in later Disney Afternoon shows, but it’s especially aggravating here because it’s clear the writers would be capable of great things if they just laid off the caffeine.

 

So the Cliff Notes for this excessively long review is that Darkwing Duck is a good show with brief moments of brilliance.  It’s not fantastic, but it is a whole lot better than the later entries on this list.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Cocky cartoon duck thinks he's Batman; fights villains who think they're threatening.

AIR DATE:
1991-1995

EPISODES:
91
TRIVIA:
DW's catchphrase "Let's get dangerous" is very loosely translated to other languages.  In China, it's "Wait 'till I do some destruction."  In France, Darkwing shouts "It's gonna get scary big time!"
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Obnoxious bottled water salesman becomes his own product; DW loses his vision. 

SCHNOOKUMS
& MEAT

  

 

The odd thing about this cartoon, aside from the fact that it appeared on the Disney Afternoon in the first place, is that it gets better and better the further it distanced itself from the title characters.

 

Schnookums & Meat is actually three different shows packed into a thirty minute time slot.  The first of these is an attempt to ride the Ren & Stimpy gravy train with a frantic cat and dog duo.  These two characters don’t make the lasting impression that Nickelodeon’s short-tempered Chihuahua and mindless Manx cat had, and the artwork is surprisingly reserved, without the grotesque detail and expressive, balls-to-the-wall animation that made Ren and Stimpy the leader of the early ‘90s animation revolution.

 

Next up to bat is Pith Possum, which lampoons the Batman franchise with an idiotic superhero and his eager young sidekick.  The animators really let their hair down with this one, dishing out the spastic gestures and demented facial expressions that were largely missing from Schnookums & Meat.  There’s even a satisfying assortment of villains, including a Shirley Temple knock-off with the deep, deep voice of Everybody Loves Raymond’s Brad Garrett.

 

Playing clean-up is Tex Tinstar, a delightfully twisted parody of television westerns and the best of the three cartoons.  Tex is a scrawny cowboy who’s roughly 30% Clint Eastwood and 70% Elvis Presley.  He aimlessly wanders through the Southwest while Wrongo, the cackling villain, hatches increasingly convoluted schemes to finish Tex once and for all.  The characters include everything from metrosexual coyotes to a Mexican bandito with a snooty British accent, and the plot twists at the end of each episode become increasingly random, culminating in a comet ride straight for the sun!

 

Too different from traditional Disney fare to be embraced by younger viewers, yet too timid to be taken seriously as competition for the edgier cartoons of the early 1990s, Schnookums & Meat is the shortest-lived Disney Afternoon series, with a brief nine episode run.  Not long after the series debuted, it was replaced with The Lion King: Timon & Puumba.  Granted, it wasn’t a very good show, but at least it was a better fit for the programming block.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Disney tries coloring outside the lines with three increasingly frantic and surreal cartoon shorts.

AIR DATE:
1993-1995

EPISODES:
9 (!!!)
TRIVIA:
Jeff Glen Bennett would recycle his Tex Tinstar voice for the more successful Cartoon Network series Johnny Bravo. 
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Every Tex Tinstar short; voice over veteran Jim Cummings does an Orson Welles impression that makes the Brain look downright mousy by comparison.
STRAIGHT TO VIDEO:
Opening
Weight For Me

ADVENTURES OF
THE GUMMI BEARS

  


This was the foundation for what would eventually become the Disney Afternoon, but it was very different from the shows that would come after it.  Set in medieval England and starring a family of bite-sized critters hiding from humanity, Gummi Bears has more in common with The Smurfs than anything else Disney had offered in their afternoon programming block.

 

If you liked NBC’s blue runts, you’d feel right at home watching Gummi Bears.  In fact, it’s a much better show thanks to its detailed mythology and earthy hand-painted backgrounds.  It’s also a lot more exciting, because the bears aren’t afraid to leave the safety of their hollow tree to search for their long-lost relatives.

 

All this is faint praise, because it doesn’t take much effort to beat a low-grade series like The Smurfs.  It’s much more productive to ask how Gummi Bears compares to the rest of the shows on the Disney Afternoon, and the answer is less encouraging.  On a scale from Gargoyles to Bonkers, the bouncing bears fall squarely in the middle.  It doesn’t make any profound statements or advance the medium of animation.  At the same time, it’s not sickeningly sweet like Chip 'n Dale Rescue Rangers, and the production values are high enough to make the series seem like a labor of love rather than the commercial for German candies that it could have been.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Brightly colored bears seek out their relatives while thwarting an evil duke and his army of trolls.

AIR DATE:
1985-1991

EPISODES:
65
TRIVIA:
Known as "The Adventures of the Wonder Wonder Bears" in China.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Sunni dresses as Cyndi Lauper; the Gummis discover their more aggressive cousins the Barbics.

THE MIGHTY
DUCKS

  


The Mighty Ducks had one hell of an identity crisis.  It had nothing to do with the films starring Emilio Estevez, or the major league hockey team that sprang from it.  It wasn't even your typical Disney ducks cartoon!  The creators of the show thumbed their noses at tradition and created a cast of really muscular humans with bills, a far cry from the squat stars of DuckTales.  The storyline claimed that the hockey-playing, crime-fighting Mighty Ducks were from another planet, but with designs that were too menacing for kids and too frickin' strange for older viewers, it's more likely that the characters were fished out of an action figure clearance bin.

 

When interviewed in trade publications like TV Guide, the producers of the show made a lot of empty promises about the series, claiming that it was darker than the usual Disney fare and that the characters all had distinct, fully developed personalities.  None of that was true, of course, but when you're trying to peddle the most ill-conceived product placement disguised as entertainment since Leonard Part 6, you'll do anything to push that snake oil on a skeptical public.  Heck, you’d even conveniently forget to mention that sitcom saboteur Jim Belushi was one of the voice actors!

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Buff waterfowl from a frozen planet arrive on Earth to play hockey and fight sinister lizards.  Sure, why not?

AIR DATE:
1996-1997

EPISODES:
26
TRIVIA:
Dennis Franz makes regular appearances as a cop who's pretty much the same character as the one he played on NYPD Blue.  Minus the naked butt shots, thankfully.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Canceled after four months.

GOOF TROOP

  


The well must have run dry for Disney by the time they made Goof Troop.  Not only did they dredge up one of their most irritating characters for this series, they set the show in a suburb… a stinking suburb!  Come on, people... kids watch cartoons to escape their boring, humdrum lives, not be further immersed in them!

 

Well, if there’s one thing that can be said about this very unnecessary show, it’s that the writers were brave enough to make its characters reproduce.  There are no uncle plot conveniences here… both Goofy and his next door neighbor Pete have real, straight-from-the-loins offspring.  Goofy’s got Max, a son who is rightfully embarrassed by his father’s unfathomable stupidity, while Pete has the dumpy and depressed P.J., along with his bratty kid sister Pistol.

 

Keenly aware of the banality of its premise, Goof Troop makes frequent, desperate overtures to wring laughter from its audience.  The rubber-faced characters mug for the camera at every opportunity, and wacky cartoon music blares at every pratfall and wisecrack.  The problem is that the show spends a lot more time trying to convince viewers that it’s funny than actually living up to that promise.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Goofy has a son.  The world weeps.

AIR DATE:
1992-1996

EPISODES:
79
TRIVIA:
Goofy actually had a child forty years before Max!  His first offspring was named "George Jr." and had blazing red hair.  However, George Jr. never appears in this series.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Goofy mistakes a hot dog for a phone receiver, and talks into the frankfurter while sinking his teeth into the phone.  Yes, he's really that stupid.

QUACK PACK

  

I'll be honest with you... I don't remember much about this series.  The fact that it never airs on Toon Disney suggests that Disney would like to keep it that way.  Anyway, here's what I can recall about Quack Pack.  It's a repackaging of Goof Troop, with the lead characters swapped out for Donald Duck and his three nephews.  It also attempted to reinvent Huey, Dewey, and Louie by turning them into Home Improvement’s Jonathan Taylor Thomas.

 

Disney's pulled this stunt before- TaleSpin's Rebecca Cunningham was almost certainly inspired by Kirstie Alley's character on Cheers- but they didn't even try to disguise their theft of a celebrity's appearance and mannerisms in Quack Pack.  The ducklings’ color-coded outfits have been given a mid '90s makeover, and their once squeaky voices have been replaced with a throaty, high-pitched wheeze that's so familiar, you expect the teen trio to forget about Donald completely and just make wisecracks about Tim Allen for the next twenty-two minutes.

 

Watching a few random clips on YouTube revealed something I had forgotten about Quack Pack… it’s extremely weird.  Maybe not as weird as The Mighty Ducks, but it’s pretty close.  Hoping to distance the series from Goof Troop, the producers of Quack Pack introduced human characters and subjected the main cast to situations that are pretty warped, even for a cartoon.  In one episode, Jonathan, Taylor, and Thomas transform into superheroes with bulging arms and foreheads.  In another, they’re shrunken down to the size of walnuts, then eaten by a raccoon duck thing.  Uh… does this show come with a flowchart?

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
After forty years, Donald Duck's nephews finally hit puberty.

AIR DATE:
1996-1998

EPISODES:
39
TRIVIA:
The writers pretended that the events of DuckTales never happened in this series.  Shortly afterward, viewers pretended that the events of Quack Pack never happened.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Plenty, but for all the wrong reasons.

THE LION KING:
TIMON AND PUUMBA

  

 

The 2% in your fridge may have come from a cow, but the fact is, you can milk just about any mammal.  Heaven knows Disney’s had a lot of practice, squeezing the tiny teats of a mouse for the better part of a century.  In the 1990s, they raised their standards slightly by creating The Lion King: Timon & Pumbaa, turning a meerkat and a warthog into their designated cash cows.

 

Timon & Pumbaa served two purposes, plugging the hole left by the quickly canceled Schnookums & Meat while giving Disney a chance to shake a few more dollars out of The Lion King before the second film was released.  If judged solely on these two criteria, the show was a smashing success.  However, if you weren’t Disney, you were probably less impressed.

 

The series does get all the basics right… the voice acting is faithful to the films, with Ernie Sabella reprising his role as Pumbaa and Kevin Schon providing the voice of Timon in Nathan Lane’s absence.  The animation’s not too shabby either, with artwork that’s simplified from the films yet fittingly expressive for this odd couple.

 

Unfortunately, aside from a few rare gems (like Bumble in the Jungle, where Timon and Puumba chase a bee in time with Beethoven's Fifth Symphony) the whole affair seemed forced and aimless, as is often the case with television spin-offs designed to stretch the appeal of comic relief sidekicks.  For reasons which are never entirely clear, Timon and Pumbaa crisscross the globe, gobbling bugs while meeting the native (and often hostile) wildlife.  Occasionally, one of their friends from the movie will step out from the shadows to say hello and remind the rabid Lion King fans why they’re watching.  Viewers with no attachment to the film still won’t have a clue.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Timon and Puumba tour the world in search of tasty new bugs, raising the ire of other animals in the process.

AIR DATE:
1996-1998

EPISODES:
86
TRIVIA:
Farlex's Free Online Dictionary defines a "mook" as an insignificant or contemptible person.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Simba himself appeared in one episode of this series... now that's star power!  However, Matthew Broderick is no longer the man behind the lion... instead, Cam Clarke (of TMNT '86 fame) provides Simba's voice.
STRAIGHT TO VIDEO:
Opening
Bumble in the Jungle

CHIP 'N DALE
RESCUE RANGERS

  

 

I never really understood the “appeal” of this series, if you're generous enough to call it that.  Second-rate Disney stars Chip 'n Dale (not to be confused with the quality oak chairs or the scantly clad dancers) take a break from harassing Donald Duck to solve trivial crimes along with a handful of random misfits.  These include a macho Aussie mouse with an unhealthy cheese fetish, a shapely but scatterbrained inventor, and a plucky pet fly that's even squeakier than the rest of the cast.

 

While on their adventures, this vermin detective agency frequently crosses paths with Fat Cat, best described as the product of a three-way between Vincent Price, Dom DeLuise, and Morris from the 9-Lives commercials.  Suave and scheming, this magnificent bastard is the best character the show has to offer, but he's also a reflection of its most damning flaw.  Stereotypes abound in Rescue Rangers, and character development is non-existent.  Cats are always evil, bears are always stupid, and mice are always oppressed victims.  It's lazy writing at best, and at worst, it's shockingly offensive... just watch the Siamese fighting fish in one episode and try not to cringe.

 

Rescue Rangers is still embraced by its fans, including a few online artists whose infatuation with Gadget Hackwrench borders on frightening.  However, if they were to watch the show objectively, they'd realize how trite and cloying the series really is.  Some creativity is evident in the show's sense of scale... villains tower menacingly over the crime fighting critters, and Gadget's inventions are all cleverly pieced together from discarded household items.  However, that inspiration stopped short of the paper-thin characters, making Rescue Rangers the worst of the first four shows in the Disney Afternoon line-up.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Four rodents and an insect start a detective agency.  They work for peanuts... and dung, in the fly's case.

AIR DATE:
1989-1993

EPISODES:
65
TRIVIA:
Chip and Dale were last-minute additions to the cast, at the insistence of former Disney CEO Michael Eisner.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Adventures in Squirrelsitting.  This episode was uncommonly good, culminating in a classic scene where Fat Cat contemplates turning two young squirrels to the dark side... before deciding that it would be too much trouble and ordering his minions to toss them into a meat grinder.  Forget the sappy stuff... gimme more of that!

BRAND SPANKIN'
NEW DOUG

  

 

Before I proceed, I should warn you that this review will be incredibly short, and incredibly biased.  To me, Doug was always that show you had to sit through while waiting for Ren & Stimpy to start.  I guess I just never understood what was so special about a bunch of badly drawn elementary school kids in dayglo colors just living their lives.  You had to be keen on the quirky characters and constant flashbacks to get any mileage from this cartoon, and if you weren’t… well, at least Ren & Stimpy was right around the corner!

 

Fans of the show (and they’re definitely out there) claim that Doug got much worse when it migrated to the Disney Afternoon.  Since I was never in the loop, I guess I’ll have to take their word for it.  However, it is telling that nearly three-quarters of those surveyed on Jump the Shark agree that the move to Disney was the kiss of death for this series.  It’s also worth pointing out that at least a dozen episodes of the Nickelodeon series can be found on YouTube, while only the thirty second introduction of Disney’s Doug is available on the popular video sharing site.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
The Wonder Years if Fred Savage was a badly drawn cartoon character with attention deficit disorder.

AIR DATE:
(Disney) 1996-1999

EPISODES:
(Disney) 65
TRIVIA:
Famous voice actor Billy West left the series after it was acquired by Disney.  Could this be why fans hated the later episodes so much?
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Not the show itself, but this comic by David McGuire.
STRAIGHT TO VIDEO:
Opening

 

101 DALMATIANS

  

 

If nothing else, this show proves that any cartoon, no matter how rotten, can find a fan following on the Internet.  Grown men and women still speak fondly of this loose adaptation of the 1960s film and its live-action remake, making you wonder how hopped up they were on sugared cereals and the natural high of youth while watching it.

 

There were actually two versions of 101 Dalmatians.  The Saturday morning series wore its E/I rating on its sleeve, beating its viewers over the head with such gems of wisdom as “video games are bad, m'kay?”  Instead of a hydrocephalic elementary school principal, these object lessons were delivered by a scrawny, screeching fowl named Spot... or as she’s more commonly known to frustrated television critics, Chicken Urkel.

 

Chicken Urkel plays a lesser role in the Disney Afternoon series, which lightens up on the moralizing and sticks with the traditional formula of “Cruella DeVille chases puppies, puppies humiliate Cruella.”  However, both shows offer the same off-putting stylized art direction, as well as a Smurf-like cast.  Each Dalmatian has a descriptive name and a rigidly defined personality to match.  Rolly is the fat slob, Lucky is the cocky leader, and Cadpig plays double duty as Smurfette and the bossy, contrarian Brainy Smurf.  This character has the largest fanbase of any of the show’s stars, a fact that so violently defies logic that it could punch a hole in the very fabric of reality.

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
Kind of like the movie, except with a lot of annoying characters and much thicker outlines than necessary.

AIR DATE:
1997-1998

EPISODES:
65
TRIVIA:
Doug's Jim Jinkins was the co-creator of this series, although its art style and humor bears little resemblence to the series that made him famous.
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Any time Cadpig shuts the hell up.
STRAIGHT TO VIDEO:
Opening
Love 'Em and Flea Em

BONKERS

  

 

The worst of the Disney Afternoon series was originally intended as a television adaptation of Who Framed Roger Rabbit?.   However, licensing squabbles with co-creator Amblin Entertainment forced Disney to settle for Bonkers, a wacky bobcat who made frequent appearances on the Saturday morning series Raw Toonage.

 

Disney's original intentions for this series can still be seen in its storyline, with humans and toons living side by side in a fictional Los Angeles.  As an out-of-work toon who stumbles his way onto the police force, Bonkers even works the beat with the grumpy, toon-weary Detective Piquel.  He's essentially a flabby, family-friendly version of Bob Hoskins' character Eddie Valiant, relying on the support of his wife and child to get through each day rather than a flask of whiskey.  However, for all its similarities, the magic of Roger Rabbit is missing from this show... and for that matter, so is any appeal Bonkers may have had in his first series.

 

Look, I'll give the little guy some credit.  Bonkers was marginally entertaining on Raw Toonage, where his frenzied antics were tempered by an eternally depressed canine sidekick.  However, without Jitters, Bonkers has become zany to the point of exasperation, and any attempt by his new partner to make him act rationally is viciously punished.  It's like the later episodes of Spongebob Squarepants where Squidward is tormented for simply acknowledging that Spongebob is obnoxious, yet somehow even more hostile and didactic.

 

That hostility is soon directed toward the audience, who is constantly reminded that Bonkers and his friends are cartoons, and that they're wild and crazy and not like humans at all and- hey, why aren't you laughing?  You don't want to hurt their feelings, do you?  After you've endured several episodes of this labored comedy and emotional blackmail, it quickly becomes obvious why Detective Piquel left the show in its second season.  The only mystery is how this show lasted long enough to get a second season.

 

One final note… Wikipedia claims that Gargoyles creator Greg Weisman was responsible for the second, even less entertaining season of Bonkers.  How ironic that the executive producer of the best Disney Afternoon series would also be a driving force behind its worst…

QUICK SHOTS

THE 411:
A failed cartoon actor lucks into a job at the local police station, then makes everyone sorry they hired him.

AIR DATE:
1993-1995

EPISODES:
64
TRIVIA:
The first season of the show was actually produced after the second one!
MEMORABLE MOMENTS:
Lucky Piquel actually leaves the series.  Living, breathing actors quit television all the time to make movies, but where's a cartoon character going to go?

Special thanks to Wikipedia for its invaluable assistance in gathering information for this feature, YouTube for many of the the video clips in the sidebars, and Brian Balsan, S. Arsenault, and the members of GameSpite's Talking Time forum for their feedback.