Bonkers (American TV series)
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- For other uses of the term Bonkers, please see Bonkers (disambiguation).
Bonkers is an animated television series that aired from November 19, 1993 to December 21, 1995 on The Disney Channel, produced by Walt Disney Television.
Inspired by the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, the show created original characters in a world where "toons" and humans co-exist. Unlike the film that inspired it, however, Bonkers was entirely animated and featured no live action.
Premise
The premise of the series was that Bonkers D. Bobcat, an anthropomorphic bobcat who was a popular cartoon star (he appeared in Disney's Raw Toonage shorts in the fictional world of Bonkers as well) had washed out of show business and became a cop. He was made the junior partner of Detective Lucky Piquel, a grim and ill-tempered human who hates toons (obviously based on the character of Eddie Valiant from Who Framed Roger Rabbit). Throughout the series, the pair work together to solve crimes in the Hollywood, California region. Bonkers repeatedly tried to win Piquel's praise, but usually just ended up messing things up with his antics.
After several years of working with Bonkers, Piquel was given an FBI job in Washington, DC, and with great glee was finally able to leave Bonkers, but finally realized that after all the times he hated Bonkers, he had taken a liking to him. At the end of the "Lucky" episodes, Bonkers was given a new partner, the attractive Sergeant Miranda Wright. Although also human, she was far more patient and tolerant of his antics than was Piquel.
Series history
The series played 65 episodes, as part of The Disney Afternoon. They were not created in chronological order: The "Miranda" episodes were actually produced first, excluding the two-part series premiere, which featured Piquel and Bonkers meeting for the first time. This discrepancy becomes evident when observing the look of the main character in both sets of episodes. In the Raw Toonage shorts, Bonkers was orange with one brown spot, golf-club-like ears, and an undone tail. When the Lucky Piquel episodes (produced by Robert Taylor) were made, the character had a major overhaul: skinnier ears, two black spots on each his tufts, black Tigger-like stripes on his tail, and a different uniform. The Miranda Wright-era episodes (produced by Duane Capizzi & Robert Hathcock) use Bonkers's original look from Raw Toonage. The series also occasionally featured episodes of "cartoons" from Bonkers's pre-police actor days, all lifted from the Raw Toonage series.
The Raw Toonage shorts were an after-thought of production. While the Bonkers series was in pre-production, the Raw Toonage team, headed by Larry Latham produced 12 "He's Bonkers" shorts. These shorts were, in the context of Bonkers, explained to be some of the shorts Bonkers made at Wackytoons Studios before he was fired. A short entitled Petal to the Metal was originally shown with the movie 3 Ninjas, while the rest were shown on the program Raw Toonage. In syndication, the shorts were collected into four full episodes with fillers of new material in between.
Meanwhile, Duane Capizzi, making his producing debut, was brought into the fold and teamed with animation veteran Robert Hathcock and charged with making 65 episodes (a full season's worth in syndication). The episodes theoretically would feature Bonkers with Wright as his partner. These episodes came back from overseas animation studios looking less than spectacular, causing considerable concern at Disney. Ultimately, the original team was replaced, and a team headed by Robert Taylor came in. Only 19 of the original-order shows survived to air; they are what is known as the "Miranda Wright episodes" of Bonkers, shown toward the end of the series in the official continuity. Greg Weisman (co-creator of Disney's Gargoyles) worked on the Miranda episodes, and Bonkers's relationship with Miranda inspired Goliath's relationship with Elisa Maza.
Taylor threw out the old premise of the show. He replaced it with the Lucky Piquel scenario, but his episodes were retconned to occur before the original episodes. 42 episodes of the "Piquel Era" were made, including one (New Partners On The Block) which attempted to bridge the gap between the two somewhat contradictory storylines.
The syndicated version of the series (which omits several of the original episodes that survived first-run) was last seen on Toon Disney, but due to bad scheduling and the addition of JETIX, it has vanished completely off the network. Along with a number of other shows it was removed from schedules in November 2004 and has not been seen since. Disney currently has no plans to release the series on a DVD set.
New Partners on the Block
New Partners on the Block was a transition episode that showed how Bonkers went from having Lucky Piquel as a Partner to having Miranda Wright as his newest partner. The episode was much like the pilot episode/movie:"Going Bonkers", using the CGI rain and bringing back the characters that were associated with Bonkers, those characters being Fawn Deer, Jitters A. Dog, and Grumbles Grizzly and unlike the pilot had more speaking and screen time.
But in the end of all this, Bonkers along with Miranda and Lucky captured the main villain Fireball Frank, thus making Bonkers and Miranda a team and giving Lucky a job as an FBI Agent in DC. Piquel, his family Dyl (wife) and Mayrlin (daughter), Fall-Apart Rabbit, Toots and Brodrick the toon radio all subsequently relocated to Washington, DC, allowing them to be written out of the show.
However, this episode has not been seen in between 4½ to 10½ years, perhaps due to sensitivity related to 9/11 and the Oklahoma City bombings in 1995. (The episode's villain, Fireball Frank, was portrayed as a mad bomber/terrorist.)
Characters
- Bonkers D. Bobcat (Jim Cummings) - The toon cop.
- The Mad Hatter and March Hare from Disney's Alice in Wonderland - commonly made appearances in bonkers to add to the mayhem of the wacky show. They apparently live in the Hollywood Sign, the "H" is the Door.
- Lucky Piquel (Jim Cummings) - Bonkers's partner from the "Lucky Episodes". He is a slovenly, morbidly obese, mustachioed man who is possibly drawn as a caricature of Dennis Franz. He is a serious detective whose by-the-book nature is at odds with Bonkers' decidedly more maniacal approach to crime solving. In the first several episodes in which he appeared, he defeated the villain by falling on them or otherwise crushing them beneath his massive girth. He is the father of Mayrlin/Marilyn and husband of Dilandra or who he normally calls "Dil" or "Dyl".
- Marilyn Piquel - is Lucky's child genius daughter, who is an aspiring artist as well as script/story writing and has deep connection to toons such as Bonkers, with her favorite toon being TV star Skunky Skunk. She is more than capable than taking care of herself and aids her father in a number of his cases often being the words of wisdom or source of knowledge to Lucky. She is noted for although looking like her mom Dilandra "Dil"/"Dyl" (aside from her big round glasses and freckled face), she also shares her father's hair color. She is also known as Mayrlin
- Dilandra "Dil"/"Dyl" (April Winchell)- Lucky's understanding wife who supports her husband and at times encourages their daughter Mayrlin/Marilyn.
- Miranda Wright - Bonkers's partner from the "Miranda Episodes".
- Timmy Wright - Nephew of Miranda Wright who she babysits. Although seemingly cute and precious is sly and smart combined with a mischievous streak, who often delights in tormenting Bonkers with troublesome tricks or pranks such as a giant spiky itchy feather. He only shows his true colours around Bonkers as he knows no one not even his aunt Miranda Wright would believe anything negative about him, if it came from Bonkers.
- Chief Leonard Kanifky (Earl Boen) - the absent-minded Chief of Police, probably inspired by Eric Lassard from the Police Academy series.
- Sergeant Francis Q. Grating (Ron Pearlman) - boss of Bonkers and Miranda.
- Fall-Apart Rabbit (Frank Welker) - Bonkers's clumsy friend, appearing only in the "Lucky Episodes." He literally falls apart at the drop of a hat and must wear bandages over various body parts to keep himself from dismantling. While Bonkers was making cartoon movies, Fall-Apart Rabbit was his stunt double!
- Toots - Bonkers's pet horn.
- Fawn Deer - Bonkers's girlfriend whom Bonkers would do anything to please, although her requests are usually reasonable. (Also appeared in Raw Toonage).
- Jitters A. Dog - A small, nervous dog who was Bonkers's sidekick in Raw Toonage; his role in the series was of the straight man, constantly having serious bodily harm done to him through Bonkers' recklessness. His catchphrase is, "I hate my life". Now Bonkers's "best friend", though Jitters himself would disagree.
- Grumbles Grizzly - was Bonkers's boss in Raw Toonage, appears occasionally in Bonkers.
- The Collector - the villain from the pilot episode ("Going Bonkers"), and therefore, the first criminal Bonkers encounters. He is a toon that collects other toons in suspended animation. At the end of the episode, he is revealed to simply be a deranged, cartoon obsessed nerd disguised as a toon, a parody of the ending of Who Framed Roger Rabbit, the movie which inspired Bonkers.
- Mr. Doodles - The Collector's evil henchman.
- Wacky Weasel- the cunningest (and most feared as even the laid back Chief Leonard Kanifky was afraid of him) toon villain that ever existed who had a fixation for eggs of any kind which originally lead to his capture (he broke into a prison because he heard it was full of bad eggs). Upon his break out of jail, he went on a rampage through the city, running rings round the entire police force, before finally being outsmarted by Bonkers.
- Scatter Squirrel - A crazed thief with a fixation for nuts of any kind, Lucky and Bonkers had to aid former Chief Leonard Kanifky in capturing him, in order for the mayor to give Kanifky's job back.
- Toon Pencil - A toon graffiti artist who spread toon graffiti all over Hollywood, Mayrlin/Marilyn had a major role in helping her father and Bonkers track him down by chasing the pencil into a surreal toon world where he (the pencil) normally would hide out.
- The Bag - A deeply troubled toon who captured and stored objects and people inside of himself in a misguided belief that it would end his loneliness.
- Skunky Skunk (Rip Taylor) - A favorite toon tv star of Marilyn/Mayrlin Piquel who was framed for manslaughter by an embittered TV chief, who then tried to arrange a fatal accident for him.
- Al Vermin (Robert Ridgely) - Bonkers's arch-nemesis from the Miranda-era.
- Lilith DuPrave, Wyatt, Mr. Blackenblue, Catia Legs Go-won-a-lot and Flaps the Elephant - five more Miranda-era villains.
Trivia
- Many Disney characters created prior to the show made cameo, and sometimes unseen, appearances, including Goofy, Donald Duck, Darkwing Duck, Mickey Mouse, Dumbo, Marsupilami and Ludwig Von Drake.
- Although the show started in 1993, Bonkers has an appearance in The Disney Afternoon opening from 1991. The show was originally inspired by "Who Framed Roger Rabbit", the successful movie. The similarities between "Bonkers D. Bobcat" and "Roger Rabbit" and between "Lucky Piquel" and "Eddie Valiant" are still pretty apparent. Though of course, when Bonkers was first developed, there was no Lucky Piquel in the show.
Video games
Three Bonkers-themed video games were produced, one for the Super Nintendo, one for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, and one for the Sega Game Gear.
- Bonkers (SNES), released December 15, 1994. Bonkers is on his first case alone, and must retrieve the Toontown treasure of the Sorcerer's Hat (from Fantasia), the Mermaid's Voice (The Little Mermaid), and the Magic Lamp (Aladdin).
- Bonkers (Sega), released October 1, 1995.
- Bonkers Wax Up! for the Sega Game Gear and its home console parent, the Sega Master System.
DVD Release
At this time, there is no information about a possible DVD release of the series but there is speculation due to the releases of Darkwing Duck and DuckTales from Disney.