Loonatics Unleashed - Cape Duck

While driving my Rolls Royce through the suburbs of Beverly Hills and sipping the finest aged champagne from a wine glass made entirely out of diamonds (disclaimer: the following may be slightly exaggerated), I thought to myself  "How most unorthodox, I haven't talked about Loonatics Unleashed in a while" and I kindly ordered my butler to fetch me my blog writing tuxedo. So here I am.

Well, at least it's not Baby Looney Tunes...

Fans of the show will note that this episode isn't at all within the same season as the previous two episodes ("Going Underground" and "The World Is My Circus") I've done. I'm not one to do shows in order, but even then, this is quite a big jump to go from some of the first episodes all the way to episode 19 out of a 26-episode series.

That's why I'm going to be honest here and say that I chose this episode entirely based off my own self-interest because it's an episode that effectively talks about three major beefs I have with this show. Despite the fact that the two episodes I've done honestly weren't the horrible steaming piles of excrement the Internet made this show out to be (but then again, this is coming from someone who can deprive enjoyment out of such classics as Street Sharks and Creepy Crawlers; I doubt anyone takes me seriously anymore), three things still lingered on my mind.

One, Danger Duck was largely devoted to comic relief in my episodes and he seemed to only exist to be continually crapped on by his fellow team members for being a total screw-up in everything he does. Two, Tech E. Coyote's inventions and how they just instantly saved the day in both episodes I did just bugged the hell out of me and I wanted to see an episode where his inventions actually do the opposite and cause something bad to happen.

Finally, I had to know what happened with Dr. Dare, the main villain of Going Underground. You know, the dumpy, bald little dweeb who loves rocks and the color green? That guy.

I blame the fact that Simon Templeman did his voice, personally. That man can do no wrong.

Luckily, there exists an episode that tries to answer all of these questions and more. And trust me, the way it handles all three of these questions is nothing short of unique. Dr. Dare returns, but it's not handled in the way you would expect (and before you ask if they actually explore some of this character's backstory by giving him heavily severe mental disorders from the sudden transformation caused by the meteor and later, his years of isolation...no, they don't) and in a way that may surprise you. Tech screws up, but not in the way you would expect. It's a smorgasboard of shattered expectations and makes for quite the delightful viewing experience if you're into coyotes wearing skintight leather clothing and Danger Duck gloating how awesome he is for an entire freaking episode.

Therefore, I doubt anyone's gonna mind if I talk about a Season 2 episode. And so, with an episode name that involves "Ducks" (invoking Disney Afternoon flashbacks), I bring you...

Cape Duck

The Batman - The Big Dummy

Okay, okay, I assume when people said "Something New" in the polls, they expected something within this decade, not something that their parents grew up with. And, to sweeten the deal, it'll even be about superheroes.

Time for me to talk about an often-forgotten section of an incredibly huge franchise, Batman. The Dark Knight is considered one of the most important characters when it comes to superhero cartoons, if only because he's been in so many influential cartoons. I won't get too much into just how powerful his shows were, if only because there are entire websites designed to talk about the impact Batman: The Animated Series has had on animation (ones more coherent and better-written than my blog, might I add) just as there are entire websites designed to talk about how stupid (whether delightfully stupid or just stupid stupid) the 70's Superfriends show is.

Most Batman cartoons, at least according to Batman fans, fall under one of three categories: Crap that came before Batman: The Animated Series, Batman: The Animated Series, and Crap that came after Batman: The Animated Series. It's a pretty common fact that Batman hit its cartoony stride in Batman: The Animated Series, and I'm not confident I can tackle that show yet, lest I want people hunting me down for making the wrong joke or saying that the wrong character sucks.

So, to ruffle the least amount of feathers as possible, I'm choosing a cartoon that's not Batman: The Animated Series (instead I'm going with the Jackie Chan-esque Batman cartoon that came out around 2004) and, to double my protection, I'm going to talk about a character that not many people even notice.

Yep, instead of talking about The Joker, The Penguin, Poison Ivy, or even Bane (just going to say it right now, but I think Bane is stupid), I'm choosing, well...this guy.

Pictured: Seriously a Batman villain.

This character, at least according to my really brief research on the Internet, is like the character that fans can't agree whether he's (or they're) a really awesome or a really stupid idea. Arnold Wesker aka The Ventriloquist and Scarface have appeared on as many Best Batman Villain Lists as Worst Batman Villain Lists. While the Batman nerds can pretty much agree that Crazy Quilt is a stupid idea and that The Joker is full of awesome, no one's really sure if a mentally disturbed middle-aged man who has a murderous personality manifest through his left hand is a good idea or a bad one. Even the writers can't seem to agree, because I've seen just as many Batman stories where this character was played for laughs as there are stories that are really tragic.

So I'm going to talk about Warner Brother's third most controversial cartoon (because even a Batman made by the creators of Jackie Chan can't reach the level of infamousness that Coconut Fred and Loonatics Unleashed have) for a change, because if there's anyone who can make a strange blend of good and bad mixed into one cartoon, it's Warner Brothers.


Let's look at...

The Big Dummy

Loonatics Unleashed - The World is My Circus

This may be the first show that I'm choosing to revisit on account of popular demand as opposed to me just picking out shows at random. Today, I'm going to once again tackle the show known as Loonatics Unleashed on account quite a few people liked it when I talked about the episode where a balding chubby nerd with a rock arm fought giant talking rabbits. Not only was the Going Underground post one of the most popular blog posts I've ever done, but I actually got an e-mail response about it saying that I was "a lot fairer than most cartoon review sites".

Which kind of says a lot when my site makes fun of everything I watch. When I said that Ace Bunny's lasers looked really ludicrous and that his personality was bland, that Lexi made some very stupid mistakes, or that Tech was being a pretentious smartass, that was still being a lot fairer than most sites that cover Western Animation. Probably because I actually said nice things inbetween the snark, but still...

But then again, considering how much the viewers of Cartoon Brew were collectively filling their underwear with raw anger over the release of The Looney Tunes Show, that really doesn't surprise me. And it's kind of sad that it doesn't.

For this post, I just happened to pick an episode that appealed to my interests on account I'm shallow and that going in episode order would be boring. In this case, there's evil circuses, Tim Curry, mutant animal hybrids, physical transformations, and superheroes, which I think sounds like just the coolest mixture of stuff in an episode. Again, not related to Looney Tunes at all, but you'd be lying if you said this didn't sound cool. Ladies and gentlemen, boys and girls, witness the greatest show on the face of the Earth in...

The World is My Circus

Loonatics Unleashed - Going Underground

Okay, I've been making fun of DIC Entertainment for way too long. Time to make fun of yet another product from the animation company renowned for making some of the best shows in the 90's, Warner Bros. Animation.

No, Batman fans. This logo isn't going to turn into a police helicopter with
headlights shining down on Gotham City.

I don't think even Disney can really touch the versatility the Warner Brothers Animation brand has. I've seen a lot more people say they hate or love everything Disney stands for than their lead competitor just because of the level of variation in Warner Bros. On one hand, they're responsible for Batman: The Animated Series, Animaniacs, and Tiny Toons. On the other hand, they're responsible for Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island, Johnny Test, and Baby Looney Tunes. It's really hard to say what my opinion is with Warner Bros. because they brought me both intense joy and intense sorrow. They can do it for the art and then whore off their characters in the very same breath.

So thus, instead of ripping into the really obvious bad cartoons Warner Bros. is responsible for, I want to first make fun of their show that honestly can't decide whether it's a bad cartoon and a good one, a cartoon that, like Captain Planet, everyone's heard of and laughed at but never actually sat down and watched it.

So thus, the punchline for every joke about trying to make aging cartoon characters more relevant for today's audience, Loonatics Unleashed.

They're tiny, they're toony, they're all a little-wait, wrong show.

I don't really have much to say about Loonatics Unleashed's sordid history, other than it had two seasons with 26 episodes and was cancelled after the second season on account Warner Brothers realized that everyone was making fun of this show and hopefully, by cancelling it, they can never speak of it again. It was one of those shows that suffered from a bad case of Multiple Personality Syndrome.

And ironically the fact that it was tied to Looney Tunes is probably what hurt it the most. Why? Because if it wasn't tied to the Looney Tunes brand and if the characters were not reimagined Looney Tunes characters, this would just be another superhero cartoon where a band of heroes with different personalities fight against a varied rogue gallery and people would've ate it right up. The 90's was ALL ABOUT the superhero cartoons, after all.

The people who made Animaniacs made this.

I'm going with this episode first because to be frank, loads of people covered this show's first episode before in other blogs (usually in blogs much snarkier than this one) and I don't want to do "Weathering Heights" until after I do The Mask: The Animated Series's "Rain on Terror" on account the plots are exactly the same.

So yeah, now that I talked about the show, let's talk about an episode that honestly has nothing to do with the Merrie Melodies shorts at all because it involves chinese food, earthquakes, and a mad scientist who turned half-rock (yeah, really) and therefore, of course, wants revenge on the entire world. Witness this unfold in an episode that the writers couldn't even think of a good name pun for, because this is...

Going Underground

Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island - Master of Disaster

Ooooh boy, where do I begin with this show?

I remember first learning about this show when I happened to flip through the channels while me and my family were staying in Maui. I saw an episode that involved bananas obtaining Thanksgiving vision and shooting cooked turkeys out of their eyes in order to battle a sentient blender, and by the time the episode was over, I immediately wondered if the TV was just giving us a taste of what it's like to be on LSD. I had written the show off as maybe some sort of fever dream and went along with my life pretending that this didn't exist.

But I was wrong. So very, very wrong.

It's Coconutbob Swimwearpants!

Coconut Fred's Fruit Salad Island is another cartoon that escaped the public's notice. It had 2 seasons and 13 episodes and then was quietly cancelled without so much of an audience to speak of. The show didn't get killed so much as quietly whimper and choke on its own vomit. The only reason I've seen people bring it up is because of two reasons.

1. It's a shameless ripoff of Spongebob Squarepants, with Rob Paulsen even saying so in an interview.
and
2. In an episode, a sentient piece of fruit dresses up as Sephiroth. I know this sounds silly, but this was a huge defining moment of this cartoon. I looked up this show's Wikipedia article and 80% of the article is going on and on about how an episode referenced so many different pieces from Final Fantasy 7, so much that a part of everyone's character profile is what video game character they dressed up as in that faithful episode. Square-Enix fans will support anything that even mentions the words "Midgar" or "Cloud Strife" and this is no exception.

As much as I want to take on the fateful episode where Coconut Fred dresses up like Cloud Strife, making several thousand Square fans go "KAWAII NO DESU NE!" and soil their pants in delight, I kind of want to hit the first episode first just to see what kind of maniacal piece of animation I'm subjecting myself to, especially after watching Spliced. The episodes are divided into 11 minute segments, but believe me, that's all I can probably manage of this show at a time. I'll either end up dead or craving like several thousand tons of fruit salad if I take on a full 22 minute episode. You don't want me to eat myself into a cherry and orange-induced coma, now do you?

I'm going with Master of Disaster since Coconut Fred's show has a freaking huge title (what, was "Fruit Salad Island" by itself already taken?) and Master of Disaster has the shorter title of the two 11 minute segments.

So yeah, Master of Disaster. How fitting.

Master of Disaster