The Raccoons, Part 2

(EDIT (January 4th, 2023): Replaced with 1080p images)

Alrighty, everyone, I’m ending this special week with the second part of my collection from the Raccoons.

And today, we’re actually gonna see raccoons in it!  How novel.

This first set is from ‘A Night to Remember’, where Bert and Ralph take Cedric to their childhood fort.

Next up is ‘Simon Says!’, where Cyril’s supposed brother Simon pops out of the woodwork, looking for inheritance money.  Bert, however, smells a rat, and so does Cyril, hence the pigs here…

Next up, in ‘Stress Test!’ (yes, a lot of exclamation marks end the episode names in this series), the Pigs, while they’re supposed to wrap up a land deal for a hospitalized Cyril, take some time to… well, slack off.

This next set is from ‘Buried Treasure!’.  This is what happens when you lose treasure in the lake…

Well, I promised you some diving raccoons, and you’re getting them!  This is a rescue mission into some caves with an underwater entrance where Bert, Lisa (his girlfriend), and Cedric save Bentley and the pigs.

With that, that officially ends Fall week!  Thanks for joining me!

I’ll be taking a few days off, and will be back next Monday with something new!

Quiet. Peaceful. Serene.

(Edit (January 4th, 2023): Replaced with 1080p images)

And in this post, very wet.

Welcome back, everyone.  Raccoons are fattening up for their winter hibernation, so I figured I’d spotlight the most famous raccoon cartoon (at least in Canada) for the last couple of days, called, get ready for it… The Raccoons.

For those of you who don’t know, The Raccoons aired from 1985 to 1992, along with a direct to video special in 1984 and a few television specials before that.  It’s a huge favourite in Canada and many other countries as well.

It’s actually interesting that much of their little corner of the collection is not occupied by the raccoon protagonists, but by pigs.  The show’s main antagonist, Cyril Sneer, had three pigs that acted as his jack of all trades, master of none type henchmen.  Fans of the show refer to them as Lloyd, Boyd, and Floyd, but officially, they’re just Pigs One, Two, and Three.

This first set is from “Strictly By the Book!” where Cedric (Cyril’s son) undergoes assertiveness training, and becomes completely unbearable.  In this scene, the Pigs are trying to take Cedric’s manual, which has become his lifeline to said training since returning home.

Here’s a single from “The Headline Hunter!” where several of the characters participate in a bachelor auction.  Cedric and Sophia are enjoying a spot of SCUBA, one of only two such spots in the series.

Last one for today, here’s “Paperback Hero!”, wherein a famous adventure author comes to the Evergreen Forest (where the series takes place), and the Pigs spy on him to get info.

And that’s going to be all for today.  Come back tomorrow for the last day of Fall week, where I’ll show the rest of The Raccoons part of the collection!

Who’s Got the Sweetest Disposition?

Not this duck, that’s who.

Donald Duck is easily one of the most prolific characters in my entire collection, with a large part of that through comic books over the years, and he needs no introduction.  The above is from a show formerly played at Tokyo Disney Sea called Donald’s Boatbuilders.  He actually continues to use this costume in that park though, in meet and greets at Ariel’s Grotto.

He also has a snorkeling costume at Walt Disney World in Florida, but it’s not common to see it come out, and when it does, I think it’s only in the water parks:

This is from the intro to the Sing Along Songs series of videos that Disney released in the mid 90s.

Back in the parks, these are from rides within them.  This set is from the Gran Fiesta Tour Starring The Three Caballeros.

And this one is from Mickey’s Philharmagic.

(Edit (Feb. 7th 2022): Replaced with higher quality versions and added more pics, and added video link)

And the video link… (Relevant scene starts around 4:12)

Moving to some television animation, we have shots from the Mickey Mouse Clubhouse episode ‘Donald’s Lost Lion’.

(Edit (Feb. 7th, 2022): Replaced with 1080p versions)

Finally, I’ll end off with some comic covers.  These are in various languages.

Well, this ends this entry.  Don’t worry, though, Donald will be back, probably many times.

Next time, we’ll end the week with a little bit of Canadiana.  Until then!

Daffy the Frogman… or Duckman?

OK, everyone.  I said I’d be focusing on a famous duck today, and here he is.

Did you know he was number 14 on TV Guide’s top 50 cartoon characters list?

Daffy, considering his long history, actually doesn’t have a huge place in my collection, but he does have enough for a post to be made about him.  The above book was about Daffy trying to get the better of Bugs when they’re both camp counselors of a Rabbit Troop and a Duck Troop respectively.  Of course, Daffy doesn’t exactly use ethical means to accomplish this.

Next, we have a few comics.  This is from ‘Cabana Boy’ in Daffy Duck 64.

This next one is from ‘Down in the Depths’, from Yosemite Sam And Bugs Bunny 44.

Finally, one more page.  Unfortunately, I don’t know where this one is from.

Next, we have some shots from the Looney Tunes Show episode ‘Peel of Fortune’.

(Edit (Feb. 6th, 2022): Replaced with 1080p versions)

Some miscellany here.

He’s even done some diving when he was but a wee babe.   The Baby Looney Tunes episode here is ‘Let Them Make Cake’.

(Edit (Feb. 5th, 2022): Replaced Baby Looney Tunes pics with 1080p versions)

Finally, we have a shot from a Six Flag Great Adventure & Safari ride called Daffy’s Deep Diver.  Photo comes from greatadventurehistory.com

Well, that’s all I have of Daffy, at least solo.  There’s more with him in a group, but I’ll save those for another time.

Tomorrow, one more famous duck takes the stage…

Duck, Duck… Goose?

Continuing Fall Week, it’s time to pay tribute for the next two or three days to the ducks that will be making their way south for the winter.  We’ll be focusing on ducks (and their relatives like geese) of all kinds.

First up, we have the cult favourite, Count Duckula!  These are from ‘Vampire Vacation’.  Also here is a figure.

Guess maybe his duck genealogy protects from that nasty reaction vampires usually have to water, eh?

This next set is from the series ‘As Aventuras do Patinho’, more specifically, the episode ‘O Patinho No Fundo Do Mar’.

Next is a few of Jack Quacker from Suzy’s Zoo, a franchise that sells various things, including calendars, books, stationery, etc.  Jack’s basically the jock  of the group, and it’s de-facto leader.

Next, we have a few of Wade from US Acres (also known as Orson’s Farm).  US Acres was both a comic and a cartoon, actually.  The episode here is ‘Hamelot’.

Here’s a few logos from various places.

Finally, to end the day off, we have sets from a show called WordWorld, which ran from 2007-2011, primarily on PBSKids.  The characters and pretty much any object of importance was made from the letters of their names, which was a pretty unique, and trippy, gimmick.

Duck here is apparently the youngest, and still learning to spell and such.  He tends to steal the show though.

The first set here is from ‘The Best Nest’.

Next up, we have ‘The Dancing Duck Bonanza’, where he tries to figure out how to incorporate Shark (yes, a shark is a re-occuring character here) and his underwater dancing talents into a land based concert.

(Edit (Aug. 26th, 2022): Replaced 1080p versions and more pics.)

May I mention, he looks damn dapper in that top hat.  Also, note the hole in it for his snorkel.  Nice touch.

Finally, we have ‘Duck Saves Spider’s Web’, guest starring Elephant.

And that ends today’s entry!  Come back next time, where I’ll be focusing on a certain famous duck…

Ollie’s Undersea Hijinks Part 2

And we’re back for part 2 of Ollie’s undersea education in pain.

So last we left off, Ollie had just caught a rather large fish in his net, and now cue the chase scene!

He just… pulled a slab off of himself. We usually wait until they’re dead before sectioning off the cow, Ollie.

Wow, he’s actually got the courage to fight back a bit.

Well, this is one way to escape.

Oh, look, the hippo’s back, and now Ollie’s a dentist. Hope he gave that hippo a hefty bill.

Jumping ahead a bit here, Ollie now meets one of the local octopi. He actually does get the better of this encounter though.

Treasure time! Also, king of the jellyfish. And dog skeletons. Ollie clearly forgot his holy water and crucifix.

Oh, look, shells! And guarding them is… some walrus kid.

And cue another chase scene! The kid is clearly more than a match for the cow here…

However, Ollie doesn’t forgive slights easily, and he catches the kid napping. We don’t generally approve of watching children while they sleep, Ollie, parents notwithstanding.

Speaking of parents… OH MY GOD! Tuck your head between your legs and kiss your ass goodbye, Ollie.

Apparently, he survived that encounter, and is back for one last bit. What finally sends him packing? Shark with a taste for moo-cow? Clams with teeth? A walrus that looks like he’d swallow him whole? Nope, electric eels!

This wasn’t quite the last of Ollie aquatic experience, though; he had a shorter bit.

Clam beds, that you lie in. Shocking that this isn’t an actual trend, somehow.

Tooth brushing with crocs. Always a safe activity. Also, yes, his snorkel is in his nose.

Here’s one way to deal with a big fish if they, you know, happened to have perfectly placed holes in their face.

Finally, to end off, Ollie gets to meet some whales.

So that’s all from this series that I know of that fits into this blog. He does do some more stuff involving helmets, improvised subs, and so on, but that falls outside of this blog’s scope. For the stuff above, look up “Undersea Ollie” and “Boes – Onderwater”

Fall Week continues tomorrow!

Fall

Welcome back, aquaphiles.

Today is the first day of Fall! The leaves are changing color and falling, farmers are harvesting, and many animals in the woods are getting ready for winter.

So for five days this week, I’ll be posting stuff that kinda lines up with that.

To start us off, I thought I’d post shots from a show called Ox Tales, which only ran for a year in Japan initially from March 1987 to April 1988. It was based off of the Dutch comic strip Boes by Wil Raymakers and Thijs Wilms, and was translated into several other languages, including English. The comic still continues in Dutch publications to this day, actually.

The protagonist, Ollie (renamed Boes in a later dub in 2010) the Ox, runs the Funny Farm, which supposedly has every creature concievable within it.

So is it a farm, or a zoo? Eh, whichever.

Anyway, Ollie’s had a couple of trips under the sea. Let’s see here…

The turtle is Jack, his best friend. Also, stripes do not flatter you, Ollie. Just sayin’.

Oh, and he’s about to jump off of a cliff. Let’s see how well THIS goes!

Oh look, a hippo in the ocean. You’re a long way from home, I fear…

Wow, this looks like it would tickle… a lot.

Oh, great, what did you see, Ollie? A sea cow? *Ba-Dum-Tsh*

Nope, it’s a clam! With an attitude.

Gotcha, bitch!

…. or not. More clams with teeth? Guess Bernard and Ollie can start an Ostraconophobia (that is, fear of crustaceans, including clams) club.

Yeah, Ollie, I think you should just forget the clams.

The cow with no face, everyone.

You were wondering how long it’d be before the shark showed up, didn’t you?

And I think I’ll leave it there for today. Will Ollie be shark food? Probably not, but come back tomorrow for part 2 of Ox Tales’ entry here anyway!

 

Random Day!

Hi, everyone. No, I haven’t lost interest in maintaining this blog already, I just haven’t been able to fully decide what I want to showcase next.

So to fix that, I’m going to just show off some random-ish pieces today. No real theming here, just tossing some stuff out there.

First, we have A Miss Mallard Mystery, which is a 2000 cartoon that was somewhat loosely based on Robert Quackenbush’s series, The Miss Mallard Mysteries, which stars the titular character, well, solving mysteries, along with her nephew Willard.

These are shots from an episode called ‘Evil Under the Sea’.

OK, I know it’s stating the obvious, but sharks will be prominent in this blog. (As usual, click for bigger pictures)

(Edit (Feb. 3rd, 2022): Added 1080p versions)

The good news is that, so far in this blog, they’re 0-4.

Pretty pedestrian stuff after that. There’s more underwater action after this, but it’s outside the purpose of this blog. Feel free to look the episode up, though.

Next up is something I’m sure some of you are familiar with; Neopets! I played this for a short while a VERY long time ago. Didn’t really get into it, but many, many people have. Considering that they’ve been around since 1999, there isn’t a lot of pics from them in the collection, but there are some:

That’s all I’ve been able to find of Neopets, in it’s entirety.  Oh well.  Some of it IS cool looking, though.

OK, one more for today.  This one is actually a 1999 German children’s diving manual called “Robbi geht Tauchen”, or Robbi goes Diving.  I actually was able to get a physical copy of the book with the help of a friend several years back.  For a children’s book, it’s quite detailed, going into specifics of the types of equipment used, pressure, and equalization, amongst other things.

The basic story going here is that Robbi, an otter of all things, gets interested in this whole diving thing, and whilst swimming about, he meets and befriends Krakeelchen, an octopus that apparently is a divemaster…?

No, I don’t know how or why an octopus would be a divemaster.

Anyway, the rest of the book is spent with Krakeelchen teaching Robbi the ins and outs of diving, including SCUBA, because he’s cool like that.

Here are nine pages from the book.

As you can see, it’s actually a pretty fun book, with tons of details.

Oh, and please don’t ask me for translations.  My German is virtually non-existent.  Make use of Google Translate if you’re curious.

So there you go, folks.  I’ll probably post one more of these before the end of the week, and on Friday, I’ll start my first themed week!  Stay tuned…

Bernard Redux

Welcome back! As promised, I’m going to take a look at Bernard Bear’s second SCUBA diving episode. Even after monster sharks and carnivorous clams, he went again.

Noone’s ever accused him of being intelligent or sensible.

So, this time, he actually has a definitive reason to go down; he dropped his boat key somehow. (Again, click on most images for larger versions.)

Well, this gets off to a good start when he interrupts the penguins’, um… ‘rendezvous’.

Sorry, penguins. No sexy time on this show.

Oh, look, a sunken ship! Surely this won’t lead to any sort of danger or problems!

Gotta love how that flashlight was suddenly on his belt in this scene ready to go. Cartoon hammerspace for the win!

By the way, I gotta point out how really… well used that air tank is. It was this way in the first episode too, so at least they’re consistent with their 3D props.

OK… here we have a skeleton that’s perfectly seated on a chair. In a sunken ship. And it… has the boat key. Alrighty then. Just take the thing, and leave.

Oh, wow, that’s one ugly bastard. And of course, he’s got the key. Let’s get him!

And this ends by… throwing the flashlight at it and knocking him out? I get that Bernard’s probably pretty strong, but come on… anyway, got the key now…

Of course big daddy just had to show up…

And with that, Bernard just barely gets away again. To date, he hasn’t been back under the waves. That’s probably smart of him.

No new shorts have been produced in several years, but the show’s fandom’s actually still pretty strong. The official Facebook page is actually closing in on a million followers, which is pretty solid for Facebook, and almost twice as much as Barney’s official page.  It probably helps that the shorts have no actual dialogue to them, so localization to other countries is generally a snap.

He has, however, starred in a feature film in China earlier this year that involved him becoming a secret agent to stop a rogue polar bear group from doing nefarious doings.

I’ve actually skimmed through this movie, just in case there was more to add to the collection.  I’m pretty sure he never looks this badass during the actual movie.

It didn’t do well at the box office, only pulling in just under the equivalent of $18 million US in Chinese box offices, so his Hollywood dreams are probably on hold.

Both of the cartoons presented in the last couple of days are available within compilations on the show’s official YouTube channel in HD, so feel free to look those up.

So that ends our adventures with the hairless polar bear, at least for now. Not sure what I’ll post next, so I’ll see you all next time!

Hairless bears, clams with teeth. How can this go wrong?

Hello again, everyone! Today, I’m going to stick with the bear motif from earlier this week, but I’m going to fast forward to something a bit more modern than last time. This time, we’re going to the 2000s to take a look at Bernard.

Bernard, or Backkom in South Korea where the cartoon was largely produced, is a polar bear that travels all over the place, performing various activities in just over 3 minute shorts. These activities usually end in him being on the worse end of things, usually to the pleasure of the penguin and/or the lizard that ends up in opposition to him in many of these shorts.

Oh, and he’s hairless.

Yes, a hairless polar bear. Don’t ask, I have no answers.

Today, we’ll be covering a SCUBA expedition he took in 2004 during the show’s first season. (Click on images for larger versions)

Seriously, what is with bears and sharks wanting to eat them?

Gotta love even after he gets smashed into that rock, he still keeps that regulator firmly in place. It’s all instinct, baby.

And maybe a hard head.

Next, he encounters a giant clam, complete with pearl to match.

Boy, bet he thinks he’s clever. You know this is going to end badly, right?

A giant clam with teeth. That’s damn horrifying, actually.

Oh, look, our shark friend is back…

… but only for a second.

Oh my god, kill them all with fire!

With that, the cartoon ends. I gotta say, I do rather like the killer clams with teeth here. Pretty different.

Do you know what the craziest part is, though?

He went AGAIN! And I’ll be covering that next time. ‘Til then!