Let's Watch This: An Episode of "The Wuzzles"

Let's travel back in time to the 1980s, where plush toys reigned supreme. Particularly pastel-colored animal plush toys. This is the decade that gave us the Care Bears, after all.

At some point in the 1980s, toy companies all got an idea - get cartoon shows made based on these toys, and sales of the toys would go up, up, up... because who WOULDN'T want a plush toy of a cartoon character that they really like? And that, in turn, gave animation studios an idea - make a cartoon featuring cutesy pastel-colored animal characters suitable for making plush toys of, then get a marketing deal and watch the cash from toy sales come flooding in. For example, there's The Wuzzles.

The Wuzzles may have only gotten thirteen episodes, but it was a huge success with merchandise. Everybody wanted a Wuzzle. Plushes, books, bendable figures, a board game... not bad for one of Disney's lesser-known cartoons.

The show took place in the Land of Wuz, where everything is a combination of two different things. The main characters are animal hybrids - bumblebee/lion hybrid Bumblelion (voiced by Brian Cummings), elephant/kangaroo hybrid Eleroo (Henry Gibson), rhinoceros/monkey hybrid Rhinokey (Alan Oppenheimer), moose/seal hybrid Mooseal (Bill "Bullwinkle" Scott), hippopotamus/rabbit hybrid Hoppopotamus (Jo Anne Worley), and bear/butterfly hybrid Butterbear (Kathleen Helppie-Shirley). They do stuff, eating things like "appleberries" and living in "castlescrapers" and getting into whacky adventures.

They might as well be wearing t-shirts that read "BUY OUR MERCHANDISE".

But, as I've stated, despite how much merchandise had the Wuzzles' images on it, it isn't exactly one of Disney's more popular cartoon shows. Only thirteen episodes were made. There apparently aren't any home video releases. But every so often we'll get something small to remind us that this show existed. There was a Robot Chicken sketched that lampooned the show, for one thing. Also, the Wuzzles walk-around costumes used at the Disney theme parks were accidentally sold off, resulting in the characters popping up in some odd places - for example, Moosel appeared in a music video starring the Dixie Chicks, Eleroo makes an appearance in the 2003 movie Old School, Bumblelion showed up in a T-Mobile commercial, and Butterbear made a cameo in an episode of Sonny With a Chance.

So, is The Wuzzles any good? That's what we're here to find out. We'll be watching an episode to see if the show is an underrated classic or a piece of crap that deserves to languish in obscurity. Today's episode? "Bumblelion and the Terrified Forest". Let's get started!

The episode begins with Bumblelion and Eleroo watching a show called Buck Swashler on TV. The narrator is initially confused by this "Buck Swashler" character and asks if he's narrating the right cartoon. I love it when narrators have fun with their jobs.

Bumblelion and Eleroo had different reactions when watching Bee Movie. Bumblelion
was excited by the fact that a fellow bee was the star. Eleroo, by contrast, was too disturbed
by the whole "bee hooks up with a human" thing.

Hoppopotamus and Butterbear are watching Buck Swashler on TV, too. Hoppopotamus considers it stupid. Buck Swashler ends the show by telling the audience, "There's nothing to fear when a swashbuckler is near!"

Bumblelion is so inspired that he decides to head out and become a swashbuckler himself. First, he attempts to save Moosel from a "sharkosaurus"... that turns out to just be a minnow shark.

Or maybe it's just a top-heavy salmon.

Meanwhile, Hoppopotamus heads over to the local beauty parlor for a makeover. As a result, we are treated to several fat jokes at her expense. Fat people - they're automatically hilarious because they're fat.

Then we cut to Eleroo, out hunting for "butterhoppers". This is a very disjointed show, isn't it? What happened to Bumblelion wanting to be a swashbuckler? Can we pick a storyline and stick with it?

Anyway, Eleroo chases a butterhopper into a cave, where Bumblelion coincidentally enough also happens to be. Food for thought - if Bumblelion is half-bee, is he capable of making honey?

How is that stalagmite not crumbling with his weight?

Bumblelion spots the shadow of the butterhopper that Eleroo was chasing, assumes that it's a "ding-bat", and tries to save Eleroo from it. Eleroo runs out of the cave, and the narrator returns to give us some exposition - a ding-bat is a cross between a dingo dog and a bat (and ugly all over).

Even the ugly monsters in this show look like they'd make great plush toys.

So Bumblelion emerges from the cave with the "ding-bat", who Eleroo is relieved to see is just that butterhopper from before. "I should've known. There isn't a ding-bat within miles of here!" he says. But as soon as Eleroo and Bumblelion walk away, the camera pans up to reveal that there are a pair of ding-bats sitting in a tree above them. Oh, the irony!

After that, Bumblelion runs into Hoppopotamus, who's just received her makeover. And it's here that we get Hoppopotamus' OTHER main character trait - not only is she fat, but she has the hots for Bumblelion. But the feeling is not mutual... Bumblelion likes Butterbear. It's basically a Running Gag throughout the show that Hoppopotamus wants to make a new breed of Wuzzle with Bumblelion and she will not take "no" for an answer. And yes, it's very disturbing.

You ever notice how we only ever see one Wuzzle of each kind? There aren't any lion/bumblebee hybrids besides Bumblelion himself running around. Maybe that's why Hoppopotamus is so desperate to hook up with Bumblelion - there isn't anyone else of HER species to date.

Say, what exactly would a Wuzzle of two existing Wuzzles be called?
A Double-Wuzzle?

So Hoppopotamus is all "I want to make hippo-faced, rabbit-eared babies with lion's manes and antennae with you!" but Bumblelion doesn't go for women that look like Gloria from Madagascar had a kid with the March Hare. He heads over to Butterbear's place to help her pick "pumpkinberries" to make a pie. But little do they know that they're being watched by a pair of ding-bats. Dun-dun-dun!

Oh, and then Hoppopotamus shows up and gives Bumblelion a hard time for not thinking she's attractive. But there's no time to argue about that now, the ding-bats have kidnapped Butterbear!

"A ding-bat's got my Care Bear!"

"Poor Butterbear. Looks like she's got a one-way ticket to trouble," the narrator points out. No, ya THINK? And according to Bumblelion, the ding-bats are taking her towards the Terrified Forest, where an evil "vampire-witch" lives. A comment from Hoppopotamus gives Bumblelion an idea - he'll channel Buck Swashler and save Butterbear. She'll be so grateful that she'll immediately fall in love with him. Hoppopotamus announces that she's coming with him because she still wants to hook up with Bumblelion.

Meanwhile, the ding-bats take Butterbear to a creepy old cottage in the woods where a bat-winged vulture lady in witch garb lives. This I'm gonna go out on a limb and say is the vampire-witch that Bumblelion mentioned. And she's not happy - she ordered her ding-bat henchmen to get butterberries, not a Butterbear.

"I ordered you to get me a butterBEER, not a Butterbear! I even gave you
a map to Hogsmeade!"

Then the vampire-witch (Tress MacNeille) sees Bumblelion and Hoppopotamus in her crystal ball. "Intruders in my Terrified Forest?!" she says. She orders the ding-bats to tie up Butterbear and then go after the "intruders". As for Bumblelion and Hoppopotamus, they've come across some terrifying talking trees.

Geez, and I thought the trees from Babes in Toyland were creepy...

After getting away from the trees, Bumblelion and Hoppopotamus have to cross a rickety rope bridge. We get another fat joke at Hoppopotamus' expense, but it's not her weight that makes the bridge collapse but rather the ding-bats sabotaging it. Bumblelion attempts to save her... and fails miserably, so she has to climb them both to safety.

The vampire-witch, meanwhile, is having problems making a good potion and moans about what a loser she's become. And as if THAT weren't enough, she accidentally turned her pet "gorantula" into a monster and it took over her castle. The rejected Gummi Bear offers to help her make a potion to change it back to normal. Meanwhile, Hoppopotamus is the victim of another fat joke as she attempts to channel Tarzan and swing across a pond full of mud.

Actually, she's not the victim of another fat joke. She's the victim of TWO MORE fat jokes. Bumblelion attempts to save her... and fails miserably again.

Errol Flynn you are not, Bumblelion.

Hoppopotamus winds up having to save him again, and as if things couldn't get any worse, a swarm of piranhakeets - half-piranha, half-parakeet - emerge from the water. Say, didn't The Croods also have piranha/parakeet hybrids?

Fortunately, they manage to get away, and the smell of barbecue leads them to the vampire-witch's cottage. Once inside, Butterbear and the vampire-witch fill them in as to what's going on - a giant "gorantula" has taken over the vampire-witch's castle and they're working on a potion to shrink it. They need butterberries to complete the potion, but they're out of season at the moment. But what luck, there are some in the laboratory of the vampire-witch's castle... where the aforementioned giant "gorantula" is. Then we get a reference to The Wizard of Oz (fitting, since we have a witch and a cowardly lion... well, a cowardly lion/bumblebee hybrid, anyway).

So off Bumblelion heads to the castle, Hoppopotamus running after him when she discovers that he forgot his whip. He has to climb a tree to get past a moat infested by what appear to be polar bear/alligator hybrids... as does Hoppopotamus, resulting in - get ready for this - ANOTHER FAT JOKE!

Bumblelion makes it to the laboratory, where he finds those pesky butterberries.

Looks more like cheese to me, but eh...

Back at the cottage, Butterbear decides that it's time to give the vampire-witch a "vampire-witch once-over", despite the fact that she believes herself to be a flop as a witch. Said "once-over" is just her getting a mohawk and a mole on her cheek. That's it. But she considers herself much better-looking now. Bumblelion shows up with the butterberries, then after Butterbear tells him that Hoppopotamus went after him makes a run back to the castle before the gorantula gets its hands, or whatever it is that gorantulas have, on her.

And we finally get to see what this gorantula - as its name suggests, it's half-gorilla, half-tarantula - looks like.

It wouldn't be a Disney cartoon without at least one example of some Grade-A
Nightmare Fuel.

The vampire-witch has finished the potion, so she hops aboard her "boomerang-stick" and heads to the castle to save Bumblelion and Hoppopotamus from the gorantula. We get yet another fat joke at Hoppopotamus' expense, then the vampire-witch uses a spell to transport them and Butterbear home. Hoppopotamus now loves Buck Swashler's show. The end.

WHAT'S THE VERDICT?

The Wuzzles is basically what you'd expect. Sure, it's a blatant attempt to sell plushes. And yeah, it's also very disturbing how much Hoppopotamus wants to get it on with Bumblelion. But the show has a lot of charm to save it from just coming across as a twenty-two minute toy commercial. The voice actors give it their all, the animation's good, the character designs are fun... actually, you know what this is? It's basically Spliced, but it's actually good.

If you'd like to give the show a watch, you can find a bunch of episodes on YouTube. Which is convenient, seeing as it's not on DVD (I'm not even sure if it got a VHS release). You'll probably find yourself liking it.