NOTE: Please do not take any of the little nitpicks in this review (or any of my other reviews, for that matter) seriously. I write these reviews in the hopes of making people laugh. Those nitpicks are really just dumb little observations that I'm attempting to make jokes out of, not complaints that add to whether or not I like something.
NOTE #2: No disrespect is meant towards anyone who worked on the show I am reviewing today. I'm sure they are all very nice and talented people.
NOTE #3: If you like this show, that is great. Go ahead and like it. I'm not judging you.
You know who Tex Avery is, right?
If you're a big fan of animation, you should. Tex is one of the most influential animators who ever lived. His cartoons were known for how absolutely deranged and bizarre they were: lots of surrealist humor, fourth wall shattering, sight gags, that sort of thing. He helped create characters like Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, and Porky Pig for Warner Brothers, and also created characters like Droopy, Red Hot Riding Hood, and Screwy Squirrel for MGM. A lot of cartoons made since the Golden Age of Animation owe a lot to Tex.
Now, in the 1990s, Tex's influence was still present in animated MOVIES (Aladdin and Hercules, for example, both have gags that wouldn't be out of place in Tex's cartoons), television shows not so much. All the new Looney Tunes productions at the time based their styles of humor and takes on the characters from Chuck Jones' shorts, and a lot of comedic cartoons were either following the Animaniacs mindset of "pop culture references and risque humor = instant laughs" (The Spooktacular Adventures of Casper, for instance), trying too hard to be hip and cool with the kids, yo (coughcoughQuack Packcoughcough) or just doing their own thing (The Angry Beavers is a hilarious show, but I would hesitate to say it's similar to Tex's work). So doing a cartoon that reminds the world of what Mr. Avery brought to the table sounds like a good idea on paper, right?
A few things made The Wacky World of Tex Avery, created by the good folks at DiC Entertainment, doomed from the start. Most notably, this show had absolutely nothing to do with Tex or his characters - there's no Droopy, no Screwy Squirrel, certainly no Looney Tunes characters. Apparently, they originally wanted to use his characters, but they couldn't get the rights. Their solution? Make a bunch of new characters inspired by characters from Tex's cartoon shorts, name one of them after Tex, and rely mostly on aping Tex's style. The show premiered in France on September 3rd, 1997 and then aired in syndication in the United States in November. One season of sixty-five episodes was produced.
Each episode of The Wacky World of Tex Avery featured three segments. You had...
- Tex Avery, a cowboy loosely based on a character created NOT by Tex Avery but rather by Bob Clampett - Red Hot Ryder from Buckaroo Bugs. Voiced by the great Billy West, Tex repeatedly faces off against the villainous Sagebrush Sid (also Billy West).
- Pompeii Pete (voiced by Ian James Corlett), a diminuitive Roman centurion who survived a volcano's eruption by being preserved in lava and now lives in the modern world. He doesn't seem to have any trouble adapting and mostly just serves as an way to put a guy named Dan (Alec Willows) through the wringer, whether he deserves it or not.
- Einstone (also Ian James Corlett), an inexplicably German-accented caveman and the world's first inventor. Whenever he tries to teach the other cavemen how to use his inventions, "hilarity" ensues.
- Genghis (Lee Tockar) and Khannie (Cree Summer using her Elmyra Duff voice), a lion and panda cub respectively. Genghis is a warlord trying to conquer places, but wherever he goes, he runs into Khannie, who always manages to foil his plans.
- Freddy the Fly (Billy West again), a hobo fly whose very presence ticks off a fat short-tempered billionaire named Amanda Banshee (Scott McNeil).
- Maurice (Terry Klassen) and Mooch (Maurice LaMarche), a chick and a fox respectively. They're basically just Tweety and Sylvester except they're a chick and a fox instead of a canary and a cat. And also Maurice has a Swedish accent. And also they're not funny. By the way, Tex Avery didn't even create Sylvester or Tweety, I don't think he even directed any Sylvester and Tweety cartoons.
- Power Pooch (Phil Hayes), a dog who gains superpowers after licking a superhero's shoe and fights the forces of evil with his kitten sidekick, Little Buddy (also Lee Tockar).
The Wacky World of Tex Avery is generally regarded as being crap by everyone who's watched it. Apparently it did better outside of the U.S., in places where Tex isn't quite as well-known. Currently, you can find it on Tubi, and I believe it's also airing on the channel MeTV Toons. For years, it's been sitting there begging for me to do a review of it, but I was afraid to. Not just because of how bad I've heard it was, but because I feared that maybe I'd actually wind up LIKING it, or finding it just okay, and that would mean I have weird taste in cartoons. It doesn't help that TV Tropes claims that most people have said it's not that bad. But, regardless, I knew that I would have to do it EVENTUALLY, and after so many reviews in a row of things that I found either okay (Robotboy, The Replacements) or mediocre (The Get-Along Gang), which I've found don't make for particularly funny reviews, I decided that I needed to review something that was supposedly really, really bad, if only to make my blog less monotonous.
Did I enjoy The Wacky World of Tex Avery? Spoiler alert: NO. I mean, for crying out loud, just look at the intro:
I think that summed it up, but today, I did something a little different. I've decided to review TWO episodes, not one, the second one consisting of three different segments than the first. I think this'll help me judge the show better. Or maybe I'm just a glutton for punishment, either or. We'll be watching the fourth episode first, then the tenth episode after that. This is The Wacky World of Tex Avery.
Our first segment, starring Tex Avery, is "Bottleneck Bear".
We start off with Tex strolling along, playing a guitar and singing "Oh My Darling Clementine". Before Huckleberry Hound can show up and sue him for copying his shtick, Tex realizes that he's near the house of his much hotter girlfriend Chasity Knott (Kathleen Barr), and he's not gonna pass up the chance to suck face with her.
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| The 1990s: the decade that told us it was okay to be attracted to a cartoon character. See also Lola Bunny, Hello Nurse, Jasmine, Esmeralda... |
There's just one problem - to get to Chasity's house, he has to walk past the cave of a bear. A bear with an attitude problem.
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| "I'm surlier than the a-ver-age bear!" |
The bear beats the crap out of Tex, then crumples him up into a ball and sends him flying. He lands in a hole occupied by a rabbit who is clearly meant to be Bugs Bunny but he isn't Bugs Bunny because he's owned by another company.
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| See, he's PURPLE, not grey. That makes him a totally different character! |
"I'd like to see him try that again!" Tex claims as he tries to walk by the bear's cave once again. And the bear... well, he doesn't quite try it again. He just EATS Tex. Well, cartoon over. Eh-buh-dee-eh-buh-dee-that's all, folks.
Oh, of COURSE Tex is alive - he's a cartoon character, after all. He's sitting in the bear's stomach, waiting to be digested. Take a look at what the bear's been eating. Yogi Bear just eats the food inside pic-a-nic baskets, this bear has eaten the whole basket, the picnic blanket, an umbrella... dear lord, I wonder if he ate the picnickers too, and we just don't see them because they've already been digested.
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| And why am I making so many Hanna-Barbera jokes in a show based on Tex Avery's work? |
Tex starts a fire and then escapes through a convenient door in the bear's stomach. I gotta say it, there's an episode of Timon and Pumbaa that did the "bear has a door in his stomach" joke better. Then he fills the bear's stomach with gasoline, causing an explosion. The bear's pretty mad now, but before he can pound Tex, a whistle goes off, prompting Tex to announce a "union break". Then another bear shows up, gives him demerits for not taking a union break, and puts him on probation. Are you laughing yet? I'm not.
We get a chase scene that culminates in Tex getting tossed into the rabbit's hole again, and then Tex decides to dress up like Goldilocks. Apparently, the Bear Union states that if you're a bear, you can't hurt Goldilocks unless she's in your house. Before the bear can even do anything to Tex, his cave gets taken away by the Bear Union. Okay, now I'm honestly on the bear's side. Becoming homeless seems like a pretty harsh punishment.
After that, the bear grabs what he thinks is Tex and shoves a pot of honey on his head. And then a beehive. And then three bowls of porridge. And then he starts hitting him with a club... which Tex hands to him. Uh oh, if THAT'S Tex, then who's he attacking?
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| "Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Bamm! Bamm!" (Look, ANOTHER Hanna-Barbera joke. Why AM I making so many of them?) |
As you probably could have guessed, it's that bear from the union who kept giving him demerits. As a result, he has to... become Chasity's maid? I don't get the joke here...
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| Remember, all you folks unlucky in love: if Tex can get a significant other, one much hotter than him at that, ANYONE can! |
Okay, next segment...
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| If that's a lady, I'm a Vermicious Knid. |
After Maurice's parents leave, Mooch heads into the kitchen to get Maurice some ice cream... and also prepare a nice soup to eat the chick in. There are exactly two jokes in this scene: cutting onions makes Mooch tear up, and the chickens' freezer for some reason has a penguin in it. Neither one is funny.
Next, Mooch attempts to whack Maurice with a giant mallet, but fails at it. Maurice assumes that this means his babysitter wants to play "War". I genuinely don't know if he's aware that Mooch wants to eat him and is just playing along so he can subject him to WHACKY SHENANIGANS or if he's genuinely this dumb. I'm guessing it's the first one, that's usually how it goes in cartoons like this.
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| I don't think I've ever owned a Super Soaker. That's not particularly interesting, but I couldn't think of anything else to say here. |
It's eight o'clock, which means it's time for Maurice's bath. Mooch pours the contents of the soup pot he prepared earlier into the tub, but when Maurice jumps into the hot broth, he's perfectly fine. When a confused Mooch sticks his finger in there, we get a joke that was probably meant to be funny but instead just comes off as painful:
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| Ouch. And, also, ew. |
Question: is it even legal for Mooch to eat Maurice when they're both anthropomorphic? Like, Sylvester and Tweety were still pretty anthropomorphic too, but they were still essentially a cat and a bird. They didn't wear clothes, they were kept by Granny as pets instead of living in houses that they owned themselves, Sylvester's trying to eat Tweety was clearly just cat instinct more than anything. But Maurice and Mooch are clearly just as anthropomorphic as, say, Porky Pig is. Wouldn't Mooch be charged for infantcide? And if he's a legal citizen in a world full of other anthropomorphic animals, isn't there some other way he can get food? Can't he just go to a supermarket or something?
Mooch's next attempt to eat Maurice results in the whole bathroom being flooded, and we get one of those Scooby-Doo-esque gags where the characters run in and out of doors on opposite sides of each other. Long story short, Maurice eventually manages to trap Mooch in his own crock pot, shrinking him down to the size of a Barbie doll.
Declaring that Maurice's parents will be hearing from his lawyer, Mooch storms out of the house... and is promptly attacked by the babysitter he mugged earlier. The end. Let's see what Freddy the Fly is up to...
"Flychiatry" begins with Amanda doing much damage to her dollar sign-shaped house in an attempt to kill Freddy. She really hates flies, more so than anybody probably should. Eventually, some guys in an ambulance show up and drag her out of her house in a straightjacket. I feel like we're being given the punchline to a cartoon without being shown the setup first.
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| The ambulance also looks like a limousine for some reason? I guess it's supposed to be a joke about how Amanda is rich? Maybe? |
At the mental asylum, a psychiatrist with the voice of the Brain has to listen to Amanda rant for what seems like an eternity about Freddy. He eventually deduces that this fly is nothing more than a figment of her imagination, a manifestation of whatever is bugging her (ba dum kssssh). She dubs herself cured and goes back to her mansion, where she sees Freddy again and thinks that she's relapsing. Thus begins a few minutes of the same joke being told over and over again: she sees the fly, she pinches herself and says that there is no fly, the fly vanishes and she thinks she's just imagining him, lather, rinse, repeat.
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| I guess this qualifies as a "fly in my soup" gag. They probably felt required to do it at least ONCE. |
Eventually, Freddy calls up the psychiatrist, and when he shows up he realizes that if he can see Freddy too, the fly must be real after all. Amanda does not take that well, and chases him around the house hungry for psychiatrist blood. Fin.
Well, that sucked. Let's watch the tenth episode, which begins with the Genghis and Khannie segment "Greek-a-Boo":
Genghis is a barbarian, crossing the Mediterranean Sea. His crew consists of Attila the Hun lookalikes, and they're planning to conquer Greece.
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| Apparently, Genghis is inspired by the lion from Tex's 1947 cartoon Slap Happy Lion. I don't care much for that short - it's one of those cartoons where a smug jerk torments someone for the heck of it, is always one step ahead of them, is unescapable no matter how hard the tormentee tries, and winds up getting off scott-free. |
Upon arriving in Greece, Genghis proclaims that he'll conquer it using a trick he learned while conquering Troy. He'll use a Trojan Horse... or rather, a Trojan PIG. Pigs are funnier than horses, I guess?
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| Well, at least it's not a Trojan MONKEY. You know how funny everyone thinks monkeys are... |
His plan is to give the pig to the Greeks as a gift, with them hiding inside it, then they'll jump out and conquer 'em. Who answers the door when they attempt it? Khannie, who declares that she'll burn it as a sacrifice to the gods of Olympus. Haven't her parents taught her not to play with matches?
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| I know Maurice is the Tweety Bird knockoff here, but I can't help but wonder if Khannie was inspired by him too. They have the exact same head shape. |
So she sets it aflame and sends it tumbling down the hill. Greeks: one, Genghis: nada. Next, he builds a Trojan PUPPY, because who could turn down a puppy? Problem is, Khannie says she can't let the giant puppy in until it "does its duty" - or rather, its DOODY. Yes, this show that desperately wants to be Tex Avery's work has toilet humor in it. Nyuck nyuck nyuck.
After emerging from the Trojan Dog's rear end, Genghis and his crew are surrounded by Greek guards, wrapped up in newspaper like fish, and tossed over a cliff. Genghis' next plan is to hide in a giant wooden Statue of Liberty. Khannie puts the statue... where the actual Statue of Liberty is located. Okay, I guess that's... KIND OF funny?
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| Well, maybe Genghis can conquer New York instead. Or at least see a Broadway show (I bet he'd love The Lion King). |
Upon returning to Greece, Genghis discovers that they can get in simply by finding the key under the welcome mat. They head inside and run into Khannie, who somehow drags them into taking part in her play. After more unfunny jokes, we cut to this fat guy who I'm guessing is supposed to be Zeus, who's watching the play on TV. He dubs the lion an awful actor and cancels the show. The end.
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| "Ugh, they call THIS a tribute to Tex Avery? I'm watching something else. Maybe Cow and Chicken is on..." |
Next segment...
"Toothpaste Pete" casts Dan as a bank robber, who hides out from the cops in a dentist's office. He tells the receptionist that he has a toothache, so she calls for the dentist's assistant. I'll give you five guesses who that assistant is.
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| The dentist's waiting room has a potted cactus in it. I'm not sure what the joke there is, but I'll admit it's sort of funny too, if only for how "out there" it is. |
Let's be honest, going to the dentist is awful enough already, but all this short does is demonstrate how much Pete should not be a dentist's assistant, which begs the question as to how he got the job in the first place. He burns a hole in Dan's head, plays his teeth like a xylophone, and while attempting to clean them SCRUBS DAN'S FACE OFF. Congratulations, cartoon, you are making me feel sorry for a BANK ROBBER.
Eventually, Pete manages to remove all of Dan's teeth, and when he complains that he wants them back fills his mouth up with cement and sculpts replacement teeth out of it. Dan runs away screaming, Pete continues to babble in Italian, and I'm still not laughing.
Our third segment stars Einstone.
It's a rainy day in Not-Bedrock. While Einstone is attempting to invent an electric whoopie cushion (I don't know either), the other cavemen are bothered by a leak in their cave's roof. He tells the cavemen to get a lot of tar and meet him on the cave's roof - they'll use the car to cover the leak. But the cavemen just pour the tar all over themselves, and eventually create an even BIGGER hole in the roof out of stupidity. "Zhese morons have zhe I.Q. of a ROCK!" Einstone complains. "On second thought, I doubt zhey're zhat evolved!"
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| They make Patrick Star, Linda Belcher, Dudley Puppy, Pinkie Pie, Peter Griffin, Ralph Wiggum, Zapp Brannigan, Stimpy, and Cosmo from The Fairly OddParents look like members of MENSA. |
So they try again. First, he puts some sticks, palm fronds, and bricks over the hole. Then he tells the cavemen to pour the tar over it. Instead, they pour it over themselves again. Honestly, Einstone, why did you even bother enlisting their help?
Enraged, Einstone glues the three dimwitted tar-covered cavemen to the cave's roof. Problem solved... oh, wait, there's another leak. Well, no time to worry about that now, Einstone decides to invent the microwave, the dishwasher, and the toilet.
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| Pictured: where this show belongs. |
Blah blah blah, it takes a few minutes to get the cavemen to understand how using a toilet works, and eventually Einstone makes a decent amount of money by making it a pay toilet. "Zhere's no business like BUSINESS business!" he tells us. The end.
What's the Verdict? (Finally!)
Y'know, if this show weren't meant to be a tribute to Tex Avery, I'd probably just brush it off as one of those cartoons that's bad, but not the worst thing I've ever seen. But the fact that it was meant to be a tribute to one of the most influental animators of all time makes it so much worse than it really is.
Ignoring that, as previously stated, it really has nothing to do with Tex aside from one of the characters being named after him, this show feels nothing like Tex's work. It doesn't LOOK like Tex's work - most of that is probably because they used digital ink and paint over the original cartoons' hand-painted backgrounds, but the characters look more like they jumped out of The Ren and Stimpy Show than anything. Second, the jokes suck. There aren't any of the clever sight gags. The dialogue isn't witty at all. Every so often we get a wild take, but they feel very restrained compared to the ones in a Droopy or Red Hot Riding Hood cartoon. Every single attempt at slapstick falls flat. There's barely even any squash-and-stretch! The characters? I can't think of one I actually liked. They're all either dull and unfunny (Tex Avery himself), incredibly annoying (Pompeii Pete), unpleasant (Amanda), or knockoffs (Maurice). The voice actors are trying their best, but even they can't make the characters more fun to watch.
Do you know what this is? Remember those crappy Larry Doyle-produced Looney Tunes shorts Warner Bros. made in the 2000s? Y'know, Museum Scream and Cock-a-Doodle-Duel and the other four? Those shorts that were so bad Warner Bros. cancelled the ones that hadn't been completed yet and decided not to release them in theaters like they'd been planning? Imagine if Larry Doyle and his crew somehow got to be in charge of an Animaniacs reboot. That's The Wacky World of Tex Avery. My suggestion: seek out the cartoons actually made by Tex Avery instead. You can find most of them online (a few are on Dailymotion, some of them are on Vimeo). You'll have far more fun watching shorts like Happy-Go-Nutty, Dumb-Hounded, and Magician Maestro than you will watching this garbage.
To end this review, I looked up the writers of these episodes to see what else they've worked on. They've got pretty impressive resumes... Drew Daywalt wrote for Timon and Pumbaa and Buzz Lightyear of Star Command. Henry Gilroy wrote episodes of 2 Stupid Dogs, Taz-Mania, Jackie Chan Adventures, Kim Possible, El Tigre, and even a lot of Marvel cartoons. Jeffrey Scott worked on DuckTales, TaleSpin, Muppet Babies, Goof Troop, the 1980s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, The Adventures of Sonic the Hedgehog, The Save-Ums!, and Dragon Tales. As for Mike Fontanelli, he seems to be more of an animator than a writer, doing character designs for shows like Tiny Toon Adventures and SpongeBob SquarePants (though he did write two cartoons for House of Mouse). All four of these guys (I couldn't find any information about Michael Patrick Dobbins, he's likely done better work elsewhere too) clearly have talent, so what on Earth happened here?
Further reading:
- A 2011 review of the show by a Mr. Martianinvader
- The Terror of Tiny Toon's 2014 review of the show
And no, I'm not doing a re-review of the show, so don't even ask.
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