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What A Cartoon! - Bonkers "I Oughta Be In Toons" (Patreon)

Published:
2019-11-18 05:01:00
Imported:
2026-06
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Disney's Bonkers has become a bit of a running joke on the Talking Simpsons Network, so of course we're doing an episode about it now that Disney+ has finally made it legally available for the first time in 15 years! While Bonkers remains the most unmemorable entry in The Disney Afternoon, it's not particularly awful—just spectacularly mediocre, especially at a time when Disney was well into their rise to conquer and consume all entertainment. But Disney believed in this troubled project so much that they rebooted development one-third of the way through, leaving the world with 65 extremely uneven episodes featuring a very tortured continuity. Join us for this installment of What A Cartoon! as we dive deep into the fascinating history of this Roger Rabbit wannabe, and examine an episode that may point to the creators' troubles with Disney.

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ShyRanger

Question for you two guys, since I'm not as savvy on animation history and such. Is there any other show that's still in the level of Bonkers in terms of "this is a show with a super interesting history but it's really hard to find" not just from Disney but anything. Cause I'd like to know more about these interesting gems that still have yet ot be found.

Brian Hortin

The Roger Rabbit shorts are on Disney+ under the extras section for the movie.

Cody C.

I’m haunted by this theme. I’ve heard it in my head for decades and it will occur at any particular moment without any prompting and send me into a frenzy. I don’t have really anything else to add - it will just be my last conscious thought as I slip into the cold embrace of death. And so I now pass this curse onto you, it will follow you- Wherever you Wherever you Wherever you aaaaaarrrre

Pumpkinbob

I saw a panel with Jim Cummings in 2015 and he kept bringing Bonkers up. He mentioned it at least 3 times to almost no reaction. The panel had the typical, "how do I get in the business" and "do Darkwing Duck" questions over and over of course, but of all his credits Bonkers was the one that came up the most unsolicited for sure. To be fair to him it was about his career, so it wan't totally out of nowhere, but nobody was asking about it. Him doing the voice of both characters was a bit of a lightbulb moment for me because I didn't know he was playing a dual role as a kid. Still, I appreciated it because my daughter, who was 9 at the time finally put some pieces together about voice acting and fandom (both awkward and awesome), but the ride home did consist of me trying to explain Bonkers to her which was not how I saw that day going for sure.

Joe Hodgson

Bonkers is the nadir for the Disney Afternoon. It possesses much of what the previous shows did, just worse. When I hear the phrase Disney Afternoon, I mostly associate it with two things: great animation, super-catchy theme songs. Bonkers looks good. Maybe not as good as Darkwing Duck or DuckTales, and certainly not as consistent, but still better than most. The theme song blows though. That thing is pure trash. And Bonkers only looks good in a technical sense. Everything about the character's design just screams "knock-off" to me, including his voice. He's not funny, and the Toon Town of Bonkers isn't wacky or smart enough to be entertaining. While I agree the premise of this show is good, it definitely didn't turn out well. Lucky is the best part of the show though and I do genuinely like the character and the performance of Jim Cummings. It's too bad the main character just sucks though. I don't know if you were pointing out the "Mickey" inaccuracies just to playfully poke fun at the show, or if you were missing the joke. I understood the joke to be (and I could be wrong) that the Mickey we see in cartoons or at Disneyland's Toon Town is the role Mickey plays. The "real" Mickey is the top celebrity in this world and lives a posh life in a castle that's just a monument to his ego. I also noticed IMDB credits this role as Mickey Mouse and played by Wayne Allwine, Mickey's official voice at the time. I'm curious if that comes from Disney and they're acknowledging this is Mickey or if that is just credited that way on the site just out of ease. CBS Saturday morning in the 90s was such a disaster zone. CBS landed the final season for Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, the infamous red sky episodes, which was after Batman and X-Men changed the landscape for action cartoons. They also went after other action cartoons like Wild C.A.T.S. and Skeleton Warriors, two shows that really wanted to capitalize on the aforementioned action cartoons, but just felt like imitators.

Dan Vincent

Jim Cummings' Bonkers voice is like his Woody Allen and Paul Lynde impressions were put into a blender.

Mr. Neil

Disney shows are *still* fighting the no-Mickey TV rule. Frank Angones, who showruns Ducktales 2017 wanted so badly to get Mickey into the show, since GoofTroop/GoofyMovie era Goofy will be showing up next season. The higher ups wouldn't budge, so as an act of resistance, Donald was shipwrecked alone with a Castaway's "Wilson" style of friend to talk to, made of a Watermelon with the mouse ears. Since the show occasionally needs Donald to be completely intelligible, when he speaks through the melon, it's in Chris Diamantopoulos's Mickey voice. One way or another, Frank got the mouse on the show.

Kris

Bonkers aside I also don't like Shrek The first one is watchable but that's about it.. Also all star is the mystery men song!

KaiserBeamz

I'm sure I mentioned something like this on my Twitter before, but I think the best microcosm for Bonkers’ legacy was its sheer lack of an online fandom in the Web 1.0 days. When I got my own computer in the early-2000s, some of the first places I hung around in were online fandoms for Disney Afternoon shows. One of the things that distinctly stuck out to me was how little of a fanbase Bonkers had. Especially when compared to his Disney Afternoon compatriots. Gargoyles had entire fan conventions devoted to the show. TaleSpin had elaborate art pieces devoted to nearly every female one-off character. Rescue Rangers had an entire fan graphic novel about Gadget becoming a sleeper agent for the United States government. Bonkers almost had nothing. Aside from a smattering of fanart (which you really had to dig to find), no one was calling themselves a Bonkers “fan.” Growing up, Bonkers was a show that always felt “off” to me. Even as a kid, I had a feeling that the sum of this show’s parts was greater than the actual whole. So seeing the Bonkers fandom, or lack thereof, was what made it all come together for me as to why the show didn’t work. Even without knowing its torrid history. Still had it better than The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show. That show had less than zero fan presence.

Thad Komorowski

The studios definitely were *not* lax in loaning their characters out for "Roger Rabbit" - although the idea of them actually doing it as opposed to today's "GTFO" might be seen comparatively as lax. WB's stipulation was that Bugs and Daffy had to have equal screen time/lines with Mickey and Donald. They tried to get Tom & Jerry, Popeye, and Felix the Cat, too, but those respective rights holders were disagreeable.

Thad Komorowski

Rob Taylor was an underrated consummate professional, and is probably why any merit can be found in this POS show. He actually boarded most of Heavy Traffic uncredited, the one Bakshi film that actually works. Bakshi denigrated his involvement.

Thad Komorowski

Also, pretty sure the "network executive" line is mocking how subservient the dog is...

Kevin Peterson

I skimmed through the comments but has anyone touched on the multiple roger rabbit sequels? A cgi animation test leaked for one of them a couple years ago. I know there was one version with Tom Cruise. One was a prequel musical with songs written by Alan Menken that was apparently all written, and then Robert Zemeckis threatened to make an all mo-cap sequel before Disney closed his ImageMovers studio after the Mars Needs Moms failure. I love Zemeckis, but I’m so glad he makes real movies again. I know one of the versions was canceled simply because it was estimated to be the most expensive move ever, just because of the licensing.

JoshuaMartian

I was wondering how you would find three different pieces of Bonkers music to use, seeing as it has half-a-coked-out theme song and little else.

Thad Komorowski

Also, not sure how Bonkers "holds up" in this regard, but if you want too much of a good thing, try Taz-Mania. Show runner Art Vitello seemed to never get enough of Jim Cummings there, so he practically never shuts up as just about every character.

Thad Komorowski

And, maybe someone can point me in the right direction, but a few excerpts I saw with D-List characters the Mad Hatter and March Hare looked incredibly stiff, even when the other characters looked OK. I know, when Ward Kimball is the standard everything's going to look lame, but it looked like they were afraid of doing any exaggeration with characters that scream for it. I should add that just about every Bonkers video has been flagged by a copyright claim now, so I swear to god, I will strangle you, Bob, if I end up with a Disney+ subscription just to watch fucking Bonkers.

Frank Grimes

never realized how troubled the production of this show was as a kid. kinda noticed how they went from lucky to miranda, but didn't really gave it much thought beyond that...and never even noticed the character changes of bonkers between the 3 different versions. guess I was just a dumb kid

Eve of the Stars

Two scenes in the span of five minutes feature Lucky wondering out loud where Bonkers is, and all I could think of was Poochie.

Dylan (batmanboy11) Freitag

The fact that this is a hated show that hasn't been legally viewable in North America for 15 years explains why the name was vaguely familiar but I knew nothing about it before this podcast. This episode was actually pretty entertaining, but HOLY SHIT is the backstory for why it exists + the changeup that it underwent during production are way more interesting then the show could ever be. And this was the first thing I watched after signing up for Disney+, so whoever looks at those metrics must be like "what the fuck?".

Kyle Orland

While the Bonkers theme song may be awful, I have to strongly disagree with you when you say it is not catchy. I have seen maybe 1.5 episodes of Bonkers in my lifetime, and have not watched the show for over two decades. Yet I still *regularly* get the last part of the theme song stuck in my head (starting at about "caught in a trap/ready to snap...") and have great difficulty dislodging it. This happens whenever I hear/think the word Bonkers (which you have said many times on the podcast, so thanks for that...) but also *completely out of the blue* when I am trying to think about anything else. What can I say... I just can't hold back that wacky attack... wherever I... wherever I... wherever I... wherever I aaaaaaaaaaaaaaam. (*Bonkers*)

Boomer Spacely

I feel like I was right in that prime spot where bonkers was relevant (born in 1989, so four for initial run and like eight for toon Disney) so my memories are find but not vivid for the show. Anyway in 2015 I was hit by a car with a Bonkers license plate (driver born in 1988, surprise surprise) which resulted a lot more vividity. Furries, amirite?

Boomer Spacely
>>29424247

Yes I am aware of my admonishment of furries while myself having a furry Avatar, so don't bother pointing it out.

Christoper Cross

Bonkers was my jam on Toon Disney! i even bought the joke book( I still have it)