tek's rating:

Raw Toonage, on CBS
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This was a short-lived Saturday morning cartoon, in 1992. Each week the show was hosted by a different Disney character (I mainly remember Sebastian the crab and Ludwig von Drake). And there were a few different segments, mini-cartoons within the half hour.

One segment featured a crazy bobcat named Bonkers. I don't remember much about this segment, though Bonkers had a nervous sidekick, a dog named Jitters. Also there was a girl named Fawn Deer, who was like Bonkers's love interest or whatever. (I thought she was pretty hot, as anthropomorphised deer go.) Anyway, Bonkers later got his own series (Wikipedia), in which he'd been fired as a cartoon actor and became a cop. I didn't like that show as much as the Raw Toonage segment.

There was Marsupilami, this critter with a really long tail, who had a gorilla friend named Maurice. (Apparently Marsupilami was a comic book in the 1950s, though I never heard of him before this cartoon.) He basically had wacky adventures in the jungle, which often involved outwitting a human poacher named Norman. I remember thinking Marsupilami was from Australia, though looking at Wikipedia, it seems he was from South America. Anyway, Marsupilami later got his own show too (Wikipedia), which was pretty much the same as the Raw Toonage segment. (This was probably my favorite part of the show).

There was also a segment called "Totally Tasteless Video," which was sort of different each week, no regular characters as I recall. So, I don't really remember anything specific about this segment, except that one was a Doogie Howser parody called "Doggie Schnauzer."

Anyway, the show was rather amusing, and the segments worked well, being as short as they were. I'm afraid I don't remember the series that well, and if I saw it now, I might rate it a bit lower, in retrospect. But it was possibly my favorite animated series that was airing at the time. Which possibly doesn't say much for the state of TV animation in 1992, though actually I think it would be more apt to say that it doesn't say much for how many channels were available to me at the time. Honestly, it was pretty much just CBS. Still... definitely not a bad show.


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