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The next character I'm going to focus on in Chucklewood Critters...isn't actually a character at all, but rather, a vehicle! (Although in a series which has more than a few 'fantastic' elements in it, it wouldn't have come as a huge shock if this thing had been alive...) This is the cubs' flying machine we see frequently throughout the franchise, their Adventure Machine!

The Adventure Machine first appears in the 1990 (or 1991, I've seen conflicting dates) special..."The Adventure Machine" (well, obviously a special named after it is going to introduce it). While Ranger Jones is fixing up a robot scarecrow that chased after the cubs and went haywire after jumping into water after them, Buttons and Rusty discover an old model car in the garage behind his cabin. (If anything, it looks like the kind of car you might encounter in a kids' soap box derby race.) Jonesy explains that he was helping his nephew build it when he was visiting a while back, but he never finished it. The cubs ask if they can have it and finish it, to which he obliges. They wind up smashing it to pieces against the front door of the home of their rabbit friends, Skipper and Bluebell. But with Skipper's help they are able to rebuild it, complete with wings. The cubs want to see if it can actually fly and have Skipper and Bluebell push it up to the top of the dangerous, Mt. Everest-esque Storm Mountain to test it out. It indeed does fly, but the cubs wind up flying it into a tornado and through what looks like a wormhole/dimensional portal.

Thus begins an extremely strange adventure which sees Buttons and Rusty apparently enter another world. There, they accidentally destroy a dam in a place called Enchanted Valley, encounter critters who literally turn purple when they're enraged, find out that nobody in this place knows what accidents are, and get imprisoned for trying to take shortcuts in repairing the dam. Ultimately, they are able to leave and fix the problems in Enchanted Valley, but upon arriving home the Adventure Machine is totally destroyed when it crashes into Jonesy's field. Yeah...this is probably the strangest episode/special in this whole franchise, and that's saying something since it's packed with more than a few strange moments and ideas!

Despite the fact that the Adventure Machine is totally obliterated at the end of its' titular special, the cubs evidently rebuilt it afterwards, as from then on it appears fairly frequently throughout the series. Later on in the special, a propeller is added to the model car to help it stay airborne. To get the Adventure Machine airborne, Buttons and Rusty need to crank up the propeller and push it down an incline so it can get aloft. Throughout the series, they use the Adventure Machine to travel all sorts of places that would probably take them days to reach on foot. They use it to visit places such as Crystal Bayou (Bearbette and Frisky's old home) and the Wild Country (where they encounter a pony they name Stormy whom Bearbette adopts). Their friends have mixed reactions to the Adventure Machine...Bearbette and Frisky both seem to have a lot of fun riding around in it, but their turtle friend Turner and their mouse friend Skeeter don't seem to enjoy flying in it very much at all! In one episode in which their families are feuding, Buttons and Rusty fly the Adventure Machine to the top of a rocky pillar in Chucklewood Canyon in the hopes that it will bring their folks out to find them and help resolve their conflict. When their fathers climb up to the top and encounter them, they express shock and amazement when the Adventure Machine actually takes off and flies-all this time, they thought the cubs' flights in it were all just a product of their wild imaginations! Throughout the course of the series, it gets smashed, beaten up, battered, and broken, but the cubs always repair it, and always like to travel in it to visit faraway places.

There's a reason I chose to screencap the Adventure Machine...aside from the fact that it is featured rather prominently in this series, this thing is just plain cool. Is it realistic? Hell no (I'm pretty sure there is no way this thing could actually fly in real life). Is it likely incredibly dangerous? Oh, most certainly, yes! But nonetheless, this thing manages to be pretty awesome. You gotta love the cubs' enthusiasm for adventure and how they can actually pilot this contraption on their journeys. Had I seen this series as a kid...well, I think I would've loved the Adventure Machine to death I would've wanted one for myself! They really missed out by not making toys of this contraption (an RC toy of the Adventure Machine seems like it could've been a big seller, at least in my mind...)

Up next, meet the kid who is probably my least favorite character in this entire series (out of the regularly recurring ones), Freddy Raccoon. (How ironic that raccoons are my favorite animals and yet the raccoon in this series is probably the least likable character...)

Chucklewood Critters (c) Encore Enterprises, Inc.

Description
The next character I'm going to focus on in Chucklewood Critters...isn't actually a character at all, but rather, a vehicle! (Although in a series which has more than a few 'fantastic' elements in it, it wouldn't have come as a huge shock if this thing had been alive...) This is the cubs' flying machine we see frequently throughout the franchise, their Adventure Machine!

The Adventure Machine first appears in the 1990 (or 1991, I've seen conflicting dates) special..."The Adventure Machine" (well, obviously a special named after it is going to introduce it). While Ranger Jones is fixing up a robot scarecrow that chased after the cubs and went haywire after jumping into water after them, Buttons and Rusty discover an old model car in the garage behind his cabin. (If anything, it looks like the kind of car you might encounter in a kids' soap box derby race.) Jonesy explains that he was helping his nephew build it when he was visiting a while back, but he never finished it. The cubs ask if they can have it and finish it, to which he obliges. They wind up smashing it to pieces against the front door of the home of their rabbit friends, Skipper and Bluebell. But with Skipper's help they are able to rebuild it, complete with wings. The cubs want to see if it can actually fly and have Skipper and Bluebell push it up to the top of the dangerous, Mt. Everest-esque Storm Mountain to test it out. It indeed does fly, but the cubs wind up flying it into a tornado and through what looks like a wormhole/dimensional portal.

Thus begins an extremely strange adventure which sees Buttons and Rusty apparently enter another world. There, they accidentally destroy a dam in a place called Enchanted Valley, encounter critters who literally turn purple when they're enraged, find out that nobody in this place knows what accidents are, and get imprisoned for trying to take shortcuts in repairing the dam. Ultimately, they are able to leave and fix the problems in Enchanted Valley, but upon arriving home the Adventure Machine is totally destroyed when it crashes into Jonesy's field. Yeah...this is probably the strangest episode/special in this whole franchise, and that's saying something since it's packed with more than a few strange moments and ideas!

Despite the fact that the Adventure Machine is totally obliterated at the end of its' titular special, the cubs evidently rebuilt it afterwards, as from then on it appears fairly frequently throughout the series. Later on in the special, a propeller is added to the model car to help it stay airborne. To get the Adventure Machine airborne, Buttons and Rusty need to crank up the propeller and push it down an incline so it can get aloft. Throughout the series, they use the Adventure Machine to travel all sorts of places that would probably take them days to reach on foot. They use it to visit places such as Crystal Bayou (Bearbette and Frisky's old home) and the Wild Country (where they encounter a pony they name Stormy whom Bearbette adopts). Their friends have mixed reactions to the Adventure Machine...Bearbette and Frisky both seem to have a lot of fun riding around in it, but their turtle friend Turner and their mouse friend Skeeter don't seem to enjoy flying in it very much at all! In one episode in which their families are feuding, Buttons and Rusty fly the Adventure Machine to the top of a rocky pillar in Chucklewood Canyon in the hopes that it will bring their folks out to find them and help resolve their conflict. When their fathers climb up to the top and encounter them, they express shock and amazement when the Adventure Machine actually takes off and flies-all this time, they thought the cubs' flights in it were all just a product of their wild imaginations! Throughout the course of the series, it gets smashed, beaten up, battered, and broken, but the cubs always repair it, and always like to travel in it to visit faraway places.

There's a reason I chose to screencap the Adventure Machine...aside from the fact that it is featured rather prominently in this series, this thing is just plain cool. Is it realistic? Hell no (I'm pretty sure there is no way this thing could actually fly in real life). Is it likely incredibly dangerous? Oh, most certainly, yes! But nonetheless, this thing manages to be pretty awesome. You gotta love the cubs' enthusiasm for adventure and how they can actually pilot this contraption on their journeys. Had I seen this series as a kid...well, I think I would've loved the Adventure Machine to death I would've wanted one for myself! They really missed out by not making toys of this contraption (an RC toy of the Adventure Machine seems like it could've been a big seller, at least in my mind...)

Up next, meet the kid who is probably my least favorite character in this entire series (out of the regularly recurring ones), Freddy Raccoon. (How ironic that raccoons are my favorite animals and yet the raccoon in this series is probably the least likable character...)

Chucklewood Critters (c) Encore Enterprises, Inc.