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Made with DeviantArt muro

A request by [NAME REDACTED]

I was asked to draw characters from Bonkers interacting with characters from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I felt nothing would be more appropriate than having certain characters meeting with their counterparts (Lucky Piquel meeting with Eddie Valiant because they're both serious-minded cops prejudiced against toons who in the end aren't bad people, Bonkers meeting Roger because they're both goofy cartoon characters and the title characters of their respective works, and Fawn Deer meeting with Jessica Rabbit because they're both voluptuous love interests to the title character who are probably a major reason their works haven't faded into obscurity).

As these pictures often do, I will have an analysis on the works involved. First, I'll clear up a common misconception about the connection between Bonkers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. For a time, it was widely believed that Bonkers was originally intended to be an animated series for Who Framed Roger Rabbit before being retooled into a different project at the last minute. Greg Weisman himself has made it clear that this is not true and that the only role Who Framed Roger Rabbit had with Bonkers' development was that it was the inspiration.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, loosely based on Gary Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, was a film released in 1988 and remembered best for its risque humor and blending animation with live-action. Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is sided with Roger (Charles Fleischer) and has to prove his innocence of a crime, eventually thwarting the schemes of Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) and finding out he's really the toon who killed Eddie's brother.

Bonkers was one of the Disney Afternoon shows and starred a cartoon bobcat voiced by Jim Cummings who loses his job as a cartoon star and ends up becoming a cop. In every episode, he and his human partner would be tasked with bringing a criminal to justice. The episodes with Lucky Piquel (also Jim Cummings) were produced after the ones with Bonkers having Miranda Wright (Karla DeVito) as his partner, but aired first, with one episode even explaining how the switch happened, which was unfortunately banned from airing after the Oklahoma office bombing, the chances of it returning to the airwaves becoming even more doubtful after the 9/11 attacks.

I really enjoyed watching Bonkers, particularly because of its humor and because so many of my favorite voice actors were involved.

I'm also aware that the show has a Fandom Rivalry with Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers and that Animaniacs has made some potshots toward Bonkers. I will now explain my thoughts on both.

It may shock some of you that I like both Bonkers and Rescue Rangers, and I find the reason behind the rivalry to be a bit trivial. I know that Bonkers eventually replaced Rescue Rangers in its timeslot, but it's not like that sort of thing hasn't happened to any other cartoon. I also once did a crossover comic between the two shows that was actually asked to be allowed in a few Rescue Rangers groups here on DeviantART, so it's apparent that Rescue Ranger fans hating Bonkers is not a universally-held opinion.

As for Animaniacs, I'll clarify that I enjoy that show, too, but I'm still pretty peeved about all the Disney digs they made, mainly since they didn't amount to anything more than "Dur hur, it's by Disney, so it sucks". I know Disney and Warner Bros. are rivals, but I still found a lot of the Disney digs to be spiteful and petty. I'd rather not go any further in expressing my distaste for Animaniac's general anti-Disney jokes, so I'll elaborate on their beef with Bonkers.

Apparently, Bonkers was at one point a working title for Animaniacs, and the people who worked on Animaniacs apparently thought that making fun of the show that took the name first was a reasonable and mature form of retaliation. I found the jabs in question to be pretty shallow and unfair. More power to you if you don't think the jabs are that big a deal, but that's my opinion and it's within my rights to express it.

The episode "Slappy Goes Walnuts" had Slappy remark "No wonder you like that Bonkers show so much" after quipping that the sugary cereal her nephew Skippy likes rotted his brain. I think we can all agree that it's pretty low to insult a show by insinuating that only idiots can appreciate it. I may be one of the people who detests Teen Titans Go with a passion, but I draw the line at calling its few fans tasteless imbeciles.

The other dig towards Bonkers happened in the episode "Deduces Wild", where one of the items the Warners were looking for on their scavenger hunt was "a funny episode of Bonkers", the obvious implication they're making being that a funny episode of Bonkers in their eyes is either rare or non-existent. I don't think there's anything I need to add on this one.

I reiterate that I am actually fond of Animaniacs. Just so it's clear, you don't have to be afraid of criticizing works of fiction just because you like them. For example, I'm very fond of Mickey MouseWorks and House of Mouse because of their wackiness and occasional adult humor, but I'm still vexed that they made Daisy Duck a self-centered moron, and the less said about the Thanksgiving episode, the better.

All my kvetches aside, I do see a humorous irony in that Bonkers not only shares several voice actors with Animaniacs (Jim Cummings, Frank Welker, Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jess Harnell, Corey Burton, Maurice LaMarche, Chick Vennera, Cree Summer, Nancy Cartwright, Earl Boen, Ron Perlman), but also because two of the voice actors on Bonkers auditioned for roles on Animaniacs, but were rejected (I speak of Charlie Adler and the late Joe Alaskey).

Now that we've got my personal butthurts out of the way, I'd also like to say that I find it puzzling that Disney hasn't given Bonkers a DVD release yet. Considering that they tend to do DVD releases of the Disney Afternoon shows in volumes with about 25 episodes per volume, they could easily release the show in its entirety in just three volumes (Volume 1 being half of the Lucky Piquel episodes, Volume 2 being the remainder of the Lucky Piquel episodes, and Volume 3 being the Miranda Wright episodes and the episodes edited together from Raw Toonage segments).

That's all I can think about discussing. Sorry for the ranting parts.

Bonkers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (c) Disney

Description
Made with DeviantArt muro

A request by [NAME REDACTED]

I was asked to draw characters from Bonkers interacting with characters from Who Framed Roger Rabbit. I felt nothing would be more appropriate than having certain characters meeting with their counterparts (Lucky Piquel meeting with Eddie Valiant because they're both serious-minded cops prejudiced against toons who in the end aren't bad people, Bonkers meeting Roger because they're both goofy cartoon characters and the title characters of their respective works, and Fawn Deer meeting with Jessica Rabbit because they're both voluptuous love interests to the title character who are probably a major reason their works haven't faded into obscurity).

As these pictures often do, I will have an analysis on the works involved. First, I'll clear up a common misconception about the connection between Bonkers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit. For a time, it was widely believed that Bonkers was originally intended to be an animated series for Who Framed Roger Rabbit before being retooled into a different project at the last minute. Greg Weisman himself has made it clear that this is not true and that the only role Who Framed Roger Rabbit had with Bonkers' development was that it was the inspiration.

Who Framed Roger Rabbit, loosely based on Gary Wolf's novel Who Censored Roger Rabbit?, was a film released in 1988 and remembered best for its risque humor and blending animation with live-action. Eddie Valiant (Bob Hoskins) is sided with Roger (Charles Fleischer) and has to prove his innocence of a crime, eventually thwarting the schemes of Judge Doom (Christopher Lloyd) and finding out he's really the toon who killed Eddie's brother.

Bonkers was one of the Disney Afternoon shows and starred a cartoon bobcat voiced by Jim Cummings who loses his job as a cartoon star and ends up becoming a cop. In every episode, he and his human partner would be tasked with bringing a criminal to justice. The episodes with Lucky Piquel (also Jim Cummings) were produced after the ones with Bonkers having Miranda Wright (Karla DeVito) as his partner, but aired first, with one episode even explaining how the switch happened, which was unfortunately banned from airing after the Oklahoma office bombing, the chances of it returning to the airwaves becoming even more doubtful after the 9/11 attacks.

I really enjoyed watching Bonkers, particularly because of its humor and because so many of my favorite voice actors were involved.

I'm also aware that the show has a Fandom Rivalry with Chip n Dale: Rescue Rangers and that Animaniacs has made some potshots toward Bonkers. I will now explain my thoughts on both.

It may shock some of you that I like both Bonkers and Rescue Rangers, and I find the reason behind the rivalry to be a bit trivial. I know that Bonkers eventually replaced Rescue Rangers in its timeslot, but it's not like that sort of thing hasn't happened to any other cartoon. I also once did a crossover comic between the two shows that was actually asked to be allowed in a few Rescue Rangers groups here on DeviantART, so it's apparent that Rescue Ranger fans hating Bonkers is not a universally-held opinion.

As for Animaniacs, I'll clarify that I enjoy that show, too, but I'm still pretty peeved about all the Disney digs they made, mainly since they didn't amount to anything more than "Dur hur, it's by Disney, so it sucks". I know Disney and Warner Bros. are rivals, but I still found a lot of the Disney digs to be spiteful and petty. I'd rather not go any further in expressing my distaste for Animaniac's general anti-Disney jokes, so I'll elaborate on their beef with Bonkers.

Apparently, Bonkers was at one point a working title for Animaniacs, and the people who worked on Animaniacs apparently thought that making fun of the show that took the name first was a reasonable and mature form of retaliation. I found the jabs in question to be pretty shallow and unfair. More power to you if you don't think the jabs are that big a deal, but that's my opinion and it's within my rights to express it.

The episode "Slappy Goes Walnuts" had Slappy remark "No wonder you like that Bonkers show so much" after quipping that the sugary cereal her nephew Skippy likes rotted his brain. I think we can all agree that it's pretty low to insult a show by insinuating that only idiots can appreciate it. I may be one of the people who detests Teen Titans Go with a passion, but I draw the line at calling its few fans tasteless imbeciles.

The other dig towards Bonkers happened in the episode "Deduces Wild", where one of the items the Warners were looking for on their scavenger hunt was "a funny episode of Bonkers", the obvious implication they're making being that a funny episode of Bonkers in their eyes is either rare or non-existent. I don't think there's anything I need to add on this one.

I reiterate that I am actually fond of Animaniacs. Just so it's clear, you don't have to be afraid of criticizing works of fiction just because you like them. For example, I'm very fond of Mickey MouseWorks and House of Mouse because of their wackiness and occasional adult humor, but I'm still vexed that they made Daisy Duck a self-centered moron, and the less said about the Thanksgiving episode, the better.

All my kvetches aside, I do see a humorous irony in that Bonkers not only shares several voice actors with Animaniacs (Jim Cummings, Frank Welker, Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jess Harnell, Corey Burton, Maurice LaMarche, Chick Vennera, Cree Summer, Nancy Cartwright, Earl Boen, Ron Perlman), but also because two of the voice actors on Bonkers auditioned for roles on Animaniacs, but were rejected (I speak of Charlie Adler and the late Joe Alaskey).

Now that we've got my personal butthurts out of the way, I'd also like to say that I find it puzzling that Disney hasn't given Bonkers a DVD release yet. Considering that they tend to do DVD releases of the Disney Afternoon shows in volumes with about 25 episodes per volume, they could easily release the show in its entirety in just three volumes (Volume 1 being half of the Lucky Piquel episodes, Volume 2 being the remainder of the Lucky Piquel episodes, and Volume 3 being the Miranda Wright episodes and the episodes edited together from Raw Toonage segments).

That's all I can think about discussing. Sorry for the ranting parts.

Bonkers and Who Framed Roger Rabbit (c) Disney