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Bonkers Christmas: Miracle At The 34th Precint
Reviewed: 12/20/2014
Does That Miracle Involve Lucky Acting Human Instead Of Pretending To Be One?
Well kiddies; a full year has flied by quickly and swifty as I welcome you to more Christmas episodes on The Rant Shack. This one is from one of the messiest cartoons in DTVA and is considered to be a knockoff of Roger Rabbit to some in the know. Welcome to the Rant Shack: Bonkers. Proving that professional wrestlers aren't the only ones who get repackaged (although that point was driven home starting with Ducktales). Anyhow; this show was what Disney originally was planning when they created Bonkers and here is the premise of the show in a nutshell. Also; remember this because I'm going to refer to it in a moment (from Wikipedia (DANGER! DANGER!):
The premise of the series was that Bonkers D. Bobcat, an anthropomorphic bobcat who was a popular cartoon star, had washed out of show business and became a cop. He was made the junior partner of Detective Lucky Piquel, a grim and ill-tempered human who hates toons. Throughout the series, the pair work together to solve crimes in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, California region. Bonkers repeatedly tried to win Piquel's praise, but usually just ended up ruining missions with his antics. After multiple episodes of working with Bonkers, Piquel was given an FBI job in Washington, D.C., and with great glee was finally able to leave Bonkers, but finally realized that after all the time spent hating working with Bonkers he had grown to love him[citation needed]. At the end of the "Lucky" episodes, Bonkers was given a new partner, the attractive Officer Miranda Wright. Although also human, she was far more patient and tolerant of his antics than was Piquel[citation needed]. With Miranda, Bonkers was more the brunt of the slapstick.
Yes; this show got repackaged TWICE in the same series. Here's what was written concerning the production of this show (DANGER! DANGER!):
The series played 65 episodes, as part of The Disney Afternoon. They were not created in chronological order: The "Miranda" episodes were actually produced first, excluding the two-part series premiere, which featured Piquel and Bonkers meeting for the first time[citation needed]. This discrepancy becomes evident when observing the look of the main character in both sets of episodes[citation needed]. In the Raw Toonage shorts, Bonkers was orange with one brown spot, golf-club-like ears, and an undone tail. When the Lucky Piquel episodes (produced by Robert Taylor) were made, the character had a major overhaul: skinnier ears, two black spots on each his tufts, black Tigger-like stripes on his tail, and a different uniform. The Miranda Wright-era episodes (produced by Duane Capizzi & Robert Hathcock) use Bonkers's original look from Raw Toonage. The series also occasionally featured episodes of "cartoons" from Bonkers's pre-police actor days, all lifted from the Raw Toonage series. The Raw Toonage shorts were an after-thought of production[citation needed]. While the Bonkers series was in pre-production, the Raw Toonage team, headed by Larry Latham produced 12 "He's Bonkers" shorts. These shorts were, in the context of Bonkers, explained to be some of the shorts Bonkers made at Wackytoons Studios before he was fired. The animated short entitled Petal to the Metal was originally shown in theaters in 1992 before the feature movie 3 Ninjas,[2] while the rest were shown on the program Raw Toonage. In syndication, the shorts were collected into four full episodes with fillers of new material in between. Meanwhile, Duane Capizzi, making his producing debut, was brought into the fold and teamed with animation veteran Robert Hathcock and charged with making 65 episodes (a full season's worth in syndication).
The episodes theoretically would feature Bonkers with Wright as his partner. These episodes came back from overseas animation studios looking less than spectacular, causing considerable concern at Disney[citation needed]. Ultimately, the original team was replaced, and a team headed by Robert Taylor came in[citation needed]. Only 19 of the original-order shows survived to air[citation needed]; they are what is known as the "Miranda Wright episodes" of Bonkers. Nine of these episodes were aired on The Disney Channel during the first half of 1993 as a preview for the series,[1] before its syndicated premiere in the fall. The 19 Miranda Wright episodes are shown toward the end of the series in the official continuity[citation needed]. Greg Weisman (co-creator of Disney's Gargoyles) worked on the Miranda episodes, and Bonkers's relationship with Miranda inspired Goliath's relationship with Elisa Maza[citation needed]. Taylor threw out the old premise of the show[citation needed]. He replaced it with the Lucky Piquel scenario, but his episodes were revised and established to occur before the original episodes. 42 episodes of the "Piquel Era" were made, including one (New Partners On The Block), which attempted to bridge the gap between the two somewhat contradictory storylines.
So yes; not only was the production order and airing orders messed up, the entire production itself was mangled. Bonkers himself was redesigned twice! The Lucky Piquel era was produced second and shown first! There were two different supervising producers with two contradicting opinions on how the show should be presented. Also; a number of episodes are lifted directly from Raw Toonage (in fact, I reviewed at least one of them already!); similar to a situation Ren & Stimpy's Adult Party Cartoon much later on. Long story short; this show was a trainwreck in terms of productions and it showed even more so than Quack Pack did. However; like Quack Pack, the premise was really solid and without the mess, this show could have really gone places like TaleSpin did before and Gargoyles did later. This show is why leadership at the top and having a visionary (even if that visionary don't remember his product anymore, pointing to Jymn Magon again) who knows what he/she is doing is so important to get a show over. Now; my opinion of Bonkers has been like this in a nutshell: Miranda episodes are great! Lucky episodes are horrible; mostly because Lucky is completely unlikable and Fall Apart Rabbit sucks as comedy relief. Sadly; this episode is #59 on the animation paper and it's a Lucky episode. Anyhow; the plot of this episode is that Christmas is in danger because Santa has amnesia plot; so Lucky has to save Christmas. Yeah; like I'm trusting Lucky to do anything that requires empathy. This is going to be a long one folks. So let's rant on shall we...?
Miracle At The 34th Precint is written by Ralph Sanchez. The story was edited by the late Bruce Talkington. The animation is done by Kennedy Cartoons with ink and paint done by Manilla, Inc. ; which means...TRAINWRECK~!
Opening Moment #1: The opening song is a wacky song with the usual footage from television episodes. It's fine and all; but the sloppiness is apparent: The opening applies to BOTH versions of Bonkers; thus we get several shots of footage of the Miranda episodes (Miranda turning off her alarm clock in her bed for instance) and it also exposes the business when Bonkers leaps into the air and looks bugged eye (Lucky Bonkers is supposed to look more like Tigger, Miranda Bonkers looks like Bonkers from the Raw Toonage shorts by the way. It's easy to tell the difference.). The whole sequence of Bonkers trying to get his fingers unstuck from the typewriter and splatting right into the door (along with the chain riding around the water cooler spot) are all from the Miranda episodes. It's a funny spot otherwise; but still exposes the business. Also the end of the song showing Bonkers twirling down the drain from a draining bathtub is also from the Miranda episodes; because we see Miranda in a purple robe in full profile. Oh; and we see the Mad Hatter from Alice & Wonderland made a cameo on this show too. Why? WHY NOT~?! It ends with the Bonkers logo appearing which is a blue letter logo with a police badge shield on top. Again; this is just a sample of how screwed up the production of this show is. It will get worse as time goes on: New Partners On The Block is a grave example of this and it is now the new blacklisted episode that Flying Dupes once had as a status before TaleSpin Volume 3 came out.
We begin this one in the sky with clouds and snow as the title card appears in candy cane colored letters. Because it's a Christmas themed episode you see. Pan shot ensues and we see Santa in his sleigh with his sack of toys in the back as the sleigh is bopping and weaving around; and then he falls from his sleigh and drops to his death. Fade to black to turn Michael Eisner on. We return to a wooden shack in the middle of nowhere as we hear a bunch of eleves talk about making toys. Cut to a woman elf wearing a red winter cap with a green shoulder cape saying that it's not going to be Christmas if Santa doesn't show up. Then a male elf wearing a green winter cap pops up and tells her to relax. I discover that the woman elf is Bell and the man elf is Jingle. Jingle Bell? Yeah; that is their names and we accuse Nickeledeon of this nonsense?! Although to be fair; it does make sense with the theme that Ralph was shooting for. Bell is voiced by Katie Leigh; which was Sunni Gummi and Honker Muddlefoot before this while Jingle voiced by Beau Weaver and according to Wikipedia (DANGER! DANGER!): He became a disc jockey at age 15 and is sometimes known as Beauregard Rodriquez Weaver. He was raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. In the 1960s and 1970s, he was on the air at some of America's top pop music stations, such as KHJ in Los Angeles, KFRC in San Francisco, KILT in Houston, KCBQ in San Diego, KNUS in Dallas, and KAKC in Tulsa. He was also one of the pioneers of satellite broadcasting as an original member of the air staff of the Transtar Radio Network. By the 1980s, Weaver had left radio and began working as a freelance voice actor in Los Angeles. He was the announcer on the short-lived game show College Mad House, a spin-off of the kids' game show Fun House. Today, he is the voice of the CBS Domestic Television programs, The Insider and The Doctors.
He is the narrator on Animal Planet's doc series, Weird, True and Freaky, National Geographic's "Known Universe" and "American Loggers and "Heartland Thunder" on the Discovery Channel. Some recent movie trailers and television campaigns voiced by Weaver include: "Into The Wild" and "Revolutionary Road." Weaver has done work with Disney in the late 1990s working alongside fellow Disney voice-overs Mark Elliot and Brian Cummings. One of his most notable Disney voice-overs is "Thanks for joining us for this special preview. And now, our Feature Presentation," a longer variation of "And now, our Feature Presentation," which is said at the start of most Disney films on video on a "Feature Presentation" logo. In television animation, Beau's most memorable roles include Superman/Clark Kent in the 1989 Ruby-Spears production of Superman, a revival of the series timed to coincide with the fiftieth anniversary of the creation of the character. In 1996, he played the lead role of Reed Richards a.k.a. "Mister Fantastic" in Marvel's Fantastic Four. Weaver was also the announcer of the first ever video newsmagazine, Real TV from 1996–1999 and again from 2000-2001. He began his career as Octane in The Transformers in 1986 (!!). Bonkers is his DTVA debut and only appearance. Blake Shelton's Not So Family Christmas is his most recent credit. He has 25 acting credits, 14 self credits, and two narration credits (Known Universe and Weird, True & Freaky) to his resume. We discover that they are in Santa's workshop; which look like a wooden shack rather than what we know Santa's workshop in other Christmas cartoons. Is there such a thing as tough ecomonic times at the North Pole? Are they at the North Pole? Questions to ponder as Jingle points out that Santa was gone two hours ago testing his new sleigh. Santa will be demanding answers for this defective sleigh that he was in.
Bell is wearing a red skirt as Jingle claims that Santa took the reindeer Blitzen with him and Bell gets all flustered because it's storming out and should have taken Ruldolph. Wait; so Santa doesn't like Ruldolph anymore? Why? Above all; what a goddamn idiot Santa is?! Then the door opens which causes snow to blow into their faces; and we see that Blitizen has arrived panting. Yes; this reindeer somehow can open doors by itself. Blitzen cuts a nonsensical promo about 747's and planes before dropping down onto the wooden floor. The elves come in asking him what happened to Santa as Blitzen is wearing a green belt with bells on it as he stands up. Santa of course got bailed out as he shows a control stick with springs to inform us that the sleigh was completely destroyed. The elves panic and demand to know where Santa bailed too; and Blitizen claims that he bailed out in Hollywood, California as we jump cut to a shot of the worst made Hollywood sign in history and it's snowing there as well. Heavily. The male radio announcer tells us that history is made in Hollywood as it is not sunny and that Hollywood is getting a white Christmas this year. Which apparently; this show takes place in 2011. So we get a sky shot of the city of Hollywood covered in snow and then a shot of a top of a roof which apparently some huge boulder crashed into it recently. Then we cut to a shot of an attic as there is a yellow rabbit wearing a purple sock on his left foot along with a blue shirt; and he looks like the most unscariest zombie in the history of zombies. Of course; him being an anthro rabbit doesn't help his cause as this is Fall Apart Rabbit, one of the most unfunniest comedy relief figures in DTVA. Frank Welker is Fall-Apart Rabbit's voice; along with the male radio announcer, I think. FAR slides onto the snowy hill wrapped in red and then we hear groaning as Santa pops up from his burial tomb. FAR (sounding like Jim Cummings today) asks where he came from and Santa says that he doesn't know. That makes two of us there sir. Jump cut to a snowy house near a large freeway and palm tree which looks like a house from the 1950's. Santa is voiced by the late Hal Smith; one of his last roles too.
So jump cut to hallway as a fat man wearing brown pants, almond shirt, red tie (which he trying to put on) a brown vest and brown shoes walks in. He has a mustache and his head looks like a messed up Fred Flintstone; and he has Baloo's massive weight. He walks down stairs grumbling because he hates his life being the butt of all jokes. Keep in mind; this guy is the #2 babyface of this show. At the bottom of the stairs is a plastic barred gate painted green with garland and a plastic Santa in front of that. The fat man turns to his side to get through the bars and his ass hits the plastic Santa and it Ho's in contrived fashion much to the disdain of this fat man. Cut to a blond haired woman wearing a green shirt and vest laughing with a girl with brown hair, yellow ribbon and glasses who is also laughing. This was not funny gals; considering that the fat man did nothing to deserve it outside of being a miserable man. Apparently; there is a pencil in the young girl's hair. The plastic Santa literally has teleported about ten feet away from the bottom of the staircase and is spinning around. There is a white Christmas tree in the room which is decorated poorly and a Christmas wreath around a wall mirror. The fat man is stammering like an idiot as he walks to the doorway as the woman claims that she loves Christmas and tells the fat man to have breakfest and stop being a Scrooge. This is the Piquel family by the way: Marilyn (Sherry Lynn), Dyl Piquel (April Winchell) and Lucky Piquel himself (Jim Cummings). In essence: A nicer Peg, a more unlikable Pete and Marilyn is a cross between Kit and Molly Cunningham. Dyl is all right and likable enough; Marilyn is one of the few Lucky-era characters that I actually like and a decent child character for the time in a show that needed it badly; and then there is Lucky Piquel. Take the worst traits of Pete; make him into a bigger grouch and there you go. In fact Dyl and Lucky are voiced by the same guys who voiced Peg and Pete in Goof Troop. Worse; Robert Taylor was the supervising producer of Goof Troop. Cut to Lucky and Marilyn sitting at the table; it appears that Marilyn is kneeling on the chair and may have two broken legs.
Marilyn begins the stammer as Lucky is eating a huge stack of pancakes with syrup and butter as she finally admits that she heard that Santa doesn't exist. The problem with this line is: She is told there is no Santa; but there is a anthro bobcat who can speak, cars and trucks with eyes and mouths on them, and she has a pencil who is animated like a toon. How can anyone say that Santa doesn't exist and be taken seriously in this show? At least in Jolly Molly Christmas, outside of the fact that the characters are half man/half animal; it is mostly rooted in reality for the most part; so the lack of Santa in the show is more believable. This show is in the human world and in California with actual ficitional characters who are not human. No Marilyn; they are lying to you, there is a Santa. Lucky almost chokes on his food and passes the pancakes over to Marilyn as Marilyn claims that Susie is spreading these ugly rumors and she's right about everything. Then I discover that she is wearing a white version of Max's shoes; so she is literally the female Max Goof of the show, if she had vision problems. Dyl comes in as Marilyn claims that her presents come from Paris. Susie is such a liar; our toys these days are still made in China. Something tells me "Paris" was a BS&P decision to deflect criticism on Disney using sweat shops. Epic fail on Disney's part. Lucky assures Marilyn that Santa exists because it goes together with Christmas like bacon and eggs, butter and toast and chili and milk according to Dyl. Lucky blushes and here comes Tigger Bonkers wearing a goofy Charles Dickins era style outfit throwing snow (or salt, hard to tell since my video for this episode is crappy) causing Lucky to throw Marilyn to Dyl to hold like Shaggy to Scooby as he is wishing as a Merry Christmas. Most so to Scrooge McLucky. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! Yeah; this is the Robert Taylor era Bonkers and he's no better now than he was in Raw Toonage. He wishes Lucky a happy new year by slingshotting a snowball right into his kisser. Lucky is not amused because he has a personal grunge against Bonkers. If it him being not funny, I don't blame him. However; I assure you it's because Lucky hates his life.
Lucky sneezes and he's mad as Bonkers continues to be clueless in the world of knowing when to give up the damn comedy in a serious situation. Bonkers sits Lucky on a chair in the dining room (not the kitchen though since the table and chairs are colored different) and out comes the yellow blowdryer, proving that only Bonkers would like banana yellow objects. He's crazy you see. He is blowing Lucky's face with said hairdryer and has gained Marge's hair style from the Simpsons. It doesn't make him likable sadly. Marilyn asks Bonkers about Santa and Bonkers proclaims that he does exist because he knows him from his trips with ice fishing. Are you sure it's the human Santa, or Louie disguised as Santa? Marilyn claims that Susie is the one who doesn't believe in Santa in which Bonkers counters by saying that she had never caught rainbow trout with him, which I'm almost certain is true. Lucky has a headache if anyone cares about him, which should be a no. Lucky gets up and grabs Bonkers as they are going into the office today; as I should point out that it's only two days until Christmas at this point. We cut to a closeup of Marilyn with Dyl saying that she is going to wait for Santa this year. Okay; if that is what will make you happy Marilyn. Cut to outside as we see a large green painted building with windows and iron bars and then we go inside as Santa and Fall-Apart rabbit exchange notes on the situation. Somehow; the snow has not melted since Santa fell inside the building. We have a green sofa and a red chair who have eyes and mouth and talk about how great it is. They only say that because Fall-Apart Rabbit's comedy sucks and they just want it to stop. Santa is surprised as FAR claims that they are harmless as long as you don't sit on them. FAR sits on sofa. The sofa cushion springs and FAR goes flying into the air and takes a weak ass bump into a bunch of trashcans off-screen (sigh). FAR returns turned into a pretzel and walking on his fingers. Whatever, FAR. FAR untwists himself Taz-style and the green sofa offers Santa to sit down on him; and FAR gently blows him off because he wants Santa to decide. Well; FAR is nicer than Lucky at least, but who cares?!
So Santa is asked his name and Santa doesn't know; so FAR embraces him and calls him Chain. At least I think that's what he said. He also calls the brain "the squash" and claims that he gets concussions all the time; which isn't an endearing trait for anyone. Then again; I had Kit (at five years old mind you) fall on his head pretending to be a birdman on the rooftops; so I'm the one to work about concussion. FAR introduces himself as he bails and returns with red skis because he wants to go to the beach. HAR HAR! Not funny. So Santa points out that it's snowing, and FAR tells him to skip the swim suits and drags him outside where he proceeds to throw him and about a dozen packages into a taxi colored in all colors of the rainbow, with eyes as headlights. And of course Santa is WAY TOO FAT to fit; so he needs to sit where the window roof is just to fit in with all the packages FAR threw in. FAR closes the passenger side door and gets into the driver's side. Yes; FAR's gimmick is that he is a taxi driver. This must be the #1 student of the Wuzzles School Of Driving. AHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! So FAR gets his taxi hat on and asks Santa where to go; Santa looks like he is going to have a heart attack, so FAR takes this as a sight seeing tour of the city. So he drives the taxi like a race car in the Daytona 500 and we get Santa looking terrified while we see cardboard buildings in the background. When Kennedy Cartoons is only having this problem with their animation; Kennedy is doing all right so far. Of course FAR is reading a green map while driving the damn thing, because auto "accidents" are funny you see. So yes; they collide into a rack of coats being pulled in the middle of the street; and they ride down the hill. FAR then finds his destination and stops the taxi on a drive behind a lot of traffic at a busy intersection causing Santa to somehow fly out of the taxi and he bumps off a conveniently placed bell ringer for the Salvation Army dressed up as a Santa (and of course he was half of the mass of the real Santa by the way) and rings the bell. Some man in a brown trenchcoat and a hat walks by and throws a quarter into the pot for fun. Okay.
FAR runs in and Santa clearly has a concussion because concussions are FUN-E! I realize that this is 1993/1994; but STOP THAT! FAR then calls him Jim and drags him off. For goodness sakes; if you want this to be funny, call him Chris and his last name Cringle. That makes sense and it's funny. So we head to the actual police station which looks like a hell of a station since it appears to be stationed right behind the Hollywood sign. Of course Kennedy Cartoon has such a bad reputation that they didn't bother showing where Bonkers and Lucky are because they were inside and one of the guys (who sounds like Jingle by the way) order them to head to the police chief's office. I should note that before the officer told them to see the chief; Bonkers was going on about humans not believing in Santa; and talking about something referenced to chestnuts roasting on an open fire. I have no idea what he is trying to make as a point. So we head into the office of the police chief ; whom has a slick combed greyish hair with male pattern baldness and is wearing a police uniform at his desk as the door opens. In comes Bonkers and Lucky as we get to the main gimmick in that Bonkers is a police officer and Lucky is a detective who hates his life because Bonkers is an annoying pest. The chief comes over to the two detectives (in the loosest sense of the word) giving them papers because there is a missing person's case. Guess who is sitting in the chairs in front of the office? Jingle and Bell as they point out that the missing person is Santa himself. There is all the evidence Marilyn needs; this case is solved. Just need to actually...you know...find him! Lucky cringes at this as Jingle and Bell blow him off because they are not asparagus tips. Sadly; them looking like actual asparagus tips would have been funny, but they don't so who cares? Bonkers is now wearing a purple Sherlock Holmes outfit and a fake mustache for fun; and for Lucky's unamusement (sic). Bonkers summarizes the situation and the elves say that he's right. Bonkers thanks them for that; and then the elves rush in, do a whirlwind spot on Bonkers and go over to Lucky doing measurements and asking if he can drive a sleigh. UH OH!
If you cannot guess where this plot is going; you have no business reading this rant. Yes folks; Lucky Piquel, the most unlikable Pete clone in DTVA history is going to be Santa. HAR HAR HAR! Not. Lucky blows them off because that is personal; so yes, he hates being told in anyway that he's fat. So they brings out the red suit from the snack and Bonkers is gleefully loving this; forcing Lucky to give the timeout signals. There are no timeouts in the world of cartooning....
Lucky:
This is a cartoon you idiot!
Me:
Wrestling is a live action cartoon; so my point stands that there are
no timeouts in cartoons.
Lucky:
I just got end-arounded.
Me: Welcome
to the real world of cartooning. Now be Santa and LIKE IT!
By the way; the police chief's name is Leonard Kanifky and Police Chief Leonard Kanifky is voiced by Earl Boen and according to Wikipedia (DANGER! DANGER!): Having started acting in the mid-1950s, he gained roles on the stage in several leading repertory companies between 1965 and 1976 before moving to Hollywood, California. Boen is known to many TV viewers as the Harper family's pastor, Reverend Lloyd Meechum on the 1980s sitcom Mama's Family. His character was featured in several of the most memorable episodes (on both the network and syndicated versions). He also appeared as a clergyman in episodes of The Golden Girls, The Golden Palace, The Wonder Years, Boy Meets World, Seinfeld and Three's Company. He also appeared as Willie's boss in ALF, and as Patrick Morrison in the Matlock episode "The Cult". Other films in which he appeared include 9 to 5 (1980), Soggy Bottom, U.S.A. (1981), The Man with Two Brains (1983), Terminator (1984), Alien Nation (1988), Naked Gun 33⅓: The Final Insult (1994), and Nutty Professor II: The Klumps (2000). Boen commonly plays doctors in movie and television roles. He may also be noted for his role as Jim Petersen, Angela Bower's boss on the show Who's The Boss?. Earl had a recurring role as Dr. Kramer in the 1990s Fox network cult classic comedy TV series Get a Life. In 1987, came his first voice role as Taurus in the direct to video G.I. Joe: The Movie. Some of his most well known voice roles have been villainous pirate LeChuck from the Monkey Island series of adventure games. He has also provided the introductions for World of Warcraft and its expansions, voiced Magtheridon in World of Warcraft: The Burning Crusade and King Terenas Menethil II in World of Warcraft: Wrath of the Lich King, including the ending cinematic for that expansion.
Earl Boen's trademark baritone voice is often mistaken to be that of the late Tony Jay, even though the former of which is not as distinctive as his.[citation needed] Boen retired from screen acting in 2003, but continues his work as a voice actor in radio, television cartoons and video games. He is perhaps best known as criminal psychologist Dr. Peter Silberman in the Terminator series. Boen reprised the role in both Terminator 2: Judgment Day, in which Silberman works at a mental institute where Sarah Connor is held, and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, where he appears in a cameo as he tries to console Kate Brewster before fleeing in panic at the sight of the Terminator. He is the only actor to appear in all of the first three films and portray the same character. Even Arnold Schwarzenegger does not play the same individual machine in all three films. Earl Boen is also very active in the voice over field. He has played Mr. Bleakman in Clifford the Big Red Dog, Simon Stagg on several episodes of Justice League, Police Chief Kanifky in Bonkers, and many characters on multiple other animated shows and films. He began his career on Great Performances as Le Bert in 1974. Bonkers is his DTVA debut and he also was on Kim Possible as the replacement voice for Senor Senior Sr. World Of Warcraft: Mists of The Pandaria as Hekima The Wise is his most recent credit. He has 250 acting credits and three self credits to his resume. The elves put the suit and hat on Lucky as Lucky is the replacement Santa which causes Lucky to back up and no sell the deal. He sounds like a total Pete Peg; and cannot be taken seriously as one. Lucky tries to leave as Jingle and Bell try the "puppy face" routine; but Lucky tries to open the door. Leonard cuts him off and calls him Pickles for some unknown reason. Not funny either.
Leonard likes him as Santa and Bonker jumps into his lap proclaiming that Lucky can make all the good little boys and girls happy for Christmas because Santa is going to miss Christmas. Lucky at one point accuses the elves of being at the North Pole for too long. Which by the way is projection on Hollywood's part for being in Hollywood for too long. Which is also projection by Middle America for being in Middle America for too long and being out of touch with the rest of the world; including Hollywood. Lucky throws him down and proclaims that he is not a jolly person. This is in fact true. So Bell puts a sack down on the ground which came out of nowhere and she throws magic dust onto Lucky and we hit the dream sequence. I'm just going to give you the summary of this: We see Marilyn asleep in her bed; she wakes up and runs down the stairs. She then gets into the living room and sees only a dead tree and no presents under it. Marilyn cries proclaiming that there is no Santa, no Christmas and no presents as she runs up the stairs and her running was similar to Kit's in Plunder and Lightning part one; only in reverse. This is BS because the tree was perfectly fine when we first saw it and Marilyn has already said in storyline that she was going to stay up late, so I doubt that she is going to be in her bed Christmas Eve. We return to reality (no, not really) as Lucky feels sad and then decides to save Marilyn's Christmas for the good of humanity and replace Santa; remembering to do the corkscrew Dumptruck punch on Bonkers and knocking him off silly (who has since got rid of his Sherlock Holmes gear sadly). They are trying to make this guy likable and it's not working. No one cares about Lucky Piquel at all as a jolly old Saint Nick. Louie was much more believable in this role in Jolly Molly Christmas (although Baloo was a much better pick than that; but what can you do since part of that plan involves Baloo having to fly.); and Lucky is not a jolly man, and admitted it as such. No one is buying what this show is selling as this ends the segment nine and a half minutes in.
After the commercial break; we head to the underground parking level as Jingle and Bell are trying to teach Lucky how to be Santa of course while Lucky is in the Santa suit. I wouldn't buy Lucky as a fake Santa in a department store even if I tried. Even Jeff Lips Santa is much more believable than Lucky Santa. We get a lot of ho's but no heat to make me care. Bell pulls on his beard blowing him off for boring half a trillion children. Ummm; there was only like FIVE BILLION people in the world Bell at this point?! You mean half a billion children? Stupid logic break! Jingle tells her to get off his case and Bell blows him off because it'll be Groundhog Day before Lucky gets to be Santa. Lucky is gravely offended by this and threatens to walk out; so Bell grabs him and drags him to the flight simulator and already Lucky is acting like he is trying to weasel his way out of this. And he's the #2 babyface of the show. Listen; Pete acts like this, but he was a tweener. He was not the #2 babyface of Goof Troop (that was Max Goof by the way). So we cut to a cliff with lots of snow and a frozen bird in front of a lighthouse. I'm going to sum this scene up in a nutshell: FAR is piloting a pink motorboat and Santa is waterskiing. That is all you need to know in this scene. I'm starting to have a new found respect for Chargeman Ken now. Sure; it's a godawful television program, but Ken Izzy is so hilariously bad that I can laugh my ass off on how ridokulous the show gets. Not in this show! Oh no! None of this is funny even in a hilariously bad sense of the term. It is a modern age cartoon done in 1993! Santa loses his hat because it got snagged by a fishing line by a fisherperson who shouldn't be ice fishing at the ocean! FAR and Santa are having this "pleasant" conversation and this sucked. I'm not going to bother explaining what they said, none of it was funny. This was the segueway to Santa looking at the hard camera and saying, "oh"; because we return to see Lucky Santa get the same treatment in simulation mode.
Lucky of course is complaining about this because he wants an inflight movie while Jingle is playing the thing like a video game. Bell is creating snow through Lucky's only big fan of this show. Oh; and the simulator does contain an inflight movie which is basically footage of a six year old who is wearing a blue/white shirt called Jimmy Malone who has black hair, fat and looks like a bully. He is six years old and he wants for Christmas a Mutant Kenpo Karate Iguana toy for Christmas. Now; to those old farts who hate modern cartoons: How can you defend the old cartoons for using the most obvious pop culture reference in the history of animation? TMNT anyone? Listen; in Free Birds there is a spot where the birds run wild and get pissed off; and one of the guys says "Those are some angry birds." This is a perfectly rational statement to make in any time period; yet there are reviewers who were seeing red and screaming bloody murder because he said "Angry Birds" which is a smartphone video game. TaleSpin is the same too; only their pop culture references are dated back to the 1930's because THAT WAS THE TIME PERIOD FOR THE DAMN SHOW! IDIOTS! Anyhow; the whole sleigh thing is supposed to be a rib on Joe McGee's flight school simulator, but this rib fails because Lucky is no Baloo regardless of his concussion or not. Lucky is begging as Bell is no selling and Jingle is playing with the joystick like a video game, and he claims that there are 858 million children in the world. This was after Bell claimed that there were 500 billion children on Earth. The fact that there is no story editor to be had should be a clue in why this makes no sense. Spin the Lucky Santa ensues, I don't care, let's move back to the coast for more water skiing with the real Santa and FAR. Jingle Bells music plays as FAR is spinning the boat wheel and no one cares. Here's what happens: Santa get wrapped around the bell floater; Santa goes flying west while the tow rope is towing the bell floater. Santa gets engulfed by waves. FAR crashes into the shoreline and flies out of the boat. FAR comes back and reels the bell floater in.
FAR is confused and panics; and as he is trying to leave; Bonkers shows up. FAR has lost his nose, no one cares if he was startled or not. Bonkers puts FAR back together again which gives us a rare beheading moment for me at least. FAR apologizes and Bonkers asks why he was in a motorboat; which FAR blows off for no reason. Of course! Bonkers explains that he is on the case to find Santa and asks if he has seen him; and FAR ponders it over and says no. Bonkers them puts his bunny tail on his face because his nose is on FAR's ass; and tells him to call the police station if he does see him and then walks off. Then Santa appears looking like Jack Frost pleading for this to be over and FAR pushes him in an awkward fashion as they are going to have a picnic now. Yes folks; a picnic in the middle of a snowstorm. Lovely! Santa complains; but he's frozen so he's screwed. Then we head to the police station AFTER HAPPY HOUR (after dark) as we head to the underground parking lot and then pan over as Jingle is building a house for no reason whatsoever. Bell is putting leather straps on Lucky (who has lost the suit and cap now) and is having a hell of a time getting them on. She then makes another thinly veiled fat joke on Lucky and Lucky is offended once again. Bell has stooped to Rhinokey jokes to get her over as comedy; and it's failing badly. Believe it of not; there is a point to the house as Lucky climbs up the ladder set up and there is a chimney set up. Oh lovely! We get to see Lucky Santa epically fail at going down the chimney. HAR! HAR! HAR! Apparently; there is some law against going down a chimney because Lucky is talking about tickets and stuff. So yeah; and Jingle and Bell claim that they are professionals and they show off a paper claiming that this is their license. Riiiiggggghhhhttttt. Yeah; apparently, magic beings have to be licensed to teach Santa how to go down a chimney. So stupid! Lucky is not liking this at all; so Jingle shows him the blueprints claiming that it meets specs. Sure it does Jingle, it meets the specs of yet another failed attempt at comedy.
So Bell hooks a rope to Lucky's harness and yes folks; Lucky has to go down the chimney as he is over the chimney spout and then we instantly cut away to a field of snow outside as we somehow head to a house and there is a knock on the door. The door opens and we see that Dyl Piquel has answered the door to a snow covered golem. Yeah; it's Bonkers dusting himself off. I almost wrote: FAR has a picnic with Santa in a snowy field by the way. So Dyl invites him in as Bonkers is shivering and the fireplace in the living room is set up with Marilyn in her sleeping bed on her belly on the floor. Marilyn is watching the fire and asking Bonkers where Lucky is and Bonkers claims that Lucky is on the case. Marilyn wishes her dad comes home on Christmas Eve so they can basically see Santa together. Yeah; and she also has a camera with her, I guess to take pictures of when Santa will show up. Yeah; this is going to turn into: Lucky Santa meets Marilyn instead of the real Santa. God bless Marilyn; but Louie Santa was much better than Lucky Santa and it's going to be much harder to care about Marilyn's feeling when she finds out that Lucky is not the real Santa. You know that is going to be the finish; because it's the same one from Jolly Molly Christmas. Bonkers tells her that she shouldn't stay up late; but Marilyn refuses to budge because she must prove Susie wrong about Santa. Dyl comes in with hot chocolate and she screams at Bonkers. Because you see; Bonkers D. Bobcat is so damn stupid to put his Tigger like tail in the fireplace and set his tail on fire. Not funny. He runs up the walls and ceiling with alarm sirens which would have caused a real fire in real life and then Dyl opens the door to let Bonkers run out and splash into the snow to put the fire out. Dyl offers him some hot chocolate and Bonkers isn't interested as they whisper yell at each other while Lucky is apparently called Simba. Yeah; because you must promote The Lion King at some point. That failed as we get a shot of Bonkers leaving from a shot which shows Marilyn and her purple sweater snuggling up to the fire. Kennedy's animation of this show is perfectly reasonable here; so good for them at least.
So we cut back to the underground parking lot with the simulation chimney of doom as of course Lucky is stuck in the chimney and Jingle and Bell have to pull him out. What a shocker?! Cut jump to a shot of a clock alarm being set by a clock with a literal face, both clock and human at the same time. Bell of course blows him off as we get a shot of the middle of the chimney and then a model shot of seeing Lucky stuck in said chimney blowing them off for giving him new scratch marks. Somehow; he is able to tug himself down and he falls down the chimney onto floor level causing the elves to bump on the roof. Oh; the clock is informing us that it's 11 PM and they have one hour to get ready for Christmas Eve. Of course! Fade to black to turn Michael Eisner on and then we cut to a ground to sky shot of inside the chimney as Bell calls this Christmas as a goner and then Lucky does some great ho's for fun as we head down to the fireplace part of the chimney as Lucky has popped up and proclaims that this experience made his life flash before his eyes and gives him actual Christmas cheer. Yeah; like I'm buying what Lucky is selling at this point. Anyhow; Lucky gets pulled out of the fireplace and they all take a bump. Bell is getting all pissy and worried because Lucky cannot get down a fake chimney. Of course he cannot because Santa uses MAGIC to get down a stinkin chimney! Even I know how it works and somehow these two elves don't. Plus; these two are supposed to be trained professionals. They are as professional as Nicole Thuault doing the voice direction for the English dub of Sailor Moon. Like I'm going to take them seriously as licensed professionals. Anyhow; Jingle points out that there is no other person willing to do this; so Bell has to admit that he has a point. Lucky I think gets his white mustache back. I don't care as the segment ends 15 and a half minutes in. This was more of the same lack of comedy and I don't care about anyone at this point.
After the commercial break; we head inside a dark dining room area as the double doors open and in comes Fall-Apart Rabbit pushing Jack Frost Santa into the room. I discover that it's the apartment building FAR and Santa were in from the start. So FAR is upset that Santa donated all the food to everyone on the beach and Santa even admits that he has no idea what he is doing anymore. FAR has a crapload of gifts; which he stuffs into the piano. Why? WHY NOT~?! So Santa breaks free from the ice as FAR sits on the green sofa, and someone the green sofa decides to not screw him. Santa sits on the red loveseat and the red cushion springs him up into the air as he crashes through the roof and goes high into the air and out of sight. FAR blows off the red chair and the red chair claims that this was funny in the most goofy voice that he can use. No sir; that was not funny. You have no real sense of humor. Then the doorbell rings and it sounds like the worst horn sound which means that they are back at FAR's apartment. FAR tells Santa to hang up there as he goes to the door and opens it. We see Bonkers coming in as he jumps on the green sofa and sits cross legged, and he doesn't get spranged. What a shocker?! Bonkers is looking glum because he cannot find Santa and FAR asks if that is bad. Bonkers proclaims that it is because if he cannot be found; Christmas is a goner this year. FAR claims that he knows nothing of where Santa is and needs to help his friend Jim off the roof; who so happens to have a red suit, beard and glasses on. So FAR gets into the red loveseat and springs away into the sky. Bonker is sitting there and then he finally gets the LIGHTBULB OF BLOODY CLAIRTY (because god knows if Fall-Apart Rabbit has less clicks in the making of a clue than Jackie The Stalker Whackerman.) complete with jerky martial arts zoom in. By the way; the green sofa in this seems to react to the word ballistic for no good reason either. I mention this now because the green sofa is the one who springs Bonkers into the sky and plops on the snowy roof (I think).
So we see Santa is upside down and FAR is talking to him upside down. Santa wakes up and he's all right, but full of ash and soot for no good reason. Anyhow; Santa is thankful because he thought FAR has talking feet; so the sock on his foot is a sock puppet who talks of course. HAR HAR HAR! Thankfully; he's a real sock puppet, instead of the internet one on blogs. Bonkers pops from the snowy roof and gets down to bring Santa right side up and suddenly, Santa regains his memory, because he acts like he knows that he's late just as Bonkers is pushing him towards the apartment building ladder and proclaims that he is going to call Jingle and Bell on the police radio because there is a little girl who needs to believe in Santa again. So then we head to the living room as Marilyn is in her sleeping bag sleeping with the flashlight on the floor. I just realized something: Marilyn Piquel looks awfully similar to Amanda Root from The BFG Movie in 1989 in France. Yeah; THAT animated feature. Pan up to the roof as the reindeer manage to land on the roof and somehow, Lucky didn't screw up here. Lucky is surprised by this as the elves tell him that they decided to use HIS roof as a starting point to get his feet wet. Lucky is offended by this and gets off and almost slips and slides off the roof in the process; much to the amusement of Bell. These elves have very low standards in training and in entertainment. What a shocker?! Lucky gets to the sled and then slips and falls off the roof off-screen crashing into unknown stuff with wussy bumps; and yes, they don't trust him. Why would I trust a bunch of elves who have the crappiest training in the land. The license isn't even worth the paper and seal is printed on at this point. I should note that the transmitter the real sleigh has is a Frosty The Snowman shaped radio. That is the first good thing that have happened in this episode as it rings and Bell is surprised because the number is unlisted. Of course! So Lucky stands up and pumps his fist signaling victory; which Jingle throws a sack of toys at Lucky and Lucky slides off the roof and falls right in the snow which the concussion of the shot causes Marilyn to wake up and look around. Not funny.
So Marilyn shines the flashlight on the roof as we cut back to Bell answering the radio and she is so happy as she cuts the signal yelling at Jingle that the bobcat found Santa informing him that he suffered a concussion but he has recovered his memories at least. Now he's full of soot. Bell then notices that Lucky is missing as we cut to Lucky in a heap on the ground near the chimney. Lucky gets up and checks himself; and he's all right even though he is in the real world. I've seen toons sell aftermath of falls more convincing than Lucky just did there. He does some ho'ing and decides to stop screwing around as he brings out his trusty key since it's HIS house after all. Pan over to the side of the house as we see Bonkers with Santa (how? I don't know) as Santa goes over the situation that we knew about 15 minutes ago. So Santa grabs Bonkers and rubs the side of his nose because he's a magical dood and thus can float into the air to the roof. So we cut tio Lucky entering the house and makes it to the living room as Marilyn is shining the flashlight through the fireplace looking up whining that Santa didn't show up and resigns to her admitting that there is no Santa. So we cut to the roof as Santa gets the toys from his sleigh as Jingle and Bell inform him that Lucky is already inside. Santa asks if he went down the chimney and the elves of course point out that he went an alternative route, to which Bonkers replies that this is his Lucky. I don't think we need to explain that one so let's go to the finish as we see Bonkers talks about noise while Santa goes down the chimney (with magic of course) and the cut to Marilyn taking the cookies and milk and walking away from the hard camera crying that Susie was right all along. So Lucky Santa walks into the living room and yells that he needs to get Marilyn to see him; and then the real Santa arrives via the fireplace. Now; can you see the obvious here? Lucky has much darker skin than the real Santa so it's clear that the real Santa is the light colored skin one. And the real Santa wears Mickey Mouse gloves and glasses. Just a reminder for the finish.
So the Santa's getting into verbal sparring because Lucky thinks he's the real Santa. Oh wonderful; they are going to do the "Spot The Real One" finish which doesn't work because Lucky doesn't have white gloves on nor has pale skin. So Marilyn has to act stupid in order to make this look even close to a confusing puzzle. The real Santa shows off his ID and apparently; the real Santa as a social security number. FINALLY! Something in this show made me laugh. And it took almost 20 minutes to pull off. Lucky doesn't buy what Santa is selling of course because we have to CDS the episode, because it was so cool in Darkwing Duck that it'll work in Bonkers. It doesn't. Then they belly bounce each other. I'm not joking. Bonkers dives in through the fireplace and does the pinball spot into the wooden something, I don't know what it was and it's wasn't funny. Bonkers demands them to shut the hell up because that are making way too much noise. Lucky then demands that Bonkers arrest the real Santa. It would be a riot to see how Lucky can justify the charge for this; but of course that doesn't happen as the real Santa claims that Lucky has suffered a concussion. Well; he puts up with Bonkers, so he's the expert on concussions and then in comes Marilyn with her flashlight shined on the two Santas. So Marilyn is instantly confused as both Santa approach her and Bonkers explains to her that Santa has an actor stand in when he has a cold. So he produces a brown feather and tickles Lucky's nose causing him to sneeze, thus implying that LUCKY is the real Santa and the real Santa is the actor stand in. STUPID! They only did this to get a laugh and it was an epic fail. So the Santas smash heads because Marilyn is confused on who is the real Santa. So the real Santa finally stops this nonsense by asking Marilyn what she wanted for Christmas and Marilyn only wanted to make sure that Santa was real..and she got a portable CD player which doesn't hurt.
Pffftt..Whatever. It would have made sense if Marilyn was originally ASKING for a CD Player from Santa BEFORE she asked if he was real. Ralph needs more writing lessons, his logic is wonky. Marilyn claims that dad didn't think about this and then Santa proclaims that he has something for one Lucky Piquel; which causes Lucky to stammer like an idiot as Marilyn has pretty much figured it out that the stand in is in fact Lucky Santa. As if the darker skin and lack of white gloves didn't give that away. Lucky is in fact happy because Santa said his last name right. So everyone in this town; including his own family calls him Pickles? I also realized that Pickles is the last family name of a much more popular show from Nickeledeon: Rugrats. Yeah. So Lucky gets his present which is a bunch of brown slippers, yee-haw. Santa slides into the fireplace and does his magical dood thing to rise above the chimney. Bonkers looks up from the fireplace wondering if he can pull this off. Short answer: yes. Long answer: Yes; because you are a toon. You should be easily able to do this Bonkers Dee Bobcat. Down the stairs comes Dyl Piquel, who is the only person in the room who has not seen Santa. Of course Marilyn gives her a red book as the present gave to her and Marilyn proclaims that she saw two Santas and she embraces Lucky calling him the best Santa of them all. Awwww! My heart melted! Well; Lucky was fine for the most part; not caring about him aside. So here's how this episode ends: Bonker is in tears and rubs his nose with his finger on the sides. This causes magic dust to form around him. His feet flip and he flies up the chimney and into midair on the roof as we see Santa and his reindeer fly away. He does his usual Merry Christmas promo as Bonker watches him and waves, ending the episode at 21:10. This was the worst Christmas episode so far in DTVA. Only one joke was funny and the rest was dull, boring and heatless. The one spot they paid off right wasn't even good either with Bonkers having Santa's powers. Marilyn tried, but she's no Molly Cunningham and it's clear that Disney was coasting with Bonkers at this point while Nickeledeon and Warner Brothers were kicking Disney's ass six way from Sunday. At least Lucky Piquel was on his best behavior in this one; so that is a plus I guess. Call it ** (40%).
THE REVIEW LINE
Well; this was the worst Christmas episode in DTVA so far. It's not utterly horrible, it was just dull, boring and heatless. None of the jokes catched, but almost none of the jokes angered me as it was everything we accuse modern cartoons of doing, only this show was in the 1990's which is considered "untouchable". That said; Lucky was on his best behavior for the most part and he tried to sound like a human being, but at this point it was impossible to care. Bonkers was his usual dumb stuff and Fall-Apart Rabbit was annoying as he got extended segments that padded the running time and made Santa look like a geek. Marilyn was fine as always; and the storyline was okay for the most minus the logic breaks; plus Kennedy Animation did a good job in animating this episode. I have no complaints about the animation here. The problem here is; none of the episode was funny and trying to do pathos after Jolly Molly Christmas is asking for trouble, and they tried and it looked bad because Lucky is not likable, Bonkers is annoying and Marilyn is no Molly Cunningham in terms of chrisma. Overall; this was a below average Christmas episode with no heat and thus nothing to see. So; the next Christmas episode is going to be from Kick Buttowski as Cousin Kyle returns who is a legit riot unlike Bonkers at least, so it cannot be worse than this episode. Can it? So....
Thumbs down for this episode and I'll see you all next time.