The Raccoons Review

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Network of podcasts. Beyond good, beyond evil,

beyond your wildest imagination. This is the

Evergreen Forest. Quiet, peaceful, serene. That

is, until Burt Raccoon wakes up. Help him out.

Life would be simple in the forest except for...

Cyril Sneer. And his life would be simple except

for... Hello and welcome to the 45th episode

of Tooncast Beyond, brought to you by the GeekCast

Radio Network on audible .com. I'm your host,

T .O. June Mike, and today I am joined once again

by Optimus Solo. Hello. I am here. You are here,

for once. Yay. Just because I just watched all

the Back to the Future, so I was ready for a

DeLorean trip. Oh. But we're not talking about

Marty McFly and his family. No, but we're getting

in a DeLorean, so I set the mood by watching

all the Back to the Futures. I'm ready. Aren't

you supposed to actually watch episodes of the

show where you're supposed to be... Oh, I did

that too. Okay, okay. I was gonna say... I had

a friend that had never seen the Back to the

Futures, so I made him watch all three with me.

Wait, what? I had a friend that had never seen

the Back to the Futures, so I made him watch

not all at the same day, but over... two to three

weeks we watched all three movies, even the third

one. You should be proud of me. And I still hate

the ending of the third one. But yeah, he had

never seen them and now he has. So I did the

world a favor. Well, I mean, if they were to

make a fourth film, they could just use the train.

No, it just makes no sense. I think I've already

stated this on a previous podcast, but it makes

no sense that the doc and the chick don't Get

into the DeLorean and go back to the future like

there was nothing wrong with that There is no

reason why they couldn't take the chick back

because she was supposed to be dead anyways So

it would not have messed anything up There was

no need for them to be on a separate trip and

then come back in a train into the future They

all should have gone back together I just hate

the ending. Okay, we need to talk about this

off air and debate this off air because this,

yeah, this is a whole other discussion. Today

we are jumping back into the DeLorean for another

Tooncast Beyond DeLorean time episode with our

heading set for 1985 when we talk about the Canadian

cartoon The Raccoons. Yes, sir. Disclaimer here.

This will pretty much be a Optimus Solo episode

of Tooncast Beyond DeLorean time. Hence the solo

part of my name. Yeah, I Tried to watch this

on YouTube. I Don't dislike it, but at the same

time This a lot of these DeLorean time episodes

here in season 2 of Tooncast Beyond Are not for

me because number one. I either never saw them

growing up or number two. I just don't care You

apathetic motherfucker So take it away with the

history lesson I didn't take that cuss back.

The Raccoons, as you mentioned, is a Canadian

animated television series. So in that vein,

it is similar to shows that were being done at

the time, like Cops, like Care Bears, let's see,

Dino Saucers, Raccoons. There's a couple other

ones that were all being done by the same people

in the same time frame up in Canada. So it's

in... that grouping. It was originally broadcast

from 1985 to 1991. There was three television

specials that came before it and also a direct

video special that came before it. The first

one of those would have been the Christmas Raccoons

which is their debut into animation and that

was my first exposure to them. I even had a,

well I'll talk to them in a sec, and then there

was the Raccoons on Ice. The Raccoons and the

Lost Star and then the direct video was a basically

almost like a music video the Raccoons Let's

Dance and then the series began the franchise

was created by Kevin Gillis with the cooperation

of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation or the

CBC as you Canadians would probably be more familiar

with it So before we get into well I can get

in a little bit of kind of the premise of it

that doesn't really general memories of this

first of all Well, I mean, we usually talk about

the premise real quick before we do that. And

I wanted to say it was kind of like, if you take

your prototypical anthropomorphic animal cartoon

type show, kind of of the time, and it almost

has like a smurf slash snork slash feel, but

more... Mature I want to say it's like it's that

show that bridges the gap between when you're

watching you're really like young Elementary

like preschool type shows like Smurfs your Sesame

Street that type of stuff it comes in between

those shows and then when you're getting old

enough for your like, you know, your he -man

your GI Joe your transformers the more like You

know like nine ten eleven year old cartoons I

mean this is in that middle section like when

you're four five six Maybe like between those

two things I had a definitely an environmental

centric focus which makes it kind of seem like

Captain Planet but with animals and maybe for

a little bit younger crowd than Captain Planet

was for So that's my synopsis of what type of

show it is and then we can talk about general

memories, but you have none of yes Never before

watching a couple of clips on YouTube. I have

never seen this show before My exposure first

came via the Christmas raccoons, which was the

night It was a repeat of this. I obviously wasn't

alive when it first aired in 1980, but it apparently

was Re -broadcast maybe like in future Christmases

or something like that Which happens often and

I somehow remember seeing that and I also had

received On Christmas at one point a ornament

that had the Christmas raccoons on them My mom

was good at getting me ornaments of stuff that

I liked and I remember I had you know a few with

like the get -along gang Teenage Mutant Ninja

Turtles, etc. And I remember raccoons being one

of the ornaments I had gotten for Christmas one

year and the Christmas raccoons how they're introduced

basically is The antagonist of the show, which

we'll get to in a little bit, is cutting down

all the trees and the forest. And it's up to

the heroes of the show to stop it. And that's

kind of why it has the Christmas edge there,

because it's dealing with all the trees being

cut down and Christmas trees, et cetera. But

it introduced us to all the characters. Now,

some of the voice cast has changed along the

way, but that was my general memory as far as

when I was exposed to it. And then I, of course,

went on to watch not religiously. It wasn't a

show that I was running home from school to watch.

show that I watched every episode of, but it

was a show that occasionally I would watch. I

want to say I caught it on Saturday mornings.

I'm not 100 % sure that it was a Saturday morning

show, but that seems to be where my memory is

going with that. I don't remember necessarily

seeing it on weekday afternoons, but I could

be wrong with that. I'm pretty sure it was a

Saturday show, though. So that's my memories

of The Raccoons. Hmm. I was looking through the

voice cast. There's only one name I recognize.

And that is good ol' Len Carlson, voice of Big

Boss from Cops and Ganon from Legend of Zelda.

Right. The rest of the voice cast, I know none

of them, as far as what I saw on the listing

on BehindTheVoiceActors .com! Well, you should

recognize a few others. If you don't, then some

other people should. You mentioned Lynn Carlson,

who I mainly remember as being Big Boss from

COPS and being Professor Coldheart from Care

Bears, along with the ones that you had mentioned.

The other guys I remember, Bob Dürmer, who voices

Ralph Raccoon, he was Grumpy Bear in the Care

Bears, a variety, not all, not every appearance

of Grumpy Bear, but in the Grumpy Bear from our

time. He was his voice. And he also was the voice

of Sam Crenshaw from Today's Special, which is

obviously a show that I like. So I do recognize

Bob Dermer. He's well known in Canada. The other

ones, a couple of them did shows on like did

voices and cops or stuff like that. So you probably

don't recognize them. But there is another one

that I for sure have to bring up and let me get

to him real quick. Well, I can't believe you

didn't mention this but uh, there's a pretty

famous young Canadian girl that voiced a character

in this show. Tara Cherenduff? Yeah, later to

be Tara Strong. She was in here. The other people

that I remember, Susan Roman, who besides raccoons

did some strawberry shortcake stuff, did some

Care Bears stuff, some Sailor Moon stuff, and

some Mega Man stuff. So fans of those franchises

might recognize her. Marvin Goldhar did some

voices on Cops and Dino Saucers. Like I said,

a lot of these shows carried the same cast. Nick

Nichols was in Cops. But the one that I, the

two that stand out the most to me, Dan Hennessey,

who was Good Luck Bear and Braveheart Lion in

the Care Bears. At a time did Chief Quimby on

Inspector Gadget. Amongst other people that did

that voice obviously turbo two -tone from cops

He did the popples and police academy some Star

Wars like the Ewoks a cartoon So he's been around

and then Less lie is a name. I wanted to bring

up He is not necessarily known for doing a lot

of voice acting But he was one of the main adult

actors on the live -action series. You can't

do that on television He was he and one other

lady basically played most of the adult parts

So I remember him from more of a live -action

thing and he did a guest role on the raccoon

So those are the voice cast that I recall But

like you said ahead well just from you mentioning

the characters that they voice and other stuff

I I would recognize the voices like like turbo

two -tone everybody knows turbo two -tones voice

that watches cops, you know, right so I We've

talked about this before on this show and other

podcasts where we've talked about voice actors

where there are sometimes you recognize a voice

or you know the person by the voice and there's

sometimes where you can look at a cast and you're

like, oh, Phil Lamar, oh, Kevin McGregor, oh,

Tara Strong, oh, Rob Paulson, oh, Peter Cullen,

you know, Frank Walker. But just looking at this

initially, outside of Lynn Carlson, I didn't

recognize anybody and I don't think I scrolled

down far enough to see Tara's name. Yeah, no,

that makes sense. And she was on a, you know,

guest role, basically, so. Yeah. Overall, would

you say it was a good voice acted cartoon? I

would say for what it was, yeah, I mean, it did

have a, it wasn't like it was a bunch of, oh,

Hadley Kay did a guest role too, but it wasn't

like it was a bunch of guests, like. Rookies

doing the voices here for the most part. It was

experienced voice actors in Canada You know,

they had done quite a few shows some of them

were you know older in age So they did good at

what they did You know, I don't know if I would

say that it's good compared to some of the American

stuff that we were getting I just pissed off

a bunch of Canadians You know, I have a special

place in my heart for some of these guys just

because I watched a lot of the shows that they

were doing Right, and I love Bob Dermer and I

think Len Carlson's good. So it was a it was

well voice cast They had some unique voices some

different voices If you're just used to the American,

you know, like you would a bunch of the names

you just mentioned So I would say, you know,

it was it was well Well voiced. Yeah. And again,

like I said, this was out at a time where you

know us as kids We paid more attention to a voice

versus What? The person providing the voice's

name. Well, you know what I mean? Like like nowadays

we pay attention to who is doing what whereas

in 1985 When I was five and you were four, you

know, we're not paying attention that we're paying,

you know, we want to hear Barrier is it Barry

raccoon? Which which one? The Burt. Burt. Yeah.

Burt Berry. It begins with a B. Burt and Ralph.

Yeah. Right. Burt Raccoon, where we would pay

attention to the voice more so than, oh, hey,

that's this person. You know what I mean? That's

this person's name. On that merit, I really do

think the voice cast is is superb But just looking

at this for informational purposes in general

people would take a double take of like who are

all these strings Yeah, they're not necessarily

the most name recognized guys But some of the

voices are and like I said, they have unique

voices that you might not be able to identify

who's doing it But you think wow, that's you

know, it's not you're just like your typical

voice that some of these guys have some crazy

Twist on it and like Len Carlson, for example,

the one the voice he uses for Bert raccoon is

Way different than the voice he uses for some

of these other characters. He plays like I would

never think that's big boss From cops. Yeah,

I mean, I mean I guess you can maybe hear it,

you know If you were looking for it if you were

like if someone tells you hey, that's the same

person and then you listen very carefully You

might be able to say, okay, I can hear it But

as a kid, you're not gonna hear those two characters

and be like, oh, that's the same person Like

you are when you hear You know Starscream and

Cobra commander. Yeah, you know what I mean?

So they did some good stuff with their voices

As far as like getting into like some of the

actual characters It's basically a oh I'd say

about a five person main cast here as far as

the The good characters you have Bert raccoon

Ralph raccoon and Melissa raccoon Um, those are

your main three. And then they have, uh, the

sheepdog named Schaefer and Cedric sneer, which

is a relative of the main antagonist. So those

five are usually the ones getting into all the

trouble or trying to solve things or, you know,

save things. And then you have Cyril sneer, who

is the, you know, the evil anti, you know, Turns

into he kind of goes through some different phases.

He probably has the most character development

out of anybody But he is the main what you would

call I guess bad guy So the sneers and the sheepdog,

why am I flashing to Sam and Ralph from Looney

Tunes days? That's a good question But uh, yeah

Bert like you had mentioned that he is the main

one. Yeah and he's got a lot of energy, a lot

of imagination, and he's the one that's usually

seeking out adventure and causing the problems.

Ralph and Melissa are a married couple who Bert

lives with. It's kind of weird because they all

seem kind of along the same level, but these

two are married and Bert lives with them as like

a house guest. Cedric, giving you this specific

family relation, he is Cyril's son. But he's

Bert's best friend. So he's the one that's gonna

inherit the sneer fortune, but his dad's the

one that's causing all, you know, most of the

problems. And then Schaefer, like I said, he's

a sheepdog. He's just friends with the raccoons.

I don't know why. It's a weird setup because

you have raccoons as the main people, right?

But then you have these sneers who aren't even

animals in there. And then you have raccoons

who are friends with like the dogs. It's just

a weird like... It doesn't make sense. I mean,

I guess sneers are technically aardvarks, but

okay How many kids watching that show knew that

those were aardvarks? Yeah, the only time I've

ever seen an aardvark in animation was the ant

in the aardvark a Separate cartoon along with

the pink panther stuff. Yeah, you know I'm gonna

get you you stupid ant. I'm hungry Yeah, and

this is somewhat similar to like some of the

other shows that Canada was doing they they did

throw humans into this like animal world so it's

not just like an animal world like you would

think of with like a It's not like Lion King

Right, there are some humans in there. You have

like the forest ranger, Dan, who's kind of the

caretaker of where they all live. You have his

son and his daughter, Tommy and Julie. So there

are humans that are in the mix, kind of like

similar to Care Bears, where there's humans mixing

in with Care Bears type thing. So it's not just

an animal show. Hmm interesting, but as far as

the characters go if I had to pick like a favorite

character Probably be Ralph Burt Was way more

energetic and trouble causing mischief maker

So I didn't necessarily think of him as my favorite

because I was mad at him for like getting them

into the trouble And Cedric was just kind of

the nerdy like weird oddball of the group. So

Ralph was kind of like the voice of reason. So

I kind of was more drawn towards him. Some people

call him Cyril, some people call him Cyril. He

was a pretty good bad guy. I didn't like him,

but he was a pretty down and dirty, trying to

take out the forest and just make money and evil

characters. So he did a good job. I just didn't

like him as a kid. He was creepy. Most of the

villains in cartoons were creepy. It's like this

this extra edge though because he's always smoking

a cigar He's a villain that you wouldn't see

these days He he's reminding me of Ralph ish

Ralph from Berenstain He almost reminds me of

an evil like George Burns That's some reason

like a mix with Donald Trump wanting all the

money and everything But yeah, he was he was

an interesting bad guy. That's for sure. Canada

did some some interesting, unique and cool bad

guys in some of their shows. You know, like the

Care Bears and and I want to say like some of

the other stuff that they did. I want to say

Rainbow Brite was Canadian, too. Or some of those

shows. I mean, they had some interesting bad

guys in the show. The weird thing is, is it's

basically just him. Yeah, later on in the series

there will be some other guys that kind of come

along and there are some like Guest bad characters,

but for the most part it's him ever almost it

seems like every time with no like major Sidekicks

that are there all the time, right? Like you'll

have other people that will come in for an episode

that are like trying to do this or that But you

don't have like a main say like usually you have

a show with a bad guy and a couple at least henchmen

or sidekicks Yeah, not so much with this one.

So that's kind of unique as about it as well

What about the overall? premise of like okay,

yeah, you've mentioned that the Bert likes to

get into mischief and all this stuff But is there

a premise to this show is there I mean I know

we all know that 80s cartoons and 70s cartoons

didn't really rely on continuity like cartoons

do today, but was there any like The constant

plotline and the constant story and basically

why I made it be alluded to Captain Planet a

little bit is basically Sneer is always, almost

every episode, he is doing something to make

money and usually the way he is doing that as

the evil kinda like tycoon industrialist it's

near is looting plunder yeah he's basically going

to make money off of the forest evergreen forest

he's either cutting stuff down trying to build

stuff he's somehow trying to destroy parts or

whole of the forest and it's the trio of, you

know, Ralph, Melissa and Bert who almost on an

episodic basis are trying to save their forest

from his plans or his schemes or whatever. Now,

over time some stuff changes but basically it

is almost like a Captain Planet where it's all

about the environment and the industrial greedy

moneymaker business people against the nature

friendly raccoons. I see. So that's what Basically,

I mean that's it in a nutshell So this could

be nature versus technology at some point Not

necessarily technology more so industry and business

Okay, nature versus greed. I see. Yeah, basically

Damn you bury made off What about the music or

the theme song in this was this I heard the theme

song, but I didn't really get a whole lot out

of it. What about you? What did you get out of

the theme song and stuff? The theme song's not

necessarily one that I would write down and go

back and listen to many times. I would never

rank it on any of my lists. But music -wise,

there is a lot of music connections with this.

The theme song actually was sung by one of the

cast members at one point. Which there's been

different versions of I guess in Canada. It was

big There were other songs that were performed

by people in the specials that were also doing

voices So there was an attempt to make a very

strong musical connection in this show Just to

me none of the music stuck with me and none of

it to me was very memorable But that's not to

say it might not be for some other people they

did I don't want to there was a Concerned, you

know concerted effort by the people behind the

show to tie in music, especially with the specials

Maybe not as much with the actual series proper

But like I said, there was a there was an effort

there was a lot of music involved to me None

of it really stuck with me as being like something

special I honestly wouldn't recognize any of

that. If you played me a song from their song

track or from different things from their special,

I would not recognize it at all. It's the intro

theme, but even then it wouldn't be something

where I was like, oh, that was a good one. So

I give an A for effort, but nothing for me. An

A for effort, but an F for execution. Alright,

getting into the legacy segment, the where are

they now type of segment here. Apparently the

reception for the raccoons was well received

by critics. New York Times in its review for

their second TV special said, quote, the raccoons

are an adorable lot supported nicely by an attractive

production. I'm hoping there's a DVD set of this

because the Clips I saw on YouTube were really

poor quality, and that's not saying much in YouTube's

favor. Variety praised the third special, The

Raccoons and the Lost Star, calling it a... Mean

it's gonna be like anything of that time period

if you were environmental friendly and pro and

everything and the people You know the parents

couldn't find something to bitch about then you're

gonna get a good reception good. You know right

up etc etc Nowadays though there would be some

parents and people that were upset about the

main guy smoking a cigar all the time and and

some minor stupid things like that, but There

was nothing that people could really write bad

about this Now this is going to start up, my

next bit here is going to start up our argument

about DVD versus streaming. But as far as the

DVD releases for this, it's been released in

multiple countries outside of the U .S. It was

two and a half bucks. It's released three discs

that were also available separately. The discs

were released without any region coding. The

first set contained nine of the ten episodes

from season two. Essentially what you need to

know is on December 14, 2009, the first season

of The Raccoons is released on iTunes in Canada.

Well, of course. On April 19, 2010, the first

season is also released on iTunes in the United

States. The first two seasons are released on

DVD to Netflix in the United States. Now, when

I first read that on Wikipedia, I was like, okay.

to netflix the raccoons it's not on stream what

the hell but it's dvd netflix's dvd rental program

that it's on it's not on the streaming which

i found to be really dumb uh... having to meet

me to resort to crappy youtube quality clips

uh... So that's the DVD stuff. I think we're

gonna take a quick commercial break and we'll

come back to give our final thoughts Like animation

come listen to animation aficionados And if you

disagree with us, you could be a guest on a future

show available on iTunes the zoom market and

animation aficionados calm Is this thing on?

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know, I liked it as a kid, you know at a certain

time when you know You're like I said transitioning

from stuff like Smurfs and getting more into

like, you know Like it was a long time of Care

Bears and my little pony and strawberry shortcake

and some of those You know that my sister was

into This was kind of a little bit more mature

into the environment stuff, which at the time

was something different for me. I hadn't really

been exposed to Captain Planet or anything like

that. So it seemed different, cool. I liked it.

I don't think it's terrible nowadays. I still

think part of it would work. you know obviously

the YouTube quality is crappy so you need some

better quality stuff but it's kind of time with

stuff the whole industrial versus you know environment

so that part of it works You know, is it one

of the best 80s cartoons ever? No, but it's a

pretty high quality and it's, you know, amongst

the other Canadian stuff, it had a lot of success,

you know, five, 60 episodes or whatever that

it got out over five seasons. So it's not like

it was a one season wonder. It was around for

either in live, not live, but either in new episodes

or syndication or reruns. It was around for 10

to 11 years. You know, so something has to be

said for that. That doesn't just happen to every

show as we see a lot lately when shows get cancelled

after one or two seasons This one GI Joe renegades

Etc this one, you know lasted a good five six

years if you count the specials and then you

know syndication for another three four five

years, so It's it's worth a page in the animation

history books Cool. Cool. Not a chapter but a

page. Yeah You got anything you want to promote

before we close out? Yeah. All our other shows

and of course BehindTheVoiceActors .com. We should

have a bunch of Halloween stuff coming out real

soon for Behind The Voice Actors. So maybe some

specials and movies and voice compares related

to Halloween and that good stuff. Cool, cool.

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Mike with... The Optimus Solo. I don't know what

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Thank you for listening until next time!