Review of Raccoons, The - Season 1

Introduction

This review is brought to you courtesy of my PC. Which is nothing new I`m sure. However, for the first time, I have received discs for review that my player refuses to handle, not even getting past the copyright screen before locking up. Hence this review will reflect the viewing experience via a PC monitor. Should you be a fan of The Raccoons, and have as your main player a Sony DVP NS705-V (multiregion), then make sure that you can get a refund before investing in these discs (or buy another player).

Nostalgia can be a strong incentive when it comes to building up that DVD collection. Companies have the equivalent of a spring-cleaning day and rush out a host of barely remembered series on DVD. Going through those corporate attics can reveal hidden gems, as well as a whole heap of dross. Just because you have golden memories of a televised treasure hunt game, hosted by Davy Jones of the Monkees, it doesn`t mean that seeing it from a 21st Century perspective will engender the same feelings. So it is always with a hint of trepidation that I approach these venerable televisual hits of old.

I must have been ten years old when I first encountered The Raccoons. Christmas television viewing at that age meant finding a Radio Times and circling all the cartoons. One of the films that year was one of the Raccoons features (there were three or four made from 1980 onwards). And like most of the non-Disney animated features of the period, it was an eco-toon. Animation was the perfect medium in teaching youngsters how to save the planet, back when saving the planet just meant fixing the ozone hole, stopping acid rain, protecting the rainforest and saving the whales. An aardvark named Cyril Sneer wanted to bulldoze the Evergreen Forest to replace it with polluting industry, and all that stood in his way were a gang of raccoons. Like all the films of that ilk, it hammered in its eco-morality with the subtlety of an anvil plunging from the sky. Borderline entertaining, it just about kept my attention for its runtime, and then departed from my consciousness, never to be considered again.

That was until a few years later, when the Raccoons television series came to the UK. Like the features, it was a Canadian animation, bring the movie characters to teatime after-school screens, and like its theatrical big brothers it was the brainchild of Kevin Gillis. Of course a 24-minute weekly platform to lecture children on the perils of pollution would quickly lose an audience, so the television series toned down the green politics, reworked some of the characters (Cyril Sneer was a whole lot more friendlier), and concentrated more on fun. The adventures of the Raccoons were compulsive viewing for this young-un, and I stayed with the series long past my childhood. The Raccoons ran for 5 years, from 1985-90, and the first season of 11 episodes is presented here on two discs, along with a helping of extra features.

Bert Raccoon is the star of the show, a brash adventurous type who drives the stories through sheer strength of character. His friends are Ralph and Melissa, who occasionally join him on his adventures, but are a little more grown up. They live in the Evergreen Forest, an idyllic haven that they strive to protect. It needs protecting from Scrooge-like businessman Cyril Sneer, a cigar-chewing megalomaniac who lives in a castle, served by a coterie of three pigs who are always on the receiving end of his ire. He`s determined to exploit the forest for all its worth. His mild-mannered son Cedric on the other hand is good friends with the raccoons, and always tries to mediate between the two, although he usually sides with his friends. Joining the gang are Schaeffer, an English sheepdog who belongs to the Forest Ranger, Cedric`s girlfriend Sofia Tutu and little pup Broo. Together the friends have a series of madcap adventures in the forest.

The episodes…

Disc 1
1. Surprise Attack
2. Going It Alone
3. A Night To Remember
4. The Evergreen Grand Prix
5. The Runaways
6. Buried Treasure

Disc 2
7. The Intruders
8. Opportunity Knocks
9. Cry Wolf
10. Rumours
11. Gold Rush

Video

Peering through the fuzz on my monitor, and trying to put the tension headache behind me, I can tell you that The Raccoons get a 4:3 regular transfer, and the image reflects those broadcasts of two decades ago. The tape origins are apparent, with a degree of softness and some print damage to be getting on with. It`s a touch grainy too. The animation is simple but effective, and unlike similar animations of the period each scene is created fresh, there is no stock animation immediately apparent. The hand made feel is apparent; with CG animation still a distant possibility. You can see the unevenness of the inks in the way the characters are coloured. It may be quaint, but it works well.

Audio

I don`t want to condone illicit file sharing, but have you tried to find "Run With Us" by Lisa Lougheed on CD? That was an iconic theme tune from my childhood. It isn`t on this set by the way, as Lisa`s vocals came later in the run. Point of trivia, file sharing is legal in Canada, subsidised by a tax on recordable media. Now there`s a civilised way to do things.

The Raccoons gets a DD 2.0 English track, no subtitles. Again the sound reflects the original broadcasts. It`s a touch better actually, as instead of tinny mono, we get some stereo separation in the soundtrack, with audible placement of effects and the dialogue is clear throughout. Age is apparent though, with a couple of pops, and the second episode suffers from some obvious `wobbly tape` moments. The Raccoons also offers plenty of 80`s pop music to marvel at, with at least one montage sequence in every episode allowing a different track to be showcased.

Features

The presentation is nice, with animated menus playing against the theme song. Wait too long and Bert pops up to urge you to get off your comfortable behinds. Options on disc 1 are limited to episode selection and play all, while the extras are available on disc 2.

You get text biographies for the characters as well as one for creator Kevin Gillis.

There is a section called create a scene, which allows you to frame advance through 9 selected scenes.

There is more of this in Raccoona-ROM-a, the DVD-ROM feature. Place the disc in your PC, and you`ll find a Quicktime file offering a work in progress of part of the opening sequence, 14 jpg files to be used as wallpaper, and 3 PDF files. One is a set of acknowledgements for the people who worked on the DVD, one contains 137 pages of cels from the animation, showing various scenes, while the other contains 77 pages of cels taken from the opening sequence.

Conclusion

When I was a child, cartoons relied on stock footage and routine stories to stretch out their runs. It`s easy to be nostalgic about Scooby Doo, but trying to watch those shows today can`t help but disappoint. Not so with the Raccoons. It`s been 22 years since these cartoons were made, but the animation is just as charming, and the stories are just as fresh. Of course, the target audience is a tad younger than this reviewer, and where originally I missed the gentle moralising, or accepted the more annoying characters; they stick out like a sore thumb today.

The Raccoons were part of a revolution in serial animation for children, shows that ditched the stock footage, and became more varied in the stories that they told. No longer would a gang of kids take their dog ghost hunting week in and week out, only to unmask the latest in a succession of malicious janitors. The Raccoons introduced a set of characters, set the scene in the Evergreen Forest and let the writers` imaginations run riot. So we have episodes about a surprise birthday party, a spooky mountain, a haunted house, a car race, running away from home, a treasure hunt, being trapped in a vault, starting a newspaper, a royal visit, and alchemy.

These shows are also from a more innocent age, where the primary purpose of the show wasn`t to sell a load of plastic tat. These early episodes still have a legacy of the films, with the forest ranger and his kids still in the show, often forming a framing story that mirrors the moral of the main arc. But the main thing to note about the episodes is how much fun they are. It`s such a shame that due to current rules about children`s television, these can`t be broadcast. Cyril Sneer always has a cigar butt dripping ash from the corner of his mouth, and as the moral guardians insist on telling us, smoking is bad.

While these episodes are great fun for the target audience, there`s enough here to hold older attentions too. Cyril Sneer has an acerbic wit to his misanthropy; he takes out his ire on his three henchpigs with a certain glee, threatening them with all sorts of pork product based ends. There is also an occasional subversive edge to the animation. Early on, Cyril orders his bears to disguise themselves and spy on the raccoons. One disguises himself as a tree, attracting the attention of Cyril`s dog Snag, who hears nature calling. Speaking of nature, the eco-message may be mitigated for a mass audience, but it is still there. Cyril`s designs on the forest are never far away, and more than once in these eleven episodes, the raccoons are called upon to save their home. But the green theme is applied as subtly as children`s animation allows, and never overwhelms the fun.

Fans of my age will find that they may have outgrown The Raccoons slightly, but unlike other shows, the nostalgia hasn`t tarnished. These shows are still fun, and are still as fresh as they were 20 odd years ago. The characters are still charming, the wit is still there and the energy of the episodes hasn`t dimmed. Kids will love it, once they get past the fact that it`s not in 3D CGI. Just tell them that the television companies won`t allow them to see it, and they`ll watch it out of sheer contrariness. Adults coming to the show anew will also find enough humour to keep the attention. Where else will you hear the immortal line, "You guys aren`t cops, you`re pigs!"

This two-disc set offers good value for money, as Raccoons is a series where each episode is different, and routine certainly isn`t the order of the day. There is also a fair selection of extras. It will be equally rewarding for newcomers and nostalgics alike. The Raccoons are looking very sprightly for their age. I just wish I could have seen them on my TV.