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The Raccoons season one DVD review
James Hunt
I have to admit, at the time I was not a huge Raccoons fan, but on a second watch, well, it's kind of nice to see a cartoon that's emphatically not interested in selling you toys, and more broadly concerned with imparting moral wisdom.
The Raccoons: a cartoon from yesteryear with that bit more to it. As the season one DVD clearly demonstrates...
Published on Dec 10, 2007
It wasn’t like that back in the day, let me tell you. In the 80s all we had was inconsistent colouring and a tie-in lunchbox, and we were glad! Optimus Prime wasn’t just the leader of some transforming alien robots, he was a role-model. If he happened to sell a few bits of merchandise on the side to make ends meet, well, who can begrudge him that? It was nowhere near as bad as it is today.
Except, of course, that beyond all the rose-tinted nostalgia, it was. There’s a very real danger when looking back on one’s childhood that you’ll think to yourself “ah, yes, those were the days!” while your sneering parents look on, misty-eyed at the days when barely-intelligible plant-pot men taught them… whatever those things taught. You see, the cartoons of yesterday are largely just as guilty as the cartoons of today in their attempts to market toys to children through the medium of poorly-written, poorly-realised animation. What’s more, not content with fleecing us at the time, the age of DVD has brought them back trick us into shelling out again, only this time it’s our own money we’re spending!
Which brings us, in an increasingly bitter and jaded way, to The Raccoons, a series focussing on the adventures of the anthropomorphic and eponymous Raccoons - Bert, Melissa and Ralph - and their aardvark (yes, aardvark) nemesis, cigar-chomping business magnate (remember, it was the 80s) Cyril Sneer - not forgetting his whiny son Cedric.
There’s an urban legend floating around that suggests the only point of The Raccoons was to market the natural beauty of the Canadian wilderness in an attempt to boost tourism. Whether or this is true or not does not change the fact that The Raccoons does tend to emphasise this aspect, as the action plays out in Evergreen Forest, an area of natural beauty. However, that’s not really the focus of it.
Instead, The Raccoons concentrates on telling fairly engaging, if occasionally twee stories based around the timeless themes of friendship, environmentalism, love, the value of hard work and all the other guff you’d roll your eyes at if it came out of the mouth of Pokemon's Ash Ketchum. I have to admit, at the time I was not a huge Raccoons fan, but on a second watch, well, it’s kind of nice to see a cartoon that's emphatically not interested in selling you toys, and more broadly concerned with imparting moral wisdom. I could tell even before I researched it that something like this could only have come from a public broadcasting network (CBC - the Canadian BBC).
This DVD set contains the first 11 episodes spread over two disks, with each episode running at 25 minutes. Sadly it omits the four preceding telemovies, which would’ve slotted perfectly into this set and really complemented the beginnings of the show. Still, whatever reason exists for leaving them out, it does at least feel forgivable.
The episodes are presented to a fairly high degree of quality – the colours are occasionally a little washed-out, though the strong visuals of the show do shine through when given the chance. Luckily, a clear audio transfer gives the frankly amazing New Wave-influenced soundtrack a chance to really make its mark. So high is the quality that one wonders if the broadcasting equipment of decades past ever did The Raccoons the justice that DVD can.
The second DVD contains (in addition to the episodes) a whole bunch of extras, including character biographies for the regular and recurring cast, and the oddly-named “build-a-scene” which on closer inspection appears to show nothing more than several chronologically-ordered production stills for 6 random scenes from the show. The only other extras are DVD-ROM content - a very short line-test animation, a selection of “wallpapers” that are actually more production stills (not even re-sized for standard desktop resolution) and some genuinely interesting sets of animation cels and background artwork which are unfortunately presented as PDF documents, presumably to copy-protect the images they contain.
In fairness, the ability to find extras for cartoons this old is limited, and the production crew have done what they can, though one wonders what subsequent seasons will include if this is all they could scrape together for the debut. Packaging and menus are simple but effective, and a small insert leaflet documents the available episodes in enough detail that you’ll never find yourself trying to guess which episode is which.
Despite lacklustre extras, the collection is certainly accessible to both casual and hardcore fans, and should certainly appeal to anyone attempting to recapture their youth, or at least sell it on to their own children. Certainly, the main feature is of a higher quality than many cartoons from the era, and its gentle humour and moral messages still hold up today, both in style and execution.
Extras:
Feature:
Seriously, though, the best part of the whole set? An advertising leaflet for the forthcoming DVD release of Mysterious Cities of Gold. Just try and stop me.
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Re: The Raccoons season one DVD review
Posted By Spidergirl 1 December 10, 2007 01:15:01 PM
I absolutely hated this cartoon in the 80s. Hated it. It gives me a mild headache now even thinking about it.
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The Raccoons. The cartoon that brought us Cyril Sneer.
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