If you like some freakin' Ponies, you'll love...

[Headless Horse]

How about this one: The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin.

Click here to view video.

I remember watching this after school with my brother for what must have been two or three consecutive years. 65 episodes, all part of an enormous serialized story arc. The animation wasn't much to write home about (especially since it was up against the smoother Disney Afternoon stuff), but it had a real charm to it that definitely grew on you. And its medieval setting gradually gave way over time to a more Pony-like arbitrarily mixed context, with surfing, movie cameras, and modern-world jokes woven into the dialogue (which often, as in the above episode, incorporated gags that were more aimed at the adults in the audience than the kids). I particularly liked how Tweeg (the main villain) gradually changed over time from an evil and feared force to someone the protagonists just sort of tolerated and indulged once they realized how feckless he was, and by the end of the storyline he was more or less just one of the gang.

I'm not sure why this show has stuck in my brain for so long, but I found myself recalling that I'd seen the above episode only once, 25 years ago ( ), and I found I could remember the songs and the voices as clearly as if I'd seen it today.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Man, some of the names in the credits are total "Who's Who in Animation".

I spotted story editor Jack Mendelsohn (one of the writers for "Super Chicken"), storyboard artist David Feiss (went on to create "Cow and Chicken"), key animators Bob Jaques and Kelly Armstrong (husband-and-wife team responsible for the best of the best "Ren & Stimpy" animation).

It's amazing that, back in the '80s and '90s, there was alot of 65-episode season cartoons, airing every week-day for 13 weeks. You don't see that anymore, opting to spread out 65 episodes in three or four seasons.

[Headless Horse]

You know what else is kinda funny from a "connections" standpoint...

Just before I looked up the above Teddy Ruxpin show, last night I watched "Sport Goofy in Soccermania", an odd 80s "make the kids get off their asses and be healthy" reboot of Goofy that never really went anywhere as it was originally intended, but ended up being the backdoor pilot for DuckTales.

Click here to view video.

It's remarkably well animated and I apparently remembered it just as vividly as the Ruxpin thing. Definitely worth a watch and genuinely good.

But what blew my mind was that when I was watching Ruxpin, I listened to Grubby (Teddy's big dumb octopede buddy), and his voice sounded like a dead ringer for Goofy in Soccermania. So I looked it up, and lo and behold, Will Ryan, Grubby's voice, was in Soccermania. Woo! ...But wait. He wasn't Goofy. He was Scrooge.

Tony Pope was Goofy (this was before the Bill Farmer era). And Pope did a whole bunch of other voices in Ruxpin, but not Grubby.

What the fuck goes on here? Is this another one of those Tabitha St. Germain things, where all the VAs know each other personally and trade jobs with each other and do impressions of each other's characters for different shows?


Check out those credits, though. Tony Fucile, Ellen Woodbury, Joe Ranft... no wonder this feels nearly feature-grade.

[Mr. BigBrush is mightier than pen.]

Not as many familiar names in the credits, but I did spot Brett Koth as assistant animator. Brett would later become one of Jim Davis's artists at Paws Inc. He was allowed to sign his name in the later run of "U.S. Acres".

Also, I met two of the animators listed in the credits: William Finn and Mark Kausler, both of whom are great animation talents. Kausler in particular is a good friend of mine and quite possibly the only person in the world who can do 1940s style of animation masterfully. And he uses hand-painted cels for his independent films, including one that's in production right now.