BUBSY: What Could Possibly Go Wrong? (1993)

Anybody who was there at the time will remember that, in the early nineties, every video game company wanted their own hip, cool, cartoon animal mascot with ‘tude. Of course, if you’re a regular reader of this blog, you know that by far the most popular and successful of these mascots... Blowing away possums, bats, geckos, toads, dinosaurs, bandicoots, dragons, crocodiles, skunks, Tasmanian tigers, flying squirrels, grounded squirrels, crude Italian stereotypes, ninjas, cavemen, and whatever the hell a “hedgehog” is... ....was Accolade’s Bubsy the Bobcat. This widely beloved and popular character would headline a long running series of hugely successful. Ready to take on the world, Bubsy would make an attempt to leap into other mediums. However, the lauded bobcat’s first attempt to expand outside video games was so bungled that it nearly sent bobcat fanatics the world over into a depressive state.

I’m talking about, of course, the infamous pilot for a “Bubsy” animated. Made without the input of series sage, Michael Berlyn, the Taco Bell-sponsored episode would make scattered airings across the country in the second half of 1993. This perversion of our beloved hero would not be picked up for series. It wouldn’t even be released on home video, surviving only as blurry television recordings posted to the internet. This program has vexed Bubsyologist so greatly for the last twenty-five years that it I’ll behooves me to even mention it. Yet my commitment to covering all corners of the bobcat universe made this inevitable. So let’s dive right in, shall we?

Plot wise, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” is not adapted from the first game, “Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind,” the only other piece of “Bubsy” media to exist at the time. Several of its characters and some parts of its story would be appear in “Bubsy II,” released the next year. This episode marks the first appearance of Arnold Armadillo, Bubsy's timid sidekick, and Terrence and Teresa, his identical niece and nephew. (Sometimes erroneously referred to as his younger siblings.) Both the plot of the pilot and the second video game involve virtual reality, though the similarities end there. Overall, the pilot deviates greatly from established “Bubsy” lore.

So what is the plot of “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” Self-proclaimed hero Bubsy has been ordered to watch his mischievous nephew and niece, much to the chagrin of the nervous Arnold. On television, he sees inventor Virgil Reality has invented a new device that can seemingly alter the nature of reality. Bubsy volunteers to test the device, which is also being sought by narcissistic villain Ally Cassandra. Soon, Terri and Terry run off with the device, greatly misusing it. Cassandra, meanwhile, sends her two henchmen – the haughty Bozwell Buzzard and the idiotic Sid the Shrew – to steal the headset. Terri and Terry get snatched at the same time as the helmet, Bubsy and his friends setting off to rescue them.

As depicted in “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?,” Bubsy is practically a deconstruction of the '90s video mascot with 'tude. In the games, our exclamation symbol-wearing hero is very lovable and not-at-all annoying. In this cartoon, Bubsy is a huge asshole and incredibly annoying. His attitude manifests in a narcissistic need to gloat and self-promote. He volunteers to tests Dr. Reality's machine because he believes himself to be a hero and that's the kind of shit heroes do, even though Bubsy does very few genuinely heroic things throughout this half-hour. He's so brass and snarky that he treats his friends like shit. He intentionally triggers Arnold's traumatic nightmares about being hit by a truck, before spinning the armadillo around like a basketball and leaving his destructive nieces to play with him.

As for the annoying part, Bubsy is given an especially nasally voice and cracks his title-lending catchphrase so often the other characters start mocking him for it. If this was an intentional subversion of what mascot characters where like in the early nineties, it's actually quite clever. But I think that's given this failed cartoon pilot way too much credit.

In fact, you can tell that “Bubsy” isn't that smart because the rest of the pilot's humor is lame and obnoxious. Take a look at the half-hour's antagonists, who must be among the most forgettable villains of '90s Saturday mornings. Ally Cassandra, a character with no other appearances in any “Bubsy” media, seems like a half-assed attempt to create a furry sex symbol but is utterly unimposing as a villain, a vein lady villain whose humiliation provides no chuckles. Her primary henchmen – who at least showed up as regular enemies in “Bubsy 2” – are facile cliches. How many cartoons have had stuck-up stuffy bad guys like Bozwell Buzzard? Or wacky buffoons like Sid the Shrew, who largely exists to fuck up the antagonists' own plans?

These are not the only voids of humor present in “Bubsy.” Most of the special's cast are cheap cliches that we've seen trotted out a thousand times. Virgil Reality is a perfectly reasonable character that is constantly belittled by Bubsy, which just makes the bobcat hero look like more of a prick. The doctor's assistant is a cat named Oblivia, obviously because she's not very smart. Her habit of mispronouncing Bubsy's name – the briefest, dying ember's flicker of a genuinely decent gag – is repeatedly run into the ground, the humor calling far too much attention to itself. (For totally inexplicable reasons, Oblivia is then set up as Bubsy's love interest.) Mostly, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” doubles-down on loud, shrieking, “random” humor that is popular with only the most undiscriminating youngsters. We're talking lots of loud slapstick and stupid shit happening for no damn reason.

The “no damn reason” part is important. There is not a lot of clear interior logic to “Bubsy's” story. As the none-too-subtle pun in his name indicates, Dr. Virgal Reality's headset is specifically identified as – go figure – a virtual reality device. Yet I guess that was a catchy buzz word at the time that the showmakers interpreted to mean absolutely anything. Virgal's device, instead of sticking its wearer into a digital world they can interact with, instead transforms reality to the wearer's whims. So Terri and Terry use it to manifests all sorts of toys and objects. Arnold's makes his nightmares real. Cassandra has her wish of being famous granted. Basically, the episode's entire plot hinges on this MacGuffin that can do absolutely any and everything, leaving little solid foundation to build an actual story upon, resulting in a series of truly pedestrian gags.

As if you needed any other indicator that the “Bubsy” cartoon was dead on arrival, the animation isn't even up to the admittedly fairly low standards of early 90s animation. Save for Bubsy himself, the character designs are unappealing. Terri and Terry have these perpetually half-open eyes, making them looking high or sleepy. (Combined with the mayhem they reap, that makes the twins look even more like fucking sociopaths.) Arnold the Armadillo, in fact, looks more like an aardvark shoved inside a blue soccer ball. The colors are dull, the backgrounds are flat, the animation is stiff and inexpressive.

The voice cast is composed of veterans of the animation industry. If you spent any time watching cartoons in the 80s or 90s, you'll immediately recognize a few of them. Rob Paulsen – Yakko and Raphael are just two of his best-known parts – adopts a nasally lisp as Bubsy. Pat “Krang” Fraley grumbles as both Arnold and Virgil. Jim Cummings gives Sid the Shrew nearly the same voice as his take on Pete or Taz. Tress MacNeille is similarly recognizable as Oblivia, as she's definitely used the same blank and oblivious voice on “The Simpsons.” That leaves B.J. Ward and Neil Ross – equally prolific if less well known voice actors from the same era – to fill out the few remaining parts.

I guess what I'm saying is: the pilot for the “Bubsy” cartoon is pretty bad. I'm not surprised this didn't go to series, not even in the same decade that allowed classics like “Hammerman” and “Yo Yogi” to run for a whole season each. The titular question of “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” is answered with “Just about everything.” The characters are either lame or irritating. There's barely a story. The animation is fairly cheap. The jokes are grating and obvious.

The rich lore and long history of the “Bubsy” franchise deserved much better, of course, even this early in its life time. As the Dole administration dawned in 1996, the “Bubsy” series would leap to 3-D graphics and completely revolutionize video gaming. I certainly know “Bobcats Can't Glide” wouldn't exist without the long history of bobcat related media that would follow. With this pilot covered, we'll return next time to my coverage of the long-running “Bubsy” comic book from Binky Comics and dismiss this cartoon to whatever weird alternate universe – where video gaming's most beloved bobcat is a laughable jerk and an industry footnote – it belongs to.