The Wacky World of Tex Avery
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"Welcome to the Wacky-wack-wack |
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The Wacky World of Tex Avery is a Sixty-Five-Episode Cartoon show that DiC Entertainment produced in 1997 and 1998 before going defunct a few years later. Named after the late great Tex Avery, a cartoonist who is most famous for his work at Warner Bros and MGM, the creator Brody Dowler describes the show as "homage to the brilliant, hilarious and groundbreaking animator Tex Avery and the wonderful squash-and-stretch cartoons of his era". The series was an attempt to capture the true aspect of his genius and his classic characters such as Droopy, George & Junior & Screwball Squirrel.
The show contained the following short series:
- Tex Avery: A goat-riding cowboy who saves the day and his girl Chastity Knott from his nemesis Sagebrush Sid (no relation to the real one). Based on Bob Clampett's "Red Hot Ryder" from Buckaroo Bugs; although it always appears as the opening segment, not every episode has a "Tex Avery" segment.
- Einstone: A brilliant caveman who is the world's first inventor, trying to teach the other cave people how to be civilized with his inventions; a play on the name Albert Einstein, he's also loosely based on another one of Tex Avery's cartoons, "The First Bad Man."
- Ghengis & Khannie: Ghengis the Lionhearted leads his army across the world to conquer in the name of his Emperor and meets a young female panda named Khannie who tends to ruin his conquering plans; a play on the name Genghis Khan, the former is based on the lion from "Slap Happy Lion".
- Maurice & Mooch: Maurice the Chicken outwits Mooch the Fox who tries to eat him, the former based on the canary character from "King-Size Canary."
- Pompeii Pete: A short bumbling Roman supercenturion from Pompeii was buried in lava and 2,000 years later is free to live in the modern world, annoying a businessman named Dan.
- Power Pooch: A normal dog gained superpowers after licking a superhero's shoe, becoming a superhero himself along with his blue cat sidekick Little Buddy.
- Freddy the Fly: An obnoxious fly bugs an obese billionaire named Amanda Banshee, the former loosely based on one of Tex Avery's earlier characters, Homer the Homeless Flea.
Tropes used in The Wacky World of Tex Avery include:
- Accordion Man: Happens occasionally on this show, mainly with Amanda.
- Affectionate Parody: A whole lot.
- Ambiguously Jewish: Lampshaded with Burrito.
- Averted with Amanda.
- Animated Anthology
- Anvil on Head
- Ash Face
- Balloon Belly: Happened to Tex and Sid on "Fat and Fatter".
- Brick Joke: So many...
- Butt Monkey: A lot of characters can fall under this trope, the worst being Mooch, Dan, and Amanda.
- Catch Phrase
- Tex Avery: "You try to be a nice guy but no...!" "I don't think so."
- Sagebrush Sid: "What are YOU looking at?!"
- Pompeii Pete: "Scusi, scusi."
- Freddy: "Hiya, toots/pal/folks!"
- Amanda: "Time to die, fly!"
- Power Pooch: "Can you say, Justice?"
- Cats Are Mean: In the Power Pooch shorts, except for Little Buddy.
- Covers Always Lie: Tex is shown riding a horse in his opening of his shorts and in bumpers, while he actually rides a goat.
- Creepy Child: Subverted with Khannie.
- Arguably double subverted with Maurice.
- Averted with Little Buddy.
- Arguably double subverted with Maurice.
- Cross-Dressing Voices: Scott McNeil as Amanda.
- Curious as a Monkey: Pompeii Pete.
- Cute Bruiser: Khannie, Maurice, and Little Buddy.
- Dastardly Whiplash: Dan has several traits of one.
- Death Is a Slap on The Wrist
- Death Is Cheap
- Does Not Like Shoes: Pompeii Pete mostly wears sandals.
- Does This Remind You of Anything?
- Doomy Dooms of Doom
- The Dragon: Genghis, while the Emperor is arguably the Big Bad.
- Drop What You Are Doing: Avery and Einstein.
- The Emperor: The Emperor, duh.
- Evil Twin: Power Pooch has one.
- Eye Pop
- Getting Crap Past the Radar: A lot of the behavior Freddy does.
- Gross Up Close-Up
- Gross-Out Show: Played for laughs
- Harmless Villain: Up and down in regards to Sagebrush Sid.
- Hey, It's That Voice!: Various Canadian voice acting veterans.
- Cree Summer as Khannie, while Billy West is the title character.
- Idiot Hero: Power Pooch.
- In Name Only: Really has nothing to do with the legendary Avery.
- Iris Out
- Jaw Drop
- Karmic Trickster: Tex, Khannie, Maurice, and Freddy.
- Kawaiiko: Khannie and Maurice.
- Arguably Little Buddy as well.
- Large Ham: Power Pooch, Dan, and even Tex himself.
- LEGO Body Parts: Tex and Sid swap heads on "Fat and Fatter".
- Money, Dear Boy: According to Nancy Avery (daughter of the legendary cartoonist), she only approved the show, as well as selling the rights to her father's name to get her kids into college.
- Never Say "Die": Averted.
- The Pollyanna: Khannie.
- Public Domain Soundtrack: Both the show, and most (but not all) of the segments has an original theme based on PD music (e.g., Home on the Range for the Tex Avery segment, If You're Happy and You Know it for Einstone, Home Sweet Home for Maurice and Mooch, The Can-Can for the show itself, etc).
- Redheaded Hero: Tex Avery
- Rich Bitch: Amanda Banshee, oh so much. She uses her servants as furniture, for once thing.
- Screwy Squirrel: Freddy the Fly.
- Tex himself as well.
- Shout-Out: One Maurice and Mooch short has an Elmer Fudd-like hunter carrying a rabbit. Another Bugs-ish bunny showed up in a Tex cartoon. Amanda once saw Red's face in her mirror. One Power Pooch short was pretty much a rehash of "King-Size Canary". There were quite a few nods to the master, actually.
- Squashed Flat
- They Killed Kenny Again: Some of the characters from this show die a few times and come back to life on the next episode from time to time such as Dan, Genghis, and Amanda.
- Throw the Dog a Bone: Mooch, Sid, and Ghengis sometimes have happy endings along with their rivals, usually resulting in a tie.
- Amanda has managed to defeat Freddy the Fly every now and then.
- Some of Einstone’s inventions do manage to be successful and not backfire on him once in a while.
- Token Loli: Exaggerated with Khannie.
- Wild Take
- Yellow Peril: The Emperor