The Raccoons

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The Raccoons
The Raccoons
Genre	Children's Animated television series
Created by	Kevin Gillis
Voices of	Len Carlson Bob Dermer Susan Roman Carl Banas Michael Magee Marvin Goldhar Nick Nichols Lisa Lougheed Sharon Lewis Keith Hampshire
Narrated by	Geoffrey Winter
Theme music composer	Kevin Gillis Jon Stroll
Ending theme	Run With Us
Country of origin	Canada
Language(s)	English
No. of seasons	5
No. of episodes	60 (plus 4 specials) (List of episodes)
Production
Executive producer(s)	Kevin Gillis Sheldon S. Wiseman
Running time	25 mins
Production company(s)	Atkinson Film-Arts (1985–1986) Hinton Animation Studios (1987–1992)
Distributor	20th Century Fox International Television (Internationally; in Spanish)
Broadcast
Original channel	CBC Television
Original run	1985 – 1992

The Raccoons is a Canadian animated television series, first broadcast from 1985 to 1992 with four preceding television specials starting from 1980. The series was created by Kevin Gillis, and produced first at Atkinson Film-Arts (from 1985–1986), then at newly established Hinton Animation Studios (from 1987 on)^[1] with the co-operation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. The Spanish dub of the show is distributed internationally by 20th Century Fox International Television. The show is currently being broadcast in Canada on Teletoon Retro.

Plot

The series features the adventures in the Evergreen Forest, "quiet, peaceful, serene", (which is depicted to be in Western Canada) of Bert Raccoon and his friends Ralph and Melissa, particularly in their attempts to thwart the industrialist actions of pink aardvark Cyril Sneer and his trio of pig henchmen. Another interesting character was the capitalist Mr. Knox—a crocodile with a New Orleans accent. Cyril's son Cedric is Bert's best friend.

Usually, the series would feature the main characters learning major life lessons in teamwork, friendship, cooperation, and sometimes just helping out their fellow friends that live near the forest, human and animal alike, tangling with the tyrannical tycoon Cyril Sneer, who does not let anything as trivial as nature's defining highlights (trees, lakes, etc) prevent him attempting to obtain a profit.

Unlike many North American animated television productions, this series' characters developed significantly through its run. For instance, Cyril gradually evolves from an unrepentantly destructive capitalist to a likable and environmentally responsible, if still highly aggressive, businessman and occasional ally of the Raccoons. Likewise, Bert Raccoon matures to a degree while Cedric Sneer becomes more self-confident.

History

Debuting in 1980 with The Christmas Raccoons TV special, The Raccoons slowly began its journey to becoming a regular animated series, using assorted specials over the next few years as stepping stones (The Raccoons on Ice, The Raccoons and the Lost Star, The Raccoons: Let's Dance), before finally becoming a regular series in 1985. Five series of episodes were produced, airing from 1985 to 1992.

In 1989, a new character by the name of Lisa Raccoon was introduced into the series. Lisa is Ralph's niece, and the statuesque older sister of Bentley Raccoon, and the daughter of George and Nicole Raccoon. She is the love interest/best friend of Bert Raccoon. Lisa made her debut in Spring Fever, she was voiced by Lisa Lougheed, the singer of the series' ending theme.

In 2003, As Long As Forever: A Raccoons Movie was listed as being in development on the Canadian Television Fund's website^[2] in the "Development Projects" section, however since then no information has been posted to the Canadian Television Fund's website about it.

The series returned to Canadian television on the new Teletoon Retro network, which launched October 1, 2007.

Unlike many cartoon series from the 1980s, The Raccoons was not heavily merchandised. Today it has a small cult following, particularly in Canada, the United Kingdom and the Russian Federation.

Although The Raccoons turned out to be a hit in those countries, it never achieved anything beyond a very small following in the United States, a prolific market for animation. The specials were broadcast in syndication, and the series was aired on The Disney Channel concurrent with its Canadian run, but after Disney dropped the series, it never had another stable timeslot, and has not been rebroadcast in the U.S. since 1999.

Music

The series had a New Wave soundtrack including the theme song "Run With Us" by cast member Lisa Lougheed a minor chart success in some countries, and covered more recently by Spray.^[3] Season 1 ended with a different version of the song, not sung by Lougheed. "Run With Us" was performed in Season 1 by Stephen Lunt. In the first season the French Canadian singer Luba performed several songs, several of which were later re-recorded by Lougheed for use in other seasons. There were also several other songs performed by other musicians such as Rita Coolidge and Rupert Holmes who performed songs for the first special, Leo Sayer and Coolidge again for the second, and John Schneider and Dottie West for the last TV special. Rory Dodd, The Dior Bros.^[4] (actually Kevin Gillis and Jon Stroll under a pseudonym), and several other musicians also had songs performed, although somewhat rarely compared to the aforementioned people. The earlier version of "Run With Us", like quite a few of the other songs from The Raccoons, were never officially released. The songs from the first two specials were released on the album Lake Freeze - The Raccoons Songtrack in 1983 and a soundtrack for the fourth special was released in 1984. Nine of the songs from the series featured on Lougheed's 1988 album Evergreen Nights. However Lougheed only sung most of the songs (sometimes in duets), while a couple of the songs were sung by other artists (Curtis King Jr and Stephen Lunt). The French version of "Run With Us", as well as most of Luba and Lisa Lougheeds songs, was performed by the French Canadian singer Jano Bergeron and titled "Viens Vers Nous".

The instrumental music was composed by Kevin Gillis and Jon Stroll and performed largly by the National Arts Centre Orchestra from Ottawa, Canada. Most of the instrumental queues were actually recorded for The Raccoons and the Lost Star and re-used for the series. Some of the background queues were arrangements of some of the lyrical songs while a couple were arrangements of existing music.

Characters

Cast

• Rich Little - Narrator (1980–1983)
• Rupert Holmes - Dan the Forest Ranger (1980)
• Tammy Bourne - Julie (1980–1983)
• Hadley Kay - Tommy (1980–1983), Bix Wheelie (1988)
• Carl Banas - Schaeffer, Bears (1981–1991), Mr. Mammoth (1985–1991), Mr. Willow (1988–1991)
• Bob Dermer - Ralph Raccoon, Bears (1981–1991), Lady Baden-Baden (1987–1991), Toof (1988), Rod Steel (1991)
• Rita Coolidge - Melissa Raccoon (1980–1981)
• Len Carlson - Bert Raccoon, Pig Two (1983-1991), Pig Three (1985-1991), Mr. Knox (1985–1991), Duck Snyder (1987), Karl Snarl (1987), Dick Ermine (1987, 1989), Professor Smedley-Smythe (1987-1991), Dr. Canard (1987, 1990), Sir Malcolm Havelock (1988), John Roykick (1988), Fern (1988), Dirk Dassie (1988), Inspector Rutledge (1989), Milton Midas (1989-1991), Maximillion Leech (1991), Robin Steel (1991)
• Michael Magee - Cyril Sneer, Snag (1981-1991)
• Fred Little - Cedric Sneer (1980–1983), Pig Three (1983)
• Leo Sayer - Dan the Forest Ranger (1981)
• Sharon Lewis - Sophia Tutu (1981–1988), Broo (1983–1991)
• Danny Gallivan - Ferlin Fielddigger (1981)
• Nick Nichols - Pig One (1983–1990), Mr. Barnes (1988)
• John Schneider - Dan the Forest Ranger (1983)
• Dottie West - Melissa Raccoon (1983)
• Kevin Gillis - Dan the Forest Ranger (1984)
• Geoffrey Winter - Narrator (1985–1991)
• Linda Feige - Melissa Raccoon (1985–1986)
• Marvin Goldhar - Cedric Sneer (1985–1991), Henri de la Possum (1987), Herman Zeckariah Stroll (1987, 1988), Simon Sneer/Sid Leech (1988), J.P. Gordon (1989)
• Murray Cruchley - Dan the Forest Ranger (1985–1986)
• Vanessa Lindores - Julie (1985–1986)
• Noam Zylberman - Tommy (1985–1986), Bentley Raccoon (1987–1990)
• Les Lye - Samaritan 'Sammy' Sneer (1985)
• Rick Jones - Sidekick (1985-1987)
• Derek Diorio - Haggis Lamborgini (1985)
• Susan Roman - Melissa Raccoon (1987–1991), Wendo (1988)
• Pauline Rennie - Aunt Gertie (1987)
• Nonnie Griffin - Mrs. Pig (1988, 1991)
• Bob Segarini - Woodchuck Berry (1989)
• Barry Bailey - Troy Malone (1989)
• Jeremiah McCann - Bonneville Knox (1989)
• Lisa Lougheed - Lisa Raccoon (1989–1991)
• Peter Messaline - The Great Tromboni (1989)
• Kay Hawtrey - Ms. Primrose (1989)
• Bruno Gerussi - Edward Miller (1989)
• Barbara Frum - Barbara Lafrum (1989)
• Theresa Sears - Ingrid Bellamour (1990)
• Debra Peck - Nurse Peck (1990)
• Stuart Stone - Danny (1990), Bentley Raccoon (1990–1991)
• Dan Hennessey - George Raccoon (1990–1991), Train Engineer Sid (1990), Sidekick (1990)
• Elizabeth Hanna - Nicole Raccoon (1990–1991)
• Keith Hampshire - Pig One (1990–1991)
• Tara Strong - Donna (1991) (as Tara Charendoff)

Episodes

Broadcast details

The series was broadcast around the world by the following channels:

• Canada: CBC Television (original broadcaster), APTN, Canal Famille, Teletoon, A-Channel (the stations that are now Citytv), Teletoon Retro
• United Kingdom: CBBC (BBC One and BBC Two 1987–2002)^[5] and Boomerang (2006–2008)
• United States: Syndication (Specials only), Disney Channel, Starz, TRIO, LAT TV (2007-2008; in Spanish)
• Eastern Europe: Boomerang Europe
• Brazil: TV Cultura
• Greece: ERT
• Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia: Televizija Zagreb (now Croatian Radiotelevision)
• Poland: Boomerang Poland, TVN (in 1998 and 1999)
• Hungary: m1 (1992–1994)
• Romania: TVR 1, TVR 2
• Russia: REN TV (Currently showing), Teleinform, NTV+
• Germany: Super RTL, Tele 5
• Ireland: RTÉ 2 (Network 2)
• Portugal: RTP 1, Canal Panda
• The Netherlands: Kindernet, RTL (Telekids), Boomerang
• Flanders: VRT
• New Zealand: TVNZ, TV ONE Sunday mornings in late 1987. Later series not screened.
• Middle East: Infinity TV, Al Deera TV and Boomerang (Orbit). Original Canadian version used to show on Children's Theatre (Cinema El Atfal) that aired on Egyptian Channel 1 in the 90s.
• Trinidad & Tobago: TTT
• Czech Republic: Czech Television
• South Africa: SABC in the early 90s. Currently on Boomerang (DStv).

DVD release

In 2004, Morningstar Entertainment released The Raccoons on DVD for the first time. Two 9-episode boxsets entitled "The Raccoons: Collector's Set 1" and "The Raccoons: Collector's Set 2" were released, each containing 3 discs that were also available separately. The disks were in Region 0 NTSC format. The first set contained nine of the ten episodes from series 2 (omitting "Stop the Clock") and the second set contained the first nine episodes of series 3. The extras include character bios, a chance to create your own scene from the Raccoons show and Raccoon-A-Roma DVD-ROM content, like Quicktime animatic sequences.

A 2-disc region 2 PAL DVD release of the complete series 1 was released on September 17, 2007 through Fabulous Films Ltd. The bonus features on set 1 were duplicated from the Canadian release, mainly the create a scene and Raccoon-A-Roma DVD ROM content. They later released a DVD entitled "Three Adventures With The Raccoons" on April 7, 2008. This DVD contained the first 3 episodes of Series 1 with no extras. Series 2 was released on April 20, 2009 by Fabulous Films Ltd. DVD extras on the set include character model sheets and a documentary.

On September 18th 2009, Germany received a DVD release of the Raccoons, it contains all 60 episodes from the TV series, spread over 8 disks, however the language track is only in German and it's 'bare bones' when it comes to extras.

References

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: The Raccoons

External links

• The Raccoons at TV.com
• The Raccoons at the Internet Movie Database
  • The Christmas Raccoons at the Internet Movie Database
  • The Raccoons on Ice at the Internet Movie Database
  • The Raccoons and the Lost Star at the Internet Movie Database
  • The Raccoons: Let's Dance! at the Internet Movie Database
• The UnOfficial Raccoons Home Page
• The Raccoons Wiki