Bonkers

### Created By

Jay Lender, Larry Latham, Greg Weisman, Duane Capizzi, Robert Hathcock, Richard Trueblood and Len Smith

### Theme Music

"Bonkers Theme" by Rob Paulsen, Randy Petersen, Kevin Quinn, John Bauman and Kasey Cisyk

### Producers

Greg Weisman, Duane Capizzi, Bob Hathcock and Robert Taylor

### Original Network

The Disney Channel
 Syndication

### Original Release

February 28, 1993 - February 23, 1994

**Bonkers** is an American television series created by Jay Lender, Larry Latham, Greg Weisman, Duane Capizzi, Robert Hathcock, Richard Trueblood and Len Smith.

It focuses on Bonkers D. Bobcat who was a popular cartoon star and then became a cop.

The series premiered on The Disney Channel on February 28, 1993 and aired for 4 seasons on Syndication until February 23, 1994.

## Plot

The premise of the series was that Bonkers D. Bobcat, an anthropomorphic bobcat who was a popular cartoon star, had washed out of show business and became a cop. He was made the junior partner of Detective Lucky Piquel, a grim and ill-tempered human who hates toons. Throughout the series, the pair work together to solve crimes in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, California, region. Bonkers repeatedly tried to win Piquel's praise, but usually just ended up ruining missions with his antics. But often those goofy antics would prove to save the day.

After multiple episodes of working with Bonkers, Piquel was given an FBI job in Washington, D.C., and with great glee was finally able to leave Bonkers, but finally realized that after all the time spent hating working with Bonkers he had grown to love him. He took along the police radio, the light, Toots and Fall-Apart Rabbit. At the end of the "Lucky" episodes, Bonkers was given a new partner, the attractive cool-headed Officer Miranda Wright. Although also human, she was far more patient and tolerant of his antics than was Piquel. With Miranda, Bonkers was more the brunt of the slapstick.

## Cast and Characters

### Recurring

* Frank Welker as Fall Apart Rabbit
* Nancy Cartwright as Fawn Deer
* Jim Cummings as Detective Lucky Shirley Piquel
* Sherry Lynn as Marilyn Piquel
* April Winchell as Dilandra "Dyl" Piquel
* Karla DeVito as Officer Miranda Wright
* Erin Gray as Shirley Wright
* Dana Hill as Timmy Wright
* Earl Boen as Leonard Kanifky
* Ron Perlman as Sergeant Francis Q. Grating

### Villains

* Michael Bell as The Collector
* Jeff Bennett as Mr. Doodles
* June Foray as Ma Parker
* Rob Paulsen and Pat Fraley as Wooly and Bully
* Brad Garrett as The Rat / Louse A. Nominous / Fireball Frank
* Chuck McCann as The Ape
* Chick Vennera and Tino Insana as Chuck and Stu
* Stuart Pankin as Mammoth Mammoth
* Jess Harnell as Toon Bomb
* S. Scott Bullock as Mr. Big / Mikey Muffin / Toon Pencil
* Rip Taylor as Wacky Weasel
* Tino Insana as Scatter Squirrel
* Jimmy Hibbert as Zoom and Boom
* Dan Ferro as TJ Finger
* Gilbert Gottfried as Two-Bits
* Maurice LaMarche as Al Vermin / Mr. Blackenblue
* Eileen Brennan as Lilith DuPrave
* Pat Fraley as WildMat Wyatt
* Sherry Lynn as Katya Legs Go-won-a-lot
* Joe Alaskey as Flaps the Elephant
* Corey Burton as Seymour Sleazebottom
* Charlie Adler as Limo Seymour
* Rene Auberjononis as Winston Prickley

## Episodes

See Also: List of Bonkers Episodes

 2 | 18
 3 | 15
 4 | 15

## Video Games

* Bonkers (Video Game)
* Bonkers (Sega Video Game)
* Disney's Bonkers: Wax Up!

## Production

The series played 65 episodes, as part of The Disney Afternoon. They were not created in chronological order: The "Miranda" episodes were actually produced first, excluding the two-part series premiere, which featured Piquel and Bonkers meeting for the first time. This discrepancy becomes evident when observing the look of the main character in both sets of episodes. In the Raw Toonage shorts, Bonkers was orange with one brown spot, golf-club-like ears, and an undone tail. When the Lucky Piquel-era episodes (produced by Robert Taylor) were made, the character had a major overhaul: skinnier ears, two black spots on each his tufts, black Tigger-like stripes on his tail, and a different uniform. The Miranda Wright-era episodes (produced by Duane Capizzi, Robert Hathcock & Greg Weisman) use Bonkers's original look from Raw Toonage. The series also occasionally featured episodes of "cartoons" from Bonkers's pre-police actor days, all lifted from the Raw Toonage series. The two-part premiere can be seen to show the reason for the difference in appearance as he mostly appears with his Black Dot Lucky design, but when he goes into makeup, his sweater is put on, and when his head re-appears, his spots have turned brown, then his ears are 'puffed' up. While this works for explaining the two designs in context, New partners does not show or explain why he then decided to use his 'make up' version for every day.

The Raw Toonage shorts were an after-thought of production. While Bonkers was in pre-production, the Raw Toonage team headed by Larry Latham produced 12 "He's Bonkers" shorts. These shorts were, in the context of Bonkers, explained to be some of the shorts Bonkers made at Wackytoons Studios before he was fired. The animated short entitled Petal to the Metal was originally shown in theatres in 1992 before the feature movie 3 Ninjas, while the rest were shown on the program Raw Toonage. In syndication, the shorts were collected into four full episodes with fillers of new material in between.

Meanwhile, Duane Capizzi, making his producing debut, was brought into the fold and teamed with animation veteran Robert Hathcock and charged with making 65 episodes (a full season's worth in syndication). The episodes theoretically would feature Bonkers with Wright as his partner. These episodes came back from overseas animation studios looking less than spectacular, causing considerable concern at Disney. Ultimately, the original team was replaced, and a team headed by Robert Taylor came in. Only 19 of the original-order shows survived to air; they are what is known as the "Miranda Wright episodes" of Bonkers. Nine of these episodes were aired on The Disney Channel during the first half of 1993 as a preview for the series, before its syndicated premiere in the fall. The 19 Miranda Wright episodes are shown toward the end of the series in the official continuity. Greg Weisman (co-creator of Disney's Gargoyles) worked on the Miranda episodes, and Bonkers's relationship with Miranda inspired Goliath's relationship with Elisa Maza.

Taylor threw out the old premise of the show. He replaced it with the Lucky Piquel scenario, but his episodes were revised and established to occur before the original episodes. 42 episodes of the "Piquel Era" were made, including one (New Partners on the Block), which attempted to bridge the gap between the two somewhat contradictory storylines.

The series was long incorrectly rumoured to have originally been intended as a Roger Rabbit spin-off series which ended up being scrapped due to licensing issues from Amblin Entertainment, with Bonkers being created instead. However, in 2008, Greg Weisman, who was a writer on the series, denied this. While confirming that the title character was inspired by Roger, and the Toontown concept had also been influenced by the film, Weisman insists that Bonkers was always meant to be his own character.

The syndicated version of the series (which omits several of the original episodes that survived first-run) was last seen on Toon Disney until late 2004.

The series became available to stream on Disney+, upon its launch on November 12, 2019.