BuckyOHare

Every episode of this series ended as it began: with the title song from the opening playing over the credits. Note in particular Marvel's involvement in this production (though Larry Hama originally pitched these stories to DC) and the numerous Korean names among the directors. (Many South Koreans and their animation studios were beginning to take an active interest in Western animation at this time, and they would continue to be involved in the production of numerous North American cartoon series thereafter, such as—in particular—Batman: The Animated Series and Batman Beyond.) Note also the credits for Abrams Gentile Entertainment Inc. near the end; yes, all you race-obsessed anti-Semites out there, another entertaining animated series for North American children (and periphery demographics such as those same children thirty years later when they're middle-aged adults) is brought to you by... the Jews! Thank you, Jews. (Um, but could you get someone else besides J.J. Abrams to make stuff for Lucasfilm? The dude's great for writing some truly promising beginnings to his stories, but terrible at writing endings. I'm guessing the "Abrams" who founded the company mentioned in these credits was no direct relation to him.) Points of interest: 0:27 That's a lot of Korean names. 0:33 You know, considering how well the movie adaptations of one of Marvel's other little-remembered comic series called Guardians of the Galaxy did at the box office, maybe somebody should do a Bucky O'Hare movie adaptation? (Not Marvel now that Disney owns its cinematic properties, however; lately, all of Disney's live-action adaptations and remakes have been getting really sucky, and not just because they're full of woke garbage.) 0:57 As I say, this series is brought to you by Jews. 1:00 Something unfortunate is that all these companies having their fingers in this particular pie means anyone who does try to remake or adapt this series for a movie or streaming series is going to have to cut a deal with every single one of these companies that still owns these properties.

"The Taking of Pilot Jenny" In this season (and series) finale, Bucky O'Hare and his crew run a complicated scheme to retake his home world Warren from the Toad Empire. For starters, this scheme involves... the toads taking his first mate Jenny hostage? (They also capture Blinky, but curiously, none of them thinks to try to ransom him off for anything extra; perhaps because both sides know he can be reprogrammed to be a mole as he was back in episode 5, and thus does not make a reliably desirable hostage?) In the ensuing fracas, Dogstar and his entire crew on the S.S. Indefatigable will also get involved, while Komplex itself will personally intervene on the villains' side; and this will lead to a most satisfying—if incomplete, since the writers still wanted to leave the door open for a sequel—conclusion to the story. Points of interest: 0:08 Remember how Blinky spoke of achieving "oneness with the universe" in the first episode? Well, this is the final episode, so he speaks of achieving "oneness with the Aniverse" now. 1:46 While encircling Warren's equator does enable the toads to maintain vigilance on most approaches to the planet, it leaves a substantial blind spot if someone were to approach from one of the poles; which just goes to show that as with characters in most space operas (including Star Trek: The Next Generation which was airing at this time), the toads' military strategists (and the show's writers) were stuck in a two-dimensional mindset when thinking of how to conduct a war in space. 1:51 That's their whole armada? If so, the toads' resources evidently are only sufficient to build and maintain one mother ship at a time. 2:03 Notice that Toadborg doesn't even mention the toads are holding Blinky prisoner as well; probably because he's aware that ever since the last time the Toad Empire captured him (eight episodes ago, remember?), Blinky makes rather inferior hostage material. Unlike Blinky, Jenny can't be easily reprogrammed to infiltrate Bucky O'Hare's crew and sabotage the ship at a vital moment, and is therefore obviously more immediately valuable to Bucky and his true companions. In fact, given that other episodes have also established that even the less competent toads do learn from their mistakes (e.g. waterproofing the Void Droid), Toadborg probably just had Blinky deactivated for the duration to ensure he wouldn't be able to pull some act of sabotage against the toads at a vulnerable moment as he also did the last time the Toad Empire captured him. 2:50 Amusing detail for those paying attention: watch as Bucky O'Hare casually brushes off all of Willy DuWitt's attempts to get his attention. 3:45 Once again, we see how just being a science prodigy doesn't keep Willy from thinking like a child: a teenager who'd mastered abstract thinking would realize something must be going on behind the scenes for everybody to be acting so out of character. As a preteen engaged solely in concrete thinking, Willy realizes everyone's acting out of character, but it doesn't occur to him that maybe he should try speculating why. 4:00 Something else we viewers old enough to have mastered abstract thinking may notice: Jenny is visibly struggling to keep a straight face here (although—to her credit—she's succeeding). 4:10 One way to conceal that you're trying not to laugh? Give your audience a good reason why you ought to be amused by—for instance—putting on a little slapstick worthy of the Three Stooges for yourself. 4:18 The slapstick routine works even better if you can get a little cartoon physics involved, as with Frax's remarkably stretchable neck here. 4:28 What would Jenny be mining from these "bog mines" Toadborg mentions, peat moss? 4:43 Once again, Willy realizes his friend is acting out of character, but can't think abstractly enough to try to speculate why. 4:55 Willy also doesn't think to wonder why he's being required to voice the crew's request to the enemy rather than Bucky, who usually speaks for everyone whenever he's present. 5:16 Willy notices that even Dead-Eye is acting out of character. (Normally, one would think he'd be more heartbroken about the toads he loathes so much managing to outgun him.) 5:47 As a certain wise old mentor once taught your pal Bucky, Willy, it is easier to take a fortress from the inside by stealth than from the outside by force. 6:57 Though it didn't go so well for Frix and Frax two episodes ago, ramming the other guy's ship with one's own *sometimes* works in this series—for the heroes, anyway. 7:14 In addition to being a potential basis for another toy (which might have been made had the toy line sold better and the show gotten another season), this "tri-bot" is one of the recurring enemies who turns up in one of the later levels on the toads' magma tanker in the licensed 8-bit NES game. 8:02 Blinky finally reappears on-screen. 8:42 Evidently, at some point (off-screen and between episodes), Jenny told Willy enough about what aspects of her powers she and the other felines of Aldebaran are supposed to be keeping secret from outsiders that he knows to hold his tongue about what he just saw her do. 9:20 If Blinky can do all this when he gets access to one control panel, the toads were definitely right to deactivate him. (Destroying him altogether would have been an even more prudent course of action, but—of course—they couldn't do that in a children's cartoon in 1991.) 9:27 While the computer's being capable of seizing control of any and all of the ship's systems—especially the weapons—from the toads certainly proved to be their downfall, its having such a fatal vulnerability built into it makes sense if you think about it: as the toads' dictatorial ruler, Komplex would naturally insist on having access to any and all of every toad ship's systems through its computer. (Of course, it still should have thought to add a further layer of security somewhere in all toad ships' computer operating systems to keep other artificially intelligent entities like Blinky locked out.) 9:37 Putting some distance between the mother ship and your fighter to get yourselves out of its weapons' range comes to mind. 11:05 You mean *if* he gets down, Frax. 11:43 Just as Jenny and her fellow felines have some kind of matriarch they treat as a quasi-deity ruling over their entire species, so too evidently do Bucky and his fellow hares—or they believe they once did, anyway. 13:09 As anyone from a superhero story could tell you, Bucky O'Hare, never presume an enemy dead until you destroy the body—and not even after that if the enemy in question is some form of artificial intelligence like Komplex. 14:13 True, Willy, but last time you hacked the hardware rather than deal directly with the controls. 14:54 Evidently, Rumble Bee serves Dogstar in the same capacities as Dead-Eye and Blinky serve Bucky. 15:42 Apparently, one of the Aldebaran rules on concealing powers from outsiders is: if the outsiders don't understand what you're doing, your powers are adequately concealed. 16:22 So climate converters can generate atmospheres in space? Or is that actually supposed to be solar wind Willy's throwing at his opponent? (Either way, it shouldn't be making any sound anyone on either vessel can hear.) 16:59 You would have saved yourself a lot of trouble if you had done this earlier when that robot was down for the count, Bucky. 17:07 Though we never saw Willy tell Bucky about Humpty Dumpty on-screen, it makes a certain amount of sense that the subject might have come up during some idle conversation they had during some downtime between their adventures. 17:11 Just as the helmet on Jenny's space suit doesn't cover her mane, the one on Bucky's doesn't cover his ears. 17:27 The final level of the NES game is a lot like this. 17:42 The climate converter's in rather better shape than it should be after it sustained so much damage in battle, but let's just pretend we have the attention spans of hyperactive preteen boys and didn't notice that, all right? 18:01 This tactic for clearing the toads out of a planet has always worked before, so why change what works, right? 19:12 That wink means "Also, thanks for keeping your mouth shut about my powers, Willy." 19:22 You ask a silly question, Willy... 19:41 Either brown fur is a recessive trait both of these children just happened to inherit from their green-furred parents, or it's co-dominant with green fur and their fur will get greener as they mature into adults, or they're adopted. 20:01 Bucky bids those of us in the home audience beyond the fourth wall farewell.

"Bye Bye Berserker Baboon" Toadborg has a plan to help the toads circumvent their instinctive fear of berserker baboons so they can conquer Bruce and Bruiser's home world Betelgeusia. However, as the (somewhat competent for a change) Air Marshal points out, those fearsome baboons are still a most formidable foe even without tripping the toads' instinctive fears; and for this insight, Komplex and Toadborg assign him the exceedingly undesirable mission of capturing and transporting a rather monstrous creature to Betelgeusia to be their backup plan. As they and Bucky O'Hare and his crew—especially Willy DuWitt (and, by extension, the audience) in particular—will learn, however, just avoiding and minimizing one's problems doesn't make them go away. Points of interest: 0:26 While the use of "misanthropes" here is proper to the context, the context itself is rather unusual. A misanthrope is one who hates all people in general; while the anthropomorphic animals of the Aniverse certainly count as people, and therefore somebody who hated all of them would certainly counted as a misanthrope, we've seen elsewhere throughout this series that those Betelgeusian berserker baboons don't harbor any general hatred toward anyone but the toads (and only the toads loyal to Komplex at that; Bruiser didn't bear any grudge against the three exiled toads who made Komplex when he met them back in the sixth episode). Nevertheless, Komplex is still using the term properly in context, because from its exceedingly biased (and racially prejudiced) point of view, only the toads (and itself, since it is both their creation and their ruler) actually count as "people" whereas all the other anthropomorphic species do not. (Also, those three exiled toads who built it in the first place? They don't count either, as exiling them was part of its process of making unpersons of them.) 0:59 While it's true Frix can't see the Air Marshal as you say, Toadborg, that obviously doesn't mean he doesn't know you and he are there. 1:29 Considering Frax was demonstrated to be slightly more sensible than Frix in the previous episode, one could make the case that Toadborg was practicing a kind of poetic justice by putting Frax in with the goggle test group while leaving Frix in the control group for this experiment. 2:18 Here, we see one of the rare flashes of competence which go some way toward explaining how the Air Marshal rose to his rank in the first place. 2:26 Toadborg and Komplex's response to this entirely sensible complaint also go some way toward explaining why they don't have anyone more competent than their current Air Marshal in his position; those competent enough to bring up too many of these reasonable objections to their bosses' elaborate schemes probably ended up being given all the worst assignments (such as this one) as punishment. 3:08 Willy DuWitt's classmate T.J. is a gorgeous gal with expensive designer clothes and a fashionable held-over-from-the-late-eighties hairdo, so (of course) she's rich, spoiled, vain—and *EVIL*! 4:36 Considering how unpleasant a place to live the baboons would probably consider a swamp planet like Bog to be, if the toads weren't at war with them, the baboons would probably be more than willing to let them have the place too. (It would be rather like if some tundra-dwelling extraterrestrials dropped by our solar system and asked us if they could have Mars; we probably could work out a deal with them.) 4:54 Betelgeusia is also—not at all coincidentally—something like the Wookies' home world of Kashyyyk or the jungle moon Yavin IV where one of the Rebel Alliance's secret bases was in Star Wars. 5:01 As with the Wampa on Hoth in Star Wars, something one wonders is what predatory creatures on icy worlds (like Cahill) can find to eat when they don't have outsiders bringing them any fresh meat. (Of course, maybe unlike Hoth, Cahill has several different climates and seasons, and the Air Marshal and his friends just happen to be visiting this part during the planet's equivalent of Winter.) 6:04 Bruiser's commander there in the foreground seems to be getting a good long look at that full-figured baboon gal's ample cleavage; and she doesn't seem to mind the attention. (Maybe that's his girlfriend?) 7:31 That's pretty obviously Bruiser's voice actor dubbed over Willy DuWitt. Had I been tasked with recording this, I would have just made Willy DuWitt's voice actor do his best imitation and then modified the recording a little in post-production as necessary to make it sound convincingly full-bodied and intimidating. 7:52 For that matter, that toad squadron leader sounds like he could do one of those yells. (Also, it's curious that none of these toad troopers immediately recognize those as baboon voices; evidently their self-preserving instinct recognizes only the baboons' appearances, not how they sound.) 8:14 Notably, the goggles aren't distorting Willy's appearance. Sure, Toadborg (who probably programmed them) now knows not to fear the kid and that he's not the same species, but would the other toads know that if he happened to be wearing his masked helmet? 8:26 Why, you may ask, would the toads use gas to capture the baboons rather than live ammunition to exterminate them? Aside from this being a cartoon for children in which nobody is actually allowed to kill anybody else, the toads have already demonstrated an almost endless appetite for enslaving other species and employing their labor for the greater glory of their Toad Empire; and, of course, they would consider enslaving their most fearsome foes of all to be their greatest victory in the entire war. 8:56 Well, that's not much incentive for the toads to fight fair, then... is it, Willy? 11:21 If the toads only have to capture "hundreds" of the baboons to seize control of the planet, that probably explains why the baboons haven't sent out their own troops in force to attack the Toad Empire: there just aren't that many of them! Also, the baboons' population being that small probably explains why their civilization looks so low-tech: if we billions of humans with our expensive space programs haven't even managed to leave our own solar system, it's a fair bet a people whose entire planet's population could barely fill one of our small towns didn't even develop most of their own technology. They were probably still living in their Stone Age when some space-faring people (Jenny's people from Aldebaran, perhaps?) found them and decided to share their technology with them. 11:52 That's what you get for being competent and actually doing your job right for once, Air Marshal. 12:49 This is why, even if you're a big hulking bodybuilder who can chew up and spit out common street criminals without working up a sweat, you should still keep and bear arms. Governments—foreign and domestic—are a bigger threat to your life and liberty than any low-level criminals, and you need weapons to be able to defend yourself and the people around you from them. 13:49 While he's clearly not too bright (and doesn't use any language the universal translators can make comprehensible to any other species), his being able to wear clothing and wield weapons proves his species has at least *some* intelligence. (I'm thinking the toads manufactured his clothes and weapons and equipped him with them, as there's no way a species of monsters that usually prefer to live alone could be civilized enough to have manufactured such products. As to how they were able to get close enough to clothe and arm him? Well, this episode demonstrates they can manufacture gasses that selectively weaken and subdue other species, so they doubtless have some such they can use on this one as well.) 14:50 They probably should have figured this out sooner, but Toadborg did have the sense to equip the troops entirely with ranged weapons and keep them in the dark about exactly which species' planet they were conquering. 15:00 Toadborg did not have the sense, however, to make sure the troops' regular weapons were confiscated and locked away in their arsenals for the duration of the invasion. 15:49 Back in 1991, "polarized" was a favorite bit of techno-babble in a lot of science fiction stories for younger audiences, particularly when describing technology that produced an effect that could be reversed or negated (so that the writers could have the characters subsequently counter the effect by "reversing polarity" on it); but if this story were remade today (or just better written originally), Willy DuWitt really ought to be saying the goggles are "programmed" to make the baboons look wimpy (since as mentioned earlier, the goggles didn't affect the toads' perception of his own appearance), and that he'll hack this pair's program to render it inoperable and then broadcast a signal containing a "patch" based on his hack to "update" the other goggles' copies of the program with his malware. 16:10 For once, Dead-Eye is not particularly cocky about his team's chances. 16:44 As mentioned back in the fifth episode, Bucky O'Hare's home world is Warren, and a warren is a collective living area rabbits dig underground for themselves and their extended family. Since hares don't typically burrow into the ground the way rabbits do, these anthropomorphic hares must have at least a bit of rabbit ancestry in their blood, and Bucky's burrowing into the ground here confirms this. 17:45 When we get a closer look at it here, there's no obvious generator for the toads' tractor beam; it must be somewhere under the hangar's floor plates. 17:52 Fortunately for you, Jenny, this monster fancies carrying you around like some kind of personal pet the same way King Kong likes to carry a human woman around with him in his movies. 18:37 Good question, Air Marshal, and the answer is: order your troops to bring some of those gas canisters they used to subdue it earlier up to the hangar deck, and pronto! 18:57 This is the one and only time we see the S.S. Righteous Indignation using its intake vents. 19:11 Bucky O'Hare does his finest impression of Star Trek's Kirk and/or Picard to deliver the episode's moral lesson. 19:37 Willy DuWitt is getting to be quite the ladies' man.

"The Warriors" The Air Marshal's career takes a turn for the worse when his grandstanding costs the toads' armada a great many of its fighters, for which Komplex fires him and puts Frix and Frax in charge. Teaming up with the similarly disgraced samurai lizard Sly Leezard in an effort to conquer Dead-Eye's home world Canopis III and thereby curry favor with Komplex, he captures Willy DuWitt and forces him to build a network of satellites to drain the planet of its water. Bucky O'Hare and his crew—especially Dead-Eye—of course proceed to foil this villainous scheme, but the Air Marshal does ultimately get reinstated to his position—in good part because Frix and Frax prove to be even worse bumblers and incompetents. Points of interest: 0:21 Bucky O'Hare once again demonstrates his talent for using some spiffy vocabulary. 1:07 Maybe those vocabulary lessons are for Blinky: he apparently hasn't figured out that "incredible" in this context means "difficult to believe" yet. (One suspects Bucky O'Hare can easily believe Blinky and Willy DuWitt are having trouble with the ship's engines.) 1:17 Nothing tempts the hand of fate like anticipatory boasting about historical fame. 1:30 Air Marshall can throw a back-handed punch a remarkable distance. 2:13 If you're paying attention, though Komplex removes the Air Marshal from command and relieves him of duty, it doesn't actually state that it's demoting him or discharging him altogether. 2:22 "Croakus" sounds like the name of a toad planet; and the incident referenced being an "insurrection" further implies this was some kind of civil war. Maybe not all toads bow to Komplex's influence even now? (Maybe this was another idea that was to be explored in a future episode that never got made?) 2:52 While the sheer stupidity of Komplex's decision here is truly staggering to behold, this does go a long way toward explaining why the Toad Empire's military is so incompetent: evidently, the only intellectual advantage Komplex has over its toad minions is the colossal processing power available to it; in all other aspects, it has the same arrogance, hubris, and vanity clouding its judgement as any of its subordinates. 3:36 In a way, being a ninja being a popular occupation for four-armed ducks who aren't into piracy makes sense; both occupations are a bit disreputable, and the fighting styles of each require considerable development of one's hand-eye coordination. The principal difference is that the pirates tend to do a lot more traveling, whereas the ninja seem to be content to stay home and defend their planet most of the time. 3:52 How long did Sly Leezard's explanation take? Everyone who was playing in the arcade when he started talking is gone now. 4:38 While the Air Marshal has been shown to be willing to go back on his word before, in this case, he's probably planning more on keeping the deal to the letter while blithely disregarding the spirit in which it was made. In this case, that means while Sly Leezard would indeed be the King of Kanopis III as he desires, his kingdom would be reduced to nothing more than a vassal state to the Toad Empire once the Air Marshal got back into Komplex's good graces. 5:43 That Dead-Eye takes this small cruiser (which the repair station rather conveniently happens to have available) instead of the Toad Croaker suggests that the latter is only a short-range fighter with no hyperspace drive of its own. 7:20 While Willy DuWitt is being a bit naive here, it's worth remembering that for all his prodigy-level intellect and engineering skills, he's still just a kid; and considering Sly was able to swoop in and snatch him right out from under his companion's noses at the station, his claim to have slipped past them to plant a bomb on their ship's hull is not entirely implausible either. 8:26 As the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle's sensei Splinter (and your pal Kamikaze Kamo) would tell you, Dead-Eye, "Seek victory, not fairness." 8:49 Like Mega Man, the hands on Kamo's bionic arms can transform into other devices as needed. 8:56 As a bonus, they're also strong enough to lift and throw a full-grown opponent. 9:38 While Frix and Frax have mastered the tyrannical tone of voice here as they desired, their voices are still a lot higher and squeakier now than they were at the start of this series. 10:10 Though their historical reputation is better than that of the ninja, the samurai—even those who kept their word, unlike Sly Leezard here—and their notions of "honor" weren't really all that noble or ethical: their codes of conduct involved a lot of wanton killing of their social inferiors for the slightest perceived insult or even just for sword practice, and ritual suicide for themselves (and their wives) for some rather seemingly minor social missteps. In many ways, the ninja were simply former samurai who'd decided to jettison these dubious notions of honor for a more introverted and pragmatic (if not necessarily more ethical) approach to life. 10:22 Again, Sly Leezard's threat was pretty plausible; here, we see it even fooled the Air Marshal. 11:08 That ship looks to be a combination of the lizards' and toads' designs, which suggests that it was specifically constructed for the Air Marshal and Sly Leezard's collaborative project. 11:24 As demonstrated here, those satellites are pretty fragile when they're not activated. 13:31 How do the universal translators produce a Japanese word here along with the English for those of us in the audience? Simple: like English and many other Terran languages, the languages of many species in the Aniverse occasionally appropriate words from each other; it's entirely likely that both the ninja ducks and the lizard samurai do the same with each other's languages, especially for the purpose of taunting their opponents as Sly Leezard is doing here. 13:39 While sucking up the water from the ducks' home world certainly serves the lizards' purposes well, restoring it later would likely serve the Toad Empire's interests better, since (as established two episodes ago with the Corsair Canards' favorite drink) their world has plenty of swamps on it and the toads wouldn't even need one of their climate converters to make it suitable for colonization. 15:07 While not a whole lot brighter than his brother Frix, Frax does seem to be the one with more common sense. (Remember, he's also the one who thought to warn the Air Marshal against trying those overly fancy attack formation maneuvers that ended so disastrously.) 16:00 Bruiser wouldn't exactly be my first choice to replace Dead-Eye as the ship's gunner if this were a job that required some precision targeting of the enemy, but for enthusiastically blasting a stationary target, he's more than adequate to the task. 16:38 Of course, as a treacherous dealer himself, Sly Leezard should have known Willy DuWitt would build some kind of backdoor access into those satellites; but after the kid fell for that "pretend the roll of candy is a detonator switch" trick, he probably figured his captive didn't have the guts and guile to try to sabotage the project. Besides, as established by what he did to his project's previous scientific engineer, it's clear that Sly is a bit of a dolt. 17:03 Is the Air Marshal's having a toad trooper to pilot the ship here a continuity gaffe? Not necessarily: even if he was relieved of duty, the Air Marshal had to have had access to some kind of transportation to get him to that arcade center where he met Sly Leezard, and all transportation in the Toad Empire appears to consist exclusively of military vessels. This toad pilot here might well be serving him as his personal chauffeur, as the Air Marshall wasn't dismissed from service altogether and is still a decorated military officer (albeit with only *one* medal remaining on his uniform). 17:10 As typically happens in many children's cartoons, when the technology draining the planet is destroyed, not only does the draining stop, but its effects are immediately reversed and everything goes back to exactly the same as it was before. In more realistic settings, it would take a while for those flowers to bloom again and the trees to grow new leaves. 18:11 Sly Leezard is fortunate he's not dealing with human samurai; for his infractions, they'd probably order him to commit seppuku. 19:39 Considering how they got your position, and that your boss is now giving that position back to you, you really should already know the answer to that question, Air Marshal.

"The Artificers of Aldebaran" Willy DuWitt (and the audience) gets a rare glimpse into the inner workings of Jenny's home world Aldebaran when her understudy Princess Felicia goes rogue and ends up getting captured by the toads. When Toadborg takes a personal interest in the secret source of the Aldebarans' quasi-supernatural powers hidden deep in the Dark Heart Nebula, Jenny also goes rogue, absconding with the S.S. Righteous Indignation with Willy aboard to attempt Felicia's rescue. Meanwhile, Bucky O'Hare and Mimi LaFloo's potentially romantic relationship undergoes some development when she brings him and the rest of his crew aboard her S.S. Screaming Mimi to help them recover their rogue crew members (and ship). Points of interest: 2:27 Here it's confirmed that Aldebaran technology employs the same "magic" power source as the cats themselves do; one more reason I believe everyone's universal translators are also derived from Aldebaran technology. 2:37 Something never completely spelled out in this animated series is the extent to which the Aldebaran cats are supposed to keep their powers a secret from outsiders. While this episode clearly establishes they're never supposed to reveal the source of their powers (although notably, none of them made much of an effort to keep Willy from discovering it here), they don't seem to be required to keep the existence of these powers a secret, only their capabilities; e.g. Bucky O'Hare and his crew all seem well aware Jenny and her people have telepathic powers, though not so much of her energy-generating and telekinetic abilities. 4:09 Despite having a personality very much like Darth Vader's, Toadborg seems to know his limitations. 4:30 This is why, though they share a power source, I don't believe the Aldebaran sensors and universal translators to be the same thing: even entities hostile to the Aldebaran cats (such as the Toad Empire) have those universal translators, but when they need sensors, they're forced to build their own. 5:41 That Felicia already has a ship prepared for her unauthorized expedition and either nobody noticed or nobody thought to report this to her grandmother (and no one challenged her for being in Aldebaran airspace without permission during liftoff) suggests maybe these cats just aren't very attentive to things like their planet's (and trade secret's) security. 6:36 While she gives very similar instructions about keeping the secrets of their powers safe, Felicia's grandmother (Queen Katrina) is clearly not the same entity as the green-furred "Mother Aldebaran" Jenny contacted back during the show's pilot to ask permission to use her powers. I'm thinking that whereas Felicia is royalty and therefore contacts her family's matriarch here when she's in a jam, Jenny is either nobility or just a very accomplished commoner on her home world, and therefore contacted her entire species' matriarch when she was trapped and needed permission to use her powers in the presence of outsiders. 8:22 While it seems odd that no one notices the noise this tracking device makes throughout the scene, it's probably actually silent to feline and human ears, and we in the audience are hearing how it sounds from Blinky's perspective. 8:36 Though a bit reluctant, Jenny sure doesn't put up much of a fight against Willy's coming with her. Of course, he does have a point about needing to stick with the ship (and he's already privy to some of her species' secrets), but one also suspects she's still quite taken with the boy and appreciates the opportunity to spend some time alone with him. 9:24 You probably should have tried to act like your "torture" was more distressing to you than that, Felicia. 9:49 That random green-skinned background character holding the newspaper looks a lot like a certain invincible character imprisoned on the toads' magma tanker in the licensed Bucky O'Hare NES game who goes berserk and attacks the player character if you make the mistake of shooting at him. 10:06 For fan fiction writers trying to ship Bucky with Jenny, this is just about the only other evidence they have (besides the ending to the fourth episode) of there being anything between the two; but (of course) the kind of fans who think they see any romantic tension in his little speech about his sincere respect for his first mate here are the same kinds of perverts who insist on seeing homoerotic tension in every same-sex friendship in every work of fiction they enjoy. Granted, Mimi LaFloo comes off looking (and sounding) a little jealous in this scene, but what does she know? If she perceives any rivalry with Jenny here, then like Red Jack's "rivalry" with Dead-Eye for Lanelle's affections in the previous episode, it's pretty one-sided. 10:39 In any case, Mimi's not too jealous to lend Bucky and his crew a helping hand (and her ship) here. 11:31 Just as Toadborg enjoyed showing off how he can leap higher than Bucky O'Hare the last time they met in person, so too must he appreciate the irony of using his retractable claws (seen only here) to threaten to use a cat as a scratching post. 12:28 Felicia wasn't wearing her helmet in the previous scene, but (of course) she is here. While Toadborg would naturally want to keep his hostage alive until he doesn't need her anymore, one wonders how exactly he knew how to get that helmet on over her hair; more on that in a minute. 12:54 Once again, Willy's got a point, but Jenny doesn't seem to be putting up much more than token resistance to taking him with her. 13:20 Notice how Jenny's hair is outside the helmet as the visor closes down over her face. While it's fair to assume that full mane of hair she's got is attached mainly to the back of her neck, and the back of the helmet is sealed around it, one does wonder how exactly her species' space suits can be airtight with all the cats we see sporting that same mane. 14:00 Viewers mature enough to know their facts of life, of course, will suspect that as with Darth Vader, there's *one* part of Toadborg's anatomy his being transformed into a cyborg has rendered permanently non-functional (whether his cybernetic parts are working or not). 14:53 While this series' writers seem to be using the word "demon" here in the sense that the Japanese language does (i.e. referring to just about any kind of magical creature and/or spirit, not just to the fallen angels who serve Satan as the term is used in some translations of the Bible), one has to admit *this* planet-sized "demon" is doing a pretty good imitation of Chernabog from the "Night On Bald Mountain" sequence in Disney's Fantasia. 15:26 Giving up already, Jenny? 15:31 Considering this eldritch abomination is the source of all the cats' powers, the history of how their species first figured this out (and how they managed to tame and/or put him to sleep in the first place) would probably make an epic tale for some future episode, had there been another season. 15:37 As many fans have noted, this scene establishes that—unlike, say, Wonder Woman and her fellow ageless Amazons—the cats of Aldebaran do reproduce; yet we never see their men, only their women. So, how is this possible? (Fan fiction writers, let's have no nonsense about sapphic or sexless reproduction out of you, please; even if same-sex reproduction or mammalian parthenogenesis were possible in nature—and copious applied scientific research has demonstrated they are not—Jenny's physical and romantic attraction to the decidedly masculine—if rather nerdy and puny—Willy DuWitt and the genetic diversity of her species pretty decisively prove the males must exist.) Exploring where the Aldebaran males are and why the sexes are living apart from each other would also have been an entertaining story for an episode of that later season that never got produced. 15:59 If those "quark demons" are supposed to be his offspring, then here you're technically seeing an incident of cannibalism in a children's cartoon! 18:08 While some think this is an animation error, it looks to me like the main gun on the S.S. Screaming Mimi is just completely differently configured; as in, whereas the gun on the S.S. Righteous Indignation has grips, an adjustable position, and a targeting device, this one is apparently just a fixed installation with a button on the back you push to fire it, and Captain Mimi has to swing the ship itself around in order to do any targeting. (That does mean she needs to get an upgrade on the gun, however.) 18:25 It's a pity that unlike Dogstar and his S.S. Indefatigable, we never got to see who Mimi usually has crewing her S.S. Screaming Mimi when she's not carrying Bucky and his companions with her. Again, that would have been an entertaining subject for one of those future episodes that never got made. 19:27 Who's that cat in similar attire standing next to Queen Katrina, Felicia's other grandmother? 19:30 So Aldebaran society (or at least the part of it to which Jenny belongs) is indeed a political sorority; does this imply that the males likewise live together in a political fraternity? 19:40 It seems Jenny's not the only feline who thinks Willy's cute; and here we have another proof of these feline females' heterosexuality (and thereby the necessary existence of their male mates). 19:57 We here behind the fourth wall love you too, Bucky, but—like Jenny there—only as a friend.

"Corsair Canards" With a little help from his friends, Bucky O'Hare looks to bring Dead-Eye's people—the fearsome Corsair Canards—into an alliance with the United Animals Coalition against the toads. The Toad Empire, naturally being determined to thwart this alliance, brings in Al Negator and his mercenary expertise with infiltration to run a false flag operation to undermine these efforts. As the only human in the Aniverse, Willy DuWitt ends up serving as a wildcard to these proceedings. Points of interest: 0:51 While the pirates probably should have been more suspicious when a fellow four-armed duck turned up aboard the targeted ship, it'll be established two episodes from now that not everyone from their species is into piracy. 1:22 While the ducks don't share the toads' instinctive fear of baboons, they clearly do understand that fear is the appropriate response for reasons demonstrated here. 3:41 The duck mermaid with the Godiva-style hair in the painting notably only has two arms; which suggests the ducks' mythology also treats mermaids as hybrids with some other species (baboons like Bruiser, maybe?) in addition to ducks and fish. 3:42 That bovine bartender might also be considered a minotaur in the eyes of the other anthropomorphic animals. 3:52 The ducks apparently have exotic dancers too. 4:08 Of course, if swamps are common terrain on the ducks' home world, that would make it an ideal conquest for the toads—were the ducks defending it not such skilled fighters. 5:00 Willy doesn't call it a Frisbee (even though that's what most of us would call a flying disc) because that's a trademarked name. 5:20 Willy would have to have practiced a lot to learn how to do that; which somewhat explains why he happened to have a disc packed with him. (In fact, if you look carefully near the end of the first episode when Dead-Eye is in his room helping him pack his bag, he did have some kind of disc there too, though not this particular one.) 5:30 Of course, a kid in diapers shouldn't be in such a rough joint as a pirates' bar in the first place, but one supposes the pirates aren't especially fond of imposing and enforcing safety laws. (For that matter, some incident like this might just be how Dead-Eye lost his left eye...) 6:14 Being the only member of his species in the entire dimension seems to win Willy DuWitt a lot of privileges with the locals (as we'll also see in the next episode) because his home world isn't involved in any of their politics. I've often thought a Star Trek series narrated from the perspective of a human from pre-warp Earth serving as a token minority aboard a 21st century Vulcan vessel would make for an entertaining show simply for showing how being an outsider necessarily beneath any political entity's notice can actually be advantageous at times. 8:57 Al Negator's little "joke" and the Air Marshal's reaction to it implies that they were planning to dispose of their "traitor" (more accurately their mole, since it's implied at the end he was never on the United Animal Coalition's side in the first place) as soon as he outlived his usefulness; an inference the children in the target audience probably wouldn't catch, but that any adults watching it with them (especially if they were historically literate) would. 9:57 How did all these fake Corsair Canards manage to operate four arms? As established in a later episode, bionic prosthetic arms almost as good as the real thing are a technology available to the ducks—and presumably to numerous other anthropomorphic animal species, including the toads. (Yeah, I'm not really spoiling anything for you even if you're watching this episode for the very first time, am I?) 10:45 A significant background detail only adults typically notice: somebody on the animation team decided to go to the trouble of showing us that the Council employs a stenographer to keep records of its meetings. 11:31 Just to "prove" he's the mole to the more gullible viewers in the target audience, the obnoxious jackal Grebb clasps his hands while sending Dogstar out to arrest Dead-Eye. 12:38 Hilariously, only for a four-armed species like Dead-Eye's could an arm-wrestling contest end in a draw like this. 13:18 Here we have an egregious animation error a remastering could easily fix: Dead-Eye is colored all orange like the background duck extras in the scene at 7:55-8:05. 13:44 It's rather odd that the ducks allow one so young to serve them even in this relatively harmless minor capacity, but I'm guessing the pirates aren't big fans of child labor laws either. 14:57 In a way, Dead-Eye and his companions are fortunate that Dogstar was the one the Council sent to enforce its orders. As defense lawyers like to point out, in modern legal systems, the police are not tasked with sorting out who's been doing what and whether anyone's guilty or innocent of a crime; that's for courts (or tribunals) to decide. Were Dogstar more competent at his job, he would simply have arrested Dead-Eye anyway, and his companions would have had to run their sting operation on the phony Corsair Canards without him. 15:09 Another animation error: not only is Jenny out of her disguise in this shot, but the erroneous proportions and weird crosshatch lines suggest Bucky (in his drag disguise) is actually supposed to be standing in front of someone or something else—like maybe a cardboard cutout somebody made of her. 15:45 While it's been established that some toads know how to fake voices, the fake Dead-Eye stays in character even in this moment of abject terror; so he's probably got some kind of voice-altering technology built into his disguise. 18:19 Something a bit horrifying to ponder: was this character always nothing but a disguise all along (throughout his rise to power, which would have taken quite some time), or did the newt kill and replace a legitimate official at some point? (Also, why do reptiles keep siding with the toads? Some kind of longstanding grudge between the cold-blooded and warm-blooded anthropomorphic animal kingdoms?)

"The Search For Bruce" Toad experimentation with teleportation technology leads to the heroes' discovery that this animated adaptation has indeed spared their former crew mate and ship's mechanic Bruce from death. (In the original comics, the feedback from the photon accelerator thoroughly incinerated him.) While (spoiler alert!) they don't manage to bring him back aboard, the episode leaves us with the possibility of his return in a future episode—in a second season for the show that, tragically, was never produced. Points of interest: 1:20 Curiously, as large and conspicuous as this tracking device is, neither Bucky O'Hare nor any of his crew ever happen to notice it. By the next time we get a view of the outside of the ship (5:00), the device is gone, suggesting they must have shaken it off at some point. 2:10 This is probably why they typically had Bruce and then Bruiser working in this room: when you have to deal with a toad boarding party and you can't use guns, who could be better for a close-quarters beat-down than a berserker baboon? 2:59 That the toads have to get some of their own people to crank the machine rather than getting some captive slaves to do the job suggests their war's not been going very well for them lately. 3:46 I think you mean *you* missed him, Jenny. 4:25 While it's not too difficult to speculate, one does have to wonder how Komplex immediately knew exactly where the Air Marshal was hiding when it hadn't been paying close enough attention to know why he was hiding. 5:59 You couldn't hold back and let everyone listen to him for one whole minute, Bruiser? Nice going, lunkhead! 6:12 So, like Star Trek, they've got subspace, eh? Also, Dead-Eye's instincts are sound; it's worth remembering the Air Marshal did a convincing imitation of Dogstar's voice two episodes ago, and Komplex (like Skynet from the Terminator movies) can probably look and sound like anyone whose face and voice it can get on file. 7:53 Even though Bruce is evidently intangible, muscle memory has him stepping over the Air Marshal rather than through him. (Of course, if he can stand and walk on the floor, he can't be completely intangible; what the "rules" of this partial intangibility are is never entirely clear here, as they were likewise left unexplained in the episode "The Next Phase" from Star Trek: The Next Generation.) 8:27 Evidently, the same "rules" that allow Bruce to walk a planet's surface likewise allow him to climb into a spacecraft without phasing through the seat. 8:50 "Baboon Heaven" looks a lot like one of those miniature planets from Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's The Little Prince. 9:43 See, since the same technobabble ("temporal alignment") applies to the teleportation device and the photon accelerator, it can teleport toads across space just as the photon accelerators teleport Willy DuWitt across dimensions. 9:56 Frix and Frax being forced to crank the machine has me thinking this "experimental" installation is also a kind of correction and rehabilitation facility where Komplex assigns incompetent toads (e.g. the Air Marshal as well) when it gets overly displeased with their bumbling. 10:54 While it's understandable that Bruiser's space suit (partially purloined from the toads) has a communicator that can pick up transmissions from the toads' communicators, how can Bruce (who's not wearing a space suit) hear them talking here? Once again, chalk it up to the nigh-magical abilities of the universal translators just about all characters and machinery present (other than Willy DuWitt) has implanted in them; just because Bruce can't directly hear the transmissions from the toads' communicators doesn't mean his universal translator can't pick up the telepathic transmissions from the universal translators implanted in the toads and/or their suits' communicators. 11:04 Bruiser's squeezing that helmet bubble hard enough to make some cracks in it; that toad had better hope he gets teleported back to base before all his air leaks out (and also before he and his companion are permanently lost in space). 13:15 This is the first and last time we'll see the toads' fully automatic rapid-fire maser mounts. 13:37 Uh, that's what Bucky O'Hare just said, Air Marshal. 14:09 The toads' blasters vanish when they drop them; possibly something the teleportation device does, or a feature built into the blasters themselves? (Something to prevent discarded weapons from falling into the hands of one's enemies would actually be a rather handy feature.) 15:07 Well, of course the toads would have that vulnerability patched by now after it led to such an embarrassing defeat last time. Actually, what's surprising is that Willy still has his water pistol with him these days. 15:18 It's still fully missile-shielded and ray-shielded too like it was last time, guys. 15:28 How very convenient of that grate to turn up where it did! 16:12 Either Bucky's playing along and pretending he didn't see her slip away from the group through that grate, or one of Jenny's powers is keeping him from noticing when she pulls stunts like this. 18:20 So much for somebody's dentures! 18:21 There goes somebody's helmet and goggles with a pair of fully functioning eyes still in them. (Robotic prosthetics, perhaps?) Yikes! No wonder the toads have an instinctive fear of baboons. 19:00 Blinky (who'd been in the corridor manning the blockade with a blaster) was either holo-recording at 17:54-18:10, or else remembers the conversation and is simply projecting a simulated reenactment of Bruce (something he showed himself to be capable of doing three episodes ago).

"The Komplex Caper" We get a good look at some of Komplex's inner workings when Bucky O'Hare and his companions work to foil one of its schemes to brainwash other worlds' inhabitants through their televisions just as it originally did to the toads. Like Sideshow Bob, the writers and producers are doubtless aware of the irony of airing a cartoon about the corrupting influence of television on its target audience's televisions... so don't bother pointing that out. Points of interest: 0:19 The beginning of this episode begins... in the Department of Redundancy Department. (The pilot is evidently anudder viktom uv Komplexes publick ejuhkayshun sistom.) 2:38 One more proof that it was probably Jenny's people who invented universal translators; telepathy would enable them to understand what people from other species are saying even when they're not speaking clearly. 2:49 Evidently, the toads did have—or at least remember having—some kind of religion back before they built Komplex. 3:39 After this, the prisoner was never seen again. Here's hoping the United Animals Coalition is more merciful to its prisoners of war than the Toad Empire is. 4:29 While it was theoretically possible for a computer monitor to pick up a broadcast television signal in 1991 (both kinds of screens having analogue inputs), it's highly unlikely even a child prodigy like Willy DuWitt would have had one of the (expensive) adapters necessary to do so. Chalk up the signal's being readable by a human computer monitor to those universal translators being built into everything; also to Komplex either not knowing how—or not believing it necessary to find some way—to block those universal translators from capturing and re-transmitting its broadcast signals to its Toad Empire's enemies. 4:36 To make matters worse, the signal Willy's monitor is picking up is actually from one of the cameras in the room behind the Air Marshal when he's receiving his orders from Komplex. The Betelgeusian baboons may be the Toad Empire's most fearsome enemies, but Jenny's feline species is actually far more dangerous for secretly having the insidious capacity to spy on almost anyone almost anywhere at almost any time through those universal translators. 5:13 Of course, if Willy's assessment of the situation is accurate, Komplex has also made full use of the universal translators' more potentially insidious functions. 6:01 How can Blinky also be affected by the brain drain? Well, like Data from Star Trek: The Next Generation, he's got a positronic brain that functions very much like an organic one—and (probably) has a universal translator directly integrated into it. 6:21 Even Jenny isn't immune to having the device her own people invented (if I'm right in my speculations) used against her. 6:31 Almost right, Willy: your immunity probably has to do with not having any universal translators implanted in you. Everyone else having those implants enables you to understand them and them to understand you through telepathy, but it doesn't allow your brain to pick up the same broadcast signals they're receiving. 7:48 Of course, since her people have the technology sufficiently advanced to be functionally indistinguishable from magic, Jenny's also got something that can at least partially counter the effects of devices based on that same nigh-magical technology. 8:18 Evidently, even after all this time, Komplex still hasn't quite mastered anthropomorphic expression; note that it's actually supposed to be surprised here, and yet the tone of its voice doesn't change at all when interrupting the lecture it was giving the Air Marshal. 8:43 To the Air Marshal's credit, if he'd been in the commanding officer at the beginning of Star Wars: A New Hope, C-3PO and R2-D2 would have been destroyed, the evil Empire would have won, and pretty much the entire movie's plot would never have happened. 11:18 It's not wise to tempt the hand of fate, or—as established in the previous episode—of Komplex, Bucky. 12:27 Evidently, this was what Toadborg had in mind when he called Void Droids "primitive" while facing down Willy four episodes ago. While these prototypes (who were probably first produced almost a century ago and have been on patrol almost as long as their creator Komplex has existed) are obviously not incredibly swift in their thinking, they do know their job. 14:04 Yes, the writers are biting the hand that feeds them here. I guess the corporate executives from the television studios and advertising agencies are just going to have to cry about their hurt feelings all the way to the bank. 16:45 You don't have another five minutes until the end of this episode, Toadborg. 17:21 One takeaway lesson for today's episode: even if you're good at hand-to-hand combat and your armor makes you nigh-invulnerable, it's still a good idea to keep a gun (or some other ranged weapon) on hand. 17:47 Further lesson: if you have an itchy trigger finger and aren't very good at controlling your temper, however, it's probably better to stick with hand-to-hand combat. 17:56 Fortunately for the brain drain's victims, they're living in a cartoon world where destroying a draining device reverses the drainage rather than simply dispersing what's being drained; otherwise, Komplex would already be reigning victorious, albeit over mostly mindless subjects. 18:14 Cheap shot, writers! Of course, this being the Aniverse where there's no USA, this guy is probably actually referring to "Quail"—an anthropomorphic avian politician from the United Animals Coalition—rather than to Vice President Dan Quayle (who was every smug Democrat douchebag's favorite political whipping boy back in 1991). 19:13 Willy: "Everybody, gimme five! Um, I mean... gimme four!" 19:33 Bruiser sure doesn't learn very quickly, does he? 19:57 After grinding this episode's moral lesson into our faces, the writers just had to rub it in further, didn't they?

"Kreation Konspiracy" Bucky and his crew are sent on a mission that has them searching for artifacts from the past: in particular, the banished toad scientists who built Komplex, and an odd imagination-based weapon from an ancient lost civilization that enables its wielder to turn targeted objects into completely different objects. (Naturally, the Toad Empire in general and Komplex specifically would very much like to acquire this weapon for themselves.) Points of interest: 1:23 One more proof everyone's got universal translators: this octopus doesn't even have a visible mouth, yet speaks as clearly as any of Bucky's crew. 3:08 Bruiser's looking at a centerfold? How'd that get past the censors? 3:12 While Bottlenose does have a visible mouth, actual dolphins and porpoises and other sea-dwelling mammals typically communicate with each other in ultra-high-pitched squeaks and wails; so again, his voice being understandable is more proof that everyone's using universal translators. 4:00 Komplex's directing its troops' activities this way is kind of the science fiction version of how Sauron in the high fantasy Lord of the Rings stories directs his orcs in battle: by using his powers to influence their minds directly. 4:08 This weapon is reminiscent of the reality-warping device in the G.I. Joe two-episode story "Worlds Without End" which tore a hole in the space-time continuum itself when it exploded, flinging several of the titular heroes into an alternate universe where the villains had won and taken over the world. 4:23 Of course, something one has to wonder when hearing of a lost civilization that could produce such amazing technology as this is: if it's known to have been so technologically advanced, why has no one thought to go searching this civilization's ruins for such valuable artifacts before now? 5:23 Considering what we saw in the previous episode, those are probably Simoleans Blinky just used to purchase those bananas. 6:01 Like Toadborg and the Air Marshal, these toads have evidently learned how to control their instinctive fear of baboons (probably by reminding themselves they've got superior weapons). 8:59 Ever get the impression the writers weren't too fond of hippies? 9:53 As with currency, the anthropomorphic animals in this dimension also apparently have their own unique forms of measurement, e.g. the "kiloglides" Jenny mentions here. 10:39 Of course, out in space, the mammals escaping the exploding ship wouldn't be using parachutes; but evidently, certain commercials on toad TV have got really cheesy production values just like certain ad campaigns we've had on television in our world. One does wonder whether Komplex would be ticked to see the toads doing such a shoddy job of producing propaganda to promote obedience to it, however. (Something else one wonders: mass producing these matter transmuters? How can Komplex be sure mass producing such a powerful weapon isn't exactly what destroyed the ancient civilization that first invented it?) 11:08 Something I notice is that the toads in command who demonstrate the most competence tend to be the ones who are the least addicted to watching television and who are always getting on the other toads' cases for being addicts (although the Air Marshal is not too competent; and it's established early on he's secretly a bit of an addict himself). This presents Komplex with a kind of paradox: since addiction to television is how it keeps its subordinates loyal and obedient, its most competent officers are also the ones statistically most likely to disobey it. 11:20 Yeah, Air Marshal, Komplex can think of a place on—or in—you where it might just want to stick that medal. 15:22 This highly memorable moment creeped out more than one of the show's original viewers. 15:57 Sadly, the Air Marshal has a point there. 16:08 While there isn't enough gravity out in open space for that heavy anchor to drag the ship anywhere, having it there would tend to throw off its flight dynamics, especially if the artificial gravity still operating inside the ship extends out from it very far. 17:19 All right, so they aren't *that* far from any planets in outer space. By the look of things, however, whatever kind of goo the matter transmuter made of their Toad Croaker must be magnetically attracted to something on the S.S. Righteous Indignation, as that's about the only explanation for why it heads in the direction it does with such speed and acceleration. 17:41 If Blinky's explanation is accurate, maybe the Righteous Indignation would have fared better if somebody onboard (looking at you, Jenny) had thought to raise its shields the moment everyone saw who and what "Dogstar" and the "Indefatigable" truly were. 18:12 That's a respectably extendable pair of arms you've got there, Blinky. Maybe you ought to use them that way to get you and your friends out of trouble more often. 19:08 If that matter transmuter can turn non-life into life, that would have some far-reaching implications indeed; but I like to think that since it's a bit of an imagination-based weapon, that moon-sized "baboon" isn't actually alive, but is merely made to seem so by moving according to what Willy imagined it doing while he was transforming it. 19:16 If you look closely, the toads in the leading fighter have rather... unique appearances; some kind of in joke for the artists and/or writers? 19:52 Well, of course they don't know that, Bucky! You could have thought to ask whether Komplex had any other less-than-obvious vulnerabilities of which they might happen to know, however.

"On The Blink" Having recently conquered Rigel V, the home planet of the anthropomorphic koalas, the Air Marshal, Frix, Frax, Al Negator, and a number of the toad troopers are now using their planet as a kind of spa and recreational resort. When Bucky and his crew figure out that only Blinky can get through the planetary anti-mammalian shield Al Negator constructed around the planet, they send him down to sabotage it from inside. They get in some major trouble when he's caught and reprogrammed and sent back to sabotage their ship instead, however. Points of interest: 1:42 The singer's claim "As a smoother-skinned toad, you're just a frog!" suggests toads in the Aniverse are actually descended from both amphibious species, or that frogs share (or used to share) their home world with them, but the toads always deemed them an inferior species (so they're either enslaved or extinct). This does—sort of—make sense, since hares and rabbits are actually two distinct species, and yet Bucky's people use the terms quite interchangeably and share some of both species' traits (e.g. hares aren't quite as fond of carrots as rabbits, but Bucky's people cultivate large carrots on their home world nonetheless; also, the world's named Warren, and underground warrens are where rabbits typically live in communal groups, but like hares, Bucky's people tend to pair off with their mates into nuclear families and build their dwellings above the ground). 1:45 Simoleans seem to have undergone some inflation since the last time we heard them mentioned. While the Air Marshal is certainly reluctant to pay Al Negator the 20,000 Simoleans he's demanding for setting up the toads' planetary defense system, he never treats it as an extortionate sum the way he did Al's demand for one quarter as much to help the toads acquire the access codes to shut down an enemy planet's defense system three episodes ago. Al Negator and the Air Marshal are also both willing to gamble this previously allegedly extortionate sum on a single idle bet here. 4:32 Why is the data on the defense system in books? Did the koalas already have a satellite system in place which Al Negator merely reverse-engineered to produce the defense network the toads wanted? 6:42 While it's not clear how Toadborg has "heard about" Blinky (something best left to fan fiction writers to speculate), this is in fact the first time these two have ever met in person, so the line's appropriate. 8:35 The Air Marshal's reaction here does set up some plot points about the toads' instinctive fear of baboons for later, and not just in this episode. Just as Toadborg was able to overcome his fears and face down Willy DuWitt (whom he'd mistaken for a baboon) two episodes ago when he reminded himself he was a nearly invulnerable cyborg, so too is Air Marshal able to rein in his instinctive response when he (rightly or wrongly) believes the baboon to be a mere hologram. 10:32 Should've kept your mouths shut and quietly admired your boss for his genius, Frix and Frax: you walked right into that one. 12:54 The only way what Willy's saying here makes any sense is if Blinky's being an android somehow makes him capable of making the repairs much faster than Willy. 15:23 It's never entirely clear to what extent Jenny's supposed to keep her powers a secret, but notice that while she speaks openly of her extra-sensory "intuition" here, she's also holding a blaster to use in place of those magical energy blasts we've seen her use exclusively where she thinks no living being will see or notice them. 16:39 Notice that while Simoleans were portrayed as strands of beads Al Negator stored in his cheeks two episodes ago, here they're portrayed as coins. I'm thinking the former was a physical storage medium for Simoleans in their digital form, whereas the latter is the currency's physical representation. (Considering that's allegedly some 20,000 Simoleans there, those coins must be made of platinum or something.) 18:49 While Al Negator obviously doesn't share the toads' instinctive fear of baboons, it's worth remembering he's a mercenary spy and confidence artist, not soldier; and even if he were a soldier, the toads aren't paying him enough to be worth taking on Bruiser and company all by himself. 19:06 Al Negator had better either have a space suit handy, or else be able to open up and crawl into the other bubble seat on that fighter. 19:52 The writers aren't so heavy-handed with their moralizing that they won't let Willy get in a little breezy humor at the expense of the big simplistic lesson we viewers are so obviously supposed to learn from this episode.

"Home, Swampy, Home" On some advice from his mysterious old mentor on Warren, Bucky O'Hare gets himself "captured" in order to locate and infiltrate a toad factory where a great many of his people are enslaved. Along the way, we're introduced to the toad Captain Smada (a foppish guy with a bit of a lisp who doesn't have much respect for Bucky's personal space when he's holding him captive; fans with any perverse suspicions about him may draw their own conclusions) and the brave vulpine leader of an underground resistance movement among the slaves named Mimi LaFloo. This episode also marks the UAC's commissioning of a third ship for its fleet with LaFloo as its captain, the S.S. Screaming Mimi. Points of interest: 4:15 Counterpoint concerning Captain Smada's sexuality: he has an attractive—by toad standards—female attending to him on the bridge of his ship when we first see him. 4:16 Point: Captain Smada dresses rather fancily and speaks with a bit of a lisp. 4:20 Further point: Captain Smada shows a notable lack of respect for Bucky O'Hare's personal space when he cups his chin while taunting him. 6:16 Curious that while the anthropomorphic animals never heard of humans before they met Willy DuWitt, they do have minotaurs (which are half-human, half-bull). 6:17 Further counterpoint: Captain Smada relishes the thought of how years of slavery will ruin Bucky's physical appearance and orders his troops to get him out of his sight. 6:45 That anthropomorphic bovine (hugging a female hare) among the slaves in this scene might be considered a minotaur. 7:43 Apparently, Mimi LaFloo is the only fox among the slaves. 8:02 It's a bit odd that the hares didn't already know what they were building, as Bucky O'Hare later immediately recognizes the climate converter the moment he sees it, but on the other hand, I suppose it's possible these hares weren't all on the same part of the planet during the toad invasion and didn't see the climate converter being installed; also that they haven't been assigned to all parts of the factory and therefore haven't been where they could get a good view of the whole thing the way Bucky does. 8:22 Notice that for all of Captain Smada's obsequiousness and deference to Komplex's alleged omniscience here, Komplex neither affirms nor denies the assertion outright. 8:44 Further counterpoint: Captain Smada isn't particularly upset over having to yield custody of his prisoner to any of his superiors, just about the ones higher up in the chain of command taking a greater interest in his captive than he'd anticipated. 10:50 Originally, I thought he said "Angus McChump" rather than "Angus McJump" here; of course, either alias fits the character he's playing here. 11:19 To make reference to another somewhat famous bunny, don't fling him in that briar patch! 11:34 While I can see how the victims would find the commercial pretty revolting (especially the rather lurid close-up on the toad model's tongue at 11:57), it still seems like this would be less stressful than working. 18:32 Script doctoring: while it's entirely plausible that the hares have seen enough of how the toads operate to believe the Air Marshal isn't bluffing, it would have made more sense to have the hare here claim that in his experience toads always build self-destruct mechanisms into their more important structures rather than that he merely *suspects* the place to be rigged with explosives. 18:45 While—like nearly all space operas—this show obviously has universal translators, Willy (and other mammals, such as Mimi earlier) being able to figure out how to operate the toads' consoles so quickly requires something more sophisticated than mere verbal translation; while all species' electronic circuitry might be inherently the same with only cosmetic differences in the packaging, every species would necessarily have its own distinct alphabets and keyboard configurations. This is why I suspect Jenny's feline species—who established that telepathy exists as a natural phenomenon in this dimension—are the ones who invented and propagated universal translators: telepathy might allow not only for the transmission of thoughts (in a language the recipient would understand), but also of memories—possibly including even muscle memory; which explains how Willy can figure out so quickly how to order the climate converter to whip up a storm for him. 19:10 So why didn't the Air Marshal and Frix die in this fiery explosion? Well, remember: the "bubbles" in those "Double Bubble" fighters double as ejection seats and escape pods that have been shown to be tough enough to survive the fighter's explosive destruction, shield against cosmic radiation, and retain atmospheric pressure in the vacuum of outer space; so those two toads were doubtless a bit worse for wear after the escape pods were thrown clear of the crash, but should otherwise be all right. 19:52 A lot of fans take Jenny's reaction here to be from jealousy, but considering she's been Bucky's first mate for years and is never shown making any passes at him—and that she conversely wasn't the least bit shy about flirting with Willy at every opportunity—it's a fair bet she really is just expressing her disgust at Mimi LaFloo's public display of affection. Of course, she's being a bit hypocritical, since she certainly didn't mind kissing Willy square on the lips in full view of everyone else near the end of the previous episode!

"The Good, the Bad, and the Warty" As previously mentioned, the situation's looking pretty grim for the good guys: Bucky O'Hare and company are stuck in a toad mother ship (a.k.a. a magma tanker in the comics from which this cartoon was loosely adapted), the mercenary sleazasaur Al Negator has the codes to the Genus satellite defense systems and is about to turn them over to the toads (just as soon as he gets paid), and the toads are amassing a huge invasion force. How are the good guys going to get out of this? Find out in this thrilling conclusion to the cartoon's three-episode pilot. Points of interest: 1:25 Obviously, Bucky couldn't have melted a hole in the hangar wall that big with his dinky little hand blaster; in fact, this is left over from a scene that was scripted and storyboarded, but cut from the finished product due to time constraints, showing Dead-Eye and Willy using that Toad Croaker to wreak some havoc of their own—including blasting their way through the wall with its cannons. 1:56 You really should have thought of that a lot sooner, Dogstar. 3:02 Considering that these toads are swamp-dwellers, why would they—of all people—forget to waterproof one of their devices? Well, just remember their home world is a purely artificial environment now, and that the Void Droid was designed to operate in such environments—not in a swamp or anywhere else one might expect water to be readily available. 4:06 If you look closely, that spot where Bucky actually managed to do some damage to Toadborg was a small seam between the plates of his armor; naturally, he would be hoping (in vain, however) that more of his shots would find more such vulnerabilities. 8:26 It's odd enough that the Air Marshal happened to be watching when the Void Droid was destroyed, but this proves Toadborg witnessed that incident as well. 8:52 Actually, some experiments NASA ran proved people can survive in the vacuum of space for up to two minutes; but (of course) Toadborg either doesn't know or doesn't care about that. 8:46 For drama's sake, the artists let us see under Willy's helmet. 10:10 Note the odd physical form in which these "Simoleans" are provided: like the "Mizoomas" Al Negator paid to Tinker on multi-colored rectangular chips in the previous episode, I suspect "Simoleans" to be a fiat currency that—like many common currencies here on Earth—can be represented both digitally and physically; and those strings of beads Al Negator packs into his cheeks (!) are just a physical storage medium for its digital form. 11:00 If you've been paying attention, those blasters were lying there the entire time throughout the previous scene, so this part should come as no suprise; what's curious is why Toadborg thought to gather up his captives' weapons and place them there. What I suspect is that like currencies, weapons in the Aniverse are pretty fungible items; in other words, Toadborg was planning to add Bucky and Dead-Eye's blasters to the toads' arsenals later, and simply forgot to take them with him when he left the room. 15:07 Kudos to Willy for his engineering skills: that's some mechanical hacking he's doing, not just reprogramming. 15:42 While one would expect a lightning strike to have fried that data card already, the animators had to show Toadborg spitting it out to confirm to us kids in the 1990s (who were still using floppy disks to store our data) that those access codes were truly lost (On the other hand, they could simply have had someone on the United Animals Space Council announce at the end that they were changing the access codes to their defense system.) 16:08 Evidently, those defense satellites are programmed not to pick off defenseless escape pods or individual free-floating troops in space suits; the system's animal programmers are remarkably forgiving and generous. 17:20 Slipping a little innuendo past kids who didn't quite understand all the facts of life yet: note that rather dubiously dressed rodent (probably a member of Tinker's species) swaying to the music a couple stools down from Al Negator in this bad guys' bar. Does anyone care to guess how she earns her keep? 18:05 Seems Mark has come around to Jeff's way of thinking; and for all the dubious company he keeps, Jeff is actually a pretty decent fellow.

In this longest out of all the previews and recaps, the cartoon's makers pretty effectively summarize how the heroes got themselves into such a terrible jam in the last episode.

By the end of the second episode, things were looking pretty grim for the good guys. Looking forward another week, the writers and producers decided to keep from spoiling too much for the audience in their preview this time. As this is pretty much the shortest clip from the entire show, you'll probably be done watching it by the time you're done reading this summary.

"A Fistful of Simoleans" While Bucky O'Hare and company bring Willy DuWitt up to speed on their situation and how the formerly soft-living consumerist toads' creation of the (Skynet-esque) AI command & control system Komplex led to their being brainwashed and transformed into militant expansionists sallying forth from their (Apokolips-esque) thoroughly industrialized and urbanized home world to conquer and terraform other species' home worlds into swamp planets, the Air Marshal (on Komplex's orders) hires the mercenary sleazasaur Al Negator to infiltrate Bucky's crew and help the Toad Empire crack the codes to the defense system for the United Animals Coalition's administrative planet Genus. We are also introduced to the canine Dogstar and his newly commissioned S.S. Indefatigable; to Bruce's brother Bruiser, who shares his sibling's liking for terrorizing toad troopers, if not so much his mechanical engineering skills; and to Toadborg, Komplex's (Darth Vader-esque) heavily armored cyborg who rapidly takes charge of the situation on the Toad Empire's side of the war. Meanwhile, Willy DuWitt still has to go to school and (since his tree-hugging granola-munching hippie parents aren't particularly helpful) cut a deal with Doug and his fellow bullies to pacify them by bringing up their grades. Points of interest: 0:33 This is a bit of a cheat on the cliffhanger from the previous episode; as you may recall, it ended with the toads actually hammering the ship's forward shields with maser fire from just about every available direction. 0:34 Again, I suspect the toad is saying something in his native language that everybody's universal translators either can't or won't translate for us. 1:16 Evidently, the toads' monitors are capable of three-dimensional holographic projection. 2:19 While the Air Marshal and Al Negator treat 5,000 Simoleans as an extortionate sum here, they'll gamble that much on a single bet just three episodes from now. 4:07 Considering that amphibians reproduce by laying lots of eggs in ponds, it's odd that anthropomorphic toads would be portrayed as having nuclear families here; evidently, the anthropomorphic toads' women don't produce anywhere near as many eggs as their non-anthropomorphic counterparts in our world. 4:31 While toads have four-fingered hands like the rest of the sentient anthropomorphic animals in the Aniverse, they have only three toes on their feet. (This may be due to their swamp-dwelling origins; while neither Dead-Eye nor any of his fellow waterfowl seen in this cartoon ever remove their footwear, their webbed feet also appear to have only three toe-like protrusions on them.) 4:48 Komplex turning the toads' home world into a planet-sized metropolis does explain why they're out to conquer and terraform other animals' worlds into swamp planets; also one of the curious oversights they made in one of their weapons designs we'll be seeing later. 5:38 The Beta Quadrant? So they map their galaxy the same way galactic governments in Star Trek do? 5:54 The artists aren't exactly being subtle about the target audience's periphery demographic here, are they? 9:43 So did Bruce have mask of his own face (for some reason) or is Bruiser's imagination just playing tricks on him here? 10:14 Something one has to be paying attention to notice: like all other sentient animals in the Aniverse, berserker baboons have only four digits on each of their hands and feet; yet when Willy is wearing Bruce's battle suit, its boots are sometimes shown to have five toes, and other times just four like Bruiser's. 12:37 Oddly, the door goes transparent as it vanishes, but the room not so much. 15:13 According to the script, Doug's redheaded pal who encourages Doug to take Willy up on his offer here is named Jeff, while his other decidedly less talkative crony with the black hair is named Mark. 15:27 Is anybody else getting the impression the show's writers weren't exactly huge fans of pro sports?

As with last week's preview, the writers and producers of this show deemed a refresher to its target audience's memory something of a necessity, as we easily distracted young boys—like Willy DuWitt—typically had a lot going on in our lives in the intervening week. (Also—as with Willy DuWitt—a lot of what was going on in our lives tended to be rather unpleasant, e.g. bullies like Doug and his pals were only a part of the trials and tribulations your humble uploader suffered at the inner-city public middle school he was being forced to attend at the time.)

This being a Saturday morning cartoon with a whole week between broadcasts, and its first three episodes being a multipart pilot for the entire show, the writers and producers deemed this little teaser for the next episode to be a necessity for the audience. It's a bit spoileriffic, so if you feel like skipping straight to the next episode, go right ahead. Just remember that those of us who happened to be the right age and in the right age at the right time to see this cartoon's original broadcast didn't have this same luxury as you. Points of interest: 0:29 This would be more of a spoiler if that "secret toad agent" (Al Negator) weren't revealed to be one of the bad guys from the start about three minutes into the episode. 0:34 This is the first time in the series Bruiser is mentioned by name (though not his first appearance, as he's shown in the opening). 1:09 Spoiler: the S.S. Righteous Indignation is headed straight into the mother ship's mouth. 1:19 Major spoiler: this ending to the preview is also how the episode itself ends.

"War of the Warts" We're introduced to Bucky O'Hare and his anthropomorphic animal crew on his S.S. Righteous Indignation: first mate Jenny, the telepathic and telekinetic feline; four-armed gunner Dead-Eye, the trigger-happy former Corsair Canard; one-eyed pint-sized Blinky, the philosophical and vaguely religious robot; and the ship's engineer Betelgeusian berserker baboon Bruce, who makes a better warrior than mechanic. We're also introduced to some of their principal nemeses from the expansionist Toad Empire: the belching and bloviating Air Marshal; his bumbling slacker underlings the (fraternal) twin brothers Frix and Frax; their rather overbearing A.I. overlord Komplex; and the numerous storm-toad troopers serving under them whose headgear makes them all appear to have the same face. Also, since this is a cartoon principally targeted to young boys, we are ultimately introduced to our audience surrogate and viewpoint character: the precocious preteen math & science whiz Willy DuWitt. (Note: for some reason, at no time in this series will we ever be introduced to any female counterpart named Betty Wont.) Points of interest: 3:25 That toad seems to be looking at a dirty magazine, especially since he's turning the pages with his tongue. 5:51 Doug and his cronies are riding their skateboards in the school's halls? Methinks their bad grades aren't the only problem they're having with their school. (Also, they're remarkably tall to be Willy's classmates; were they held back a few grades?) 6:26 Doug and company sure disappeared awfully quickly, didn't they? 7:03 Kinda odd that toads in escape pods would have the means to communicate with an enemy vessel. 9:45 Are the toads segregationists? Why are all the bunnies at the controls white-furred? 9:55 You really should have thought of this sooner, Jenny. 10:13 Proof that like other space operas, everyone in this show has universal translators: note the odd appearance of the characters in the code Jenny enters into her console here. 11:36 Those rib bones on the Air Marshal's desk seem to be from a recent meal. So... the toads have some manner of non-sentient meat animals they hunt or raise for food? 13:04 I like to think the toad gunner's croaking noise is his saying something in his native language the universal translators either can't or won't translate (at least, not for us viewers). 14:43 The one and only time Blinky mentions the universe in this series; in a later episode, he speaks only of attaining oneness with the Aniverse. 14:47 Mighty fancy vocabulary you're using, Bucky; I would have just said "I'm going down there to get a good long look at the damage this disaster has done." 15:41 The accelerator is not absorbing quite *all* of the energy, Willy; your flashlight and tape recorder are still working, as is the intercom system on the S.S. Righteous Indignation.

This was the introductory theme that opened every episode of Bucky O'Hare's first (and only) season for its original 1991 broadcast. Points of interest: 0:38 While the toads' "Double Bubble" fighters do have those grapplers on them, this is the only place in the cartoon they're ever shown actually using them. 0:43 This looks something like one of the levels in the magma tanker in the NES video game based on this series. 1:01 If you happened to be watching this in Canada, this would be where the screen would do a freeze frame and then show the alternate title: Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Menace. (Mentioning "war" was a big no-no to the sissy censors who determined what kinds of content were acceptable for children's shows on Canadian television.)