Anthropomorphic animal cartoon characters and the 80's-90's go together like John Denver and bowl cuts. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Thundercats, Biker Mice from Mars, and even Battletoads all fought for the precious attention spans of children everywhere. Enter The S.P.A.C.E. Adventures of Bucky O'Hare and the Toad Wars. S.P.A.C.E. of course stands for "Sentient Protoplasm Against Colonial Encroachment," but more on acronyms later! Sit back and enjoy way more information about the 90s' most overlooked hero than you ever wanted to know!

Bucky actually started out as a comic book. A really obnoxious comic book. And in 1991 it became a really, really, obnoxious saturday morning cartoon. So obnoxious in fact, that it only lasted thirteen episodes. The action figure line enjoyed a similar fate, but at least the series produced a decent NES game. Oh, and I bet you didn't know there was even a failed attempt at getting a live action Bucky O'Hare movie made in 1995 did you? Read on, you brave souls.

 

 

THE CARTOON

Wow, did God write that? I think so. I think Larry Hama (Bucky's creator) actually commissioned God to write that theme song. That song could get stuck in Paul McCartney's head.

I love running up behind people and going, "BUCKY!" when they least suspect it. (When would anyone ever suspect that?)

Anyway, theme song or no theme song, its hard to even get through the intro without having a seizure.

Overall, the show was just another example of the typical 80's-90's thirty minute toy commercial. At least in toy commercials you got to see kids ramming their action figures through cool stacks of tiny cardboard boxes. One thing that really irritates me about this show is that none of the voices seem to match the characters. Bucky's voice sounds like some normal guy you'd meet in line at the grocery store. Don't ask me what a 5 foot talking rabbit would sound like, but I'm pretty sure it wouldn't sound like that. Speaking of characters:

 

Bucky O'Hare	Dead-Eye Duck	Jenny	Bruiser	Blinky	Willy Du Witt
Commander Dogstar	Toad Air Marshall	Al Negator	KOMPLEX	Ernest P. Worrell	Toad Storm Trooper

Bucky O'Hare is the leader of the pack, the captain of the Righteous Indignation. Good call naming the ship something that kids can't even pronounce/spell. Think of how many parents went out Christmas shopping with a list made in crayon, and had no clue what they were supposed to get. Dead Eye-Duck is the Raphael of the team, the rebel, always cracking wise. Upon reviewing an episode for this article, I started to realize that Dead Eye sounded exactly like Rattrap from Transformers: Beast wars. Could it be?

Yes!

Yup that's right, chances are you've spent some time with Scott McNeil as a kid, whether you're cool and watched stuff like Beast Wars, weird and watched anime stuff, or my nieces and watched Barbie Fairytopia. Scott totally gets a free pass for doing Fairytopia just for voicing Rattrap, Dinobot, and Waspinator on Beast Wars.

The rest of the characters are your stereotypical team members, in animal form. Ps, they call lit the Aniverse here. Like the real universe, but with animals (whatever).

 

Willy Du Witt looks almost identical to Mighty Max, but way lamer and with way less Rob Paulsen. Nobody's perfect though.

From there, the plot's pretty self-explanatory. Everyone's animals, and the toads are bad. Just because. All in all, it's just TMNT in space.

 

THE TOYS

It's shame the Bucky O'Hare action figure line only lasted one series. At the rate they were trying to copy Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, we could have had Wacky Baseball Action Bucky, President of the United States Dead-Eye, or even Toad Air Marshall as Santa Claus. It's a shame really. I love toys like these, its what I grew up on. I had most of the Bucky O'Hare toys as a kid (I have more now, I know) and I vaguely remember why I had them. My parents probably thought they were a part of the TMNT line, and I doubt I thought much different. Bucky's action figure is, in my mind, one of the coolest looking figures of the 90s. The rest I could care less about. Dead Eye's head is too big, and blinky is an outright copy of Fugitoid from TMNT.

I must admit, the Toad Air Marshall is cute. He's supposed to be the villain of the series, but how can you hate a little stocky toad with a captain's hat? He's like a little Danny DeVito in a frog costume. He totally seems like the kind of villain that would sell out and do something unlike him around the holidays, only to get made fun of by his henchmen when he got back. I could see him on TV station bumpers around Christmas, singing little carols.

There are plenty of pics on the internet of the prototype figures that never made it into production, but they're pretty lame. Jenny's the only key character that never made it, but who really cares.

 

CONTINUE TO PART 2: THE GAME, THE MOVIE, AND MORE!

 

You can still get the graphic novel on Amazon.

Bucky O'Hare Graphic Novel 

Lucky Brits can order series on DVD