The Raccoons

THE RACCOONS
Made by: Nelvana Animation
Shown on: ITV
Years shown:1985-1992

Theme tune: "When darkness falls, leaving shadows in the night/Don't be afraid, wipe that fear from your eyes/The desperate love keeps on driving you wrong/Don't be afraid, you're not alone/You can run with us, we've got everything you need/Run with us, we are free/ Co-co-co-come with us/I see passion in your eyes/Run with us"

Considering this cartoon was usually on pre-Wide Awake Club, when only very restless children were out of bed, The Raccoons was actually not a bad way of passing the time while eating your Shreddies. Sometimes it veered into the sickly sentimental, but there were enough laughs and sufficient story-lines to hold the interest until Tommy Boyd came on.

Cyril Sneer was some kind of pink anteater, and he was also an industry tycoon who lived in a mansion in Evergreen Forest - like all good magnates, he was a slave to the green folding stuff. But life would have been easy “if it wasn’t for…The Racoons!” - so who were the pesky varmints? Bert Racoon was the chief protagonist; he was pretty stupid, but had a heart of gold of course, and would do anything to help his friends. His best buddy was, perversely, the wimpish Cederic Sneer, the son of Bert’s great nemesis, who was a perennial disappointment to his father (he had a conscience, for a start.) Bert was a lodger in the house of boring, wholesome married couple, Ralph and Melissa Racoon, who ran a moralising newspaper, The Evergreen Standard, trying to preserve the forest they all lived in. Despite the fact that they were obviously destroying a forest somewhere by their publication of a newspaper.

But they weren’t all racoons, as a matter of fact - there was also gigantic, shaggy dog called Schaeffer, who had a miniature clone of himself in the form of his son, Broo. Somewhere in there, there was Lisa Racoon, Sophie, and Bentley as well. None of them were particularly big or threatening, so you’d have thought that Cyril Sneer would have had no problem with getting hold of some loggers, and selling Evergreen Forest down the river. But for some reason, he shot himself in the foot time and again, by employing three little pigs in matching outfits, who were the most incompetent bunglers imaginable - but presumably came cheap. Sneer was always trying to impress a millionaire alligator who drove around in a limo, and was lacking in a sense of humour - but to no avail. If he’d had any sense, he’d have bought a pack of hunting dogs - they’d have made short work of those racoons.

SQUARE EYES RATING: 6/10

(Thanks to www.toontalents.com for the borrowed pic!)