By now, most of us are familiar with the famous (or infamous, depending on your point of view) star of Tiny Toon Adventures, Elmyra Duff…..
Relax. It’s because Elmyra is so well known that we won’t be profiling her here. Beyond the Background is for shining the spotlight on the more obscure, lesser-known and forgotten characters, so Elmyra doesn’t qualify.
Instead, we’ll be looking at Elmyra’s family, the Duffs (it’s ‘Fudd’ spelled backwards, get it?), who only appeared in 2 TTA episodes, “Take Elmyra Please” and “Grandma’s Dead”. Some have speculated that these 2 eps were meant to be pilots for an Elmyra spinoff series, but that’s just an internet rumor. Elmyra’s family didn’t even appear in Pinky, Elmyra and the Brain. So whatever became of the Duffs? What are they up to now?
We’re glad we pretended you asked.
First, there’s the mother of the family, Emily Duff, a hard working if somewhat oblivious mom who works at a public radio station. Post TTA, she has been spotted serving jury duty on Animaniacs, and she was most recently a contestant on the popular game show, You Risk Your Life (appearing under the pseudonym “Mrs. Myra Puntridge” due to requests from the radio station, who felt that public radio should never be associated with anything profitable), winning big with her partner, Aristotle.
Say, I wonder what she did with her winnings?
“I…spent it all on exotic cupcakes. Seventeen dozen exotic cupcakes. The Cupcake of the Month Club were very persuasive, and the family ate them all up, literally! But the flavors were so tempting! Carolina Crunchy Creme, Simply Red Velvet, Breakfast Cereal Chunk Cluster, Strawberry Banana Fondue Whip….uh, but I digress. We’ll be discussing it on my next broadcast, Cupcakes and the People Who Love Them.”
Next up we have Elmyra’s dad, MacArthur Duff (aka “Mac”, Mac Duff. Get it? GET IT??). He is an inventor, always trying to come up with a revolutionary new discovery. Some of Mac’s previous attempts include a clean-burning fuel made from cholesterol (“Take Elmyra Please”) and drinking water made from tears (“Grandma’s Dead”). Those didn’t exactly take off, but we hear he’s still in the game.
“My latest invention is sure to become a household name! I even paid for a commercial for it! I came up with the name myself!”
‘Kay, well, I won’t be forgetting that anytime soon. Moving on…
We next come to Elmyra’s sarcastic teenage older sister, Amanda Duff, who typically spent her time chatting on the phone and being embarrassed and annoyed by her family. I wonder what she’s been doing since her last TV appearance?
“I’ve just been trying to keep up at school, hanging with my friends, putting up with my crazy family, just normal stuff, no big whoop. What? Does every teen TV star have to end up a drug-addicted, sex tape making, felony-facing train wreck??”
Next up is Elmyra’s brother, Duncan Duff, who liked to spend his time play acting either one of 2 superhero personas: Ninja Boy (“Take Elmyra Please”) or Captain Quirk (“Grandma’s Dead”).
“Please! Those games were ridiculous. I’m matured since then; these days I go by Boy Wonderful! I’m planning to start a suburban division of the Teen Titans called Pre-Teen Titans Midwest! All I need is a T-shaped tower and some kids with super powers to lead. Just don’t tell my folks, OK? My mom worries!”
Next up is the family’s foreign-born, super-strong maid, Queegee Bananahoe, who appeared only in “Take Elmyra Please”. We weren’t able to contact Queegee, and all known photos of her have since been removed. Wonder why…
“Ms. Bananahoe was in our country illegally. Her ‘papers’ were just a single sheet of pink construction paper with the words “I B AMERURICAN CITUSEN” written in crayon, so we had to deport her. Besides, who in this day and age thinks a cheap, stereotyped impression of a foreigner is funny?”
“Really. Don’ be reediculous!”
Finally, we come to the family’s youngest sibling, Baby Duff.
Baby’s present whereabouts are not publicly known. When asked, all we could get out of people are hazy recollections of a “device” and rumors of a hidden dungeon said to be located underneath the sandbox of Baby Cakes Day Care Center.
“I told that semi-evolved mouth-breather to stay away from my cookies! Once again, VICTORY IS MINE!”
It looks like Disney beloved short people, the Seven Dwarfs, will be the next set of classic Disney characters to receive their own show.
“Accessing a classic fairytale and finding new ways to bring it to audiences, Disney Television Animation has begun production on the new animated series The 7D, a comedic take on the world of Seven Dwarfs, this time in a contemporary storybook world designed for viewers age 2-7 and their families. The series is slated to debut in 2014 on Disney Junior channels and programming blocks around the world. The executive producer is Emmy Award-winning Tom Ruegger (“Animaniacs”). Alfred Gimeno (“Tiny Toon Adventures”) is the director and Sherri Stoner (“Pinky and the Brain”) is the story editor. The characters are designed by Noah Z. Jones (“Fish Hooks”).”
SYNOPSIS: The 7D takes place in the whimsical world of Jollywood (Jollywood? Does this mean we’ll be seeing people in tights dancing around in big, splashy musical numbers??), where quirky Queen Delightful relies on the 7D – Happy, Bashful, Sleepy, Sneezy, Dopey, Grumpy and Doc – to keep the kingdom in order. Standing in their way are two laughably evil villains, Grim and Hildy Gloom, who plot to take over the kingdom by stealing the magical jewels in the 7D’s mine. With seven very distinct personalities, the 7D always manage to save the day and send Grim and Hildy running back to their evil lair to try another day.
That sounds like fun and all, but there’s one little curiosity surrounding this show: namely, the Dwarfs’ designs. For some reason, the Mouse House has opted to redesign the mythical Vertically Challenged Folk for this series. What was wrong with these designs, I don’t know:
…But it is what it is. Who can fathom the minds of network executives?
First, these early promotional designs were submitted:
And the reaction was unanimous:
I mean, really who thought those designs were a good idea? I mean, Dopey is actually TALL. Just…no! And Sneezy looks like a clown! Why’s he so tiny?? I didn’t even realize that he was supposed to be Sneezy until doing a little process of elimination: I first thought he was supposed to be Dopey, but then I saw Stretch with the Harpo Marx look and put 2 and 2 together.
I know 5-year-olds in kindergarten who can do better with their crayons. In fact, I’ve puked up better designs after an evening bender. So after the tarring and feathering, the artists staggered back to the drawing board and came up with these designs instead:
Much better. I still didn’t think there was anything wrong with the original movie designs, but this is a vast improvement over those craptactular first designs. These are much more colorful and vibrant, and the characters are much more distinct. Dopey is still sporting the Harpo Marx look, but now he retains the classic Dopey look as well. I particularly like those little mechanical arms emerging from Doc’s hat; that says to me that the producers may be going for a kind of “wacky inventor” shtick with Doc, which would please me, as I like loony scientists. Happy kind of looks like Santa Claus, fitting, and I like the polka dots on his and Dopey’s hats.
One minor observation, though: is it just me, or does Bashful now look like Dumb Donald from Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids?
Cartoon Network recently announced their lineup of upcoming new series for 2014-2015. The main (heck, the only) ones which caught our interest were the 2 entries from Warner Brothers, Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production and Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!.
Wabbit: A Looney Tunes Production: The hilarious, heroic and mischievous Bugs Bunny you love is back! From Warner Bros. Animation, Bugs stars in an all-new series consisting of comedic shorts that find the iconic carrot-loving rabbit matching wits against (and getting the best of) classic characters like Yosemite Sam and Wile E. Coyote. Along the way, Bugs will encounter brand-new foes and he’ll have some help from new friends like Bigfoot and Squeaks the squirrel.
Be Cool Scooby-Doo!: Be Cool Scooby-Doo! is an all-new 22-minute animated comedy series from Warner Bros. Animation. The Scooby gang is back with a modern comedic twist on the beloved classic. With high school over and one last summer to live it up, the gang hits the road in the Mystery Machine, chasing fun and adventure. But monsters and mayhem keep getting in the way.
We at Twinsanity would like to quickly give our first impressions of both of these shows, based on what admittedly little info we have on them. (BTW, we won’t be doing full reviews of either show after they premiere; if we find anything about either series noteworthy in some way, we’ll give ’em a shouty-shout or acknowledge them in some way, but we won’t be giving either of these shows a full-blown review.)
Regarding Wabbit: I’m slightly surprised that WB would embark on a new Looney Tunes series so soon after The Looney Tunes Show, but with Wabbit they seem to be returning to the franchise’s roots and going for more of a shorts feel than the sitcom style of TLTS, which will please many LT fans, including myself, who could tolerate TLTS for what is was but can also openly admit that it was quite notably flawed in some areas. The fact that the show’s title is written in Elmer Fudd-ese would seem to be a clear indication that the marble-headed hunter will be playing a significant role in this show, again a plus given how Elmer’s role on TLTS was very noticeably minor. I hope that Daffy Duck and the other LT stars will find their way into this show as well, and that if Daffy does appear, he won’t be portrayed as solely jealous of Bugs, an oblivious idiot or the worst living creature roaming the Earth. As for the prospect of new characters, I know some people will (and do) find that off-putting, but I’m at least open to the idea of adding new LT characters to the roster every so often. If they’re cool and they don’t step on any other characters’ shticks, then I’m fine with newcomers. I’m not so sure what I think of the art style, though; I’m not exactly feeling the (IMO) unnecessary details to Bugs’ design (those specks on his fur–why?), but then I actually liked Jessica Borutski’s stylized designs for TLTS back when it was going to be called Laff Riot. Of course all we’ve seen so far of this show is one image; I’ll hold off commenting further on the look of Wabbit until I see more of it.
Regarding Be Cool, Scooby-Doo!: Clearly, this series will be going for a much, much looser and straightforwardly comedic style and tone than Scooby-Doo: Mystery, Inc., thus adhering to CN’s current “dumb comedy rules!” sensibilities. That could either turn out to be very good or very, very bad. Hopefully, as we did with SD:MI, we’ll get to see some other HB stars pop up in cameos or guest star roles, like Blue Falcon and Dynomutt, Jabberjaw, Speed Buggy, Hong Kong Phooey, Captain Caveman and the like, since it’s become painfully obvious that none of those guys will be getting their own shows again anytime soon. Again, I’m not sure what to make of the art style, except that Scoob looks positively lobotomized in that illustration. He looks like a Butch Hartman character on acid. I’m almost afraid to see what the other characters will look like.
One final note: a new Tom & Jerry series was also announced, titled imaginatively enough, The Tom & Jerry Show.
We didn’t post our impressions on that show because, well, it’s Tom & Jerry. It’s what we’ve all come to expect from T&J: cat chases mouse, mouse outwits cat, lots of slapstick, violence and cartoon chaos, yada yada yada, you know the drill. But the new T&J series employs the voice talents of Jason Alexander, Grey Deslile-Griffin and Simon Helberg, never a bad thing.
We’ve recently received some new info on all this. For one thing, according to Nickandmore, the Boomerang re-brand, which was presumed to be happening at the end of March, will not be happening until the 4th quarter of 2014, i.e., late fall.
“Imagine my delight.”
Also, the new Boomerang will target younger audiences, girls and families, unlike the boy-skewing Cartoon Network. (At least we now have some idea as to what sort of programming we can expect on the new Boom.) Of course all of this is supplemented by the news that Stuart Snyder will be stepping down as President of Cartoon Network at the end of this month.
Now, while I’m tempted to react this way upon hearing this latter announcement……
…We have to look at things realistically. There are 3 things we must consider:
While it’s true that Snyder was largely responsible for pushing live-action onto CN, as well as its’ current unabashed skewing towards boys and “goofy boy” comedies to the exclusion of just about everything else and Adult Swim’s continued engulfing on Toon’s schedule, the man did some good things for CN. he greenlit Adventure Time (not a fan of it myself, but I know people are) and Regular Show (which I am a fan of), and he did help pull CN slightly out of the hole it had dug itself into from around 2004 through 2007. That said, it always felt like it was 1 step forward, 3 steps back with this guy, so I’d be lying if I said that part of me isn’t kind of glad that he’s going, but….
Just because Snyder’s departing doesn’t mean that things are going to change dramatically at Cartoon Network, nor does it mean that a new Golden Age for CN is on the horizon. Stu may be going, but Rob Sorcher and others will still be around, and the Nickandmore article clearly states that CN will not be abandoning its’ current boy-skewing ways. I hate to be ants at the picnic, but Cartoon Network is definitely not going to go back to being the way it was 13 years ago, with a wide and diverse range of new shows with that same level of quality, creativity and imagination, still aiming for creating the fun, must-watch atmosphere of the past but with the shows of today. Trying to recreate the atmosphere from back in the day by producing and using a variety of new comedic and action shows from countless sources as well as creating visually entertaining bumpers of all sorts would be progress, but CN doesn’t seem to be down with that. More’s the pity.
Given that Cartoon Network will experience a regime change soon, any future plans for both Boomerang and Cartoon Network could likely be re-evaluated by the new management. The Boomerang re-brand isn’t supposed to happen until late fall, and Snyder’s replacement hasn’t been named yet, so management could be shaken up in any number of ways until then, but unless plans change, it would seem that CN will basically continue as it has been. That being the case, I hope the plans for Boom don’t change, as I’ll likely be watching that more than Cartoon Network, depending on their schedule.
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