Taz-Mania

Taz-Mania is an Australian/American cartoon sitcom produced by Warner Bros. Animation from 1991 to 1995, broadcast in the United States on Fox, in Australia on ABC Kids and in Canada on Baton Broadcast System. The show follows the adventures of the Looney Tunes character, Taz (The Tasmanian Devil) in the fictional land of Tazmania (based on Tasmania).^[1]

Similar to other Warner Brothers cartoons of its time, such as Animaniacs and Tiny Toon Adventures, Taz-Mania frequently broke the fourth wall, and often made jokes showing that Taz could actually speak perfectly normally when he wanted to. The intro indicates that, in this rendering of Tasmania, "the sky's always yellow, rain or shine". The title song is performed by Jess Harnell and Jim Cummings.

Characters

The Tazmanian Devil family

• Taz (Jim Cummings) – He is the central character of the series and appears in every episode. Taz is ill-tempered, frequently hungry, and has a very big dislike of water, though is less ferocious and (at times) more thoughtful than his original incarnation. He works as a bellhop at the Hotel Tazmania.
• Jean Tazmanian Devil (Miriam Flynn) – Taz's dedicated, doting mother. Many episodes circle around her speaking on the phone and running through a long list of chores she's created for herself.
• Hugh Tazmanian Devil (Maurice LaMarche) – Taz's easy-going father, whose voice and mannerisms are a parody of Bing Crosby. Hugh likes orange juice (a reference to Crosby being a famous pitch-man for orange juice), golfing, and bowling, and will often overexplain things to the point where he'll say "blah-blah-blah, yackity schmackity" to speed things up.
• Molly Tazmanian Devil (Kellie Martin) – Taz's 13-year-old sister. Despite being more refined than her brother, she often shares his vicious nature, though in a more sibling-rivalry sense.
• Jake Tazmanian Devil (Debi Derryberry) – Taz's little brother, who often looks up to and idolizes Taz.
• Dog the Turtle (Rob Paulsen) – Taz's pet turtle, who acts like a dog.
• Drew Tazmanian Devil (Maurice LaMarche) – Taz's uncle, who talks and acts like Bob Hope as a reference to Hugh's parody of Bing Crosby. Like Hugh, Drew enjoys golf, bowling, and heading out on road trips (often dragging Taz along) in spoofs of Hope and Crosby's Road to... film series of the 1940s and 1950s.

Hotel Tazmania staff

• Bushwhacker Bob (Jim Cummings) – Taz's loud, grouchy and incompetent boss. Owner of the Hotel Tazmania, he is largely self-centered and thinks very highly of himself, despite rarely doing any actual work and preferring to leave any and all tasks to his staff. His demeanor is a send up of Basil Fawlty, just as all the hotel segments were direct spoofs of the British sitcom Fawlty Towers.
• Mum (Rosalyn Landor) – Bushwhacker Bob's mother, who is much calmer and wiser than her son. Despite her son owning the Hotel Tazmania, Mum is the true backbone of the establishment. She is often quick to criticize her son, much to Bob's chagrin, despite her accusations typically being true.
• Constance Koala (Rosalyn Landor) – An enormous but gentle spirited koala who is the maid at the Hotel Taz-mania. She is quite fond of singing and dancing, despite her dancing often causing unintentional destruction.
• Mr. Thickley (Dan Castellaneta) – A multitalented and upbeat wallaby who works at the Hotel Tazmania, although his exact job title is unspecified. He considers himself a jack-of-all-trades always preempting the activities he does with Taz with an exclamation that he's "an expert." He enjoys doing favors for Taz but his incompetence usually results in mayhem. He also hosts Taz-manian Theater.

Outback characters

• Digeri Dingo (Rob Paulsen) – A self-serving dingo who pretends to be Taz's friend so he can avoid dangerous situations and discomfort at Taz's expense. Both he and Taz share a mutual love for bottle-cap collecting. A scavenger, treasure hunter and chronic collector, he often takes advantage of Taz's strength and rabid nature to hunt rare treasures. Typically when he gets what he wants, he still berates Taz for bringing it back in a tarnished condition.
• Wendal T. Wolf (Jim Cummings) – A neurotic thylacine who is desperate for any type of friendship. When not being hunted by Taz, he usually drives him crazy in his efforts to befriend him. His personality closely resembles that of Woody Allen.
• Francis X. Bushlad (Rob Paulsen) – A white-skinned, red-haired aboriginal boy who unsuccessfully hunts Taz as a rite of manhood. Despite their tribal society, he and his entire tribe behave and speak like highly intelligent, aristocratic businessmen. (His own father is a send-up of Thurston P. Howell.) His name recalls silent movie star Francis X. Bushman

Minor characters

• Bull Gator and Axl (John Astin, Rob Paulsen) – A pair of alligators who unsuccessfully try to trap Taz for the enjoyment of zoo-going children all over the world (as a rather weak pretense to the massive financial gain the endeavor will grant them). Bull is the leader of the duo, always acting in a confident and cheery attitude even while reprimanding Axl. Axl is Bull's hunter in training, constantly naive though often subject to Bull's "corrections." (Typically in the form of a mallet smashing.) They vaguely resemble Laurel and Hardy.
• Buddy Boar (Jim Cummings) – Full name Hamilton Butkus Boar, he fancies himself a yuppie, is often seen talking on his cell phone, and claims to be "Taz's best friend". Though Buddy tends to take advantage of Taz at times, he does not seem to treat him nearly as bad as Digeri Dingo does. He was established early in the show but was seemingly ill-received, reflected in several fourth-wall breaking moments by the show's characters. As such, Buddy's appearances were uncommon. His later appearances suggest he was promoted to the show's producer after he was considered to be an unlikable character on the show proper, and he later attempts to direct an episode featuring Bull and Axl with catastrophic results.
• Daniel and Timothy the Platypus Brothers (Maurice LaMarche, Rob Paulsen) – Twin brothers (Timothy wears glasses) whose love for do-it-yourself projects usually end up causing trouble for Taz. They closely resemble Daffy Duck, in appearance and manner of speech. A pair of episodes deal with their obsession with the prime-time cartoon "The McKimsons," a The Simpsons parody featuring a character who constantly shouts "No way, I'm out of here, Man!"
• The Keewee – Although somewhat resembling a kiwi, this silent bird can run as fast as the Road Runner, often being chased down by Taz in search of his lunch in the same nature of Wile E. Coyote.
• The Bushrats (head Bushrat: Phil Proctor) – A group of rats in tribal costume. They speak in an odd mix of real and nonsense languages that are appended by mismatched, humorous subtitles. Their favorite phrase is "Spanfirkel!", which is similar to the German word "Spanferkel" that translates to "small, young pig, which still gets suckled".
• Willie Wombat (Maurice LaMarche) – Originally cast in a Bugs Bunny-like role against Taz, Willie resents this typecasting and greatly admires Taz and his career. His determination to remain pacifistic and polite usually reverts to frustration and rage by the end of his episodes. Ironically, his friendly nature was previously used by Bugs in 1980's "Spaced Out Bunny."

Looney Tunes characters

• Bugs Bunny - (voiced by Greg Burson) In "A Devil of a Job," Bugs appears as a Deus Ex Machina, driving a souped-up Jeep out of a tar pit, saving Taz, and then asking. "Is this the Left turn at Albuquerque?" In Willie Wombat's debut episode, Willie phoned Bugs for advice about how to handle Taz.
• Daffy Duck - (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) Is seen riding along with Bugs in the jeep in "A Devil of a Job."
• Yosemite Sam - (voiced by Maurice LaMarche) After Willie phoned Bugs for advice, Taz phoned Sam. He's never actually seen. He expresses surprise that Taz has his own show by asking "Ain't you retired yet?"
• Sam Sheepdog - (voiced by Jim Cummings) In one episode Taz, working as a temp agent for carnivorous predators, substitutes for Ralph Wolf and attempts to steal sheep from Sam's pen. (There was a bit of character confusion here, as at one point Sam suggests "I thought I was a bit too hard on That Coyote last week.")
• Foghorn Leghorn- (voiced by Jeff Bergman) Because of his name, Bushwacker Bob mistook Foghorn for a hotel critic.
• Marvin the Martian - (voiced by Rob Paulsen) Once came to Earth on vacation, glad his plans to destroy it failed. His attempts at relaxation are thwarted by Taz's noisy behavior, cajoling him into wanting to destroy the Earth again, and his actions indeed cause the Earth to explode due to a temporal anomaly.
• Road Runner- He made a cameo appearance in the show and is caught by Taz. Taz is then about to eat him, but lets the bird go after Axl and Bull try to kidnap Taz.

Episodes

Episodes are copyright 1991 (1-14), 1992 (15-47), or 1993 (48-65); note that this does not always correspond with when they originally aired.

Video games

Five video games based on the show were made, two by Sega for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis, Sega Master System and Sega Game Gear and three by Sunsoft consisting in one for the SNES and two for the Game Boy.

Home media release

Three VHS tapes were released in 1993.

A DVD containing the first four episodes of the series was released in Europe in April 2010, whilst later released in the UK in 2011 under the title "Taz and Friends" as part of the Kids' WB "Big Faces" series.

On May 14, 2013 Warner Home Video released Taz Mania - Season 1, Part 1: Taz on the Loose on DVD in Region 1 for the very first time.^[2] Season 1, Part 2 was released on August 6, 2013.^[3]

Other appearances

In the Duck Dodgers episode "M.M.O.R.P.D.", one of the forms that Duck Dodgers turns himself into Axl. In this brief appearance, Axl's vocal effects are reprised by Rob Paulsen. Taz himself appears with Duck Dodgers in the episode "Deathmatch Duck".

References

External links

• Taz-Mania at the Internet Movie Database
• Taz-Mania at TV.com
• Opening theme at RetroJunk
• Show clips