17 interesting facts about the Disney animated series "Nuts" (19 photos)

A funny cartoon about a crazy cartoon lynx policeman living among people did not leave me indifferent.





1. Many people assume that the animated series "Crazy" is a kind of continuation of the cult film by Robert Zemeckis "Who Framed Roger Rabbit." Still, the film takes place in a world where cartoons live with people, and the hero himself works in tandem with a detective. But this is not true at all.



Despite the fact that the main idea of ​​​​the animated series was also that real people and cartoons live side by side and interact with each other, the actions of Nutty and Roger Rabbit take place in different universes. In addition, let's not forget that the film about the cartoon rabbit involved characters from cartoons from different studios (Disney, WB, MGM), while in "Nutty" we could only meet characters from Disney projects.



But at one time there were even rumors that Roger Rabbit should become the star of the new series. But due to rights problems, I had to invent my own character. However, these rumors were denied. The writers said they never had plans to use Roger himself, but the Roger Rabbit movie was certainly an inspiration.

2. As a character, Nutty appeared even before the release of the animated series of the same name. Back in 1992, a series of short cartoons called “Raw Toonage” was released, which can be translated as “Natural Cartoonism”.





The main character of one of the blocks of this short film called "He's Bonkers" was the Bonkers himself, created by artist Larry Latham. Also, in this short film there were other characters familiar from the series, such as the dog Nervous, Fawn, etc. By the way, the combination “He's Bonkers” essentially translates as “He's Crazy,” but in fact there is such a stable expression that can be translated as “Just for fun.”

Moreover, initially the participation of Nutty in this series of short films was not envisaged, since Nutty was already planned as the main character of a separate animated series. But then the creators decided to insert the character into "Natural Cartoonism" in order to later present all this as some kind of backstory for the character.



According to the plot of the animated series “Crazy,” the main character is not just a character, but an actor who plays in the show “Natural Cartooniness.” But after his dismissal, he accidentally helps a patrolman named Lucky Pickel stop a criminal who wanted to rob Donald Duck, after which he becomes a policeman, and a patrolman is promoted to a detective.

3. An unknown animator Dwayne Capizzi and a famous animator Robert Hathcock worked on the creation of the animated series. Together they filmed the first 19 episodes. Moreover, the first 19 episodes were not about how Crazy got into the police and worked with Lucky. In these episodes, he already worked at the police station along with Miranda Wright (in our dubbing, Brave).



But during the test screenings of the first 9 episodes, the audience was not very happy, which is why these episodes had to be canceled, and the services of the old team had to be abandoned.



They were replaced by a new artist, Robert Taylor (not to be confused with the actor), who stated that the storyline with Miranda was not needed at all. He decided that it would be much more interesting for viewers to see how exactly Nutty was fired from the movie, how he ended up with the police, etc. He also decided that Miranda was too serious a character, so he decided that Nutty should work with an overweight, sloppy, and irritable detective.



In addition, Crazy's new best friend was introduced - a rabbit named Humpty, who kept falling apart, and who was not in the original Raw toonage show.

Everyone liked the new concept, and in the end it was the episodes with Lucky that were aired.



4. But despite the fact that the series was reworked, no one abandoned the old episodes. They were put on the shelf until better times. And when the episodes with Lucky ended, the old episodes were taken out of the archive.

But there was still one problem. You can't start an episode with Miranda without explaining where Lucky, Humpty and some other characters went. Therefore, the authors made an additional series, which became a kind of bridge.



This episode shows how Crazy meets Miranda, and they, together with Lucky, catch criminals. At the end of the episode, Lucky is transferred to the FBI, while Nutty remains on the force with Miranda under the leadership of a hot-tempered sergeant. Along with Lucky, the rabbit Humpty also goes, whom Crazy asks to look after his friend.

This all looks rather strange, since there was no close relationship between Humpty and Pikel. Anyway. At least they gave us a logical explanation.

5. In the dub, the chef calls Lucky Pickel “Pickwick” because it’s delicious tea. In fact, this is an excellent job by the localizers, since Pickwick tea was very popular in the 90s.



But in the original the chef calls Pikel - Pikul. Pickles (for those who didn’t know) are pickled vegetables that are used both as an independent snack and as an addition to dishes.

But that's not all. Lucky's wife's name is Dyl. And if you pronounce the name of Lucky’s wife and his last name, distorted by the chef, you will get the combination Dyl Pickle, which translates as “Pickled cucumber”. Unfortunately, we missed this in our dubbing.

6. Many people have noticed that the Nutty in the first episodes (with Lucky) is different from the Nutty in the new episodes (with Miranda). The Difference is literally in everything - ears, color and number of spots, head shape, etc.



All this is connected precisely with the fact that after an unsuccessful test screening of the episodes with Miranda, a new team came in and worked a little on the image of the Nutty.

The creators themselves, so that no one would be indignant about this, decided to play up this moment. Therefore, in the very first episode they explain to us that in ordinary life Nutty looks exactly the way we are used to, and during the filming of his show they simply applied makeup to him, lightening the spots and stretching out his ears.



7. In order for the series to be approved for broadcast on television, it was necessary to film at least 65 episodes so that the series could be stretched over 13 weeks of broadcast every day on weekdays. However, this rule also applied to other serial projects.

8. In the original, Nutty and Lucky were voiced by famous voice actor Jim Cummings. This is one of the most popular voice actors for cartoon characters. His voice is spoken by several dozen well-known characters, including Shredder from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Catdog, guard Rasul from Aladdin, Scar from The Lion King and, of course, Black Cloak from the animated series of the same name.

9. Miranda Wright in our dubbing received the name Miranda the Brave. But in fact, the creators put some hidden meaning into this name.



Surely you have seen in American films that during an arrest the police read out the text to the alleged criminal: “You have the right to remain silent. Everything you say will be used against you in court...”. So, this reading of rights has its own legal name - “Miranda Rights”, and the English word “Right”, which is translated as “Right”, sounds the same as the heroine’s surname - “Wright”.

10. So, for example, in one of the episodes Miranda utters the phrase “We don’t need this kind of hockey,” which refers us to the famous phrase of commentator Nikolai Ozerov during a hockey match between the USSR and Canada.



In another episode, Miranda reads a poem by Nutty, which goes something like "The knot is tied, the knot is untied...". Naturally, this is a line from Alena Apina’s song. And there were many such examples.

11. The film is replete with a huge number of references to other Disney projects. So, for example, we can see Donald Duck, the Mad Hatter, the Black Raincoat, Goofy from the series “Goofy and His Crew,” Scrooge, Magica, the Gavs Brothers and other characters.



But Mickey Mouse was not shown in the series. We could only see his silhouette and references to him, as well as a fake Mickey in one of the episodes. As it turned out, at that time there was a ban on showing Mickey Mouse in any projects, including Disney ones. Even in the animated series "The Adventures of the Gummi Bears" we could see Mickey's silhouette as a reference.



12. Based on the animated series “Nutty,” 3 video games were released in the 90s:

Bonkers (1994, SNES);

Bonkers (1995, Sega Genesis);

Bonkers Wax Up (1995, Sega Game gear and Sega Master System).

13. Nutty appeared briefly in the reboot of the animated series "DuckTales", although only in a cameo. By the way, here he has three spots on each cheek, whereas in the season with Miranda there was one spot, and in the season with Lucky there were two spots.



14. In the animated series "Nutty," female toons walk around fully clothed, covering everything, while boy toons (including Nutty himself) walk around without pants.

15. The creators of the animated series decided that it would be fun to “play” with the names of the characters. For example, many characters have first and last names starting with the same letter: Bonkers Bobcat, Tanya Trunk, Tuttle Turtle, Bubba Bear, Scatter Squirrel, Skunky Skunk, Grumbles Grizzly, etc. Unfortunately, this joke was lost in our dubbing.



16. Nutty has cartoon slippers named Achilles and Tendon. Together these words form the combination "Achilles tendon".

17. After the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, some episodes of Nutty that featured explosives were pulled from airing. Also, in one of the episodes, the phrase of Bruiser Joe, who tells the sergeant “You’re dead!” was cut out.