| The Raccoons | |
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The Raccoons |
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| Genre | Children's animated television series |
| Created by | Kevin Gillis[1] |
| Directed by | Kevin Gillis Sebastian Grunstra Paul Schibli |
| Voices of | Len Carlson Michael Magee Linda Feige (Season 1) Bob Dermer Marvin Goldhar Sharon Lewis Keith Hampshire (Season 5) Lisa Lougheed (Seasons 4-5) Stuart Stone (Season 5) Noam Zylberman (Seasons 1-5) Nick Nichols (Seasons 1-5) Susan Roman (Seasons 2-5) |
| Narrated by | Geoffrey Winter |
| Theme music composer | Kevin Gillis Jon Stroll |
| Ending theme | Run With Us |
| Country of origin | Canada |
| Language(s) | English French |
| No. of seasons | 5 |
| No. of episodes | 60 (plus 4 specials) (List of episodes) |
| Production | |
| Executive producer(s) | Sheldon S. Wiseman |
| Producer(s) | Kevin Gillis |
| Running time | 25 mins |
| Production company(s) | Gillis-Wiseman Productions, Evergreen Raccoons Television Productions |
| Distributor | Cambium Catalyst International (1997-2009) |
| Broadcast | |
| Original channel | CBC Television |
| Picture format | 480i (SDTV) |
| Audio format | Mono Stereo (number of episodes) |
| Original run | 1985 – 1991 |
The Raccoons is a Canadian animated television series which was originally broadcast from 1985 to 1991 with four preceding television specials from its inception in 1980. The franchise was created by Kevin Gillis, and produced at Atkinson Film-Arts first-hand from 1979 to 1985, then at Hinton Animation Studios second-hand from 1986 to 1989.[2] it was made with the co-operation of the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. This was Nick Nichols' final voice-acting role.
Contents |
The series revolves around a trio of raccoons called the Evergreen Raccoons - Bert and Melissa, and their friend Ralph. The series mostly involved the three fighting against the industrialist forces of greedy aardvark millionaire Cyril Sneer, who usually tries to destroy the forest for a quick buck. However, the Raccoons would always save their forest from Cyril's schemes, with help from their forest friends including Schaeffer, a gentle sheepdog, Cedric, Cyril's college graduate son, and Sophia Tutu, Cedric's girlfriend. But, as the show progressed, Cyril became more of a sympathetic character, eventually becoming an anti-hero.
Lessons featured in the show mainly included environmentalism, but also included other lessons, including friendship, and teamwork. There were also a handful of episodes that showed flashback footage from previous episodes.
The Raccoons franchise was originally conceived by Kevin Gillis in the 1970s, as he appeared in shows like Celebrity Cooks, and Yes You Can. The initial idea for the show was created by Gillis and columnist Gary Dunford (they drew their inspiration from a dilemma that happened at a cottage in their hometown). Dunford backed out, but Gillis took his idea to Ottawa lawyer Sheldon S. Wiseman, who saw a potential in Gillis' idea and put together a large group - animators, musicians, and writers, to create the first special to star the characters known as The Christmas Raccoons. Production on the special began in 1979 and completed in 1980 and was shown on the December of that same year on CBC.} It was also shown in countries around the world, including the United States, the United Kingdom, and Taiwan.[3][4] The special was a huge hit and resulted in two sequel specials The Raccoons on Ice and The Raccoons and the Lost Star and a direct-to-video movie, The Raccoons: Let's Dance!.
In 1984, the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation and The Disney Channel began funding on the TV series, which cost about $4.5 million to make. Canadian animation company Atkinson Film-Arts began production on the first season in 1984. After the show's first season, production then switched to Hinton Animation Studios for the remainder of the series, (the former went go on to provide animation for The Adventures of Teddy Ruxpin from 1986 to 1987). In 1990, Wiseman wanted to expand from television to feature-length work, so he helped create and finance an animated Christmas film titled The Nutcracker Prince, which starred the voices of Kiefer Sutherland and Megan Follows. Kevin Gillis was the main producer while Sheldon was the co-executive producer. Unfortunately, the film was a critical and financial disappointment. Wiseman's plans to take his animation work to the big screen led to an argument between him and Gillis, causing their partnership to end. Wiseman went on to finance two short-lived animation studios in Ottawa, Paragon Entertainment Corporation and Lacewood Studios (both are later renamed Amberwood Entertainment in 1997), and produced animated shows like Katie and Orbie, The Secret World of Benjamin Bear, and RollBots.
In 2009, Gillis, Michael McLaughlin and Michael Iscove went on to form and finance another company called Skywriter Media & Entertainment Group.
Only a few of the original cast from the original specials have reprised their roles for the show, including the late Len Carlson as Bert Raccoon, the late Michael Magee as Cyril Sneer and pet dog Snag, the late Bob Dermer as Ralph Raccoon, Carl Banas as Schaeffer, and Sharon Lewis as Sophia Tutu and Broo. The rest of the characters were given new voices provided by lesser and otherwise well-known Canadian voice actors/actresses.
The late Marvin Goldhar replaced Fred Little, Rich Little's brother, as Cedric Sneer. Canadian actress Linda Feige replaced Rita Coolidge and the late Dottie West as the voice of Melissa Raccoon for only one season. She eventually left the series because she, an Ottawa resident, was tired of flying back and forth to Toronto, where the recording sessions were held. She was eventually replaced by Susan Roman, who voiced the character for the remainder of the series. English-born Canadian singer Keith Hampshire was hired in 1990 to replace the late Nick Nichols as Pig #3, due to Nichols's severe illness and eventual death. Also in 1990, Stuart Stone was hired to replace Noam Zylberman, due to puberty.
Len Carlson eventually became a voice director for the show in 1989.
The series had a New Wave soundtrack including the theme song "Run With Us" by cast member Lisa Lougheed, which was covered by Spray in 2004.[5] Season 1 ended with a different version of the song, not sung by Lougheed. "Run With Us" was performed in Season 1 by Stephen Lunt. In the first season the French Canadian singer Luba performed several songs, several of which were later re-recorded by Lougheed for use in other seasons. There were also several other songs performed by other musicians such as Rita Coolidge and Rupert Holmes who performed songs for the first special, Leo Sayer and Coolidge again for the second, and John Schneider and Dottie West for the last TV special. Rory Dodd, The Dior Bros.[6] (actually Kevin Gillis and Jon Stroll under a pseudonym), and several other musicians also had songs performed, although somewhat rarely compared to the aforementioned people.
The earlier version of "Run With Us", like quite a few of the other songs from The Raccoons, were never officially released. The songs from the first two specials were released on the album Lake Freeze – The Raccoons Songtrack in 1983. A soundtrack for the fourth special was released in 1984, but featured vocals from Frank Floyd and Hank Martin to replace John Schneider. Nine of the songs from the series featured on Lougheed's 1988 album Evergreen Nights, though Lougheed only sang some of the songs (sometimes in duets), while some were sung by other artists (Curtis King Jr and Stephen Lunt). The French version of "Run With Us", as well as most of Luba and Lisa Lougheed's songs, was performed by the French Canadian singer Jano Bergeron with 'Run With Us' being renamed in French to"Viens Vers Nous".
The instrumental music was composed by Kevin Gillis and Jon Stroll and performed largely by the National Arts Centre Orchestra from Ottawa, Canada. Most of the instrumental cues heard in the series were actually recorded for The Raccoons and the Lost Star and re-used. Only two of the instrumental tunes (the opening and closing themes for The Raccoons on Ice) have ever been released officially (they can be found on the Lake Freeze album).
The animation for the first season was provided by Canadian animation company Atkinson Film-Arts. The budget in total came around to $4.7 million. Funding was provided by CBC and Telefilm. In order to defer the cost, $450,000 per episode, Disney and BBC bought the rights to show the series internationally. Two of the animators who worked on the first season were Jamie Oliff and Nik Ranieri, who would go on to work with Disney and would animate in such movies as Pocahontas and Hercules.
Embassy Pictures and its home video counterpart were responsible for releasing the specials and select episodes on home video from 1982 to 1994. Other distributors, such as Catalyst released some specials and episodes on VHS from 2001 to 2005.
In 2003, Morningstar Entertainment had released the show on DVD for the first time. Two 9-episode boxsets were released, each containing 3 discs that were also available separately. The discs were released without any region coding in NTSC format. The first set contained nine of the ten episodes from season 2 (omitting "Stop the Clock") and the second set contained the first nine episodes of season 3. The extras include character bios, a chance to create your own scene from the The Raccoons and Raccoon-A-Roma DVD-ROM content, like Quicktime animated sequences. Both sets are now out of print, and are sold on Ebay and Amazon.com or it's Canadian counterpart Amazon.ca for extremely high prices.
A 2-disc Region 2 PAL DVD release of the complete series 1 was released on September 17, 2007 through Fabulous Films Ltd. The bonus features on set 1 were duplicated from the Canadian release, mainly the create a scene and Raccoon-A-Roma DVD ROM content. They later released a DVD entitled "Three Adventures With The Raccoons" on April 7, 2008. This DVD contained the first 3 episodes of Series 1 with no extras. Series 2 was released on April 20, 2009 by Fabulous Films Ltd. in another 2-disc set. DVD extras on the set include character model sheets and a documentary.
On September 18, 2009, MORE Entertainment had released an 8-disc DVD set in Germany, it contained all 60 episodes (7-8 per disc) and no extras.
On December 14, 2009, the first season of The Raccoons is released on iTunes in Canada. On April 19, 2010, the first season is also released on iTunes in the United States.[7][8][9] The first two seasons are released on DVD to Netflix in the United States in early-2010 and in Canada on August 2011.
The Raccoons was well-received by critics. The New York Times, in its review for their second TV special, said "...The Raccoons are an adorable lot, supported nicely by an attractive production."[1] Variety praised the third special, The Raccoons and the Lost Star, calling it a rollicking good adventure filled with space-age animation, high-tech gadgetry, lilting tunes, a lovable sheepdog, and the delightful Raccoons team.[10]
The show was nominated for many awards, including a Gemini Award for Best Sound and Best Writing. It did however, win the Gemini for Best Animated Series.[11] The franchise continues to be massively popular among many fans the world over.
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