On December 6, 1992, Tiny Toon Adventures aired its series finale, a Christmas special. After three seasons it was time to move on to spin-offs, additional specials, and new shows. It’s interesting because this episode deals with the show getting cancelled in a hypothetical way. It’s also a parody of It’s A Wonderful Life which means I’m loathe to watch it, but here goes nothing.
The episode opens with its typical opening – but wait! It’s all dressed up for Christmas and even the lyrics have been changed to reflect that. This I like. Once the episode starts, it gets right down to the parody nature with shots of various characters from the exterior of their homes praying to the heavens for someone to look out for Buster Bunny. Plucky tries to hide the fact that he’s looking out for Buster, but he also reveals he doesn’t want Buster to quit cartoons because then the show will be cancelled. Interestingly, a menorah appears in Hamilton Pig’s window. That seems like the wrong religion for a pig to choose, but I won’t judge. We then head up into the celestial bodies where two beings are communicating with each other about the prayers concerning Buster. The one in position to be our Clarence is actually named Harvey and he sounds a lot like James Stewart. Stewart also starred in a picture named Harvey about a guy who befriends a giant rabbit. This is not a coincidence.
A little Grinch joke early on gets this one off on the right foot.
Just like the film it’s lampooning, this one then becomes a flashback and we see Buster and Babs sledding through a snowy landscaping singing a little song. There’s a Grinch-like character they thwart and a snowman that resembles Burl Ives who nearly gets taken out as well before the two reach an auditorium. They’re preparing to put on a performance for Christmas, and Buster is apparently in charge. Babs also has cleavage – this is something I did not remember from my youth. As they’re getting ready to rehearse, Montana Max shows up in a wheelchair probably to evoke images of Potter from It’s A Wonderful Life. Elmira tries to steal a kiss from him and he promptly kicks her right in the ass! Violence against women, or girls, is also something I did not remember from this show.
Max is demanding and irritated that they got started without him. He pays off the network executives who were in attendance so he can take control of the show. Buster tries not to let it bring him down and gets back to rehearsing with Little Sneezer doing some Ebesneezer Scrooge bit with Bob Hope (not actually Bob Hope, in fact all of the celebrities are impersonations) that doesn’t go so well. Buster turns his attention to a duet ice skating routine from Babs and Cher. When he compliments Cher on her wardrobe, but fails to do the same for Babs, she gets a little ticked. Max is there to further inflame the situation by suggesting to Babs that Buster is flirting with Cher, which causes Babs to rough her up during their routing in which they sing a pretty poor parody of “I’ve Got You, Babe.” After Cher falls through the ice and the bit ends in disaster, Buster tells Plucky he can go on as The Little Drummer Duck for a scene with William Shatner. Plucky, after having his other roles be re-cast as Urkel previously (he was pretty hot in 1992), is overjoyed to take the stage and promises to wow the executives. When Max replaces the microphones with TNT the bit goes up in smoke – literally. By now Max has thrown enough money at the executives to gain full control of the production, and everyone else is pissed at Buster for how terrible it’s going. He sulks out, and the other toonsters seem to immediately start to regret how they acted.
When Go-Go gets the canned boo’s you know you’re in trouble.
Buster, feeling dejected, decides to throw himself out of the picture and literally walks to the edge of the celluloid. That’s when Harvey is dropped in to prevent him from doing so. Harvey, depicted as a lanky white rabbit with a bow tie, hears Buster utter the magic words to set the second act in motion – “I wish I were never on Tiny Toons.” Buster gets his wish, and Harvey and he set out to see what life would be like for Tiny Toons had Buster never been involved with it.
Buster is whisked away to Montyville where literally every business on the street is owned by Montana Max including his Savings and No Loan. He and Harvey hit a store display TV to check out Tiny Toons without him and find that Plucky Duck is the star here. They watch the intro in which Plucky sings about how great he is and Babs repeatedly has anvils dropped on her head. When the show begins, Plucky and Babs introduce themselves and use the “No relation” line she and Buster would do, which Babs points out makes no sense before she’s hit with another anvil. Buster has seen enough and demands Plucky cease dropping anvils on Babs. Plucky, having no idea who Buster is, is offended when Buster calls him Goofy and accuses him of being a Disney spy. He has security remove him and takes a parting shot at Disney’s Jeffrey Katzenberg for good measure.
The Plucky show has a different vibe than Tiny Toons.
Little Sneezer, being one of the guards, is confronted by Buster but claims to not know him. Buster gets booted out and winds up at Acme Looniversity, which is now Montana Max’s Business University. Max pops up on a closed circuit TV to announce that in honor of Christmas he’s shortening the school day to a mere 18 hours. He’s also heading off to Aspen with Morgan Fairchild, her second reference of the episode leading me to believe a writer thinks pretty highly of her, and Buster is left in a state of disbelief. Still clinging to the hope that someone will know him, he heads to his old home room. Harvey warns him there’s nothing funny going on inside there anymore, but he takes a peak anyway to find Madonna teaching the class and advising the students to wear their underwear on the outside to get some of that Warner money (which makes no sense since most of them don’t even wear pants let alone underwear). Buster still doesn’t get it, prompting Harvey to give him an ear full about how he was never a part of Tiny Toons and even says he never existed. Since this show is pretty metta, I suppose if he was never on Tiny Toons then no one would have ever created him. This thing just got pretty dark.
Buster doesn’t particularly enjoy his new reality.
Having accepted the situation for what it is, Buster asks Harvey about Babs and if she has a different boyfriend in this reality. He tells him to go find out for himself and directs him to the film library. There he finds Babs, in librarian attire, watching cartoons. Porky lassos the moon for Petunia, while Pepe Le Pew puts on perfume before he resumes sexually assaulting that poor cat. Babs turns off the projector and laments her co-star-less life when Buster approaches her. Things go well, until he tries to tell her that they’re the stars of Tiny Toon Adventures. After hearing that, Babs just thinks he’s a crazy stalker and runs out. Buster, now satisfied with what he’s seen, asks Harvey to undo his wish, but Harvey can’t just yet because – commercials.
The real star of the show.
After the break, Harvey vanishes and Buster is left confused. Babs enters the film room to see what’s up and he’s relieved that she knows who he is giving her a big hug and crushing her spine in the process. The animation really gets a little wacky for that part. Then Buster goes on his love tour just like George did, he loves Acme Acres, he loves his rabbit hole, he loves Spielberg, and even kisses the TV screen (I kiss it too). He returns to the auditorium to find everyone hates Max’s ideas for the show, including the network executives. He apparently didn’t bribe them enough because he’s soon fired and Buster is re-hired. Buster consoles him by assuring him he’s the star of the show. Cher flirts with Buster a bit, reminding Babs that she’s still mad at him. Cher tells her Buster was only whispering to her earlier to get a suggestion from Cher on what to get Babs for Christmas. When she asks Buster what she suggested, he plants a nice, long, lingering kiss on her smacker.
This I like.
Buster and Babs hop in a sleigh and start to sing a little Christmas song all about togetherness. The other toons get their little moment to shine during the song and several of the “celebrities” cameo as well. Max gets to take his place as the star of the show – atop the Christmas tree. He hates it, and he really hates it when Elmira uses the fact that he’s incapacitated in his star costume to steal a kiss. No means no, Elmira! There’s also a very brief Charlie Brown parody, which I snicker at, and the horse-drawn sleigh takes to the sky and flies off. The camera pans back to reveal Harvey who remarks the show wasn’t bad, before producing a zipper and revealing that he was in fact Bugs Bunny this whole time. He adds a “for amateurs” qualifier to his previous statement, chomps a carrot, and walks out to end our picture.
The whole gang on a musical sleigh ride. So long, Tiny Toons.
“It’s A Wonderful Tiny Toons Christmas” plays this pretty conventional as far as It’s A Wonderful Life parodies go. It relies on a lot of its usual brand of humor of mocking celebrity culture and breaking the fourth wall. Sometimes these jokes land, and sometimes they feel lazy. Just inserting a cartoon version of a celebrity doesn’t count as a joke, and sometimes I feel like the show doesn’t quite get that. The animation is mostly good, but I feel like characters go off-model a lot in this episode, more so than I remember from the show. Maybe the third season had a smaller budget, or maybe it was an attempt to make the show look more “toon-like” or something. The voice cast for this show is exceptional though, and they do not disappoint. Tress MacNeille, John Kassir, Dan Castellaneta, Cree Summer, Danny Cooksey, Maurice LaMarche, Joe Alasky – all fantastic voice actors. The show sticks to its parody format pretty strongly and doesn’t even deviate for a Santa mention. That’s fine and I do actually like this one. I find the show’s premise charming and since it’s so wrapped-up in Hollywood culture it does make sense for it to tackle It’s A Wonderful Life for its Christmas special. If you want to check this one out for yourself, I can’t think of a channel that would show it this year. A few years ago you could rely on Hub to do so, but that channel underwent a format change and eventually dropped the show in 2015. Tiny Toon Adventures is available on home media and streaming on Amazon, iTunes, and VUDU, and if you want my opinion, it’s a worthwhile show to own.
The Nostalgia Spot 
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