By Melissa Antoinette Garza
When looking for different things to review for Halloween, I found that HULU is streaming TINY TOON ADVENTURES: NIGHT GHOULERY (1995). I remember when this first came out and how much I loved it. Even now, well over 20 years later, it holds up marvelously.
As a tribute to NIGHT GALLERY (1969), Babs Bunny (Tress MacNeille) presents the tales marvelously. She sports a dashing gray suit and though breaking character in a number of hilarious ways, does a fantastic Serling impression. Like Serling, she is an art gallery and uses the portraits as a segue into each short.
The first is a parody of the great Edgar Allan Poe’s classic THE TELL-TALE HEART, only here it is Hampton J. Pig’s (Don Messick) vacuum that is driving the narrator mad. Here, the narrator is Plucky Duck (Joe Alaskey), who just can’t take the noise anymore and must destroy the evil cleaning device.
Mixing direct quotes from Poe and then adding ridiculous lines creates for some of the greatest moments in TINY TOON ADVENTURES history. God, I miss the 90s! As hard as I was on the American game shows of the 90s, I do give a lot of cred for the tremendous cartoons of that era.
Watching Plucky’s breakdown is such a delightful treat. The conclusion cracks me up. It’s such a tribute to the overly ironic twists that so many horror productions are known for. I have so much adoration for art which could easily be done pretentiously, but instead is off-the-wall silly. It takes a very intelligent person to design such a perfect parody. Sadly, ego sometimes gets in the way and the artist insists that their insight and vision be communicated in a hammer-to-the-head style. In essence, they want the prestige and recognition from the art community. What I love about TINY TOON ADVENTURES (1990), THE ANIMANIACS (1993), FREAKAZOID! (1995) and PINKY and THE BRAIN (1995)is that they were formulated by geniuses, who were confident enough, to not need the accolades of mainstream audiences.
Some of the other tales include a sneezing mouse ghost, a beast known as the devil dog and a murderous truck. All of these are really short, but also very cute.
The highlights, and there are many of them, show Plucky confronting the devil in a fun take on DANIEL WEBSTER AND THE DEVIL (1941), Dr. FrankEnmyra’s (Cree Summer) efforts in making something cute and cuddly, a NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD riff with harassing salesmen busting down doors, and in fitting fashion a TWILIGHT ZONE sendoff where Plucky, doing a fantastic William Shatner impression, sees a gremlin on a plane.
TINY TOON ADVENTURES: NIGHT GHOULERY is just genius TV. It’s fun and over-the-top, but it’s also smart and complimentary toward everything it parodies. This isn’t the EPIC MOVIE (2007) garbage parody style that was forced upon America in the early to mid noughties. Instead, the visionaries here not only knew of the art they were parodying but they also had genuine affection for them, and it showed. This is a love song to all the greats of horror and that’s why horror fans appreciate it so much.
Scared Stiff Rating: 9/10
