BY JOHN BILLINGER
During the production of a television show, a pilot episode is made to showcase what the series its pitching will be like. Some shows are picked up, but many are not and get thrown to the side. Some shows that get picked up last for many seasons, but others either end after one season or get canceled halfway through the first season. The pilots that were either not picked up or canceled during season one are…DEAD ON ARRIVAL. Today, we will discuss one such show.
In the early 1990s, video game characters such as Mario and Sonic the Hedgehog were making waves in the video game industry. As a result of the success of these characters, various video game companies other than Nintendo and Sega attempted to make their own big mascot characters to cash in on the success. Among them was Bubsy, an orange anthropomorphic cat created by video game designer Michael Berlyn, who first appeared in the video game “Bubsy in Claws Encounters of the Furred Kind.” While the first few Bubsy games sold a decent bunch of copies and received average reviews at the time, they were never massively popular like Mario and Sonic and aren’t held in particularly high regard today.
Nevertheless, Bubsy achieved enough interest to have a pilot for an animated series made (sponsored by Taco Bell, no less)! There’s not much to say production-wise on the pilot. It was produced by Calico Entertainment and Imagination Factory Inc., animation was done in South Korea, and Michael Berlyn had little involvement other than the creation of a few original characters for the pilot. It also features an all-star cast (if you’re familiar with voice actors) that includes: Rob Paulsen, Pat Fraley, Tress MacNeille, Betty Jean Ward, Neil Ross, and Jim Cummings. Was all this worth it in the end? Spoilers, but there’s a reason there’s only a pilot.
The pilot episode titled “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” is about Bubsy and his armadillo friend Arnold (who has some form of PTSD involving getting run over by a truck) looking after his niece and nephew. Along the way, Bubsy decides to become a test subject for a scientist’s new virtual reality headset, and there’s a villain who wants to steal the headset for her own evil purposes. Will Bubsy keep the headset out of the villain’s claws? Will Arnold get past his PTSD attacks? Will things stop escalating so fast in this thing?
One thing that anyone can gather from that synopsis is that a lot happens in this episode. And you’d be right. The number one problem with this show is that it never shuts up. There is always something happening. There is always someone talking. There is always something obnoxious happening. And Bubsy almost always sums up every one of his hare-brained solutions with his catchphrase, “What Could Possibly Go Wrong?” It gets repetitive and dull really fast, and I can imagine that if a kid watched it, they’d be exhausted.
As for everything else about the pilot, it’s all bad. The characters are grating and annoying, particularly Bubsy, who makes for a rather snarky and unlikable protagonist from the get-go. The animation is, at best generic and, at worst jittery/inconsistent. It’s odd, as the aesthetic of the games resembles that of classic golden age cartoons, but the show trades that for a more contemporary 90s look. The “plot” feels like they were making it up as they go along. Nothing feels natural. It’s like the script says, “And then this happens.” It’s a wonder why they thought this would be a hit.
And it wasn’t. The Bubsy pilot was not well received, not picked up, and forgotten (at least until the internet came along). As for the video game series, it continued for a few years until the dreaded PS1 release, “Bubsy 3D,” considered today to be one of the worst games ever made. The negative reception of that game ended the series, but don’t count out the character just yet. In 2017, he received a reboot game, because out of all the classic franchises that deserved to be rebooted, absolutely no one asked for this one to be continued. Regardless, the reboot received a sequel in 2019 which featured characters from the unsold pilot. How about that?
Overall, the Bubsy pilot is no better than anything that’s to be found in the title character’s own litter box. And much like the contents of a litter box, it should be disposed of and forgotten. If you’re a fan of the character, you might find some enjoyment, but I don’t think it’s worth watching, even with the original 1993 commercials. Skip this.