Disney’s first stab at entering the TV animation domain was a nice off-the-wall series based on some toys from Hasbro. And it could have gone on for a bit longer if the people in charge hadn’t had put it up against the generally superior Gummi Bears. Possibly as a result, this series seems to have fallen somewhat into obscurity for a Disney show.

Disney up to this point had been hesitant to create a TV cartoon series for some time, not wanting to damage its reputation by going into what it saw as a market of limited animation. Still with shrinking revenues from the parks and features, coupled with increasing pressure the company began to rethink itself. What it found was that it could potentially manage a high-ended form of limited animation, say somewhere between 10 to 15 frames a second, depending on what action called for. Another thing that was put on hold was the use of “classic characters” and so the team in charge of production had to look elsewhere for inspiration.

This was one of the two results and it was quite a fun, little series. The baseline of mixing two elements together, whether animals in the case of the characters, or fruit (a particular favourite of the wuzzles was appleberries) it had enormous potential for animators to get there teeth into.

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Although it has been a long time since I’ve truly seen an episode (I had most of them on VHS, but that has since been wiped), I can readily remember several of them and these memories are very good. The show constancy had wacky things happen, and the land of Wuz had some very interesting places, Hollywuz being a favourite of the showbiz mad Hopo. The storylines I most readily remember is one where Croc, the main baddie, fools Butterbear, into thinking that he is ill and that she is somehow responsible. The sometimes naïve, good nature bear takes him in, where he proceeds to eat her out of house and home, the revenge plan she sets up when the others finally convince her of Croc’s lies, isn’t something that I would wish to go through.

The other is one where Rhinokey, the practical joker of the cast, goes one step too far; costing Hopo her big time audition. To get back at him they buy a Mocking bird to get back at him. The bird works a little too well, driving Rhinokey nuts, to the point where he runs off; where upon the bird releases its kin and together start causing mayhem in Wuz. To the point where the Wuzzles are forced to reconcile with Rhinokey, since he is the only one to be able to compete on their level.

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Animation is solid and up to the standards that Disney was looking for, these same standards would be applied to all their early TV work and do the company proud. The characters are nicely realised and cute as buttons, especially butterbear and Moosel (the character I related most with), their stories are wonderfully wacky and I just wished that they had gone on longer.

For Disney’s first test into animation, this was a good start and one that would soon bring about classics such as Duck Tales and Talespin, although inferior to those works, Wuzzles has a place in my mind, if only cause I’ve never been able to forget any of what I saw.

I’m waiting impatiently for a DVD release.