Bonkers (American TV series)

Bonkers is an American animated television series and a spin-off short series called He's Bonkers which mainly aired in Raw Toonage, and was inspired by the film Who Framed Roger Rabbit. The show originally aired from September 4, 1993, to February 23, 1994 after a preview of the series aired on The Disney Channel from February 28 to June 6, 1993. The 9 episodes of the Disney Channel preview aired in October 1993 in the original syndication. The original syndicated run was available as part of the programming block The Disney Afternoon. Reruns of the show continued in syndication until 1996 and were later shown on Toon Disney until late 2004.

Premise

Bonkers D. Bobcat, a formerly popular cartoon star, had washed out of show business and became a cop. He was made the junior partner of Detective Lucky Piquel in the Los Angeles Police Department, a grim and ill-tempered human who hates toons. Throughout the series, the pair work together to solve crimes in the Hollywood, Los Angeles, California region. Bonkers repeatedly tried to win Piquel's praise, but usually just ended up ruining missions with his goofy antics, which would often prove to save the day.
After working with Bonkers for several episodes, Piquel was given an FBI job in Washington, D.C., and was initially happy at finally being able to leave Bonkers, but finally realized that after all the time spent hating working with Bonkers he had grown to love him. He took along the police radio, the light, Toots and Fall-Apart Rabbit. At the end of the first "Lucky" episodes, Bonkers was given a second partner, the attractive cool-headed Officer Miranda Wright. Although also human, she was far more patient and tolerant of his antics than was Piquel. With Miranda, Bonkers was more the brunt of the slapstick.

Characters

Bonkers D. Bobcat

Bonkers D. Bobcat is an overly energetic and hyperactive cartoon anthropomorphic bobcat who works in the Toon Division of the Hollywood PD and was once a big name cartoon star from the He’s Bonkers shorts for Wackytoons Studios. He was fired due to his show being bumped out of first place in the ratings. He was introduced to law enforcement when he unknowingly saved cartoon celebrity Donald Duck from a park mugger and was given full credit for the mugger's capture. Police chief Leonard Kanifky mistakes Bonkers' fictional escapades for real police work and asks him to work for the Hollywood PD, which he accepts due to being unemployed. Although Bonkers means well, he usually messes up cases for his fellow officers due to his lack of experience.

Supporting characters

Fall Apart Rabbit is Bonkers' clumsy best friend and stunt-double back during Bonkers' Hollywood days. He literally falls apart at the drop of a hat and must wear bandages over various body parts to keep himself from dismantling.
Fawn Deer is Bonkers' main love interest and co-star when he was a cartoon star. Bonkers is willing to do just about anything to please and impress her. Fawn reciprocates his love for her, having kissed him on numerous occasions.

Piquel family

Detective Lucky Shirley Piquel is a police detective and Bonkers' main partner. He is a serious, hard-boiled detective whose by-the-book nature is at odds with Bonkers' decidedly more maniacal approach to crime solving.
Marilyn Piquel is Lucky's child genius daughter. She is an aspiring artist as well as a script/story writer and has deep connection to toons such as Bonkers, with her favorite toon being TV star Skunky Skunk. She is more than capable of taking care of herself and aids her father in a number of his cases often being the words of wisdom or a source of knowledge to Lucky.
Dilandra "Dyl" Piquel is Lucky's understanding wife who supports her husband and at times encourages their daughter Marilyn.

Wright family

Officer Miranda Wright is a police officer who works at the same police station as Lucky. She is Bonkers' second partner and tolerates his antics. Her name is a play on Miranda rights.
Shirley Wright is a news reporter and Miranda's older sister.
Timmy Wright is the troublesome nephew of Miranda Wright, who Bonkers babysits.

Los Angeles Police Department officers

Leonard Kanifky is the absent-minded chief of police, and is the boss of Bonkers and Lucky.
Sergeant Francis Q. Grating is a police sergeant and the boss of Bonkers and Miranda. He is often driven crazy by Bonkers, causing him to dislike toons in general.

Recurring civilian characters

Jitters A. Dog – A small, nervous dog who is Bonkers's friend and one of his sidekicks. His role in the series was of the straight man, constantly having serious bodily harm done to him through Bonkers' recklessness.
Grumbles Grizzly – A grizzly bear who was Bonkers' strict boss or, sometimes, arch-enemy in "He's Bonkers" shorts, and later became his neighbor.
The Mad Hatter and March Hare – From Disney's Alice in Wonderland, the Mad Hatter and March Hare make three appearances in the show. They live in the Hollywood Sign.
Toots – Bonkers' pet horn, appearing only in the "Lucky Episodes", including New Partners on the Block. He likes to help Bonkers and Lucky in their cases and always sits on Lucky's office chair.
Police Light – A toon police light who likes music and dance.
Broderick – The toon radio whose sounds sounds like a real police radio. He appears only in the "Lucky Episodes".
Harry the Handbag – A deeply troubled toon who captured and stored objects and people inside of himself in a misguided belief that it would end his loneliness.
Tiny – A huge but polite hamster who stayed at Lucky's house to hide from a scary shadow, which turns out to be his old friend, Mr. Big.
Pops Clock – A toon timekeeper who was angered that nobody appreciated him for his work.
Skunky Skunk – A favorite toon TV star of Marilyn Piquel who was framed for manslaughter by an embittered celebrity chef, who then tried to arrange a "fatal accident" for him.
Professor Ludwig Von Drake – A scientist duck who occasionally appears as a scientific expert or creator of inventions that Bonkers uses in his cases.
Roderick Lizzard – A yellow iguana and a temperamental actor with the manners of a British aristocrat.
*Tuttle Turtle – A toon turtle who is the valet of Roderick Lizzard.
Bucky Buzzsaw – a toon beaver who stars in his own show at Wackytoon Studios.
Slap, Sniffle and Flop – The toon mascots of the Weetie Crunchy cereal. Loosely based on Snap, Crackle and Pop, the mascots of Rice Krispies.
Donald Duck – A famous Disney duck who Bonkers saved from being robbed in "Going Bonkers".
Mickey Mouse – A famous Disney mouse, he appears in the episode "I Oughta Be in Toons" and makes a cameo in "Casabonkers".
Darkwing Duck – He occasionally appears in the "Miranda" episodes.
Mrs. Francine Kanifky – The wife of Leonard Kanifky.

Recurring antagonists

The Rat - A human who disguised himself as a toon rat in a bid to replace Mickey Mouse.
The Ape - Mr. Malone's toon pink gorilla accomplice.
Chick and Stu
Mammoth Mammoth - A toon mammoth whose role is a superhero and pretends to be a real one.
Toon Bomb - A toon bomb who likes to make jokes and explodes when it gets nervous.
Mr. Big - A toon mouse who, despite his name, is very small. He is a friend to Tiny, who is a huge but polite hamster. He used a giant shadow to scare him.
The Weather Toons – Five toons, including Sunny, Cloudy, Snowy, Sparky, and Toony Tornado.
Louse A. Nominous - An unreformable toon criminal who Bonkers and Lucky were forced to reform. He eats anything in his path.
Scatter Squirrel - A crazed thief with a fixation for nuts.
Toon Pencil - A toon graffiti artist who spread toon graffiti all over Hollywood.
Zoom and Boom - A toon camera and a toon microphone who tried to destroy Piquel's reputation when he wanted to be the cop of the year.
Turbo, Banshee and Kapow - Three trolls who replaced Slap, Sniffle and Flop in their cereal commercial and tried to frame them for stealing prizes in the cereal boxes.
Two-Bits - An executive for Grandpa Arnie's Ant Show, who uses a vacuum to steal the audience's change so that he can reunite with "Nicky", a nickel he had lost when his father put it in a parking meter. Two-Bits stops stealing change after Lucky gives him his last nickel, which turns out be Nicky.
Al Vermin - A toon cockroach who is Miranda and Bonkers' nemesis from the Miranda Wright era episodes.
Lilith DuPrave - A sleazy business woman and one of Bonkers and Miranda's nemesis who is the owner of a printing office. She is also responsible for smuggling weapons and kidnapping toons.
*Mr. Blackenblue - A heavily armed, powerfully-built man who is the bodyguard of Lilith DuPrave.
WildMan Wyatt - Sergeant Grating's sworn enemy.
Flaps the Elephant - A massive toon elephant with small ears. He wishes he could fly like Dumbo.

Production

The series played 65 episodes, as part of The Disney Afternoon. They were not created in chronological order: The "Miranda" episodes were actually produced first. This discrepancy becomes evident when observing the look of the main character in both sets of episodes. In the He's Bonkers" shorts, Bonkers was orange with one brown spot, golf-club-like ears, and an undone tail. When the Lucky Piquel-era episodes were made, the character had a major overhaul: skinnier ears, two black spots on each his tufts, black Tigger-like stripes on his tail, and a different uniform. In the Miranda Wright-era episodes Bonkers' look is similar to the one in He's Bonkers. Actually it is considered as a mixture of He's Bonkers look and the "Lucky" episodes look. The series occasionally featured special extra compilation episodes of "cartoons" from Bonkers's pre-police actor days, all lifted from the He's Bonkers/Raw Toonage series. The two-part premiere can be seen to show the reason for the difference in appearance as he mostly appears with his Black Dot Lucky design, but when he goes into makeup, his sweater is put on, and when his head re-appears, his spots have turned brown, then his ears are 'puffed' up. While this works for explaining the two designs in context, "New Partners on the Block" does not show or explain why he then decided to use a somewhat 'make up'-like version for every day.
The Raw Toonage shorts were an after-thought of production. While Bonkers was in pre-production, the Raw Toonage team headed by Larry Latham produced 12 "He's Bonkers" shorts. These shorts were, in the context of Bonkers, explained to be some of the shorts Bonkers made at Wackytoons Studios before he was fired. The first short entitled Petal to the Metal was originally shown in theaters in 1992 before the feature movie 3 Ninjas, while the rest were shown on the program Raw Toonage. In syndication, the shorts were collected into four full extra episodes with fillers of new material in between.
Meanwhile, Duane Capizzi, making his producing debut, was brought into the fold and teamed with animation veteran Robert Hathcock and charged with making 65 episodes. The episodes theoretically would feature Bonkers with Wright as his partner. These episodes came back from overseas animation studios looking less than spectacular, causing considerable concern at Disney. Ultimately, the original team was replaced, and a team headed by Robert Taylor came in. Only 19 of the original-order shows survived to air; they are what is known as the "Miranda Wright episodes" of Bonkers or simply as the "Miranda" episodes. Nine of these episodes were aired on The Disney Channel during the first half of 1993 as a preview for the series, before its syndicated premiere in the fall. The 19 "Miranda Wright" episodes are shown in October 1993 in the broadcast syndication. Greg Weisman worked on the Miranda episodes, and Bonkers's relationship with Miranda inspired Goliath's relationship with Elisa Maza.
Taylor threw out the old premise of the show. He replaced it with the Lucky Piquel scenario, but his episodes were revised and established to occur before the original episodes. 42 episodes of the "Lucky Piquel Era" were made, including one, which attempted to bridge the gap between the two somewhat contradictory storylines.
Jim Cummings revealed in 2025 that he was among the last three finalists for the role of Bonkers, the other two being Matt Frewer and Jim Carrey, the latter of whom was jokingly confident that he won the role. Both Cummings and Maurice LaMarche believe that had he won the role, as well as a part he auditioned for in Inspector Gadget, he probably would not have pursued a live action film career.
The series was long incorrectly rumored to have originally been intended as a Roger Rabbit spin-off series which ended up being scrapped due to licensing issues from Amblin Entertainment, with Bonkers'' being created instead. However, in 2008, Greg Weisman, who was a writer on the series, denied this. While confirming that the title character was inspired by Roger, and the Toontown concept had also been influenced by the film, Weisman insists that Bonkers was always meant to be his own character.
The syndicated version of the series was last seen on Toon Disney until late 2004.
The series became available to stream on Disney+, upon its launch on November 12, 2019.

''New Partners on the Block''

New Partners on the Block was the "Lucky" episode that proceeded the 19 "Miranda" episodes and a transition episode that showed how Bonkers went from having Lucky Piquel as a partner to having Miranda Wright as his newest partner. The episode was much like the pilot episode/movie "Going Bonkers", using the CGI rain and bringing back the characters that were associated with Bonkers, those characters being Fawn Deer, Jitters A. Dog, and Grumbles Grizzly and, unlike the pilot, had more speaking and screen time.
At the end of the episode, Bonkers, along with Miranda and Lucky, capture the main villain, bomber Fireball Frank and rescue FBI agent Tolson in the process, making Bonkers and Miranda a team and giving Lucky a job as an FBI agent in Washington, D.C. Piquel. His family Dyl and Marilyn, Fall-Apart Rabbit, Toots and Brodrick the toon radio all subsequently relocated to Washington, D.C., allowing them to be written out of the show.
This episode was removed from rotation in the United States after the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing due to its bombing/terrorism plot, and was consequently never rerun on Toon Disney, even before Disney's stricter censorship policies following the September 11 attacks. Another 3 episodes, "Fall Apart Bomb Squad", "Witless for the Prosecution", and "The Stork Exchange", were also never shown on Toon Disney for similar reasons. However, three of those episodes have been rerun in Europe. In addition, those three episodes are available to stream on Disney+.

Home media

Bonkers was released on three VHS tapes and Betamax tapes in 1994 by Walt Disney Home Video, each containing no more than two episodes. They include the following:

VHS titles	Episodes	Release date
Going Bonkers	"Going Bonkers"	1994
Basic Spraining	"Basic Spraining" "Is Toon Fur Really Warm?"	1994
I Oughta Be in Toons	"I Oughta Be in Toons" "Weather or Not"	1994

Streaming

The series is available to stream on Disney+ in the U.S. since its November 12, 2019 launch. It is also available in Europe.

Video games

The series inspired three video games. The first, titled Bonkers, is a platform game by Capcom, released for the Super NES in October 1994. In the game, Bonkers must retrieve three items stolen from a museum.
An action game by Sega, also titled Bonkers, was released in 1994 for the Sega Mega Drive/Genesis. It consists of four mini-games in which Bonkers attempts to apprehend criminals from the series.
The third game, Disney's Bonkers: Wax Up!, was published for the Game Gear in 1995, followed three years later by a Brazilian-only release on the Master System. In the game, Bonkers sets out to rescue Lucky and several toons who have been captured.