It’s a Betelgeusian Berserker Baboon!
Okay, now who understands the title of this post? Anyone? Well it’s from Bucky O’Hare, written by Larry Hama, artist Michael Golden and colorist Cory Adams back in 1978. A great read if you like ‘animal comics’ and outer space themes.
Bucky O’Hare was this green rabbit in a British military outfit, welding a space blaster, leading a team of other animal characters against the toad empire. The toad-humanoid characters invented a super computer that ended up taking over their world ala Terminator so they started invading other planets to ‘feed’ the machine. The other animals started a military operation willing to take on the toads and thus the ‘Sentient Protoplasm Against Colonial Enroachment’ was born or S.P.A.C.E. for short.
But wait there’s more! Willy Du Witt was a bit of a brainy kid (human) who built this Photon Accelerator which transported him through a different space time continuum to the animal dimension. The animals take him for a shaved baboon and recruit him into their military coup against the toads. Willy was able to ‘jump’ back and forth but the teleporter closed trapping Willy in the wrong dimension. Willy then helps Bucky lead a few animals into battle against the toads and it plays out a little like a Star Wars clone, with Willy attempting to leap home every now and then.
Bucky O’Hare’s tale spun off into an animation series on the BBC for a 13 episode run. It followed the same storyline, with very few alterations. It grew in popularity enough in the 80’s to create a video game and action figure line by Hasbro . But this little icon got lost among the giants of the time like the Ninja Turtles, He-Man and numerous other comicbook characters that it just couldn’t hold ‘shelf space’.
Check out the intro below and post a comment about what you think of the cartoon.
All right ladies! Let’s croak us some toads!