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Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue is a 1990 American animated children's comedy-dramasocial guidance television special starring many characters from several animated television series at the time of its release.[1] The plot follows Michael, a teenager who is using marijuana, leaving his family worried. When his younger sister Corey's piggy bank goes missing one morning, cartoon characters come to life from various items in her room and find it in Michael's room along with his stash of drugs, so they give him an intervention in the form of a fantasy journey to teach him the adverse consequences of drug use.
McDonald's released a VHS home video edition of the special distributed by Buena Vista Home Video, which opened with an introduction from President George H. W. Bush, First Lady Barbara Bush and their dog, Millie. It was produced by the Academy of Television Arts & Sciences Foundation and Southern Star Productions, and was animated overseas by Wang Film Productions. The musical number "Wonderful Ways to Say No" was written by Academy Award-winning composer Alan Menken and lyricist Howard Ashman, who also wrote the songs for Walt Disney Animation Studios' The Little Mermaid, Beauty and the Beast, and Aladdin.[2]
Financed by McDonald's and benefiting Ronald McDonald Children's Charities, it was originally simulcast for a limited time on April 21, 1990, on all four major American television networks (by supporting their Saturday morning characters): ABC, CBS, NBC, and Fox,[a] and most independent stations, as well as various cable networks.[3][4]
An unseen person steals a piggy bank off the dresser in the bedroom of a young girl named Corey. The theft is witnessed by Papa Smurf, who emerges from a Smurfs comic book with the other Smurfs and alerts the different cartoon characters in the room: Alf from a picture, Garfield as a lamp, Alvin and the Chipmunks from a record sleeve, Winnie the Pooh as a stuffed animal, Baby Kermit as an alarm clock, and Slimer, who arrives through the wall.
Alf, Garfield, Alvin, Simon, and Theodore identify the thief: Michael, Corey's older brother, who has a box of marijuana hidden under his bed. Meanwhile, Corey expresses her concerns about Michael's change in behavior since they used to have a close sibling relationship, which he angrily denies, causing him to storm out of the house. The cartoon characters set off to take action regarding Michael's addiction, leaving Pooh behind to look after Corey.
At an arcade, Michael smokes marijuana with his friends and "Smoke", a villainous anthropomorphic cloud of smoke personifying temptation, who tries to convince him to take harder drugs. They are chased into an alley by Bugs Bunny disguised as a police officer. He traps Smoke in a garbage can and takes Michael back in time using a time machine borrowed from the absent Wile E. Coyote. It is shown that Michael's addiction started through peer pressure from older high school students when he was around Corey's age. Back in the present, Michael is hesitant to smoke crack with his friends before one of them steals his wallet. He and Smoke give chase and fall into a sewer, where Ninja Turtle Michelangelo tells them that the drugs are harming his brain and cautions against listening to Smoke. Baby Kermit, Baby Miss Piggy and Baby Gonzo take him on a roller coaster-esque tour of the human brain. Michael finds himself at a park, where Huey, Dewey, and Louie as well as Tigger join the rest of the cartoon characters to sing about how to refuse drugs.
Michael wakes up in his room, believing his interactions with the cartoons to be a nightmare. Corey tries talking to him, but he snaps and shoves her against his bedroom wall, frightening her. Smoke approves of the regretful Michael's actions. Michael then looks at himself in a small mirror, and Alf pulls him into a hall of mirrors, where he shows Michael his current reflection, then an aged, sickly version of himself severely affected by drugs. When Michael insists that he can easily quit and is in control of his actions, Alf reveals that Smoke is actually in charge. Back in Michael's room, Smoke traps Pooh in a cabinet and tempts Corey to try Michael's marijuana for herself. She considers that it could mend her relationship with Michael.
The carnival in Michael's mind leads him to Daffy Duck, who reads his future in a crystal ball and sees an almost skeletal Michael on his deathbed. After one last warning from the cartoons, an ashamed Michael stops Corey from using the drugs just in time. When he apologizes and expresses concern over whether he can change, she advises him to seek help from their family. Smoke tries to persuade him otherwise, but Michael throws him out a window into a garbage truck, deciding to no longer listen to him, and Smoke vows revenge. All the cartoon characters appear on a poster on Michael's wall, and they agree to be prepared for if and when Smoke returns. Michael releases Pooh from the cabinet, who jumps into the poster with the others before the siblings go downstairs to talk to their parents.
The characters, from 10 different franchises, are (in order of appearance):
The various character owners licensed them freely due to the public service aspect of the special.[5][6]
The special marked the first time the characters Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck were voiced by someone other than Mel Blanc, who had died shortly before the production,[7] prompting Warner Bros. to enlist Jeff Bergman in his place.[8][2]
The special was screened in Australia on November 9, 1990. Like the U.S. broadcast, it aired at 4.30 p.m. simultaneously on Australia's major commercial networks (Seven Network, Nine Network, and Network Ten). Prime Minister Bob Hawke introduced the Australian screening.[9] It was screened in New Zealand in December on both TV One and Channel 2 simultaneously. Prime Minister Jim Bolger introduced it instead of the U.S. president. It was screened in Canada on the CBC, CTV, Global and most English and French independent stations, as well as YTV shortly after its original U.S. broadcast, although all of the characters had their respective shows aired on either CTV or Global but not CBC. Canadian Prime MinisterBrian Mulroney introduced it.[10] The special was broadcast in Mexico as offered by major outlet Televisa on both major and independent stations (including Las Estrellas and Canal 5), on the same day as the original U.S. and Canada broadcast. The special later aired in Japan by TV Tokyo with Emperor Akihito introducing it. It was also broadcast in Brazil in 1994, as Rede Manchete made Portuguese Brazilian dubbing in Herbert Richers Dubbing Studios, and in Chile by major networks organized by the National Television Council the following year in September 1995. Chile's broadcast was introduced by Eduardo Frei Ruiz-Tagle's First Lady Marta Larraechea Bolívar.
In the United States, all superstations and a handful of independent stations (mainly in selected cities) aired the special, but some stations aired the special at a different period during the week the special aired on the Big Four stations and a number of cable networks. Superstations WPIX in New York City, WGN-TV in Chicago, KTLA in Los Angeles, KTVT in Dallas, WOIO-TV in Cleveland, WKBD-TV in Detroit, KHTV in Houston, WVTV in Milwaukee, KSTW in Tacoma/Seattle, KSHB-TV in Kansas City, and KWGN in Denver premiered the special at the same time the big four networks and cable systems premiered, with St. Louis' KPLR-TV premiered the special two hours later after its television premiere. New York's WWOR-TV and Boston's WSBK-TV would later premiere the special the following morning on April 22. The special also aired on selected cable systems, including BET, TNT, USA Network, Nickelodeon, and The Disney Channel.
Some modern critics have considered the production a time capsule of animation history during the US war on drugs, and have ridiculed it as "propaganda"[11] and "preachy".[12]
The Smurfs creator Peyo was upset with Hanna-Barbera's usage of his characters in the special without his permission, and refused any further collaborations with them.[13][14] In 2015, Jim Cummings told Justin Caffier of Vice that he enjoyed the recording sessions, but requested Winnie the Pooh's lines in which he talked about drugs to be rewritten, stating, "He's an innocent. It makes no sense for him to even know those words."[15][16]
Cinema Crazed also suggested that the people involved with assembling the special's "team," and also people who promoted the special like school teachers, were also got off guard by the rising influence of more mischievous cartoon character Bart Simpson- who was not among the cartoon characters featured in Cartoon All-Stars to the Rescue- among America's youth around the time it aired. As Cinema Crazed commentator Felix Vasquez noted "“Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue” is a weird and over the top bit of PSA against the use of recreational drugs, and features a ton of popular cartoon characters, all of whom were able to be trademarked, mind you. So there's Michelangelo from TMNT, but none of the other characters. There's Slimer, but none of the Ghostbusters. There's Garfield, but no Odie. The power of McDonald's grasp can only extend so far. Really, if we wanted to talk about popular cartoon characters, they should have had Bart Simpson join the team, but back then my teachers were warning that he was a bad influence. Yes, folks, back in 1990, Bart Simpson was going to corrupt our innocence. In either case, “Cartoon All Stars to the Rescue” is a cavalcade of pop culture characters and popular cartoons, all of whom were on television during the beginning of the decade."[17]
Mel Blanc, the versatile, multi-voiced actor who breathed life into such cartoon characters as Bugs Bunny, Woody Woodpecker, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, Tweety Pie, Sylvester and the Road Runner, died of heart disease and emphysema yesterday at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center in Los Angeles. He was 81 years old.
I do understand that this was final straw with Hanna-Barbera's relationship with Peyo. Apparently, they used the Smurfs without his permission and, being a smoker himself, Peyo was pretty upset with his characters being used for an anti-drug Public Service Special and thus terminated H-B's contract with him. The sad irony is that smoking finally took his[sic] toll on the beloved comic creator two years later.