How About That Thing?

In the beginning, there was one simple cartoon.

Eek the Cat was a simple enough cartoon. It was the story of a purple cat named Eek who wanted to be as helpful as possible. Because when I think of animals who live to help and to serve, lord knows the first animal I think of is cats. I should know: my family has had more cats than I can count, and they were some of the most helpful animals on the planet. What? What do you mean I’m being sarcastic?

Well, in any case, that’s Eek in a nutshell. A purple kitty cat whose motto in life is “it never hurts to help.” Except, for no explainable reason, it does hurt. Really really badly. Every single time. In fact, I have to wonder: what cosmic entity did this poor cat piss off so much ?

But despite the cosmos kicking his furry purple ass on a daily basis, Eek maintains an upbeat attitude, and an uncanny ability to make friends without really trying. Including Annabelle: Eek’s morbidly obese girlfriend. And Elmo: the fast-talking elk who started off as a daredevil with a Scandanavian accent, but quickly ditched the accent and became the guy who has every other job in town. Like the red guy from Cow and Chicken, or the green rabbit from CatDog.

Hell, the only character who Eek can’t seem to win over is Sharky the Sharkdog. And holy shit, Sharky! You thought pit bulls were bad? Just wait till they decide to work shark DNA in there! Not to mention that I’m pretty sure he can breathe underwater, so hiding out in the swimming pool is immediately off the table. My god, what sadistic force created this walking barking war crime waiting to happen!?

And even THEN, Eek still manages to find common ground with him on occasion. I would hesitate to call them FRIENDS, but sometimes, you need a ride, and the most annoying human on the planet is the only person with a car, you know?

It took me a while to appreciate Eek the Cat, I confess. I loved that theme song the moment I heard it, but the actual show was something that had to grow on me after a while. But when it did, Eek the Cat ended up becoming one of my favorite cartoons as a kid.

Rewatching the show for the first time since childhood… Well, I won’t lie, there were a couple of episodes I’d consider duds, but when you run for five straight years, you’re bound to encounter one or two.

For sure, there’s a generous amount of tidbits that show you just how out of date this show is. What with references to the “Elvis isn’t dead” conspiracy theory, Mr. Rogers, and the fact this man was apparently president.

That’s right, Ross motherfucking Perot was president in the Eek the Cat universe. And the world was probably a better place as a result. But I digress.

Eek the Cat was a fine cartoon overall. Unfortunately, things would get a little complicated. Especially when THIS show started appearing alongside it.

Yes sir, The Terrible Thunderlizards was Savage Studios’ OTHER animated show on FOX Kids. And if it was just a matter of one studio working on multiple shows, then fine. I personally preferred Eek the Cat, but The Thunderlizards weren’t without their charm.

The Terrible Thunderlizards introduced us to Dock, Squat, and Cutter: the titular terrible thunderlizards. All three of them are apparently the worst dinosaurs on the planet… But their life sentences are revoked and their criminal records are wiped clean in exchange for one favor: kill the two humans.

Meanwhile, Scooter and Bill, the two humans, bumble their way through life. They both seem to be aware of the fact they’re being hunted by The Thunderlizards, but the world as a whole seems to have it out for Bill. “When does the hurting stop?” is pretty much Bill’s mantra as every invention Scooter comes up with goes horribly wrong, or something from the jungle wants to eat them, or really just some cosmic force out there just really hates Bill for some reason.

.

It was a pretty simple show with a decent premise. Frankly, the only thing it did WRONG overall was it had to introduce The Thuggosaurs: undead dinosaur cultists who wish to overthrow dinosaur kind. And they weren’t even introduced all that much later on, either. I think it was, like, the third episode or so.

It kind of made things… Maybe not complicated, but it definitely made things a bit busier than they needed to be. Just do away with the thuggosaurs, and stick to the thunderlizards hunting the humans, I say.

But overall, The Thunderlizards weren’t so bad on their own.

Unfortunately, someone had the brilliant idea of COMBINING Eek the Cat and The Terrible Thunderlizards into one show. Eek the Cat episodes became significantly shorter, and things felt like they had to hurry in order to get everything in. Not to mention that, in my opinion, The Terrible Thunderlizards was the weaker of the two shows.

But it only BEGAN there.

Eekstravaganza was the name of the new show. It allowed Eek the Cat, The Terrible Thunderlizards, and any other show Savage Studios could come up with to exist, all in one convenient little thirty-minute bundle. And eventually, a third show would be added.

Truth be told, I barely even remembered Clutter. I remember seeing commercials for it, and looking forward to seeing what they came up with. Then it showed up, and the overall reaction was a resounding… Meh.

I was willing to suspend my disbelief regarding the idea of static electricity being able to animate a bunch of random objects, fuse them together, and creating an unholy chimera of random nonsense. But even then, this show just never did it for me. Like, I could tell they were trying for something different, and… Well, in one regard, it succeeded, but in another, it failed.

Rewatching these old cartoons for the first time, I can definitely say that Clutter is the most annoying of the three. Hell, even the theme song gets on my nerves after a while. It’s probably my adult in 2020s sensibilities talking, but the theme song for Clutter seriously sounds like one of those default ringtones that come with your phone.

The only real positive to the show was… I think his name is Cup? Or maybe it was Cop? Either way, Cup/Cop ended up being my favorite character in the entire show. In fact, I can’t help but wonder why they just didn’t make a show about HIM? But that’s probably just me playing office chair expert.

Sadly, this would be the end of the Eekstravaganza. From that point onward, episodes of Eek the Cat, The Terrible Thunderlizards, and Clutter, along with a few other short series, would find themselves as part of Cartoon Cabana.

Cartoon Cabana was a programming block that got me to thinking: “You know, I think I’m getting a little old for this FOX Kids thing.” It also got me thinking: “Wow. I’ve heard of hand puppets, but this is ridiculous!”.

Yeah, I actually don’t remember much from Cartoon Cabana. And I’m guessing the rest of society doesn’t, either. Hell, there isn’t even a Wikipedia page for it! G4TV’s Portal has a page on Wikipedia, to put things into perspective. Or it did as of this writing. But I digress.

In the end, everything got canceled. You can find Eekstravaganza on YouTube for free, for what that’s worth.

Was this an example of overambition? Was it network meddling? Was it… Uh… A third thing? I have no idea. All I know is Eek the Cat really deserved better than this. He didn’t deserve to get squished by other shows that wanted a moment in the sun, but couldn’t find it otherwise. They say it never hurts to help, but I wonder how much better Eek the Cat would’ve been if it didn’t have to do so much heavy lifting of other shows’ baggage? I guess we’ll never know.