Charlton Woodchucks: Animaniacs' Least Loved

You probably didn't need me to tell you, but Animaniacs is set for a revival in 2020 (just a couple of years before we'll all be eating people). The Steven Spielberg-produced cartoon has an enduring reputation for being one of the finest of its era, thanks to its combination of old school Looney Tunes anarchy and post-modern irreverence, so naturally anticipation is high (as is trepidation). When you're bringing a variety show back from multiple decades' worth of retirement, the first question on everyone's lips is which segments can expect to be kick-started for a whole new generation to enjoy and which will be left to stagnate in the 90s? Obviously, the Warner siblings and Pinky & The Brain are back. That's a no-brainer. The rest of the cast, though, are much harder to call. Right now, I'd say the odds are NOT strong in favour of the Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt or Minerva Mink seeing the light of day again. Mr Skullhead? There's an outside chance. Chicken Boo? God, I hope so. Randy Beaman? Snakes alive, that thing was creepy, they had better bring it back. The Hip Hippos? Uhhh...

One character from the original series you can bet your bottom dollar WON'T be back for the revival is Charlton Woodchucks. In fact, I'll give you automatic brownie points if you even remembered that this guy existed and did indeed star in his own segment...once. Charlton blatantly wasn't considered a success the first time around: he scored his sole adventure, "Hollywoodchucks", fairly late on in Season One, after which he slipped away into obscurity, clinging desperately to life by means of the (very) occasional cameo. Most Animaniacs viewers who remember Charlton are happy to dismiss him as a failed experiment, a one segment wonder who didn't take and was rapidly buried, but personally "Hollywoodchucks" always arouses my curiosity because we find ourselves once again gazing off into the distant Land of What Might Have Been. Charlton's one segment is a real oddity among Animaniacs stories; presumably it was intended to be the starting point for a whole series of segments that never made it past the introductory arc. Obviously, something went very wrong for Charlton, but what exactly?

Charlton's shtick is that he's an aspiring actor who's very pretentious but doesn't get a lot of respect - still, Charlton vows that once he's clawed his way into the Hollywood elite he'll have revenge on everyone who's ever slighted him by shunning them completely. To ensure that he never overlooks a past offender he carries around with him a kind of reverse autograph book in which he gets anyone he takes a disliking to to sign their names, effectively writing their own place upon his ever-growing enemies list. Charlton's other running gag, and one retained in his subsequent cameo appearances, is that Charlton Woodchucks is only his stage name. Charlton started life as Baynarts, the son of a couple of simple farming woodchucks over in Kansas, and he sorely hates being reminded of his roots. You might be forming the impression that Charlton is a bit of a snot, and yes he is. A common criticism I've seen of his segment is that Charlton is not a particularly strong or likeable character and that following him for an extended length of time does get awfully trying. It probably didn't help Charlton's case that "Hollywoodchucks" was paired with a Hip Hippos story, "Can't Buy A Thrill". The Hippos are some of the most reviled Animaniacs characters out there, so a lot of viewers no doubt got impatient having to sit through one of their segments and hoped that the next one would be more enjoyable...then were disappointed when they were asked to spend the next eight minutes with this totally unfamiliar character in whom they had zero investment.

Nowadays, I'm inclined to view Charlton Woodchucks with a degree of clemency, in no small part because watching "Hollywoodchucks" I'm overcome with the chilling realisation that this snotty burrowing rodent is a pretty accurate reflection of the kind of person I grew up to be. A downtrodden soul who motivates themselves with the thought that, one day, they can get back at everyone who wronged them by totally eclipsing them? Sure, I can relate to that. And to be honest, I disagree with anyone who claims that Charlton is a wholly unsympathetic character. I think that one of the problems with "Hollywoodchucks" as a short is the way it flitters unevenly between setting Charlton up for a royal humbling and playing up his underdog status. It can't decided whether it wants you to relish his inevitable downfall or to side with him in spite of his failings. Charlton may be full of himself, but his pomposity is undercut by his sheer ineptitude, particularly when he finally gets to his audition and we discover that this pint-sized poseur actually suffers from a pretty crippling case of stage fright. Charlton's worst failing is his naivety - he anticipates that once he arrives in Hollywood, he'll waltz right into stardom and everyone will be falling at his dainty feet. Alas, no. This is a story about how, underneath all that glitz and glamour, there's aside to Hollywood that's cruel, cutthroat and deeply unpleasant, and you can bet that Charlton is going to learn that the hard way. Is it the woodchuck equivalent of Mulholland Drive? Well, maybe. Now that I've raised the subject, my dream Animaniacs revival would be one that incorporates a Mulholland Drive parody with Charlton in the role of Betty/Diane (Charlton even has two identities - it's a dead cinch). Mulholland Drive isn't exactly the most kid-friendly spoofing material out there, but that certainly wouldn't have stopped Animaniacs in its original incarnation. C'mon, Mr Spielberg, make it happen.

"Hollywoodchucks" opens in Wheatina, Kansas, where Charlton (voice of Jeff Bennett) is bidding farewell to his American Gothic-esque parents as he prepares to board the next bus to Hollywood, California. From the start, things do not go swimmingly for Charlton - his dramatic departure is ruined when the bus doors slam shut in his face and cause his lips to swell, and he later catches the ire of a fellow passenger when his attempts at a William Shatner-style rendition of the classic tongue-twister, "How much wood would a woodchuck chuck," disturbs his napping. Charlton haughtily explains that he's rehearsing for a very important audition the following day for the role of Franklin the Friendly Woodchuck, but this only entices the passenger to laugh at him. It's here that we see the very first instance of Charlton pulling out his enemies book and getting an unsuspecting individual to sign their name - the man jots down, "Mr Jenkins", which might prove a bit of a problem for Charlton, given that he didn't actually disclose his full name. What, is he going to hate every Mr Jenkins out there?

For all of Charlton's posturing, his demeanor changes considerably when he makes it to the audition stage and becomes too nervous to do anything more than choke out his lines. This works in Charlton's favour, however, for the director has had his fill of acting woodchucks and is impressed by his display of genuine emotion. Charlton is cast in the role of Franklin and hailed as the new star of the "Nature Land" film series. Things appear to be looking up for our hero, until it transpires that he's been cast in a twisted parody of those dubious nature documentaries that Disney used to do in the 50s and 60s - the ones that claimed to be "real life" stories but where the animals subjects were often being manipulated (in some cases, very unpleasantly) off of camera. Charlton's role requires him to approach all manner of natural enemies and other such hazards that his basic instincts tell him to avoid, with the result that he's brutally mauled by a grizzly bear, devoured (and regurgitated) by a boa constrictor, savagely stung by honey bees and blown up by an old ammunition shack his character happens to stumble across in the middle of the forest. I'm not sure if this is an intentional reference to some of the charges of behind-the-scenes animal abuse made against those aforementioned films (the most notorious example being the lemming story I touched on here), or simply writer Paul Rugg's fiendishly warped humour, which revels in the incongruity of the Rex Allen-esque narrator's disgustingly twee narration combined with the utter carnage unfolding on set. Either way, it makes for bizarre and very uncomfortable viewing. There are multiple instances where Charlton implores the director to allow him to stop, only to have his pleas disregarded. It's at this point that I question if the short really wants us to be getting a wholehearted kick out of seeing Charlton be physically and psychologically abused to this extent. It does seem like an awfully harsh comeuppance simply for having a snotty and entitled demeanor, and the sequence is dragged out to its absolute breaking point. At one point, Charlton gets his grizzly co-star to pause long enough to write his name in his enemies book (the bear writes "Mr Bear", which again, I suspect could refer to any number of acting ursines), but the bear resumes punching his lights out before he can shed light on its purpose. Finally, Charlton reaches his limits and quits the production.

In the final scene, we return to Wheatina, Kansas, where a severely disheveled Charlton is hobbling his way off a bus and into his parents' abode. Charlton informs them that he left Hollywood due to "creative differences" and reveals that he's brought back with him an enormous stack of papers. Charlton's father nonchalantly asks what he has there, and Charlton replies, with a look of sheer malevolence,"Just some names!" End cartoon. Honestly, I'm not entirely sure what to make of those final moments. Obviously the implication is that Charlton has declared enmity with just about everyone in Hollywood and is now plotting his revenge from the safety of Wheatina, even if it no longer involves lording his celebrity over them. Sadly, we never got to see what form Charlton's revenge would take, for no more cartoons starring the vindictive woodchuck ever followed.

Suppose that fortune had been kinder to Charlton and he'd wound up becoming a recurring feature of the Animaniacs line-up - what else might the showrunners have had in mind for him? Presumably, we would have witnessed Charlton's ongoing struggle in his pursuit of adoration and celebrity, which would perhaps have taken him before numerous directors and into an assortment of different genre parodies - that, or we would have seen him track down various Hollywood alumni in the hopes of exacting his revenge for his earlier humiliation. I'd say that either scenario has potential. A struggling actor who feels that he has a personal axe to grind with every other individual in Hollywood? Face it, there's a lot they could have done a lot with the concept if they'd stuck with Charlton. So why did they leave him out to dry? Again, I suspect it comes down to Charlton simply not being a strong or well-defined enough character to carry a story on his own. The ingredients are there, but tonally something about him falls flat. Perhaps the whole deal with the reverse autograph book, while it makes for a funny running gag, just isn't strong enough to work as the character's be-all punchline. The pretentious thespian who's actually very far down in the Hollywood food chain is a good starting point, but they needed to find better ways of channeling it.

(Stray observation - during Charlton's attempts to awaken Mr Bear, he pulls out a copy of Gentle Ben by Walt Morey. Gentle Ben told the story of the relationship between a young boy and a tame black bear and was adapted into a popular TV series in 1967. In spite of Ben's docile onscreen disposition, the series has a reputation for a high number of behind-the-scene calamities in which the ursine actors reportedly turned on their human co-stars, although Clint Howard, who played the young protagonist Mark, has denied that he was ever harmed by any of the bears he worked with.)

Charlton's career hit an almost instant dead-end with "Hollywoodchucks", but he didn't completely vanish off the Earth after his failed attempt at stardom. There was some experimentation with keeping him on as a foil to more successful characters, but even this wasn't taken particularly far. Charlton was used as the antagonist in a Slappy Squirrel short, "Nutcracker Slappy", in which he'd graduated from aspiring actor to aspiring director and aggravated Slappy with his would-be arthouse sensibilities. Later still, Charlton was featured in the Dr Seuss parody "The Kid in The Lid", as the counterpart of the children's pet fish in The Cat in The Hat. Charlton's only other notable appearance (and the only occasion in which he wasn't on the receiving end of some humiliating violence) was in the introduction to the Season One finale, "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special", where it transpired that he'd landed a regular gig on fantasy sitcom My Father The Tuna, which was being pre-empted for the Warners' big presentation, and - you know what, screw that, I'd like to have seen more of My Father The Tuna. We learn almost nothing about the series, but we can see that it features talking woodchuck who hangs out with a nuclear family, in which the father just so happens to be a giant green fish. You can't throw something that outlandish at a viewer and not give them a taster.

Chartlon's chances of being part of the Animaniacs revival are clearly slim, although one of the nice things about doing a reboot is that you have the opportunity to look back at what didn't work the first time around and consider how you could redo it in order to make it better. Who knows, maybe someone out there will actually be gracious enough to give the mistreated woodchuck a second shot at life. If so, I think that his character could be improved by giving him more of an obvious anti-hero vibe, a la The Brain. He can still be a pretentious and vindictive loser, but he needs to be more than just a punching bag to be ripped apart for the viewer's amusement. In the meantime, I'll take pride in being the single biggest advocate of Charlton, and of the "Hollywoodchucks" segment, if only by default. To quote Slappy Squirrel, "They make it, someone's gotta buy it!"

PS: You know what? If they really want to do something bold and electrifying for the upcoming revival they could always implement a recurring segment based on My Father The Tuna. You could argue that kids these days wouldn't know a My Mother The Car reference if it crawled from the gutter and bit them on the nose, but were kids in 1994 any different?