The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show


The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show is a 1995 American animated comedy television series produced by Walt Disney Television Animation and aired in 1995 as a spin-off of the show Marsupilami. The show represents Disney's attempt to do a more "edgy" cartoon in the vein of Nickelodeon's Nicktoons shows such as The Ren & Stimpy Show.
Unlike other Disney Afternoon cartoons, Shnookums and Meat only aired once a week, usually Mondays. Only thirteen episodes were produced.

Premise

This animated series actually follows three different cartoon scenarios along with a few other
segments.

Shnookums and Meat!

This segment involves a cat named Shnookums and a dog named Meat who do not get along very well. Their owners are unseen stock characters only viewed from the neck down and named Husband & Wife. Husband is always referring to their home as their "" before the two leave their pets in charge while they are away.

Pith Possum: Super Dynamic Possum of Tomorrow

A spoof of the Batman comics, with the superhero Pith Possum and his sidekick Obediah the Wonder Raccoon fighting crime in Possum City when called by the gorilla Commissioner Stress and the monkey Lieutenant Tension. Pith Possum's true identity is lowly tabloid copyboy Peter Possum. Pith Possum fights various enemies with his recurring one being a mad lumberjack named Dr. Paul Bunion. Pith Possum also has developed a crush on a female human reporter named Doris Deer who mostly loves Pith Possum more than his true identity. It was stated in the first episode that Pith Possum was an ordinary lab opossum until he gained ultra opossum-like abilities upon an experiment gone wrong. The titles of the episodes are completely unrelated to their contents but rather over the top titles always using the word 'dark' or 'darkness' and often with the words 'black' and 'night'. Jim Cummings provided the narration in most episodes.

Tex Tinstar: The Best in the West

A parody of Wild West serials involving the cowboy Tex Tinstar, his horse Here Boy, and Tex's friends Smelly Deputy Chafe, Percy Lacedaisy, and Floyd the Insane Rattlesnake who always get into trouble when pursuing a group of outlaws called the Wrong Riders consisting of Wrongo, Ian, and Clem. The end of each episode ends in a cliffhanger for next week. Jim Cummings narrated each installment in a Western accent.

Episodes

Voice cast

Shnookums and Meat was created and written by Bill Kopp, who also created Toonsylvania and Mad Jack the Pirate. The show was directed by Jeff DeGrandis. Kopp was the voice of Eek! The Cat and Yuckie Duck from The What-A-Cartoon! Show on Cartoon Network.

Segments on "Marsupilami"

Shnookums and Meat originated as a segment on Disney's 1993 series Marsupilami. Five episodes were shown on that series, and were later run again as part of the actual Shnookums and Meat series in 1995. These episodes were:
The series aired on The Disney Afternoon on Mondays between January 2 to March 27, 1995 in the timeslot normally occupied by Bonkers. Reruns were later shown on Toon Disney. The Tex Tinstar segments were shown out of order on the Disney Channel UK in 2003 to fill the then frequently gapped schedule. The show last aired on Friday, July 6, 2007, on Toon Disney during the Mega Jam block.
Following the launch of the Disney+ video on demand streaming service in November 2019, Shnookums and Meat along with Aladdin are the only Disney Afternoon series not yet on the platform.

Reception

The series had received mixed reactions upon its initial release. Some enjoyed the artistic design and humor of the series, while many criticized it due to it copying the designs and humor of John Kricfalusi's designs and characters in Ren and Stimpy. This is considered to be due to a great deal of the Spumco artists working on the series.

Similar series

Martin "Dr. Toon" Goodman of Animation World Magazine described The Shnookums and Meat Funny Cartoon Show as one of two The Ren & Stimpy Show "clones", with the other one being 2 Stupid Dogs.