Buster and the Wolverine

"Buster and the Wolverine" sounded like a match made in heaven. That it's an episode of a great show, with such clever writing and some of the most talented voice actors in the business on board. That it was a pastiche of 'Peter and the Wolf', which is a classical music classic and Prokoviev's most accessible work. Am a big fan of animation. And that it and the show in general bring such fond reminders of prime Looney Tunes.

It is not one of the best 'Tiny Toon Adventures' episodes, though it did have potential to be and there is some truly inspired material that helped make it close to being. Although with one of the most conceptually and in execution most interesting individual story-structured stories for the show, "Buster and the Wolverine" is also not quite one of the best episodes to center around an individual story episode instead of the two-segment-or-more structure of other episodes.

There is some recycling in the animation here and there, the walk cycle of characters playing instruments is repeated many times throughout the episode and it gets repetitive too soon. Some parts are random in a pointless way too, like with Buster when the band are rehearsing, and at times the characters are off model (i.e. the drawing straws scene, which was actually a very funny scene otherwise).

Also felt that some of the third act felt on the rushed, almost hectic, side, especially the Wolverine's too easy defeat.

However, the animation generally is full of vibrant colour, inventive expressions and reactions (especially the deranged ones) and rich detail. The silhouette touch at the beginning was a nice touch, reminding one of the beginning of 'A Corny Concerto' (one of my favourites). The ACME Looniversity setting is made good use of. The music is some of the most inspired of the show, namely for the extremely clever use and choices of instruments for each character, which is why 'Peter and the Wolf' is the classic it is. Plucky's was especially so (loved his initial reaction to it), and although Wolverine's choice of instrument would not have been my personal pick it made for one of the episode's most interesting surprises.

Writing is witty and razor sharp, reminding one fondly of Looney Tunes in its prime like references to 'A Corny Concerto' and 'Fresh Hare' and even the Mynah Bird shows up. Some of the best lines belonging to Plucky, in dialogue that would make Daffy Duck proud. The gags are many and come thick and fast without it being too much of a jumble. The story is lively and has a lot of content that is all entertaining and affectionate. All the characters are well handled, especially Buster, Babs and Plucky of the regulars though Hamton is also a very pleasant surprise. Wolverine is a formidable and amusing adversary. The voice acting is very good from particularly Joe Alaskey and Frank Welker, Charlie Adler sounds ever so slightly odd at times though.

Overall, very enjoyable. 8/10