A Brief Introduction to Bucky O'Hare

G.I. Joe, Thundercats, He-Man, Transformers, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles — these iconic shows, along with many others of the 80s and 90s, will forevermore be revered by my generation.

Yet nobody seems to remember the show that easily became my favorite, Bucky O’Hare. Doesn’t sound familiar? That’s okay. It was only on television for one season. These days you can purchase a DVD set of the season and you can play it so long as you have a region 2 or region-free DVD player.

The show was about a group of anthropomorphic characters in another dimension known as the Aniverse. Bucky O’Hare, the main character, is a green hare and the captain of the space frigate Righteous Indignation. He and a motley crew consisting of the four-armed one-eyed Deadeye Duck, a psychic/telekinetic and all around magical cat named Amy, Bruiser the Betegusian Baboon, and finally, Android First Class Blinky.

You’re probably thinking, what the hell? I know, it’s pretty damn cool.

But it gets better. The writers added a human element to the mix. Willy DuWitt, a brilliant kid, develops a proton accelerator in his room which ends up conflicting with the proton accelerator aboard the Righteous Indignation. Long story short, this creates a doorway to the center of the ship and Willy becomes a honorary member of the crew.

The bad guys are the Toad Menace. They’re toads that grew so technologically superior they built a massively distributed computer called KOMPLEX which eventually took over the minds of all toads in the Aniverse.

The show was based on a comic by Larry Hama. The comic features more graphic depictions of what went on, but is still rather tame.

The story definitely holds up today, if not for its excellent sci-fi and humor elements, for its ingenuity alone. The beautifully drawn pages of the comic are only surpassed by the plot clever twists and characters. If you have a chance to pick up the comic (I bought a 10-pack on eBay), do so! You don’t know what you’re missing! The TV series, however, is probably only suited to hardcore fans such as myself as the animation and voice acting are both rather poor. Some of the later episodes are pretty bad.

Bucky O’Hare must sound rather odd, and I bet you’re wondering why the hell I’m even bringing it up. Some would say nostalgia. Some would say I want to bring others into my dorky club. While I’m sure both of these are somewhat true, I think mostly I’m obsessed with the brilliant social commentary that had flown over my head as a child. I want to share that with the world.

In the mean time, might I suggest heading to Amazon.co.uk to check out the DVD?