The Racoons
If the music played over the credits denotes how good a series is then The Racoons could well be the greatest of all time. The series had a pulsing electro pop soundtrack including the theme song “Run with Us” by cast member Lisa Lougheed which frankly is worth sitting through an entire episode alone for.
The series itself revolves around Bert Raccoon and married couple Ralph and Melissa Raccoon, of whom Bert is a friend and roommate. The series mostly involved the trio’s efforts against the industrialist forces of greedy aardvark millionaire Cyril Sneer, who had a long pink nose and usually tried to destroy the forest for a quick buck.
However, the Raccoons would always save their forest from Cyril’s schemes, with help from their forest friends including Schaeffer, a gentle sheepdog, Cedric, Cyril’s college graduate son, and Sophia Tutu, Cedric’s girlfriend. But, as the show progressed, Cyril became more of a sympathetic character, eventually becoming an anti-hero. Yes that’s right, an anti-hero aardvark. An aardvark, with a long, pink nose.
The Raccoons has enough hugging, sharing, environmentalism, and friendship to keep the little ones interested. But it is the music throughout the show that makes this such a classic with 98% of shows having a unique, well done musical number.
Sample lyrics:
When you’re behind closed doors,
all alone by yourself, and you’re longing inside,
To be somebody else.
You pick up the telephone,
And there’s no one on the line,
Don’t be afraid,
Cause there’s still time.
I doubt there are many kids shows with lyrics that read like a song by The Smiths.
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Stephen Pryde-Jarman
Stephen Pryde-Jarman is a Cult TV and Film journalist, award winning short story writer, playwright and screenwriter. A natural hoarder, second hand shopping fulfils his basic human need for hunter-gathering; but rummaging through a charity shop’s bric-a-brac shelf also brought him the inspiration for his novel Rubble Girl having seen a picture of a Blitz survivor sat amongst the rubble of her house with a cup and saucer. Rubble Girl has been described as " thought-provoking" and "fast paced ... with plenty of twists and turns." Amazon.