Wuzzle Sighting!

The other day while I was checking out the used video tapes at my local Goodwill establishment, who did I see stareing back at me from one of the shelves but a couple of old friends of mine from The Wuzzles. What the heck is a Wuzzle, you ask!? They are perhaps one of the most obscure groups of Disney animated characters to ever come from the Mouse House.

But before I go on, let me just say this...I would never in a million years buy a stuffed animal from Goodwill (or a yard sale or any other type of thrift store for that matter!) I don't know why, but there is just something remarkably disgusting about owning someone else's stuffed animal. Stuffed animals are a personal thing. Once you are done loving your stuffed animal it should be taken out in the backyard and burned. 'nuff said!

But moving on...The Wuzzles were a group of animals that were part of one animal mixed with another. Pictured above are Bumblelion who is part Bumblebee and part Lion (he was very athletic and liked to work out) and Eleroo which as you could now guess was part elephant and part kangaroo (he was very worrisome too!) There were others like Moosel and Rhinokey and they all lived on The Isle of Wuz where they got into all sorts of wacky adventures.

The TV show came on Saturday mornings on CBS in 1985 and was one of the first shows on in the morning. The 8 and 8:30 shows were always kind of like hidden gems because not everyone was up and watching TV yet, so they weren't as widely known. My Saturday mornings always started off in the 7:30 show...sometimes earlier so I was just a huge fan of this new Disney cartoon that nobody knew of. At the time, Disney animation had been pretty quiet for a number of years and they had never done an animated series for television. As a young Disney nerd, it was all pretty exciting.

The Wuzzles not only had their TV show, but there were books and action figures and of course the plush toys seen above. Thirteen episodes were only ever made of The Wuzzles, and they reran them for two years over two networks - I'm sure I watched each episode at least 5 times. Then the Wuzzles disappeared as quietly as they arrived under the radar. The Wuzzles however paved the way for Disney's The Gummi Bears, Ducktales, Chip n' Dale Rescue Rangers and all the other great cartoon shows Disney put out for the next decade!

Yes, I can keep going...

According to Wikipedia, there were characters that appeared in the books and as toys but never made it to the television show. They include Pandeaver - part panda part beaver; Dragonpus - a dragon octopus mix; and Ladyfish - half ladybug half swordfish (I don't even think they were trying with that one!) Perhaps it was a wise decision to leave them out of the cartoon show. I suppose somewhere in the history books of The Isle of Wuz there are tales of a time when the inhabitants of Wuz went on a wild crazed sex binge and species of all sorts mated without regard of the consequences. It was a dark time for the Isle of Wuz, I'm sure!