The Return of the Acme Acres Zone

{{#arrayindex: episodeLinks|0}}
Season	1
Episode	The Return to the Acme Acres Zone
Broadcast Information
Airdate	February 4, 1991
Credits
Written by	Wayne Kaatz, Kent Zbornak, Tom Minton, Maurice Noble, Mike Kazaleh
Directed by	Kent Butterworth
Episode Guide
Previous	Tiny Toon Music Television
Next	The Acme Home Shopping Show

The Return to the Acme Acres Zone is the 52nd episode of Tiny Toon Adventures.

Wraparounds

Toady's episode is another trip through the Acme Acres Zone, but this time, Babs Bunny takes on the role of Rod Serling.

Episode Segments

Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli

The segment begins with Buster narrating about Acme Acres, in the Year 2038, where the city is covered in smog. One night while relaxing in his office with his assistant, Hamdroid (a robot version of Hamton) there is a knock at the door. Buster tells Hamdroid to open the door. As Hamdroid walks up to the door, he tries to open it, but after a few failed attempts, the door is finally opened, with the person on the inside opening it, who slams the door into Hamdroid, breaking him to tiny pieces. The person who enters the room is none other then Miss Bunny (played by Babs), a hot-pink bunny who comes saying she's looking for Buster Bunny, the Gum-shoe (which he replies to while getting a piece of gum out of his sole). As he tells her she found him, he asks her to make herself at home, in which she turns a small part of his office into what seems to be a part of her home. After calling him a bunch of names for a detective (a shamus, a slout, a P.I. and a peeper, and he replies calling her a thesaurus), she comes to hire Buster to find her missing droid, to which he says he'll take the case, by which he means he'll take a case of carrots she has early, and then accepts the job. Just as he is about to go on the case, he tells Hamdroid to put himself back together and get the door for the lady, to which Hamdroid puts himself back together in the wrong places, then takes the door out  and gives it to her.

In the next scene, we see Buster driving his hovercar as he narrates that not just Miss Bunny's, but all the droids in town are gone, and decides to head to the Acme Hologram Arcade, a place surrounded by a pack of losers, a guy with a hanging curveball, where he meets Plucky (with a orange mohawk), who was known as a stool pigeon who would sell information for money. We then see Plucky reaching down, trying to get a quarter that rolled under a game. Just as he is about to get it, Buster appears asking about the whereabouts of the droids. As Buster is seen tossing a coin up and down, Plucky tells him he'll tell him the information for the price of one game, to which Buster agrees and places the coin into the slot. Just before the game begins, Buster asks Plucky who the mastermind of the missing droids is, to which Plucky doesn't know who he is, but does say where the droids are; Club LaAcme. After giving out the information, Plucky begins to play his boxing game, where he goes against a large muscular robot and gets knock out. Just as Buster is about to leave to the club, he gives Plucky a free game on him, where an even larger muscular red robot comes, and Plucky runs away, saying he'll never play video games again. 

In the next scene, Buster is now seen driving to the Club LaAcme, a club where the Acme elite used to meet, but now it's just a place where punks and junkies meet and he adds that the bodyguards are pushovers (in which case, he literally pushes them over). Inside the club, we see some familiar faces, Including Fifi, who is drinking a milkshake. Buster decides to meet up with Fifi and tries to make a conversation with her about the missing droids. Upon hearing that, Fifi first takes tiny bites of a small piece of broccoli, then takes him to the dance floor. There, while dancing, someone tries to kill Buster with an anvil and a axe. After the dance, Fifi kisses Buster, which causes him to dance all silly-like, and then someone drops his car on him, knocking him out, and Buster dreams of a happy place of anthropomorphic Rabbits/Satyrs and Rabbits/Centaurs.

Later, Buster wakes up to see Miss Bunny (as he describe her as an angel) and the other toons as they surround him, while they are all eating broccoli and wearing colorful clothing. When Buster asks what happen, Miss Bunny explains that all of the droids have returned home and the case is over. Just then, Buster notices that something is strange about the toons. Just as Miss Bunny was going to give him his payment, Buster removes her mask to reveal that she isn't Miss Bunny, but her droid, and that the toons were also the missing droids. Miss Bunny's Droid tells Buster that the Droids are planning to take over Acme Acres and make all of the citizens their slaves, but first they must kill Buster, who knows about their plan. After a short chase, Buster is up against a wall and is about to be attacked, but before he can be attacked, Buster tells the droids that he didn't come unarmed. At first the Droids thought they were going to be attacked by a normal weapon, which they can't be harmed by, But Buster reveals to have the one thing that can hurt a droid; a computer virus, which he throws to them, causing them to explode. Afterwards, Buster walks up to them and says, "Hope I didn't bug you".

At the end, Buster returns to his office with Miss Bunny's Droid on his table and the real Miss Bunny in his office. He tells her he found her missing Droid. When she asks how he knew she was a Droid, Buster tells her that the Droids were eating broccoli and that (in a reference to this cartoon's title), "Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli", ending the cartoon.

Boo Ha Ha

The cartoon begins during a rainy night in the countryside, where we see Hamton and Plucky riding a two-person bike down the road. As they are seen riding through the rain back to Acme Acres, Hamton says he's soaked and Plucky suggests to use a phone at the near by country inn, which is really a mansion. Upon arriving, Hamton and Plucky walk to the main office to ask to use the phone. As they do that, we then move further to the backway, where we see the Ghost, who has just woke up and begins to punch in to do his shift, as he puts on his suit, he complains that no one has visted the mansion in a while and wishes that someone would visit. Just then, he sees Plucky and Hamton, and, happy to see his first victims in a while, appears as the Manager behind the counter.

When Plucky asks to use his phone so his and Hamton's parents can come pick them up, the Ghost tells him that their phone is dead, in which the dead phone is seen connected to a heart monitor. After seeing that, Hamton grabs Plucky and tries to make a run for it, but the Ghost stops him and tells them both that they can't leave because of the storm, and tells them they can stay the night. Upon opening the guestbook, Plucky writes his name in it, which causes the book to burn up. The Ghost then tells them that the Bellboy will appear to get their bags. As he goes down the counter, he appears again as the Bellboy and tells them to follow him upstairs.

As they are going upstairs, Hamton notices some strange things about the Mansion, such as an eyeball following them, two paintings of humans turning into skeletons, even saying that the hotel reminds him of a certain ride at a certain amusement park. As they walk though a hallway, the Ghost tells them that they both got the Presidential Suite, and when he stops, Hamton walks through him, causing him to wear his clothes and carry the bags. The bellboy walks through him again and gets his clothes and the bags back and begins to open the door. But before he lets them in, he checks it out and sees that the room already has guests, who are revealed to be the ghosts of Abraham Lincoln, George Washington, and Teddy Roosevelt, who are playing a game of go fish.

The bellboy then tells the guests that they need to leave because their room is given to live ones. The guests then leave to attend a party at Grant's tomb. After the guests leave, the ghost lets Plucky and Hamton in, and reaches his hand out for a tip. As Plucky reaches down to give him a tip, The Ghost turns into a brown-scaled demon with horns, which only scares Hamton, while Plucky still looks for the tip. As Plucky asks what's wrong, Hamton tries to show him the demon, but the ghost transforms back into the ghost bellboy, with his hand still waiting for his tip. Plucky takes out a set of keys, a comb, a brush, and an anvil. While still searching, the ghost transforms into a green-scaled demon with a snake tail, who again, only scares Hamton and just as he is about to grab him, Plucky finally finds a quarter and gives it to the ghost bellboy, who transforms back into his normal self and leaves, with him walking through the door.

Hamton then puts on his pajamas and heads towards the bathroom to brush his teeth. As he walks to the bathroom, which is shown to be a scary doorway, he opens the door to see it filled with fire and brimstone, and little demons with pitchforks. Hamton then closes the door, but Plucky goes inside to brush his teeth. As Hamton tries to stop him, he sees that the bathroom has become a normal one, with the ghost dressed like a maid. When Plucky turn his back, the ghost then transforms into a tree monster with five mouths, but when Plucky turns around, the Ghost tranforms back to his maid form again and walks out with Plucky following him.

Hamton then walks up to the sink and begins to brush his teeth, not knowing that the ghost transform into a tube of toothpaste, which was a mistake. As he apply the paste on to his brush, Hamton begins to brush his teeth, drinks mouthwash, and spits both the mouthwash and the ghost into the sink. After Hamton leaves, the ghost pops out of the sinkhole, looking all furry and, then begins to scare Hamton and Plucky. As Hamton gets into bed and Plucky turns off the light, we see the ghost as he looks at the viewers and goes inside Plucky's pillow. However, Plucky begins to fluff up both the pillow and the ghost, then puts a sleep mask over his eyes. Suddenly, Plucky notices something wrong about the pillow, so he puts the sleep mask over the pillow's eyes and and begins to go to sleep. Just then, the pillow begins to shake and Plucky sees it's a ghost. He grabs Hamton and begins to run for their lives.

After running through the halls, Plucky tries to open the door, only to see it tranform into the ghost, who says it tickles him. While still running, they encounter strange things such as a dead body, monsters in the closets and even a giant horned demon, who bears a striking resemblance to Chernabog, devil from "Night on Bald Mountain". As they both run down the long stairs, they discover that the stairs are actually pulling them towards his mouth. Just as Hamton and Plucky are about to be eaten, the clock strikes midnight and the Devil turns back into the ghost, who tells Hamton and Plucky that his shift is over and he's going home. As Plucky and Hamton walk with the ghost to the graveyard, he explains to them that he doesn't work the graveyard shift, to which zombies rise from their graves.

To make up for frightening both Plucky and Hamton, The Ghost decides to be nice to them and offers them a ride home. They rush into his car and are seen driving to into a face-like cave. But just as the cartoon is about to end, Hamton discovers that when the ghost said he'll take them home, they didn't realize he was actually taking them back to his home, which looks like Hades. Then cartoon ends with them having tea.

Duck Dodgers Jr.

An episode segment similar to Duck Dodgers. Plucky and Daffy are fighting with Marvin the Martian, and his niece Marcia the Martian. Marvin and Marsha are trying to take the world and they argue.

Cast

Voice Actors:	Character(s):
Charlie Adler	Buster Bunny
Tress MacNeille	Babs Bunny, Marcia the Martian
Joe Alaskey	Plucky Duck, Marvin the Martian, George Washington
Don Messick	Hamton J. Pig
Maurice LaMarche	Ghost, Abe Lincoln
Danny Cooksey	Montana Max
Jeff Bergman	Duck Dodgers, Dr. I.Q. Hi

Allusions

• The episode segment, Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli is a parody of The Maltese Falcon and Blade Runner.
• In the episode segment, Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli, when Buster becomes unconscious after getting hit by a falling car, he has a vision parodying the Beethoven Sixth Symphony segment of the 1940 Walt Disney film, Fantasia.
• The chase scene from the episode segment Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli is similar to the one from The Great Piggy Bank Robbery.
• The yellow jacket and hat Buster wore in the episode segment, Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli is simliar to the one in the 1990 film, Dick Tracy.
• In the episode segment, Boo Ha Ha when Hamton said that the hotel reminds him of a certain ride, he is making a reference to The Haunted Mansion ride at Disneyland.
• In the episode segment, Boo Ha Ha, Plucky and Hamton encounter a giant horned demon that resembles Chernabog, also from Fantasia.

Trivia

• In the episode segment, Real Kids Don't Eat Broccoli, the masks of the droids are based on the Tiny Toon character they are played as.
• The episode segment, Boo Ha Ha, was originally an unfinished episode, Hi, Spirits, created by John Kricfalusi, the creator of The Ren & Stimpy Show, and several other Ren & Stimpy staff members (namely Jim Smith and Bob Camp, who are the ones that worked on the storyboards), while they were waiting for Nickelodeon to greenlight Ren & Stimpy. After working on the storyboards and voice recording (with Don Messick as The Ghost), Steven Spielberg took over and replaced it with the newly-made Boo Ha Ha. Hi, Spirits would later become the Ren & Stimpy episode, Haunted House, with Ren and Stimpy in the roles of Hamton and Gogo.
  • Most of the scenes, such as the safe filled with money, the ghost being mistaken for a cat when Hamton and Gogo first encounter him, and the song near the end "Nobody Fears Me", were omitted.
  • Some were altered, like in the planned storyboard for the ending where Hamton is scared off by Gogo wearing a moose head and then the ghost looks at his own reflection, thus leading to the reflection being afraid of the ghost and floats away. This was changed in the final version for Ren and Stimpy, where the ghost instead commits suicide by drinking poison and is reincarnated into Rudolph the Jazzman.
• The episode segment, Boo Ha Ha is a remake of Scaredy Cat, Claws For Alarms and Transylvania 6-5000.
• The episode segment, Duck Dodgers Jr. is a remake of Duck Dodgers in the 24 1/2 Century.
• The episode segment, Duck Dodgers Jr. marks the first (and only) appearance of Marcia the Martian.
• The animator seen at the end of the episode segment, Duck Dodgers Jr. is a caricature of writer and director Kent Butterworth.
• The episode segment, Duck Dodgers, Jr. was co-written and designed by Maurice Noble, who was a layout artist for the original Duck Dodgers cartoon.

Gallery

• Main Article: The Return to the Acme Acres Zone/Gallery

Home Video Releases

Tiny Toon Adventures: Season 1 Vol. 2 DVD

The Essential Daffy Duck ("Duck Dodgers Jr." only)

See Also

• The Acme Acres Zone