Western Animation / The Raccoons

Run With Us! ^{From left to right:} Cyril Sneer, Bentley, Cedric, Broo, Lisa, Bert, Ralph, Schaeffer and Melissa. Not pictured: Sophia and the Pigs. For a full list of characters, go here.

"This is the Evergreen Forest. Quiet, peaceful, serene... that is, until Bert Raccoon wakes up! Luckily, he has some good friends to help him out. Life would be simple in the forest, except for... Cyril Sneer! And his life would be simple except for... The Raccoons!

— Opening Narration

The Raccoons (1985–1991) was a Canadian animated series about a trio of, well, raccoons, living in a "Raccoondominium" in the Evergreen Forest: young married couple Ralph and Melissa, and their flighty, enthusiastic, but lovable housemate Bert. In the earlier seasons, the Raccoons were always getting entangled in the schemes of conniving industrialist aardvark Cyril Sneer, which usually involved trying to take over or destroy the Evergreen Forest for one reason or another. Their escapades were aided by two friendly sheepdogs, Schaeffer and Broo, as well as Cyril's nebbishy son Cedric, and Cedric's girlfriend Sophia Tutu, as well as a trio of very incompetent Pigs. A handful of very early episodes featured a side story involving human forest ranger Dan and his kids Julie and Tommy, but they were phased out by the end of the first season. They were replaced by Ralph and Melissa's nephew, Bentley and his teenage sister, Lisa.

Unlike many other cartoons of its time, it handled action, humor, and romance in a fairly sophisticated manner, while remaining sufficiently uncomplicated for younger viewers, making it a favorite of many Canadian children (and adults) during its time on air, and one that is seen as still holding up today as a classic piece of truly Canadian animated programming. Before the series proper there were four specials which were released from 1980 to 1984: The Christmas Raccoons (which introduced the Raccoons, Ranger Dan and his family, and the Sneers), The Raccoons On Ice (which added Sophia, Snag and the Bears), The Raccoons And The Lost Star (an interesting Recycled In Space concept set either in a dream or a Alternate Universe, which introduced Broo and the Pigs), and The Raccoons: Let's Dance (a clip show featuring songs from the first three specials). The first three aired on TV, and the fourth was Direct to Video. The TV series itself aired on CBC in Canada and Disney Channel in the US.

After rumours and early material of a reboot circulated around the internet during the mid-late 2010s, Kevin Gillis and the team behind the show have instead decided to remaster the original series in HD. Starting in late 2022, the remastered series began streaming in both English and French on Crave, and is also airing on Boomerang Canada as of 2023. In addition, the (non-remastered) series is free to watch in its entirety on Run With Us Productions’ official YouTube channel.

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This series provides examples of:

• 65-Episode Cartoon: There's technically only 60 episodes of the series. However, if you factor in the four specials and split the hour-long "The Raccoons and the Lost Star" into two parts, there are exactly 65 episodes.
• Aardvark Trunks: Cyril, Cedric, and Sophia are pink aardvarks whose trunks act like noses, with their mouths at the base of their trunks.
• Accent Adaptation: In the German dub, not just Nicole, but also her children Lisa and Bentley have French accents. This might have been done to disguise that, in the dub, they have the same voice actress as Melissa.
• Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Ralph Raccoon wears a white scarf handed down from his uncle Rocky, Cyril Sneer wears a blue scarf, and his son Cedric wears glasses and a yellow bowtie. Mr. Knox wears a ten-gallon hat, boots, white cuffs, and rings.
• Accidental Astronaut: Subverted in "The Wrong Stuff!". When Bentley takes Broo to the site where Cyril Sneer plans to launch his own TV satellite into space, Broo accidentally gets himself trapped inside the satellite after Bentley leaves him alone. When Bert, Bentley, and Cedric find out about this, they try to get him out of there before launch, which they fortunately succeed at.
• Ad Bumper: One would play before every commercial break, featuring a few seconds of animation from the intro.
  The Raccoons will be right back.
• Adoption Angst: In "The Family Secret!", Bert discovers that Cedric was adopted. When Cedric finds out, he expresses mixed feelings, but feels proud that Cyril chose him to be his son. It turns out that Bert misunderstood, and that it was Cyril himself who was adopted. Cyril had simply been too afraid to admit this to Cedric in the past.
• Air-Vent Passageway: "The Intruders!" features the infiltration variety. Justified in that it's Broo who traverses the ducts.
• Always Someone Better: How Ralph feels towards Troy Malone in "The Sky's the Limit!". Not only does Ralph envy Troy's heroism, but he also worries that Melissa is genuinely attracted to Troy.
• Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: When's the last time you saw a pink aardvark or a blue dog?
• Anger Born of Worry:
  • In "The Sky's the Limit!", Ralph challenges Troy Malone to an aircraft race in an attempt to win back the affection of Melissa, but he loses control and crashes his plane (which he survives). Melissa chews him out for attempting such a dangerous stunt when he didn't have to do that to receive her affection.
  • In "Easy Money!", when Lisa finds Bentley in an area of the Endless Echo Caverns filling up with water, she briefly chews him out for going to the caverns alone without telling anyone where he was going, but she quickly gets over it and focuses on rescuing him first.
• Animation Bump: The animation in the first season, as well as the pre-series specials, were done at Atkinson-Film Arts; it was a lot more fluid and choppy. The fluidity seemed to lessen beginning with "Opportunity Knocks!", and the animation was becoming more like they would be in later episodes, which would later be handled at Hinton Animation Studios, which replaced Atkinson beginning season 2.
  • Of course, the second season onwards had crisper animation done at Hinton and nothing choppy.
• Anthropomorphic Vice: In "Join the Club!", when Lisa is pressured by Donna to smoke cigarettes, she has a daydream about a skunk in a tracksuit who represents the consequences of smoking tobacco. He goads Lisa into smoking cigarettes, then he transforms into a hooded Death figure, blocks Lisa's path with giant cigarettes when she tries to run away, makes Lisa's cigarette teleport back into her hand when she tries to get rid of it, and laughs maniacally as Lisa chokes from secondhand smoke.
• Arboreal Abode: A number of buildings are shown to be at least partially contained within hollowed-out trees, including, but not limited to the Raccoondominium, Bentley and Lisa's house and the Blue Spruce Cafe.
  • In "The Christmas Raccoons", the Raccoondominum is contained within the upper branches of an evergreen tree that looks like a completely normal tree from the outside. Said tree is also small enough to fit inside of Ranger Dan's cabin, while also being spacious enough for the Raccoons and all their furniture.
• Artistic License – Animal Care: In "Moving In!", George bakes a Chocolate Cherry Cheesecake Supreme for "Chef Surprise" and mentions it's his daughter Lisa's favorite dessert. Real-life raccoons can't digest the chemicals found in chocolate and consumption of it would result in vomiting and/or death.
• Artistic License – Child Labor Laws: In "Endless Summer!", Bentley is offered a job at Cyril's olive factory, which Cyril faces no legal repercussions for allowing. In Canada, it's illegal for anyone under the age of 14 to be employed. With that said, Cyril realizes it's probably a mistake as he doesn't rehire him after he had already been fired and tells him he should be having fun on his summer vacation instead.
• Artistic License – Law:
  • Cyril's plot with Mr. Knox to buy out the Evergreen Standard in "Gold Rush!" would be illegal as by law, that would be the crimes of collusion and racketeering.
  • At the end of "The Prism of Zenda!", Cyril and the Pigs are incarcerated on account of breaking and entering and theft when they break into Knox's mansion. Meanwhile, Cedric tells the raccoons that since the whole incident was a big misunderstanding, that his dad and the Pigs would likely be released in a few days once the story cleared up. Except, that's not how jail works. Cyril and the Pigs were caught in the act, and regardless of their intentions, still willingly broke the law. They might get a reduced sentence, but it would likely be longer than "a few days".
  • In "The Evergreen Election!" the Pigs submit several thousand fraudulent ballots in Bert's name to ensure that he'll beat Cyril in the polls. They later confess everything on live TV after their plan backfires, but are never shown to be punished for voter fraud. Realistically, they would have gone to court, and since Bert was not responsible for the Pigs' actions, he would've been reinstated as mayor after a recount of the ballots.
    • If the exact number of fraudulent ballots submitted by the Pigs was not known, resulting in the election being too close to call when allowing for discounting the fake ballots, the election would have been re-run, as happens in the show.
• Artistic License – Medicine: In "Stress Test!", Cyril donates blood to a boy named Danny. While it's one thing for two characters to have compatible blood types, the real hurdle here is that they're two entirely different species (Danny is a rabbit). Such a thing could potentially kill a real rabbit. Granted, they're both considered to be "people" within the context of the show, and the differences between species may be more akin to human races.
• Award-Bait Song: The series has three of them; Ain't No Planes, All Life Long, and New World.
• Bait-and-Switch Credits: Kind of, but possibly unintentional. The opening sequence to the show seems to best fit the tone of the first season, as the narrator implies that the Raccoons and Cyril are enemies. However, as the show progressed, Cyril became less antagonistic, and any conflict that the Raccoons had with him was toned down considerably, yet the credits were never updated to reflect this. Also, the opening showed Sophia, who had little more than a cameo in Season 4, and was completely absent from Season 5.
• Big Ball of Violence: There's one in the first episode when Cyril's scouts end up attacking each other. Another shows up toward the end of "The Chips Are Down!".
• The Big Race: Three of them; "The Evergreen Grand Prix", "Stealing the Show!" and "Go for Gold!".
• Bill... Bill... Junk... Bill...: Lisa does this at the end of "Go for Gold!" before discovering a parcel that Bert sent her.
• Boxing Lesson: In "Black Belt Bentley!", Bentley wishes to learn karate from Schaeffer after learning he has a black belt. However, when Schaeffer learns that Bentley wants to get back at two classmates who are picking on him, he refuses to allow Bentley to continue his training.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: The characters did this once in a while, with Cyril Sneer being the biggest offender. One such example happens at the end of "Last Legs!", wherein the viewer catches Cyril having broken into The Evergreen Standard's office to polish the printing press plaque dedicated to him.
• The Bully: Bonneville in "Bully for You!" is a bully towards Cedric. He gets better towards the end of the episode.
• Burn Baby Burn: At the end of "Stricty by the Book!", Cedric stokes a campfire with his self-improvement manual. Said manual's advice had previously been making Cedric too assertive.
• Carnivore Confusion: There's this scene with Cyril Sneer having dinner with what looks to be a feast with roasted chicken or turkey... while we know Lady Baden-Baden is an anthropomorphic hen.
  • Also, all those times with Cyril Sneer calling the Pigs names related to ham, sausages, and bacon, only suggest that he knows that yes, they're pork, they can be eaten and who knows, maybe he has eaten pork already...
  • At the end of "The Chips Are Down!", the Pigs knowingly serve a pie containing imitation bacon potato chips to Cyril. They don't seem to be put off by the idea of the flavor at all.
  • In "Stress Test!", when the Pigs are raiding the ice box, there are pizzas that appear to have pepperoni on them.
• Cartoony Tail: While their body fur is a grayish-brown, the raccoons' tails are more brown, not to mention fluffier and bigger enough to sweep the floor.
  • The male aardvarks' tails are shorter and stubbier compared to real aardvarks' tails which are long enough to resemble a kangaroo tail. Female aardvarks portrayed in the show have no tails.
• Catapult Nightmare: Bert sits bolt upright in his bed in "The Chips Are Down" after having a nightmare about the contest.
• Cerebus Syndrome: The series started out rather uninspired and cartoonish, but shifted gradually to more serious, realistic and story-driven.
• Chained to a Railway: In "The Sky's the Limit!", Ralph has an Imagine Spot where he envisions himself as a superhero. At one point Melissa is tied to a railroad track, only for Ralph to rescue her.
• Chaos Architecture: The appearance of Sneer Mansion changes considerably between the specials and the series. In "The Raccoons: Let's Dance!", it sits atop a cliff on the far side of a rope bridge and is surrounded by a stone wall.
• Character Development:
  • Cyril Sneer gradually softens in a fairly believable fashion until he becomes a friend and ally of the Raccoons.
  • To a lesser extent, all the characters change somewhat, such as Cedric becoming more assertive and confident.
    • Melissa is another strong example...she is a more soft-spoken character in the specials, yet becomes an assertive, spunky, independent career woman in the series.
• Character Name and the Noun Phrase: The Raccoons and the Lost Star, technically.
• Character Title
• Chaste Toons: Subverted. Bentley and Lisa Raccoon are Ralph's nephew and niece, and make occasional appearances on the show; but Ralph and Melissa are married, Bentley has clearly defined parents: George and Nicole, and his whole family eventually moves to the Evergreen Forest making Bentley a permanent character.
• Cheaters Never Prosper: Happens in all three episodes to feature a race:
  • In "The Evergreen Grand Prix", Cyril's new Sneermobile is racing against Cedric and the Raccoons' Solar Coaster in a competition for a contract from Mr. Mammoth. The Pigs, Bears and even Cyril himself spend much of the race trying to sabotage Bert. In this instance, Cyril does win the race, but Mr. Mammoth is more impressed with the environmentally-conscious Solar Coaster and proposes a contract for it instead. This actually works out for Cyril, as he still collects royalties on the car that Cedric designed.
  • In "Stealing the Show!", Cyril pours oil onto the track that's being used for a skateboard race. Although it was intended to slow down Bert and Mr. Knox's racer, only the bear that was on Cyril's skateboard loses control over it and goes off course. There's also the matter that Cyril's "skateboard" is actually more like a rocket engine with a seat, but this is never called out by anyone.
  • In "Go for Gold!", which features a triathlon, the Pigs dig a Pit Trap for the other racers, but it doesn't work until the Pigs themselves stand on it and fall in. Cyril also uses a motorcycle and a rope at various points to help him gain a lead on the other racers, but Cedric ultimately convinces him to stop for the sake of his deteriorating health. During the bicycle portion near the end, Rod Steel drops tacks onto the track to puncture Lisa's tires and causes her to crash. Rod slows down near the end, only for Bert to surpass him before he can throw down more tacks. Rod grabs Bert by his sweater, but it rips and Bert speeds ahead, winning the race. In this instance, Cyril and the Pigs' cheating was slightly justified, as Rod's father Robin Steel set up the race and barely promoted it, while also duping Cedric into paying a one million dollar prize to the winner. Not only is Rod very muscular and athletic (and probably would have won if he played fairly), but Ralph finds out that he and his father had pulled this stunt elsewhere several times before.
• Chekhov's Boomerang: In "Going It Alone!", the bubblegum Bert packs for his trek up Evergreen Mountain saves him from not one but two nasty falls in the same place.
• Christmas Special: "The Christmas Raccoons"
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: The human characters, as well as Sophia Tutu, although she stayed in the intro until the very end.
  • Sophia makes a cameo in "The Headline Hunter!".
• Clip Its Wings: In "The Sky's the Limit!", Ralph accidentally flies Cyril's plane too close to a pillar, causing one of the wings to break off. He crashes soon after.
• Clip Show: There's one in every season after the first, and The Raccoons: Let's Dance! is basically a clip show compiled from the other three specials.
• Clock Discrepancy: The first season finale, "Gold Rush!", plays with this trope. Cyril Sneer is planning to shut down the Raccoons' crusading newspaper, The Evergreen Standard, with the help of Mr. Knox. Cyril's plan involved cutting off the supply of ink and paper to the Standard and forcing it out of business. For his plan to work, the deal had to be finalized under a deadline. However, Cyril is contacted by Mr. Knox that the deal is off because he missed the deadline - which saves the newspaper. Cyril is clearly confused as his clock indicates he had time to spare before the deadline. His son Cedric Sneer reminds him that years ago, the clocks were intentionally set back earlier so that he could get more work out of his employees!
• Cloudcuckoolander: Henri de la Possum, an eccentric French artist. In the episode "The Artful Dodger!" he lives inside a cave, to have peace and work on his art alone. What if intruders get inside the cave and near his work? He disguises himself as a monster to scare them off. That's not something exactly sane.
• Cold Snap: The first two specials, "The Christmas Raccoons" and "The Raccoons on Ice", are the only episodes that take place during the winter, which is necessary due to their plots. The first one is a Christmas Special, so Dreaming of a White Christmas is in effect. Likewise, "The Raccoons on Ice" features an outdoor ice rink. Beyond that, the two latter specials, as well as every standard episode, seems to take place in either the spring, summer or autumn. The lack of snow-based episodes seems somewhat unusual for a series set in a place called the Evergreen Forest.
• Comic-Book Time: None of the characters ever seemed to age. Bert always stayed in his twenties and Bentley, Ralph and Melissa's nephew, was always a kid. Cyril Sneer seemed to remain middle-aged, Lady Baden-Baden the Gossipy Hen (a literal hen) seemed to be perpetually in her fifties or sixties; in general, although Character Development happened and the show didn't seem Frozen in Time, the characters' ageing definitely was frozen in time for most of the series run! A Floating Timeline, a la The Simpsons is probably the only way to explain this.
• Competition Coupon Madness: An episode had Bert attempting to win a bike by putting together a jigsaw puzzle from pieces that come in a brand of crisps (not knowing that Cyril Sneer deliberately left out one piece of the puzzle so no one can win). Hilarity Ensues.
• Continuity Drift: Schaeffer and Broo start off as pets belonging to Ranger Dan and his kids, and would go on adventures with the other animal characters in their spare time. However, once the series shifted away from having humans occupying the same world as the animals, Broo suddenly became Bert's pet. As for Schaeffer, we never do get to see where he lives once the humans stop showing up.
• Continuity Nod: In "Surprise Attack", one of the bears mentions that Cyril was expecting a crate of alligators to be delivered to his mansion. By the start of "The Intruders!", the alligators have arrived, and are set up to be a trap for Cyril's vault.
• Cool Big Sis: Lisa may get frustrated with her younger brother Bentley when he acts obnoxious, but deep down she does care about his well-being.
• Cool House: Sneer Manor. In addition to its size, the place contains secret passages, a massive underground vault with connecting tunnels, an auditorium and a theater.
• Cool Old Guy: Herman Zechariah Stroll, an old dog who lives in a swamp near the forest, knows a handful of things about survival and befriends Bert and Cedric in the episode "Read No Evil!"
• Cool Old Lady: Ralph's Aunt Gertie, who appears in the Season 2 episode "Power Trip!", is an active thrill-seeker despite her old age and even owns a motorcycle called Bessie.
• Corrupt Corporate Executive:
  • Cyril Sneer, eventually subverted by the above character development and his conscientious son, Cedric, partially taking over the business.
  • Knox and Mammoth are hardly saints, either, but they eventually went through the same development Cyril had.
  • Milton Midas, who was introduced in the final episode of Season 4, played this trope straight across the line far more than Cyril's early days (his first full appearance has him attempting to pull a land scam of swampland via Cyril, then via an auction) and was eventually jailed for his outright criminal activities at the end of "The One That Got Away!".
• "Could Have Avoided This!" Plot:
  • In "The Evergreen Grand Prix", Cyril wants to sell a car design to Mr. Mammoth. He quickly throws out Cedric's prototype for an environmentally-friendly car (the Solar Coaster) in favor of one that guzzles gas (the Sneermobile), believing that it would generate more money. Cedric and his friends build the Solar Coaster anyway, and challenge the Sneermobile to a race before Mr. Mammoth. Although the Sneermobile ultimately wins the race, Mr. Mammoth is more impressed with the Solar Coaster and agrees to manufacture it instead. However, since Mammoth's contract for the Solar Coaster is still with Sneer Industries, Cyril would have gotten the deal anyway, and never had to commission the Sneermobile.
  • In "Spring Fever!", Cyril has to choose between attending Cedric's camp reunion banquet or meeting a tycoon by the name of J.P. Gordon. Cyril chooses to meet J.P. Gordon, but when he feels bad about not attending Cedric's banquet, he changes his mind and joins Cedric on the train at the last minute. However, it turns out J.P. Gordon is also attending the banquet with Cedric. If Cyril knew that beforehand, it wouldn't have been such a tough decision for him.
  • In "Easy Money!", after Bentley accidentally breaks Bert's RC car, he asks Lisa for money to pay it off, and she refuses to give it to him. Bentley decides to use a map he got from a comic book (which turns out to be a scam) to find treasure in the Endless Echo Caverns to pay off his debt, which makes everyone worried he's gone missing. Lisa realizes that if she just gave Bentley the money he needed, he wouldn't have gone on the treasure hunt in the first place.
• The Cover Changes the Gender: Bert's performance of "Hang On, Hold On" in "The Sweet Smell of Success!" is gender-flipped from Luba's original performance in "The Intruders!".
• Credits Montage: With the exception of The Christmas Raccoons, the credits consist of several stills taken from the episode in question. The final still in every episode (not including the specials) is always an Establishing Shot of the Evergreen Forest at night◊.
• Crossdresser: Done by Bert when he poses as "Auntie Bertha" in "Cry Wolf!".
• Cry into Chest: In "The Christmas Raccoons", Bert cries into Ralph's chest while Cyril claims that he's cutting down the forest to build a business empire for his son.
• Cue the Rain: At the end of "A Catered Affair!", the pigs are reluctantly camping out in Sneer's yard due to being unable to afford a proper vacation. Pig 3 claims "At least it's not raining", only for a thunderclap to follow right before the credits start.
• Da Editor: John Roykirk in "Picture Perfect!".
• Damsel in Distress: In "Spring Fever!", Bert has an Imagine Spot where he is a knight who must rescue Princess Lisa from a castle guarded by a dragon.
• Deadpan Snarker:
  • Cyril Sneer is a pretty good one, especially when saying anything about the Pigs' incompetence.
  • Ralph and Melissa also have their moments.
• Dead Person Impersonation: In order to cheat Cyril Sneer out of half of Sneer Industries, Sid Leech posed as Cyril's long-lost brother Simon.
• Deal with the Devil:
  • In The Raccoons on Ice, Cyril offers a bargain: a hockey competition between him and the Raccoons for control of the lake, with one week to practice. Bert, never one to refuse a challenge, eagerly accepts the offer before anyone can stop him. He figures that Cyril surely can't know a whole lot about hockey and that won't be much of a challenge. Alas, they quickly discover that Cyril DOES take the competition seriously; he's got all the best equipment and players at the ready to demolish them and wipe the lake right off the map.
  • In "The Sweet Smell of Success!", Bert agrees to be the official spokesman for Cyril's new cologne "Success" (which smells completely awful) in hopes that he'll become wealthy and famous. If he does, he'll get a lifetime supply of peanut butter. However, when his attempt at the stunt of rescuing a fair "maiden" (A.K.A. one of the pigs dressed as an incredibly ugly woman) and leaping into a hot air balloon with her goes horribly wrong, Cyril completely abandons Bert and leaves him to his fate, figuring that he's shot all the footage he needs for the commercial and that Bert is no longer his concern. Bert and Broo wind up stranded in the balloon when it becomes trapped on a high cliff. Broo wants to help and Bert sends him off to go get help, but it's clear that Cyril will not be coming to his rescue. Night falls and all seems lost for poor Bert as the gondola is about to fall into the cliff below, which will no doubt kill him. Feeling foolish for not having listened to his friends and allowing himself to be suckered into starring in the commercial, he lowly sings "Hang On, Hold On" to himself one last time as he prepares to meet his demise. Just as he's about to fall to his death, however, the rest of the gang shows up. Broo managed to find them and bring them back just in the nick of time and they manage to pull the deflated balloon back up, rescuing Bert from a near-death experience.
  • In "Time Trap!", gets a chance to fix his blunder in "Gold Rush!" Cyril missed his chance to make a deal with Mr. Knox to buy the ink and paper companies and put the Standard out of business thanks to all his clocks being slow as a result of a secret policy he had in place to increase the amount of work his employees put in. Now he has a chance because he's given the extra time he needs. To the gang's horror, Cyril gets the call, and he's going to make the deal, unless Ralph and Melissa agree to sign ownership of the Standard over to him, basically becoming his newest lackeys. Melissa tries to fight, but alas, she and Ralph quickly give up when they realize Cyril's serious. They agree to sign over the Standard's ownership to him. Fortunately, it all turns out to be just a dream.
• Denser and Wackier: Inverted, as described in Cerebus Syndrome above.
• Deus ex Machina: At the end of "Gold Rush!", Cyril is about to buy out Mr. Knox's paper and ink factories and consequently force the Evergreen Standard out of business. However, Cyril misses the deadline that Mr. Knox had set for him by mere minutes, thus saving the Standard. We find out that this is because Cyril had deliberately set the mansion's clocks back by five minutes years ago to squeeze more time out of his employees. At no previous point are any discrepancies with the clocks ever hinted at.
• Dick Dastardly Stops to Cheat: Subverted when Bert runs for Mayor of the Evergreen Forest against Cyril. The pigs don't think Cyril will give them cushy jobs at city hall if he wins the election, so they stuff the ballot boxes for Bert (who knows nothing about their plan and would've won the election fairly). Their plan is that, when Bert gets disqualified and Cyril wins by default, he'll be so grateful he'll give them the city hall jobs. The pigs get Bert disqualified, but when they tell Cyril he exposes the whole thing and demands a new election. Bert decides not to run again, and Lady Baden-Baden wins the second election.
• Does This Remind You of Anything?: Milton Midas is the greediest and nastiest villain on the show, damaging parts of the Evergreen Forest beyond repair, and is the only antagonist in the series to not redeem himself in any way, unlike Cyril and Knox. His appearance turns out to be that of a bald eagle dressed in a red waistcoat, white shirt, and blue tie. In true Canadian fashion, it's a Take That! which somehow manages to be blatantly obvious and sneakily passive-aggressive at the same time.
• "Do It Yourself" Theme Tune: A variation; the show's ending theme, "Run With Us" - along with several other songs that appeared - were performed by Lisa Lougheed, who voiced Lisa Raccoon.
• Downer Ending:
  • In "The One that Got Away!", a beloved fishing pond is contaminated with toxic waste because of the Pigs' greed and stupidity in a moonlighting job. The heroes bring the true culprit to justice and the pigs are put to work to clean it up as much as they can, but the pond is still ruined and lifeless for generations to come.
  • Subverted in "The Evergreen Grand Prix!". Thanks to foul play Cedric's solar car loses the race to Cyril's gas-guzzler, and everyone is crestfallen... but then Mammoth waves away the outcome and decides to produce Cedric's model anyway. Cyril storms off in a fury... and two minutes later remembers that his company owns both of the cars, and building Cedric's car was what he'd wanted to do in the first place.
• Dreaming of a White Christmas: "The Christmas Raccoons"
• Drowning Pit: In "The Great Escape!", Tromboni has a water trap that Bert nearly drowns in.
• Dub Name Change: In the Canadian French dub of the series, Bert, Ralph and Bentley's names are changed to Benoît, Charles and Bernard respectively.
  • Conversely, Melissa's name became... Mélissa.
  • Cyril and Cedric keep their first names, but their last name becomes "Rictus" ^note a literal translation of "Sneer".
  • Knox becomes Croquedur ^note Hardbite and Lady Baden-Baden "Comtesse de Basse-cour" ^note "Countess of Farmyard".
• Early-Bird Cameo:
  • George and Nicole appear briefly in "Trouble Shooter!"; their next appearance is in "Moving In!" two seasons later.
  • While he never shows up in person, a young Simon Sneer briefly appears in a projection slide in "Last Legs!" (albeit, facing away from the camera); the episode "Simon Says!" would elaborate on Simon's past.
  • Woodchuck Berry is mentioned in "The Chips Are Down!"; his appearance is in next season's premiere "Second Chance!"
  • The instrumental version of "Got Me Singing" (performed by Rory Dodd) appeared on "Rumours!", "The Sweet Smell of Success!", and "Power Trip!", before its sung version appeared on "Courting Disaster!".
• Early-Installment Weirdness: In "Stop the Clock!", Bentley is referred to as Ralph or Melissa's cousin while later episodes establish him as their nephew.
• Earth Drift: The first season had the talking animals living in secret from a human family. Season 2 onward was set in an otherwise realistic world full of anthropomorphic animals and no humans. (Although a few humans show up in the background and crowd scenes.)
• Ecocidal Antagonist: In the show's earlier years, plenty of Cyril Sneer's plots involved harming the Evergreen Forest in some capacity, such as chopping down trees for lumber profit in "The Christmas Raccoons". However, as he went through Character Development, his plots usually strayed away from environmental damage. In fact, in "The One That Got Away!", he's outraged to see a favorite childhood lake of his polluted with toxic waste and has minor antagonist Milton Midas arrested for encouraging its pollution.
• Election Day Episode: "The Evergreen Election!" is about Bert competing against Cyril in a race to become mayor of the Evergreen Forest.
• Enemy Mine: "The Intruders!".
• Even Evil Has Standards: Cyril may have been greedy and conniving, especially in the early episodes, but he wasn't completely unreasonable. When he gives Bentley a job at his company, the Pigs sabotage Bentley's work out of jealousy. When Cyril learns the truth, he gives the Pigs a chewing out, lets Bentley know it wasn't his fault he was fired, and allows him to spend time with his friends. More moments like these eventually culminated in Cyril making a Heel–Face Turn.
• Evil Desires Innocence: Cyril Sneer starts the series as a Corrupt Corporate Executive who is all about profit over people, though he does have a sense of honor, as I Gave My Word is a very important matter to him. However, his son, Cedric, is innocent, and doesn't share his father's avarice or ambition. Cyril makes it very clear early on that he loves his son dearly, and even undergoes a great deal of Character Development over the course of the show to put his son in charge of his enterprises as an Honest Corporate Executive, with himself as vice-president. He also has been known to abandon his schemes if they would, in any way, hurt his son, be it physically or emotionally.
• Eviler than Thou: Milton Midas to Cyril Sneer.
• Eye-Obscuring Hat: Fern, a minor character from "Simon Says!", has his eyes hidden behind his green cap.
• False Reassurance: In "The Evergreen Express!", Cyril owes Mr. Knox one million dollars, but is having trouble coming up with the money. If Cyril fails to meet the impending deadline, Knox will acquire Sneer Mansion as collateral, which leads to the following exchange:
  Cyril: Come on, Knox. Would you really throw me out of my own house?
  Mr. Knox: Oh heavens no, sir. I'd wait six hours and throw you out of mine.
• "Fawlty Towers" Plot: The main premise of "The Prism of Zenda!". Cyril loses a priceless prism that Mr. Knox had lent to him, so he lies and claims that he had the prism hidden somewhere in his mansion as a publicity stunt. When Knox asks for his prism back, Cyril keeps coming up with more and more excuses to avoid having to tell him the truth. Cyril eventually gives Knox a phony prism, only for the missing prism to be found soon after. Not wanting to tell Mr. Knox that he had given him back a phony, Cyril and the pigs break into Knox's mansion and switch the "real" prism with the phony. However, they get caught, only to learn from Knox that the prism he had lent to Cyril in the first place was a phony, and that Cyril was actually stealing the real prism from him.
• Fishing for Sole: Shows up in "Buried Treasure!". Ralph even makes the pun. Subverted, though, as Broo then finds a treasure map in the boot.
• Flashback with the Other Darrin: In "Time Trap!", Melissa's lines from the first season - originally performed by Linda Feige - were re-dubbed by Susan Roman, presumably in order to match her newly recorded lines for the time travel-based clip show, although her laughing in the "Rumours!" flashback was left undubbed.
  • Averted with Pig One in season 5's "The Evergreen Election!". Because most of the flashbacks were from season 4, Nick Nichols' speaking parts for him were used. (Keith Hampshire was Nichols' successor.)
• Food Fight: A huge pie fight happens near the end of episode "Moving In!" after the Pigs unintentionally disrupt a taping of "Chef Surprise".
• Foolish Sibling, Responsible Sibling: Zigzagged between Bentley and Lisa. While Bentley is usually the foolish sibling and Lisa is usually the responsible sibling, Bentley is smarter than Lisa academically while Lisa is sometimes prone to making foolish decisions, such as smoking cigarettes to impress a friend.
• Fool's Map: In "Easy Money!" Bentley orders a treasure map out of a comic book. Following the map leads to him getting lost in the Endless Echo Caverns.
• Fountain of Youth: In "Stop the Clock!" the Pigs are convinced that Bentley (whom they've never seen before) is actually an age-regressed Bert, and believe that he drank water from the Fountain of Youth. This prompts them to try and find the fountain themselves.
• Four-Fingered Hands: Pretty much every character has them. Even Ranger Dan, Julie and Tommy. Note that real-life raccoons actually have five-fingered hands.
• Friendly Shopkeeper: Mr. Willow, a friendly, elderly bear first introduced in "The Chips Are Down!", handles the characters' shopping needs in his general store.
• Friend-or-Idol Decision: In "Buried Treasure!", Cyril is forced to make the choice between his son Cedric and the title treasure chest, both of which are caught in rapids and heading towards a raging waterfall. He chooses his son, but in a clever subversion, it turns out Cedric can swim and Cyril can't. Cedric ends up saving his father, and the treasure goes over the falls and forever out of reach.
• Friendship Song: The Raccoons and the Lost Star featured the song "Friends" by John Schneider (later replaced with Hank Martin) and Dottie West.
  Friends are for, those long lonely nights / They call you on gray rainy days / Friends are more than you bargained for / They wash all your worries away.
• From Bad to Worse: In "Power Trip", after The Pigs fail to pay several overdue power bills (resulting in Mammoth cutting the power off at Sneer Manor), Cyril commissions a new dam, to be finished in 48 hours, in an attempt to pay off the bill and top Mammoth at his own game. It goes exactly as you'd expect when the water is let in.
• From Special to Series: The series started out as three TV specials (The Christmas Raccoons, The Raccoons On Ice, The Raccoons and the Lost Star) and one exclusively to home video (The Raccoons: Let's Dance!).
• Fully-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Several characters including Sophia, Lisa, Mr. Mammoth and Lady Baden-Baden.
• Funny Animal: Everyone except Broo, who was more like an ordinary dog.
• Furry Confusion: While Schaeffer walked and talked, Broo acted like an ordinary dog. To make matters worse, Broo seemed to be sapient, though he couldn't talk. Some fans posit that it's because he's a puppy, so he can't talk (yet).
  • "The Intruders!" also featured alligators that behaved like non-anthropomorphic alligators, later episodes introduced Mr. Knox, who walked, talked and wore a ten-gallon hat, a bolo tie, and boots.
  • In "Opportunity Knocks!", the Evergreen Standard is delivered to a number of non-anthropomorphic creatures, including fish and insects. For what it's worth, they're all literate.
  • A non-anthropomorphic eagle briefly appeared in "Black Belt Bentley!", in contrast to Milton Midas.
• Furry Ear Dissonance: While many raccoon characters have pointed ears, Bert and Bentley's ears are more akin to those of button eared dogs, such as Jack Russell Terriers.
• Glasses of Aging: Mr. Willow, one of the older characters in the series, wears glasses, but his younger self, as seen in a flashback in "The One That Got Away!", is shown to not need them.
• Gluttonous Pig: At the beginning of "Join the Club!" we are introduced to J.D., a fat pig tycoon who doesn't keep his appetite much of a secret.
• Gotta Have It, Gonna Steal It: In the episode "Stealing the Show!", there is a B-plot involving the Pigs' obsession over Mudman comics. Lloyd, the third pig, can't afford the comics and finally gives into his desire to have them by stealing them from Mr. Willow's store. He ends up getting caught and is punished by having to make restitution in the form of working at the store.
• The Great Whodini: Tromboni (and "Bertoni") in "The Great Escape!".
• Green Gators: Mr. Knox is a dark green alligator and his nephew, Bonneville, is a lighter shade of green.
• Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Almost everyone except Lisa and Sophia. Strangely, Melissa and Nicole, who clearly have breasts, are among the pantsless.
• Happy Birthday to You!: According to this wiki, the song hit the public domain in Canada in 1985, presumably just in time for the characters to sing it in "Surprise Attack".
• Heterosexual Life-Partners: Bert and Cedric.
• Hoist by His Own Petard:
  • In "Gold Rush!" Cyril misses an important deadline with Mr. Knox because the clocks in the mansion run five minutes slow. The reason? Cyril set the clocks back intentionally so that he could squeeze five extra minutes out of his employees without having to pay them.
  • In "Black Belt Bentley!", Cyril wants to eliminate Delicious Drinks, a rival beverage company, but details on said company, including its owner, are scarce. When the Pigs discover that Delicious Drinks doesn't own the land its factory is situated upon, Cyril uses a bulldozer to level the building. The Pigs later discover that Cyril himself is the owner of Delicious Drinks, and that an AI software they had installed on a computer had recently bought the company on Cyril's behalf.
  • In "The Evergreen Election!", the Pigs submit several thousand fraudulent ballots in Bert's name to ensure that he'll beat Cyril in the election. When the fraudulent ballots are discovered, Bert is immediately disqualified. However, the Pigs realize that Bert had enough legitimate votes to beat Cyril without their meddling.
• Humanoid Female Animal: Sophia. The only thing assuring us that she is meant to be the same species as her boyfriend is her nose.
  • Lisa, too. It helps that she's noticeably taller than the rest of the raccoons in the series, as well as most other characters. (Although this is justified, due to her being a basketball player.)
• Hypno Fool: In "The Family Secret!" Pigs One and Two briefly hypnotize Pig Three. They then manage to hypnotize Cyril and get him to think that he's their servant.
• Idiosyncratic Episode Naming: All episode titles (with the exception of "Surprise Attack", "A Night to Remember", and "The Evergreen Grand Prix") all have exclamation points at the end.
• Idiot Ball: In "The Chips Are Down!", the Pigs try to convince the normally savvy Cyril that sales of his line of potato chips might be better if the flavors weren't such a turnoff (he thinks they're great). After tasting a sample of turnip and sardine chips, the Pigs run off to spit them out. Cyril doesn't get the hint, and rather than trying to come up with better flavors, he and the Pigs come up with a contest instead.
• Inexplicably Tailless: Sophia Tutu, the girl aardvark, as well as all other female aardvarks, and some characters as well.
  • Neither do the pigs, despite wearing no pants. Brief moments in a few episodes of the initial season avert this though.
• Informed Species: You basically have to take Cyril, Cedric, and Sophia's species on good faith. And even then...
• Ink-Suit Actor: Barbara LaFrum from "The Headline Hunter!" is essentially a poodle version of her actress, CBC journalist Barbara Frum.
• Instant Wristwatch: Happens in "Picture Perfect!".
• Intergenerational Friendship: The young adult Bert develops a special bond with the preteen Bentley and invites him to activities with his other friends.
• Inter Species Friendship: Being a world of Funny Animals, its no surprise that the Raccoons are friends with aardvarks, dogs, bears and many other species of animals.
• Interspecies Romance:
  • Mr. Knox (an alligator) is married to Lady Baden-Baden (a chicken), and are the most prominent example in this series. In "Courting Disaster!", Cyril (an aardvark) accidentally finds himself on the receiving end of Lady Baden-Baden's affection prior to her relationship with Mr. Knox. However, she ultimately offers to marry Mr. Knox at the end of the episode.
  • In "The Headline Hunter!", several of the single male characters participate in a bachelor auction, where they will take whoever wins them on a date. Schaeffer (a sheepdog) ends up with a female of an indeterminable species (possibly a mink), while Cyril ends up with Barbara LaFrum (a poodle). Downplayed in Cyril's case, as Ms. LaFrum doesn't care about actually dating him; she just wants an excuse to interview him. ^note This is averted with Bert and Cedric, however. Bert winds up with a young female raccoon, while Cedric is won by Sophia.

• Instrumental Theme Tune: The intro to the show is narrated, but is not an actual song.
• It's Always Spring: The first two specials notwithstanding, the two latter specials plus every standard episode seems to take place during either spring, summer, or autumn.
• Jumping the Shark: Averted with the introduction of Bentley and Lisa Raccoon in seasons 2 and 4 respectively, for a few reasons;
  • They were intended as a replacement for Ranger Dan and his kids (who disappeared after season 1). Bentley was even voiced by Noam Zylberman, who voiced Tommy!
  • They were a driving force behind Cyril's Character Development, and as a result, helped the series grow the beard...
  • ...and they managed to avoid being placed in The Scrappy Heap by having their own character development and depth, cementing the two as fan-favourites.
• Just Friends: In "Spring Fever", Bert develops a crush on Lisa, and she notices, which prompts her to write a letter saying that she'd prefer for them to just be friends.
• Karmic Jackpot: The nicer Cyril got in the series, the more his luck improved because of his proper moral choices.
  • In "Spring Fever!" from Series 4, Cyril's idol, business magnate J.P. Gordon, is staying with Mr. Knox, and Cyril tries everything he can to get a chance to discuss a possible deal with him, only half paying attention to the fact that Cedric is speaking at a camp reunion and has given him a gift for the occasion. Knox finally sets up a meeting between Cyril and Gordon on the day the latter is due to leave, but the timing means that Cyril cannot attend Cedric's reunion. However, when Cyril discovers that Cedric's gift is a new set of gold cuff links, he decides family is more important than business, tells Knox the meeting is off, and hurries to the train station, just in time to board the train Cedric is taking to his reunion... where he discovers that Gordon, who is leaving on the same train, is sitting next to Cedric and has been so thoroughly charmed by the young aardvark that he is eager to meet the father of whom Cedric speaks so highly.
  • In "Stress Test!" from Series 5, Cyril ends up in hospital suffering from a severe ulcer, leaving the pigs to keep track of a big land deal he is trying to close with Milton Midas. While there, he befriends a young patient named Danny who calms his fears about treatment, having been a hospital regular for some time. When it looks as though an important surgical procedure on Danny may have to be postponed because the hospital does not have a blood transfusion, Cyril, who happens to have the required blood type, bows out of signing the deal with Midas to donate blood to Danny, ensuring the success of his surgery. It transpires that Midas was trying to swindle Cyril into buying worthless swampland which would have wiped millions off his fortune, and the delay results in the fraud being exposed and Cyril's fortune being preserved (apart from the money the pigs blew on a wild party in his absence).
• Keet: BERT RACCOON, ACE KEET!
• Kick the Dog: Cyril Sneer literally kicks his dog Snag in the early episodes, among other things.
  • Bentley has one of his own in "Join the Club!" after his older sister Lisa gives him a hasty, and somewhat impatient, lecture on the dangers of smoking. Naturally, it's done in a typical little brother fashion:
  Bentley: I know that stuff already, and you know that I don't smoke! Brother, sisters can be so dumb!
• King of Beasts: During a fantasy sequence in "Rumours!", the king that Bert envisions is a lion. On that note, the king makes another appearance when Cyril goes back in time in "Time Trap!", this time accompanied by a lioness queen.
• Knighting: In "Rumours!", Bert dreams of being knighted upon overhearing that the King and Queen are coming to the Evergreen Forest.
• Large Ham:
  • Cyril Sneer is definitely the master of this, as evidenced by this line from "The Christmas Raccoons":
    Cyril Sneer: I'm Cyril Sneer! A LUMBER profiteer! Whenever I'm near, TREES! DISAPPEAR!
  • Bert's enthusiastic and probably hyperactive personality is seen as this too.
  • Come to think of it, almost every character played by Len Carlson in this show.
  • Lady Baden-Baden always speaks in a melodramatic tone. It helps that she had a past career as an actress.
• Larynx Dissonance: Bob Dermer as Lady Baden-Baden.
• Laser-Guided Karma: Any time the Pigs attempt to act in an underhanded scheme to obtain wealth, you can be assured this trope will come back to bite them. One notable example occured in "Second Chance!", wherein they con Woodchuck Berry into signing a contract to perform against his will at a sleazy bar. When Cyril comes to save Woodchuck from having to go through with it, the Pigs are forced to perform for the bar's aggressive patrons.
• Laser Hallway: The gallery in Mr. Knox's mansion is protected by a web of lasers, in addition to pressure pads hidden in the floor.
• Lawyer-Friendly Cameo: During the Missing It segment in "Rumours!", Bert envisions a skunk that bears some resemblance to Pepé Le Pew.
• Leitmotif: Quite a few. Some in fact are instrumental versions of songs played in other episodes, such as "All Life Long" and "The Sweet Smell of Success". The Pigs have their own leitmotif, and Cyril has one that even makes its way into the show's opening sequence.
• Lightning Can Do Anything: Averted in "Gold Rush!", Pig One is convinced that enough lightning can multiply a small amount of gold into a larger amount. Likewise, Bert believes that he can use magic to produce gold during a thunderstorm. It doesn't actually work; instead the gold the Pigs were using gets knocked away by a lightning strike and Bert finds it.
• Limited Wardrobe: Most of the characters, although a few have separate winter outfits. Bert in particular is shown to have multiple copies of the same sweater (in "Stealing the Show!" he claims that they're lucky).
• A Lizard Named "Liz": Mrs. Pig's first name is Sooey Ellen.
• Local Hangout: Once Schaeffer opens it at the start of the fourth season, the Blue Spruce Cafe becomes a place where many characters regularly gather and have something to eat or drink.
• Love at First Sight: In the episode "Spring Fever!", Lisa Raccoon, Bentley's older sister and Ralph's niece, makes her first appearance in the show, and Bert falls in love with her instantly. During the whole episode, he's finding the perfect time to confess his feelings, but when he finally does it, she turns him down because they barely know each other. But by the end of the episode, Bert receives a letter from her where she wants him as a friend, which lifts his mood and implies a promise of something better.
• Lying Finger Cross: Cedric of all people does this in "Opportunity Knocks!", when he's pretending Bert is sick to get Ralph and Melissa to stay. He may be honest compared to his father, but he's still a Sneer.
• MacGuffin: The star on Broo's collar in "The Raccoons and the Lost Star".
• Mad Libs Catchphrase

  Bert: Bert Raccoon! Ace [Occupation of the day, e.g. detective, monster hunter, reporter]!

• Magic Realism: For the most part, aside from the animals living in trees, the show tends to be fairly down-to-Earth. However...
  • In "Time Trap!" the pigs are shown to have purchased a time machine with a built-in teleporter. Downplayed in that the machine doesn't actually work, Cyril only dreamt that it did. But the pigs were still able to buy the time machine somehow. Was the whole thing just a scam that they fell for, or could the time machine actually work? The world will never know, as the whole concept of time travel is never brought up again.
  • Played straight in "The Prism of Zenda!", where the Cyril and the pigs have access to a remote device that can bend laser beams.
  • In "The Intruders!", Cyril's vault is shown to be guarded by robots that can shoot powerful lasers. Similarly, in "Trouble Shooter!", the mansion gets equipped with surveillance cameras capable of shooting lasers.
  • In "Going It Alone!", Bert uses a piece of bubblegum to float across a gap.
• The Main Characters Do Everything: Well, they're not the main characters, but the Pigs and the bears seem to be Cyril's only employees (although the specials did show a few unnamed aardvarks working for Cyril, they were quickly phased out). The Pigs seems to be all over the place, whether it be assisting Cyril with office work, spying on the Raccoons, or working at whatever business of Cyril's that is being featured in any given episode. Meanwhile, the bears not only take care of upkeep around the mansion, but they seem to work at every factory of Cyril's as well, among other things. Granted there could be many bears out there.
  • While Cedric may or may not be employed by Cyril, he does tend to get roped into a number of his father's schemes.
  • Taken to an extreme in "The Wrong Stuff!", where Cedric, the Pigs and the bears are shown to be running Cyril's rocket launch site all on their own.
• Make Wrong What Once Went Right: The episode "Time Trap!" in which Cyril goes back to past episodes and makes sure all his moneymaking schemes actually come off. It's All Just a Dream..
• Man of a Thousand Voices: Len Carlson voiced Bert, Pigs Two and Three, Mr. Knox, plus a whole lot of incidental characters. Marvin Goldhar and Bob Dermer might also qualify.
• Meaningful Name:
  • A conman named Sid Leech tries to take advantage of Simon Sneer's disappearance by impersonating him and stealing his inheritance.
    • On that note, "Black Belt Bentley!" briefly introduces Maximillian Leech, a business associate of Cyril's who was seemingly lying through his teeth about a late payment.
  • "Go for Gold!" gives us Robin Steel.
• Meaningless Villain Victory:
  • In "The Evergreen Grand Prix", The Sneermobile ends up winning against the Solar Coaster in a race to impress Mr. Mammoth. However, Mr. Mammoth is more interested in developing the environmentally-conscious Solar Coaster and offers a contract for it instead. Cyril still ends up profiting from it, since Cedric is the one who designed the Solar Coaster and he owns the rights to it.
  • In "The Evergreen Election!", After Bert gets disqualified due to receiving too many fraudulent votes, Cyril is declared the winner of the election. However, when the Pigs admit to Cyril that they stuffed the ballot box to try and ensure that Bert would win, Cyril demands that another election be held, which Lady Baden-Baden ends up winning.
• Miles Gloriosus: Appears in the Season 3 episode "Paperback Hero!".
• The Minnesota Fats: Cyril Sneer is obsessed with trying to catch up to Mr. Mammoth, a rhinoceros tycoon who's even wealthier than he is.
• Misplaced Wildlife: What are aardvarks and alligators doing in Canada?
• Missing Mom:
  • Cedric's mother is never seen; it's hinted in "Courting Disaster!" that she died shortly after he was born. Cyril only mentions that he "loved her" and that she "really knew how to make money."
  • Likewise, it was never revealed what happened to Julie and Tommy's mother.
• Mistaken for Dying: Cyril in "Last Legs!".
• Money to Burn: In "The Evergreen Express!", Cyril finds himself needing to stoke the engine of the Evergreen 504 train, which would otherwise roll backwards down a hill and off of a broken bridge. Due to running out of coal at that moment, Cyril finds himself left with no choice but to burn away ten million dollars in cash that he had just found in order to get the train over the hill.
• Moving Angst:
  • In "Stop the Clock!", Melissa mentions that it's hard for Bentley to make friends because his family is always moving, which implies that it's hard for his father to keep a job.
  • In "Moving In!", Bert feels Bentley is having a hard time accepting his family moving to the Evergreen Forest, so he does his best to make him feel welcome. However, it turns out Lisa is having a harder time than Bentley, as she grows depressed over leaving her old life behind, which causes some conflict with her parents.
• My Greatest Failure: Schaeffer in "Black Belt Bentley!", due to having previously given someone who antagonized him a severe injury, when he only meant to make him back off.
• No Antagonist: A number of episodes lack a proper villain; any conflict that arises is usually due to carelessness or a misunderstanding. While Cyril does qualify as an actual villain in many episodes (particularly in the earlier seasons), there are others in which he doesn't do anything that could be considered immoral, and at worst would come off as a Villainy-Free Villain.
• No Celebrities Were Harmed: Game show host Dirk Dassie's voice channels Frank Nelson's.
• Non-Dubbed Grunts: Broo's vocal effects are left untouched in foreign dubs.
• Non-Fatal Explosions: In "Promises Promises!", the pigs accidentally blow up a wall in Cyril's kitchen when they use a pressure cooker.
• Non-Indicative Name: Sneer Mansion has a dungeon. In "Surprise Attack", we see that this "dungeon" is actually more of a furnished den in the basement, the door of which wasn't even locked when Cyril sent Cedric down there.
• Ooh, Me Accent's Slipping: Mr. Knox was supposed to have a Louisiana accent, but traces of Len Carlson's Canadian accent occasionally slipped in.
• Oops... I Did It Again: Several episodes, including the first one, "Surprise Attack!".
• One-Book Author: This series is the only acting credit of Geoffrey Winter (the narrator).
• One-Steve Limit:
  • The Raccoons themselves are a last-name example. While it's appropriate for Ralph Raccoon and his family to share the same surname, there's also Bert Raccoon, yet he does not appear to be a relative of theirs. Raccoon is probably just a common surname amongst actual raccoons.
  • Two of the Pigs are named Lloyd, while one has the similar-sounding name of Floyd. Downplayed in that their names are rarely spoken, and only amongst themselves. Other characters always refer to them as "(the) Pigs".
  • Although none of them ever met, there's Tommy (Ranger Dan's son), T.O.M.^note Time Observation Monitor the time machine from "Time Trap!" and Old Tom the catfish from "The One That Got Away!"
  • There's Ranger Dan, as well as Danny, a young rabbit that Cyril shared a hospital room with in "Stress Test!".
  • There's Sid Leech, an aardvark who tried to pass himself off as Simon Sneer from "Simon Says!", as well as Sid the train engineer from "End of the Line!" Also, Cedric's middle name happens to be Sidney.
• The One Who Wears Shoes: While many characters are barefoot, others utilize footwear, including Sophia, Lisa, Lady Baden-Baden, Mr. Knox and Mr. Willow to name a few.
  • In "Endless Summer!" Bentley buys a pair of running shoes, though he doesn't put them on until the end of the episode and he doesn't wear them in any subsequent episodes.
• Only Shop in Town: Zigzagged. Although Willow's General Store is where the characters primarily do their regular shopping, "The Chips are Down!" shows that there are a few smaller stores in the Evergreen Forest that the Pigs visit. However, those stores aren't acknowledged in other episodes and Willow's General Store gets all the focus when it comes to shopping.
• Opening Narration: "This is the Evergreen Forest. Quiet, peaceful, serene... that is, until Bert Raccoon wakes up! Luckily, he has some good friends to help him out. Life would be simple in the forest, except for... Cyril Sneer! And his life would be simple except for... The Raccoons!"
  • Every episode starts with a brief bit of exposition courtesy of the unseen narrator. The only exception to this is "The Raccoons: Let's Dance!".
• Or Was It a Dream?: The specials "The Christmas Raccoons" and "The Raccoons and the Lost Star". Both of them may also be unintentional examples of Mind Screw:
  • At the end of "The Christmas Raccoons", Tommy and Julie wake up thinking that it's Christmas morning, only to find that it's still the day before, and that they presumably dreamed most of the previous events. There is a scene early on where they're going to sleep and the narrator talks about how real dreams can seem when you're having them, which transitions into a song sequence. This might have been a clue that those events weren't real...except that when Julie and Tommy ask what happened to the missing trees, Ranger Dan says that saplings suddenly appeared in their place (the saplings that Cyril Sneer was going to plant), then Julie and Tommy look out the window and see the Raccoons getting a new tree to live in, and the narrator explicitly says that the Raccoons and Schaeffer saved the forest. So the previous 24 hours didn't happen, and at the same time they did happen?
  • The ending of "The Raccoons and the Lost Star" is even more confusing. When Schaeffer meets Sophia on the alien planet, he recognizes her, but she doesn't recognize him. Likewise, Schaeffer also recognizes the Raccoons, who don't know him either. At the end, as Schaeffer is parachuting back to the Evergreen Forest, it transitions into Julie and Tommy waking him up, meaning that the whole thing was a dream. Ranger Dan reveals the surprise he mentioned at the beginning: It's Broo, wearing the star medallion around his neck, and seemingly recognizing Schaeffer. The narrator ends by saying that Schaeffer knew that he would soon see the Raccoons again too. Since the Raccoons do exist on Earth, why would there be any doubt that he'd see them again? Or are we meant to assume that they will be the Raccoons from the alien planet, retaining the memories of the previous events...which were just a dream?
• Packed Hero: Non-hero example. In "The Chips Are Down!", Pig Three accidentally gets a potato chip bag packed around his torso.
• Paper-Thin Disguise: In "Cry Wolf!", Bert resorts to dressing as "Auntie Bertha" to gather evidence of Cyril's plot to pave the forest. Somewhat justified, as Cyril is sleep-deprived and the Pigs are, well, the Pigs.
• Pet Gets the Keys: In "The Intruders!", Cedric and Ralph get locked inside of Cyril's vault and need the master security key in order to escape. They are rescued when Broo makes his way through the vault's ventilation system and delivers the key to them.
• Pet the Dog: Cyril Sneer gets to do this every couple episodes or so in the later seasons.
• A Pig Named "Porkchop": The announcer in "The Evergreen Grand Prix" is a sheep named Haggis Lamborgini.
• Plaster Cast Doodling: In "Black Belt Bentley!", after Bentley accidentally breaks Bert's arm practicing his karate moves, Bert gets a bunch of signatures and doodles from his friends on his cast. Bert wants Bentley to sign it as well, but Bentley is too ashamed to even look at it and runs off.
• Plot Hole:
  • Throughout "Time Trap!", T.O.M. is able to show Cyril certain aspects of past events that he never experienced or knew about, such as the Pigs trying to create more gold. Considering that Cyril dreamt up everything T.O.M. showed him, there's no way that Cyril would've known this (new to him) information in the first place.
  • In "The Chips Are Down!", when Bert collects his first puzzle piece, he exclaims "One down, nine to go!", implying that the puzzle has ten pieces. The puzzle is later shown to consist of twelve pieces.
  • In "The Wrong Stuff!", the Pigs' subplot involves them trying to come up with a special Mother's Day gift, which would place the episode in early May. Meanwhile, Ralph and Schaeffer are excited about all the sports programming they'll be able to watch via Cyril's new satellite. They specifically mention that the baseball playoffs are currently going on, it's the middle of football season, and hockey starts the following week, all of which would presumably place the episode sometime in October.
• A Plot in Deed: "Read No Evil!" has Cyril Sneer trying to buy a swamp to drill for oil. The land registry can't find the original deed for the land, so the Pigs put a claim on it, and Cyril will get the land unless the original deed is found in the next four days.
• Policeman Dog: The police officers are depicted as bulldogs.
• Pop-Culture Pun Episode Title: Many episodes are named directly after movies or songs. However, there are a few spoofs.
  • "The Prism of Zenda!" = The Prisoner of Zenda
  • "The Phantom of Sneer Mansion!" = The Phantom of the Opera
  • "The Wrong Stuff!" = The Right Stuff
• Power Trio: Bert, Ralph and Melissa.
• Precap: Every episode would begin with a short preview of the episode before the opening title sequence.
• Produce Pelting:
  • In "Opportunity Knocks!", the Evergreen Standard does a report on some condominiums that Cyril is building. This leads to a mob of protesters showing up at Sneer Mansion to throw produce at the window to Cyril's office.
  • In "The Paper Chase!", the bears throw tomatoes at Cyril's office window while they're on strike.
• Pun:
  Bert: I dunno, I could introduce a new recipe. Daredeviled eggs!
  Ralph: That sounds about right, coming from a canned ham.
  Bert: Fine, fine, I can take a hint.
• Pygmalion Snap Back: In "Strictly by the Book!", Cyril sends an insecure Cedric away to a confidence-building school. When Cedric returns, he's suddenly a bit too confident and barely has time for any sort of leisure. By the end of the episode, Cedric reverts back to his old self when he realizes that his father and friends prefer him that way.
• Rascally Raccoon: Notably averted.
• Read the Fine Print: When Cyril brought some oil refineries in "Read No Evil", and eventually (due to his Character Development), tried to return them.
  Cyril: Mammoth? You know all those refineries and tankers I ordered? I wanna return it all! Yeah, and I want to return all those oil rigs too! ...What do you mean I can't return it? Brand-new, never been used! Did I read the small print? Of course I read the small print! Quick, read the small print!
  Pig One: I think you should read it, sir. It says right here; "All sales final."
  Cyril: WHAT?! No, Mammoth... there's no problem... none at all... AAAAGGGHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!
  • Also notable as all this happened during the credits, meaning that this was one of two times "Run With Us" was talked over after Season 2 of the series rearranged it.
• Recycled Animation: The main characters (even Bentley, Lady Baden-Baden and Mr. Knox) had the same◊ close◊-up head◊ shots◊, mainly because of the animation studios saving time and money.
• Recycled In Space: Technically, the characters in The Raccoons And The Lost Star (except Schaeffer) are all aliens on a jungle planet who happen to be identical in appearance, name and personality to Schaeffer's Evergreen Forest friends. (Assuming it's not just a dream, anyway).
• Recycled Soundtrack: Many episodes have cues reused from 1983's The Raccoons and the Lost Star.
• Replacement Flat Character: As Cyril Sneer started becoming a better person, the show introduced Milton Midas, a Corrupt Corporate Executive extraordinaire who was as bad as pre-Character Development Cyril and then some.
• Reptiles Are Abhorrent: Subverted, in the long run. Mr. Knox starts out as a Corrupt Corporate Executive, much like Cyril, but he too mellows out and becomes more of a good guy later on in the series.
• Reused Character Design: Seymour, Milton Midas' lackey who briefly appears in "Stress Test", would return as Robin Steel in "Go for Gold!".
• Rewritten Pop Version: A variation; the original version of "Run With Us" used in the first season apparently only featured the first two verses, but Lisa Lougheed's version added a third verse and even had its own music video. The single release of Lougheed's version reached the Top 10 on the Canadian Adult Contemporary charts in early 1988, becoming her first charted hit.
• Rhyming Title: The Season 2 episode, "Blast from the Past!" and the Season 5 episode, "Stress Test!".
• Runaway Train: In "The Evergreen Express!", the Pigs accidentally start up the Evergreen 504. Instead of trying to shut it off, they immediately bail out, causing the train to continue down the track unmanned.
• Scenery Porn: The wilderness of Canada in all its natural glory.
• Screw the Rules, I'm Doing What's Right!: In "Join the Club!", Cyril tries to become a member of the Lock Links country club and he's asked to demolish an old building for them as part of his initiation. However, when he finds out the building is Cedric's clubhouse, he decides not to go through with it and instead consoles Lisa, who's sad because Donna rejected her for refusing to smoke.
• Secret-Keeper: In the specials and first season, Schaeffer and Broo's adventures with the animals of Evergreen Forest were secret from the humans.
• Self-Destruct Mechanism: Cyril's mountain compound in The Raccoons and the Lost Star and his TV satellite in "The Wrong Stuff!" are each equipped with one of these. Both are ultimately activated.
• Senseless Violins: In "Cry Wolf!", Bert suspects Cyril's employees of carrying submachine guns in violin cases. He's wrong.
• Shout-Out: Has its own page.
• Show Within a Show: Steal a Fortune and Three Guys with a Cause, just to name a few.
• Slap-Slap-Kiss: In "The Sky's The Limit!", after Ralph crash-lands after trying to impress Melissa when her ex-boyfriend Troy, a professional pilot, comes to call, Melissa gives Ralph a piece of her mind for performing such outrageous stunts just to try to win her back. Eventually, she calms down when she reminds him that she'll always love him and plants a passionate kiss on his lips, much to Troy's extreme surprise.
• Sleep Cute: In "The Raccoons and the Lost Star", Ralph and Melissa and Sophia and Schaeffer cuddle in pairs as they wait for Broo to return with the key (Bert, the odd one out, slumps over a stool).
• Slobs Versus Snobs: In "Join the Club!", Cyril wants to join a club that Mr. Knox belongs to. However, said club only caters to the most elite of socialites. An unusual example in that the slob here (Cyril) is actually very wealthy.
• Smelly Skunk:
  • Downplayed in "Strictly by the Book!", where Bert dresses up as a skunk to scare Cedric.
  • In "Join the Club!", a skunk appears in Lisa's fantasy about smoking, no doubt to place emphasis on the odor it produces. The skunk appears suave at first, but eventually transforms into the Grim Reaper.
• Smoking Is Not Cool: If someone is shown to be a smoker, expect them to be a Jerkass. Examples include Donna from "Join the Club!", Milton Midas, and John Roykirk in "Picture Perfect!". Zig-zagged with Cyril, however. He starts off as an antagonist, and although he gets progressively nicer over the course of the series, in "Join the Club!" he admits to Lisa that he is regretably unable to quit smoking.
• Somber Backstory Revelation: A few times with Cyril Sneer.
  • In one episode, he reveals to the pigs that he is protecting a statue belonging to a late relative, a Sneer who was charitable and honest, because he respected him, and because he made a promise to look after it. It's one of the earliest indicators that Cyril has some integrity.
  • In one episode, Cyril has a heart to heart conversation with Bentley Raccoon, who was considering running away from home. He all but admits that he, too, ran away from home. And while he became very successful and very rich, he points out to Bentley that there were a lot of hard, lonely years in between that he wouldn't want to repeat, or wish on anyone else.
• Something Else Also Rises: The only time Bert's bent nose is ever seen straightened out is immediately after Lisa "asks him out" in "Spring Fever!".
• Species Surname: The Raccoons, Schaeffer the Dog, the Pigs, Dick Ermine, as well as (in the form of a Bilingual Bonus) Dr. Canard.
• Species Title: About a trio of raccoons (though more raccoon characters were introduced as the series progressed) and their animal friends.
• Stay in the Kitchen: In "A Catered Affair!", Mr. Knox objects to Lady Baden-Baden working at the Blue Spruce Cafe, insisting on his belief that woman do not belong in the working world. He later changes his viewpoint and allows Lady Baden-Baden to run a catering service.
• Stealth Pun: In "Going It Alone!", Bert hooks up an extra wheel to Ralph and Melissa's bike, not realizing that he's intruding on their private time. In other words, he's being a literal third wheel in their relationship.
• Stock Femur Bone: In "Science Friction!", the Pigs plant Snag's stash of dog bones in a tar pit for Bert, who'd been hoping to discover actual dinosaur bones in it. Sure enough, Bert finds the dog bones and attempts to assemble a dinosaur skeleton from them. However, he and Cedric are confused due to all of the bones being roughly the same shape and size. After learning the truth, Bert actually does find an actual dinosaur bone amongst all the dog bones.
• Stock Ness Monster: In "Monster Mania!", Melissa Raccoon takes a blurry photo of a creature in Evergreen Lake. Soon, the place is teeming with sightseers wanting to catch a glimpse of the elusive, fire-breathing "Evie." It turns out Evie is a robot, part of a plan by Cyril Sneer to drive up tourism.
• The Tag: As mentioned above, during the credits to "Read No Evil", Cyril calls Mammoth that he wants to return the oil rigs and refineries, but reads the small print to find that all sales are final. This occurs before the chorus of "Run With Us".
  • During the credits to "Picture Perfect!", Cyril calls Barnes that he's come to realize it's good to have Snag home again.
  Cyril: I understand y’had to leave, Barnes; it’s just as well because I don’t think we can do business, anyway. Couple of things have made me realize I kinda like having Snag around! Bye! Good dog, Snag-a-roonie!

  • These occurrences are all done in voiceover only.
• Surrounded by Idiots: This is Cyril's general view of the pigs.
• Terrible Trio: Cyril's pig henchmen.
• Theme Naming: Many locations in the Evergreen Forest are named after tree species.
• Theme Twin Naming: The Pigs' rarely-used and often-confused names (although there are three of them).
• Through a Face Full of Fur: Happens to Cyril the most frequently. He'll sometimes turn white with fear or green with sickness.
• Titled After the Song: A few episodes, including "Life in the Fast Lane!" and "Games People Play!". A couple even share titles with songs from the series.
• Top-Heavy Guy: "Go for Gold!" gives us Rod Steel, who's extremely muscular.
• Treasure Hunt Episode: "Buried Treasure!"
• Trademark Favorite Food: Bert has his peanut butter, and in the early episodes and specials Cedric had his chocolate pudding.
• Trapdoor: In "The Intruders!" there's several of these in the room outside of Cyril's vault. Falling through one of them will lead to an alligator-filled pool.
• Truck Driver's Gear Change: Happens in tons of songs from the series. ^{See which ones here.}"Perfect Tree", "Lake Freeze", "Shake the Sun", "Takin' My Time", "To Have You", "Some Days", "Lions and Tigers", "Shining", "Friends", "Sooner or Later", "All Life Long", "Growing Up", "Hold Back Tomorrow", "Stop the Clock", "New World", "Come On Home", "When the Sun Comes Up"
• Tuckerization: Occasionally slipped into the animation and scripts.
  • "Life in the Fast Lane!" features a weasel named Wendo, named after animator Wendo van Essen.
  • "Read No Evil!" features hound hermit Herman Zechariah Stroll, his surname being the same as series composer Jon Stroll.
  • There's also a Gibbons brand peanut butter in "Stop the Clock!", named after background artist Greg Gibbons.
• Two Lines, No Waiting: Most episodes are split into two separate plotlines, one focusing on the Raccoons and their friends and one focusing on Cyril Sneer and/or the Pigs.
• Two-Teacher School: Just one teacher, in fact. Justified in that it's a rural one room school, run by Ms. Primrose, who had taught most of the cast, even Cyril Sneer.
• The Unintelligible: Mr. Mammoth never gets more than one intelligible line in any episode that features him; the rest are "translated" by his sidekick.
• Unwinnable by Design: To boost sales of his flagging potato chips, Cyril Sneer introduces a collect-the-pieces-style contest. To keep the contest running for as long as possible, and to avoid paying the prize, the only copy of the last piece was locked up. The contest is only won by Bert when the pigs lose the winning piece.
• Urine Trouble: In "Surprise Attack", Snag prepares to urinate on a tree costume that one of the bears is wearing. Downplayed in that Cyril kicks Snag away before he can take a leak.
• Vague Age: Pretty much the entire cast, although there are some hints as to the characters' ages.
• Very Special Episode: In one episode Lisa starts smoking to fit in with cool kids. In the end it takes a speech from Cyril about how smoking ruined his life to get her to quit. The episode "The Chips Are Down!" could be interpreted as an anti-drug episode, replacing illegal substances with potato chips, or an allegory for gambling.
• Villain Antagonist > Anti-Villain > Anti-Hero: Cyril Sneer, over the course of the series.
• Vocal Evolution: In the series, Schaeffer sounds less gruff and less slow compared to the specials made beforehand.
  • Marvin Goldhar's tenure as Cedric started off as a whiny imitation of his initial voice actor, Fred Little. He also sounded nasally, too, but as the series progressed, his voice got more confident and aggressive and less of what Little had.
  • Pig One had a higher voice in his debut appearance in "The Raccoons and the Lost Star", it had gotten lower when the series started. When Keith Hampshire replaced Nick Nichols in season 5, his voice gained a slight rasp.
  • Melissa's vocal, and character, evolution follows her changes in voice actors. The specials version was quieter and had a touch-of-to-full-blown Southern accent (this is because she was voiced by Rita Coolidge and Dottie West, both country singers, but West's accent was more pronounced than Coolidge's). Linda Feige made the character a bit more assertive in the first season of the series, though her voice was still on the soft side. Susan Roman fully realized the characterization of Melissa as an independent, spunky, assertive female character.
  • 17-year-old Noam Zylberman's tenure as Bentley ended after "Promises Promises" when his voice had hit puberty.
  • In his debut episode, "The Chips Are Down!", Mr. Willow had a Southern accent reminiscent of Colonel Sanders. From "Stealing the Show!" onward, his voice changed to a more grandfatherly tone.
• Watch Out for That Tree!: The intro featured Bert swinging from a rope with a sword in his hand only to smack his face into a tree.
• We Need a Distraction: The Pigs need a distraction in "Promises Promises!". Their choice - setting off a fireworks display prematurely - ends up nearly killing Bert and Bentley.
• Who Writes This Crap?!: In the episode "End of the Line!", after reading out loud a speech prepared to welcome Mr. Mammoth, Cyril Sneer says "Who wrote this drivel?", and by the way one of the Pigs reacts, it may have been their doing, once again.
• Your Door Was Open: In "The Prism of Zenda!", Cyril goes through the trouble of climbing over the outer wall while trying to break into Knox's mansion. When Cyril sees that the Pigs have already beaten him to the other side, they tell him that the gate was open.

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