To remind readers: “Tiny Toon Adventures” was a Steven Spielberg-produced spinoff of Looney Tunes that featured brand new “kid” versions of the classic cartoon characters. They weren’t younger versions of the Looney Tunes but a new generation of upcoming cartoon stars who took classes at Acme Looniversity (classes taught by the likes of Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Porky Pig, and all the rest). The Tiny Toons were also ultra-hip ’90s kids who regularly broke the fourth wall and commented on their status as cartoons; in more than one episode, the Toons left their show and went to the Warner Bros. lot to talk to Spielberg in person. That element of self-awareness would prove to be a defining characteristic of 1990s pop media. “Tiny Toons” was ahead of its time.
The first-season episode “K-ACME TV” was a fast-moving parody of many, many TV shows and commercials that were hip in 1991. There were spoofs of Lucky Charms, “I Love Lucy,” “Jeopardy!,” and “The Wonder Years.” Some of the gags only lasted three seconds, while others were full minutes-long sequences. It’s one of the better episodes of “Tiny Toon Adventures.”
The “Tiny Toons” version of “Coyote vs. Acme” was presented as a spoof of the long-running courtroom reality series “The People’s Court,” which — in its initial iteration — debuted in 1981 and ran until 1993. Naturally, it was called “The Toon Court.” The on-screen plaintiff was Calamity Coyote, who angrily sued Acme for selling negligence and faulty workmanship. Acme’s representative was Bobbo Acme, a cigar-chomping rat in a suit. His defense was that Acme products worked perfectly well and that Calamity was merely using them improperly. The judge was Yosemite Sam, who wielded a hangman’s noose.