Ovide and the Gang (1987)
First episode title: The Case of the Disappearing Hens
How familiar with the show am I?: I hadn't heard of it before.
Ovide Video is a platypus living on a South Sea island. His friends include chef platypus Saphron, joke-telling toucan Groaner, and janitor lizard Polo, while his enemies, a snake called Cy Sly and another toucan called Bobo, try to ruin everyone's fun. That seems to be about the gist of it!
Small note about the title character - the theme song pronounces his name "OH-vid", like it rhymes with Covid, whereas the characters in the show say "oh-VEED", like he's French. The show was originally in French before being dubbed into English, so I assume the latter is closer to the original.
But enough about him for a moment, because the episode actually opens with Saphron, admiring the seafood soufflé he has just made - I had to look this up to confirm it exists, because I've only ever known of soufflé as a dessert. He gives the soufflé an "extra little lift" by pumping it up with some kind of fish-shaped device, until it towers over him!
Ovide and Groaner walk in, Groaner pushing a trolley containing some kind of creature, and Saphron tells them how well the soufflé has turned out.
The thing in the trolley is evidently Groaner's hen, which is not doing well. We'll get a closer look at this show's interpretation of "hens" in a second. According to Saphron, you're supposed to water hens here because of how hot it gets. He means literally watering, like a shower - the internet does not seem to agree that this is something that's necessary for hens, but what does the internet know anyway? They go outside, and Saphron waters Groaner's hen with a watering can, and his own hens in a weird sort of hen communal shower that he operates with a lever. These are the hens:
They're like two legged caterpillars! I wonder if they were simply called "hens" even in French.
From behind a bush, Cy Sly and Bobo are spying on these activities.
Bobo: Why are we here, Sly?
Cy: "Boss" to you, Bobo!
Bobo: Why are we here, Boss?
Cy: Ssssh! Questions, questions, questions!
Cy thinks the others are idiots for playing around with hens when they could be trying to make a fortune. It's hard to see why someone who already lives in an abundant tropical paradise would be so desperate to get rich, but that's villains for you. He asks Bobo if he has any ambitions of his own, and it turns out what Bobo wants most is to sleep all day. Mood.
Then, Bobo is hit on the head by a TV that descends from the sky. Yes.
A platypus woman on the TV greets "good morning", and Cy's mouth hangs open as his eyes go all swirly. My first thought was that he really likes the woman on the TV, but I think the actual intention is that he's hypnotised by TV in general.
The TV cuts to an ad for "Fluffy Fresh" eggs. Another platypus woman in a supermarket refuses an offer from the interviewer to trade her single cartoon of Fluffy Fresh for two cartoons of some other brand. The reason she loves Fluffy Fresh so much? Because they are "easy to reach". I hate eggs that are always out of reach. Then the ad ends and the TV goes away again - the presenter even seems to audibly react to the fact that she's being dragged upwards!
The ad gives Cy an idea - make it so that everyone can only get eggs from him, and they'll have to pay him whatever he wants! As is so often the case, cartoon villainy is identical to the behaviour of real-life businesspeople. He wonders how he's going to get a monopoly on the eggs, when a TV pops up again, this time from underneath Bobo, launching him into the air.
The newsreader (the same presenter from earlier) introduces the local news for... Poky? Pokey? Poki? I can't see anything that says how to spell the name of the place. She tells us that there is debris from a storm all over the north beach. She specifically mentions that it'll be Polo that will have to clean it up - it makes sense that this island is small enough for Ovide and his circle of friends to know everyone!
Cy thinks to himself that he might find something useful in the debris, and then realises he doesn't know where Bobo is - he's hanging from a tree branch after the TV flung him, and as Cy looks up, the tree branch snaps and he crashes down. There's some other animal hanging from another tree branch - a sloth? It's got a very big nose for one though.
They go off to the beach, and the one useful item they find is a crate with a smoke bomb in it - the crate is helpfully labelled with a picture of a smoke bomb, so they don't even have to check!
Meanwhile, outside Saphron's house, Saphron, Ovide, and Groaner are eating the soufflé.
Ovide: This seafood soufflé's delicious!
Groaner: I don't know - there's something fishy about it!
But then Polo rushes over - carrying his broom so that you know he's a cleaner - to let Ovide know his house is on fire!
We see another beach which is presumably in the area of Ovide's house, although that's not visible. The crate is on the beach, with smoke coming out of it, and Cy and Bobo are peeking out from a hole in a nearby cliff, Cy explaining why everyone will think Ovide's house is on fire, leaving them free to take the hens. The shot of the hens being taken is interesting - it fades in, the hens are spooked and cower in a corner, and it fades away again without us ever seeing Cy or Bobo in the shot, giving an accidental horror movie vibe to that couple of seconds.
When Ovide and his friends reach the beach and see that it was just a smoke bomb, Ovide is suspicious, because there isn't any other debris around that would indicate the crate drifted ashore. Ovide is quite consistently the only person with any sense in this episode. He gets a TV out from the case he carries, and rewinds to see what was on earlier - possible on plenty of TVs these days, but I'd have thought that was unheard of in 1987! The news report from earlier plays, and specifically mentions debris on the north beach, whereas Ovide's house is on the east beach, so now Ovide knows it was deliberate.
As they are heading back to Saphron's house, Ovide reckons he knows who's responsible. But Saphron lets out a big, literally hair-raising scream on seeing that all the hens are gone!
Saphron: But they were happy here, I know they were! Why did they leave?
I love how that's his first thought rather than thinking that they were taken. Polo tries to imitate a hen's call to attract them, but accidentally does something more like a Tarzan yell, and tries to remember how hens sound. I love that gag. Saphron is panicking and tells Groaner to go to the lookout post in the north while he goes to the lighthouse in the south, so that they can see more of the island. One of them even makes a clucking sound while trying to find them, although it's not clear which character is doing it.
The four of them gather together again, and, while they're wondering where the hens are, Cy shows up and claims he knows. He says that he happened to be at the lookout earlier and saw the hens wander out of the coop and straight into a pit of quicksand. There's a line here that caused me a lot of confusion - Polo responds "You mean they've gone to the great [something] in the sky?", and nothing he could be saying there quite makes sense.
Here's the clip so you can decide for yourself before you see what I have to say:
Seen it? OK.
I can only hear that something as "kernel" (what, because hens eat corn...?) or "colonel" (because of KFC??), but it's possible the voice actor is mispronouncing something else - "kennel" (not quite where you keep hens but close), or "corral" (that is where you keep hens but would be a severe mispronunciation). Let me know what you think!
Anyway, Cy lets them know that, by complete coincidence, he has some eggs he can offer them. Bobo brings them over - they look like painted Easter eggs, which I suppose is all you can expect from such strange-looking hens.
Ovide is immediately suspicious. I told you he was the one character with any sense! But Cy claims that he has eggs because he found a couple of wild hens in the forest a week ago, which lay a lot of eggs, but he can't show them the hens because they aren't tame yet. Right.
Cy: You can purchase my eggs at very reasonable prices any time you wish!
Groaner: We don't use money!
Now there's something interesting - the news report earlier seemed hyper-local to the island, but the same broadcast had an ad for eggs you buy at a supermarket, which it sounds like the islanders wouldn't need or even be able to buy.
In response to the comments about money, Cy says that they could do things for him instead of paying, like building him a palace! Everyone is outraged by this suggestion, so Cy and Bobo leave, Cy still confident that they'll all want his eggs eventually.
Groaner: What do you think, Ovide?
Polo: If you ask me, that story about the hens is a lot of poppycock!
Heh, "cock", like chickens. Anyway, Ovide decides to rewind the TV even further back, and he sees the Fluffy Fresh ad, concluding that Cy has "gone into business", although I'm not sure that told them anything they didn't already know.
Next, the four of them go to ask Doe, Rae, and Mi if they know anything. These three are koalas that sit side by side on a tree and are a reference to the see no evil 🙈 hear no evil 🙉 speak no evil 🙊 monkeys. Specifically, Doe is always listening to music on headphones, Rae wears sunglasses, and Mi's hands are always covering their mouth, occasionally letting out a hiccup. I don't actually know what gender any of them are meant to be. Rae is the only one to speak, and does have a very high-pitched voice, for what it's worth.
Ovide asks them if they've seen any hens around. Rae says that they haven't seen anything (of course) but they heard some hens heading towards the mountain. Ovide heads into the cave - Polo quite specifically refers to it as just "the cave" and sounds shocked that he would ever go in there - but Ovide is certain that's where the hens are.
As they're sneaking into the cave, Saphron and Groaner get scared and hide when they hear a loud noise, even though it's just the echoing sound of hens clucking. Meanwhile, further into the cave, Cy and Bobo have the hens in their own pen (it looks just like Saphron's one - I wonder how they had time to build it?)
Bobo has been licking this weird little lollipop this whole time and it took me until this point to realise it's drawn exactly the way the platypus's tails are. Disturbing. Cy is still convinced that everyone will come around and start buying his eggs eventually.
Cy: After they've built my palace they can build my summer home!
Ovide: Or maybe we could start with a cage, for you!
Why does someone living in a tropical paradise need a summer home, Cy? But yes, as indicated, Ovide and the others have found him and Bobo. The good guys chase the baddies out, Polo swiping with his broom, until Cy and Bobo reach a hole in the cave (looks like the same one they were peeking out of earlier), and they fall into the sea. I was amused to see that even a snake can do the "walking on air before realising you should fall" thing!
A shark starts chasing those two around, while everyone else sits back and... watches that action on TV, somehow! There is clearly a kind of magic to TVs in this world.
Groaner: Cy was brave in our henhouse, but now he's the chicken! [he laughs, as Saphron groans]