"Gotta zip, gotta zip, gotta spin our wheels / Because you know how great it feels / Gotta zip (gotta gotta gotta) gotta spin our wheels!"
Jungle Junction is a UK-produced CGI animated children's show that began airing in the United States and parts of Europe in 2009. It features anthropomorphic animals "with wheels instead of feet" who cruise around a hidden jungle with its own town square and highway system. Like other shows on the Disney Channel's weekday morning Playhouse Disney (now Disney Junior) segment, it is aimed at younger viewers and includes portions in which the characters ask the viewing audience to help them solve a simple problem. An example would be, "which road takes me to the waterfall? ... The one marked by a sign with a picture of a waterfall on it? Yes, of course!"
As should probably be expected, there is no elaborate storyline to this show, and a new viewer does not need to know anything about the characters or setting beyond what is explained in the theme song. The animal-cars simply spend each episode cruising through the jungle, discovering new things and solving random problems they encounter along the way. In one episode, they find a special tree with a tap on it that produces bouncy balls, then forget to turn the tap off in their excitement, and must fight their way back up the now ball-covered road to fix their mistake. Sometimes these episodes include an Aesop — in this case, a statement on conservation, as the bouncy ball tree wilts from overuse — but more often than not, they just highlight the importance of friendship and working together.
The characters who are most frequently seen include:
- Zooter, a two-wheeled sow who works as a messenger.
- Ellyvan, an elephant-van hybrid who delivers goods and is Zooter's best friend.
- Bungo, who is... um... a long-eared animal with a striped tail of some kind (The show calls him a "bunny", though, and he loosely resembles a Sumatran striped rabbit). Anyway, he makes all of the jungle's road signs.
This show provides examples of:
- All-CGI Cartoon
- Amazing Technicolor Wildlife: Carla the koala is orange instead of the usual grey. Also, Ellyvan is blue, Hippobus is yellow, Lance is purple.
- Animal-Vehicle Hybrid: The characters (referred to in-universe as "Wheelers") all possess wheels rather than feet. Ellyvan can also be used to store things in his back, Hippobus is... well, a bus, and Dozer has a bulldozer blade attached to his front.
- Animation Bump: The CGI is noticeably improved in the second season.
- Big "SHUT UP!": In "The Treasure of Jungle Junction", The other wheelers fight for the golden squishy treasure for a while, Untill Zooter tells them to stop repetively until blowing her top.Zooter: "Hold it, everyone!"
(fight continues)
Zooter: "Everyone, Hold it! Hold it, hold it!"
(fight STILL continues)
Zooter: "HOLD IT!!!!!!" - Call a Smeerp a "Rabbit": Bungo the "bunny"
- Cartoon Creature: Yet again, Bungo doesn't really look like a bunny too much. If anything, he looks like a mix of a bunny, a red panda, and a Pikachu.
- Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Carla the koala vanishes after the first season. Lampshaded in "Lance in Love" and "The Buzz about Toadhog"; A picture of Carla with a "?" on it hangs on the wall of Bobby's police station.
- Fake Interactivity: In the first season, The characters would ask the viewers to identify which sign leads to the place they need to go, as well as some general knowledge questions. Season 2 dropped this practice, though.
- This also happens in each of the credits for the season 1 episodes, Where Bungo will ask which one of the signs is for the question he asked.
- Forgotten Birthday: The rest of the animals in the jungle pull this trick on Zooter.
- Friendly Tickle Torture: In "Stuck", the Beetlebugs tickle Ellyvan's nose so that he can sneeze and burst out of the hole.
- Funny Animal: Really funny animals in this case, by virtue of their biology. Regardless, they all have jobs, talk and act like people.
- Giant Enemy Crab: Averted with Taxicrab. He's a pretty big crab, but a friendly one.
- Green Gators: Crocker is a bright green crocodile car, much like the other brightly-colored Animal Vehicle Hybrids in the setting.
- Help, I'm Stuck!: In "Stuck", Ellyvan tries to take a shortcut to make an important delivery and gets stuck in a hole after ignoring an important sign Bungo put up.
- Huge Guy, Tiny Girl: Ellyvan and Zooter (In a strictly platonic example).
- Incredible Shrinking Man:
- This trope applies to Ellyvan when he touches the Shrinky Bush in the aforementioned episode. The other animals have to make Shrinky Bush Cream from scratch before he disappears from existence.
- This is also done in "Big Little Adventure", applied to Zooter and Bungo when trying Bungo's invention of size switching, So the others try to help them out... And it often ends in chaos...Bungo: Let's go! Or rather, Let's "grow"! (realizes what he's done)
OH NO!
- A Lizard Named "Liz": An elephant named Ellyvan, a crocodile named Crocker, and a crab named Taxicrab.
- Lost World: The theme song describes the setting as, "deep inside the jungle, far from anywhere... a place that no one knows."
- May It Never Happen Again: In "Ellyvan's Boing Boing Blues", Zooter annoys Ellyvan by making a "Boing!" noise (that she initially intended to make while making deliveries). At the end, she promises to only make the noise while making deliveries, so she won't annoy him again.
- Misophonia Gag: "Ellyvan's Boing-Boing Blues" revolves around Ellyvan becoming very annoyed after Zooter learns she can make a "boing" noise with her tail, to the point that he can't sleep.
- Misplaced Wildlife: Boars may be native to jungles, but pink pigs like Zooter certainly aren't. Some cattle, such as banteng, are native to jungles, but, for a children's show, it's a strange setting for a bull like Dozer. The cast of characters also features a crab, which is generally an aquatic creature, and a koala, which is a species that doesn't share territory with rhinos or elephants.
- Mix-and-Match Critters: An abnormal example of this trope, in that there is no mixing of two different animals, just animals mixed with machinery.
- And, then there's Bungo. He's supposed to be some sort of rabbit, but, what rabbit has a long striped tail?
- Once per Episode: More like once a short but the "Gotta Zip" song.
- Power Floats: This is done in the episode "Floaty Fruit", When Zooter and Ellyvan eat the aforementioned fruit, but forget the other step from Ms. Jolly's lesson until later on.
- Pun-Based Creature: Dozer is a literal bull-dozer.
- Red Live Lobster: Taxicrab is a red crab.
- Sentient Vehicle: Mixed with Mix-and-Match Critters.
- Shout-Out: At the end of the credits of "The Treasure of Jungle Junction/Shrinky", Bungo says "Yes! This one! Pinky dinky doo!"
- Sleep Aesop: In the episode "Zooter Loses Her Zip", Miss Jolly tells Zooter that when she doesn't get enough sleep, she doesn't feel as zippy as usual, she can get tired and can't do as much as she usually can.
- Sneeze of Doom:
- Ellyvan gets pushed up whenever he sneezes, which can cause chaos in the jungle. This actually had an advantage in "Stuck", as this was how he escaped the hole he was stuck in.
- This also happened in "Nothing to Sneeze At".
- Swiss-Army Tears: In "Zooter's Strange Spots", Zooter's tears wash out the purple spots.
- Theme Tune Roll Call: Part of the theme song contains this:Now Zooter zooms around, she keeps the jungle running right (Zooter: "Got a message!"note )
Ellyvan the Elephant is ready day and night (Ellyvan: "Hello!")
That fussy bunny Bungo wants to know when you'll arrive... (Bungo: "Where are you?") - Up, Up and Away!: In the episode "Fly, Zooter, Fly!", The gang tries to make Zooter's dream to fly come true, but in the end, the hang glider the others made works.
- Women Are Wiser: In "The Treasure of Jungle Junction", Zooter and Miss Jolly are the only ones who don't fight over the aforementioned treasure.
- Hi there reader, Who made it far into the page! Which sign is the one for a lamp on the letter "T"? This, this, or this?
...
YES! This one! Hope you got the brain bleach!