One Crazy Summer And Better Off Dead's Creator Also Helmed This Forgotten Cartoon Classic

Savage Steve Holland once said at a Q&A (that I was lucky enough to attend) that he got his tough-guy nickname ironically. He said that, as a child, he was competing in a sporting event when he accidentally knocked over and hurt a fellow teammate. Holland was so distraught that he began crying, even harder than the child he slammed into. Walking off the field, some people referred to him as "Savage," and the name kind of stuck.

As a filmmaker, Holland got his start in features with the release of the comedy "Better Off Dead" in 1985. The film centers on Lane (played by John Cusack), a lovelorn teen who's pining for his ex-girlfriend Beth (Amanda Wyss), forcing him to find solace in his other passion: skiing. Meanwhile, at home, he begins talking to Monique (Diane Franklin), a French exchange student that his family is hosting. The story is conventional, but the movie's universe is askew. "Better Off Dead" takes place in a slapstick world where mystery meat crawls from your plate, people snort gelatin, and paperboys go on missions of blood revenge. There's even a standout animated sequence where Lane hallucinates the hamburgers at his fast food job coming to life and singing and dancing.

The film's spiritual sequel, "One Crazy Summer," came out the following year. Cusack plays a different character, but its universe is still askew and stapsticky. There are also several fun animated sequences, as Cusack's character is an aspiring animator. Demi Moore also co-stars as an aspiring musician that Cusack falls for.

Holland eventually created a twisted and violent '90s animated series titled "Eek! the Cat." It was a popular mainstay on Fox Kids for the better part of five years.

Holland has always been a prolific and talented animator, and he got one of his earliest gigs designing and animating the Whammies on the game show "Press Your Luck." After the fan affection for "Better Off Dead" and "One Crazy Summer," he moved to TV comedy, serving as an assistant director on "Saturday Night Live" and creating the one-season wonder TV series "The New Adventures of Beans Baxter." He also got to ply his talents in animation on the TV adaptation of "Bill & Ted's Excellent Adventures" in 1991 before striking gold with "Eek! the Cat" in 1992.

"Eek! the Cat" is a violent animated sitcom about the titular cat (Bill Kopp), who constantly finds himself in mortal peril. Eek's designed to look frazzled at all times, and he's frequently in a state of panic, hence his name. Despite this, he's good-natured and devoted to his friends, often stating, "It never hurts to help," even though helping others usually gets him hurt. His expletive of choice is "Kumbaya!" and he's in love with Annabelle (Tawney Kitaen, later replaced by Karen Haber), a large pink cat who sounds like a deeply Southern woman with a thick accent. Annabelle is also guarded by Sharky the Sharkdog, a shark-like dog who delights in tormenting Eek. (He's the comedic antagonist of the series.)

Eek, however, only appears in the central segments of the show. There's also a slew of comedic supporting players (each one a little off-kilter), along with a spoof of Disney's animated series "Adventures of the Gummi Bears" titled "The Squishy Bearz Rainbow of Enchanted Fun Minute." Later on, Eek's joined by an angry militia of dinosaurs known as The Terrible Thunderlizards. Later still, we meet Klutter, a living mound of trash and laundry.

The central gag of "Eek! the Cat" is that it's a little more bleak and violent than your standard Saturday morning fare. It came at about the same time animation was being cracked open by the self-aware shenanigans of "Tiny Toon Adventures" and the intense, revolting artistry of "The Ren & Stimpy Show." It wasn't as wild as "Ren & Stimpy," but it did have Savage Steve Holland's twisted sensibilities. There was an underlying cynicism to the series, with Eek serving as a perpetually punished Candide. One can be optimistic and helpful, but it won't stop the gods from setting you on fire.

Holland conceived of the show, will Bill Kopp, after observing his own strange cat, actually named Eek. The series was being constantly retooled, sadly, so no singular format emerged. It was originally broken up into multiple segments, but became a two-in-one series called "Eek! and the Terrible Thunderlizards" in later seasons. At some point in production, co-creator Bill Kopp left the series and moved to Disney to create "The Shnookums & Meat Funny Cartoon Show" in 1995. "Shnookums & Meat" was quite obviously a "Ren & Stimpy" knockoff, however, and it only lasted 13 episodes.

"Eek! the Cat," meanwhile, chugged along for five seasons and 75 episodes, coming to an end in August of 1997. It's strange that the show could have been a Fox mainstay for so long and remain somewhat obscure among many audiences today. It might have hurt the series that it was only released in fragments on VHS and never got a DVD package in North America. Bootlegs of the series can be found online, but those are all very low quality. The show is not on streaming.