Capitol Critters is an animated television series about the lives of mice, rats, and roaches who reside in the basement and walls of the White House in Washington, D.C. The series was produced by Steven Bochco Productions and Hanna-Barbera Productions in association with 20th Century Fox Television for ABC, which aired seven out of the show's 13 episodes from January 31, 1992 to March 14, 1992. Cartoon Network later aired all 13 episodes in 1995. The series was part of a spate of attempts by major networks to develop prime time animated shows to compete with the surprise success of Fox's The Simpsons, alongside CBS's Fish Police and Family Dog. All three proved unsuccessful and were quickly cancelled.
Seasons & Episode
The series pilot. Max, a mouse living in a Nebraska farmhouse basement with his family, is the only survivor when the farmer living there hires an exterminator to take care of all the mice. Max leaves for Washington D.C. to go live with his cousin Berkeley, an activist mouse who still dresses like it's the 1960's. There he also meets the rest of the cast of the series - Jammett, a wisecracking rat, and his mother, Trixie. Muggle, an ex-lab rat who's had one experiment too many done on him. Moze, a roach who like all roaches lives segregated from the rats and mice. Finally, the P-Cat and VP-Cat, the rodents' new nemeses. The episode focuses on Max getting to know the other characters and his coming to terms with his family's tragic deaths.
Max's optimistic view about Washington politics gets crushed when he witnesses first hand a shady senator taking a bribe from a businessman who wants him to vote a certain way.
During a recent food raid on the White House kitchen, Max loses his hat only to have it returned to him by Moze the cockroach. Max soon learns that Moze (and all the other roaches) are not very popular among the other rodents, especially Jammett....
When a troop of Japanese dancers visits the White House, Max falls for a cute Japanese mouse named Miko who lives in the troop's luggage with her family. In the process of trying to rescue her from the P-Cat, he accidentally ""kills"" him and this dredges up all sorts of memories of his parents' deaths. To further complicate matters, Miko is leaving the next day and he wants to go back to Japan with her!
Jammett becomes a local drug dealer when he starts selling caffeine pills to a squirrel named Opie. Max despises him for this, but Max soon gets into trouble himself when some tough pill-pushers think he's the one selling to Opie and don't like others taking over their business. They overdose Max on pills in order to kill him and this greatly upsets Jammett, who also learns Opie stole all of his family's food in order to pay Jammett for the pills he got!
A couple of roaches move in upstairs with the rodents and no one is happy, but Max and Berkeley convince the others to let them stay. They soon question that decision, however, when the roaches start multiplying and the entire upstairs becomes covered in wall-to-wall baby roaches!
Max and Jammett are hijacked by PETA activists and end up dumped in the wilderness, only to discover the animals' homes there are endangered by the construction of a mini-mall. Surprisingly, it's Jammett who takes the initiative in this episode!
The gang discovers a rat and a roach who have been living together for 30 years (ever since the Cuban Missile Crisis) but perhaps not totally in peace and harmony. So the two species try to re-integrate each of them into their respective groups but is modern life too much for these two?
When the electricity is cut off to the rodents and roaches, they start to panic until Jammett gets the idea to bring in another source of power via extension cord, thus becoming his own electric company. (And charging outrageous rates to everyone, including his own mom!) But the other rodents decide they aren't going to put up with him any longer, and the confrontation may be too much even for Jammett!
Jammett umps a rat vs. cockroach baseball game and cheats by intentionally mis-calling a play when it appears the roaches will win. Moze doesn't like this and him and Jammett get into a scuffle which escalates into a riot - a serious crime in the roach world. Jammett is put on trial by them but all they want is vengeance, not justice -- except for one certain roach whom Jammett wouldn't of expected to have helped him!
After a bill to help the hungry is defeated, Berkeley decides to go on a hunger strike until it is passed. But, can she withstand the temptation to eat as the gang goes on a citywide adventure when the truck they happen to be sitting in is stolen?
President Bush's grandchildren are coming to visit, and one of them brings a hamster with her - a female hamster named Violet! Amazingly, Jammett falls for her instantly, and she for him! But can a domesticated animal live outside of her cage? Meanwhile, Max feels bad for the little girl who is now missing her pet, and decides to find a new hamster for her. But this time Max gets far more than he bargained for!!
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