The Mystery Cartoon Character Game, now with 20% more ongoing.

Golly, it sure seems like the second hypothesis is the case. Anyways, this is Mufasa, father to Simba, regent of the Pridelands, from Disney's The Lion King.

Yes, OUB, Mufasa it is. Good job. . Step up, and take another turn.

Okay, to make sure this one doesn't go unguessed, I'm raiding the Hanna-Barbera garden again.

1) This character is a recurring antagonist in a regularly televised animated series produced by Hanna-Barbera Studios. They're not producing him any more, though.

2) Altogether, there are four mostly harmless villainous characters, which includes this character. He'd be the least malicious of the four, a Minion With An F In Evil.

3) Perhaps this character is a Junior League antagonist, being groomed to be a full-on baddie. Right now, he's like Ahsoka Tano to Anakin Skywalker, or like Wendy and Marvin to the Super Friends. He'll need to put on some more weight, and develop more guile, though.

Let's see. None of Hanna-Barbera's superhero cartoons had harmless villains. Ok, maybe season 1 of Superfriends did, but none of them were a foursome. I can also rule out OGRE from "Drak Pack," since that consisted of five instead of four. I'm at a total loss.

Well, your thinking is on the right track, it's just a question of determining which platform is your stop. Perhaps these clues will help:

4) Nobody in this cartoon series is human. We don't exist there. Technically, none of these characters should be alive, but they are. Magic? Super science? Pure funness?

5) The Smurfette Principle is alive and well here: there's only one "girl," and most of the boys want her, both the good ones and the bad ones. She seems to have chosen a favorite.

6) This pee-wee character's name would be fitting for a breakfast diner, or a military airbase during wartime.

Aha! Should have thought of this earlier! It's Scrambles, from "Wheelie And The Chopper Bunch!"

Exactly the right stop, Em. This is the scooter Scrambles, one of four members of the Chopper Bunch that routinely oppose Wheelie the red Volkswagen. The sole "female" is Rota Ree (a play on rotary, another name for the Wankel pistonless engine). All vehicles, no people. Good deducing, take the board.

Thanks, OUB. Time for one who, for reasons unknown, has gone totally untapped:

1. I've been animated on more than one occasion.

2. I like to isolate myself from my wife.

3. To paraphrase a classic Steely Dan song, they think I'm crazy, but I'm just growing old.

Three more clues, and please come back, players:

4. My hometown's in the Catskills.

5. An early cartoon had me mistaking a famous spinach eater for a pickpocket.

6. In the early 1970's, my story was paired with another one by the same author.

Oh, now I get it. For a while there, my thinking ran to Professor Calvin Calculus and that unholy nagging wife of his. But now, I can see this is Washington Irving's character Rip Van Winkle. Rip also wanted a break from a nagging wife, and took a hike deep into the Catskills. There, he encountered gnomes or leprechauns or somesuch. Rip also imbibed some of their ale, which made him groggy, whereupon he dozed off under a stout oak tree. Upon waking, Rip returned home only to discover that twenty years had elapsed, the nag had died of an aneurysm, and nothing was how he'd remembered it. This story is often paired with The Legend of Sleepy Hollow by the same author.

Truth be told, those people playing ninepins were NEVER described as being diminutive or fairy-like--I'm not quite sure when an illustrator for that story decided "Hey, these guys were gnomes." at one point leading to others jumping on the bandwagon but I guess it's the same as Humpty Dumpty suddenly being an egg.

Well, at any rate, OUB nailed it again. Good job. . Post away.

^^ It may have had something to do with trolls being "sons of the mountain," in that they could change into stone either at will or during daybreak. Regular people living in those hills would be a mightily isolated lot, likely xenophobic and surely inbred to some degree. It seemed more plausible to make them magical-gnome folk to account for the coma-inducing brew, and why no other adventurers ever encountered them. Kind of like a unicorn sighting: just once, never to be repeated.

Now then, it's my turn to be topical. [sinister laugh]

1) This character made his debut in a completely animated feature film, then in the television series based upon that film.

2) Despite his important role in the events of the story, this character does not get title billing. All that work for no recognition.

3) This character gets sent to prison for his misdeeds. He doesn't stay there all that long, however. He's too plot-critical to be sidelined so neatly.

Overdue for Intermediate clues. Almost forgot who this was. Senility, y'know.

4) Far be it for me to call this character a liar, but he does have a talent for adjusting the "truth" on the fly. He's one of those fellows who can think on his feet.

5) "If at first you don't succeed, try, try again." Such must be this fellow's personal credo, since he has tried more than six hundred times at one endeavor.

6) Aside from a pair of sunglasses, this character does not wear corrective lenses. Nonetheless, he'd still be called four-eyes.

Cupcake clues time.

7) Debuted by Walt Disney Pictures.

8) A mad scientist, though more ornery than angry.

9) He has produced six hundred twenty-seven units.

Of course, this is Jumba from Lilo and Stitch.

Yes, Doctor Jumba Jookiba, as voiced by the late David Ogden Stiers. From both the feature film Lilo & Stitch and the subsequent animated series. Bravo, Glow.

How I didn't catch that earlier, I don't know.
Speaking of missed--here's one we didn't catch yet.
1. I'm basically the foil for the main character.
2. I'm not really a villain though, I just want the main character to follow the park rules.
3. Most of the time, he breaks them and I have to go after him.

That's easy. Ranger John Smith, from "Yogi Bear."

Indeed--didn't know he had a first name though.
Yeah, when you get older, you suddenly realize the Ranger wasn't such a bad guy. He just wanted to keep the park neat and orderly. Meanwhile this one rogue bear keeps insisting on stealing the visiters' pic-anic baskets...