I Am Weasel

I Am Weasel is an American animated sitcom created by David Feiss for Cartoon Network. It is the fourth of the network's Cartoon Cartoons and the final to be produced solely by Hanna-Barbera. The series centers on I.M. Weasel (voiced by Michael Dorn), a smart, noble and successful weasel, I.R. Baboon (voiced by Charlie Adler), an idiotic and arrogant baboon who is envious of Weasel and acts as both his rival and friend, and the mischievous, flamboyant Red Guy (also voiced by Adler), who returns from Cow and Chicken to antagonize the duo.

I Am Weasel originally aired as a segment of Cow and Chicken from 1997 to 1999, often airing as the third of three segments in an episode, and eventually became a spin off into its own series. A fifth season with 27 new episodes aired from June 10, 1999, to 2000 and joined the original 52 which were previously part of Cow and Chicken. The entire series includes 79 episodes overall.

The series chronicles the random adventures of two animal frenemies: I.M. Weasel (Michael Dorn) and I.R. Baboon (Charlie Adler). The first one is a famous, heroic, eloquent, highly intelligent and very talented least weasel who always tries to help people out and is thus adored by everybody, constantly shouting his catchphrase "I am Weasel!" while pointing high in the air before going after help. The latter is his foil, an ugly and idiotic baboon who is envious of Weasel's success and constantly tries to do better than he does (also doing a victory dance to express his joy when thinking he is doing so), and failing miserably after all due to his total stupidity.

Starting from season two, the Red Guy (Charlie Adler), a main character in Cow and Chicken, also gets that role in I Am Weasel, where he is also referred to as "I.B. Red Guy", an allusion to Weasel's and Baboon's names. His addition to the series makes him gradually take the role of villain from I.R., who becomes more friendly to Weasel, despite still despising him.

As the series progresses, I.M. Weasel, initially showed as a competent protagonist, gradually loses the focus to I.R. Baboon, because people are shown to get gradually dumber, sometimes being manipulated by the Red Guy into stupidity. In the series finale, I.R. is finally presented as the true star of the show instead of him.

Supporting characters include Loulabelle (Susanne Blakeslee, Teresa Ganzel), Jolly Roger (Dee Bradley Baker) and Admiral Bullets (Jess Harnell, Michael Gough). Many characters from Cow and Chicken make cameo appearances in I Am Weasel from season two, these include: Cow, Chicken (Charlie Adler), Mom, Teacher (Candi Milo), Dad (Dee Bradley Baker), Flem (Howard Morris), and Earl (Dan Castellaneta).

While season one does not reference Cow and Chicken, from season two, I Am Weasel usually takes place in the same universe of that show, due to Red Guy's presence and other characters from that show making occasional cameos. David Feiss, in fact, cross-populated both series as it made the work easier and he felt it was always the same universe. Despite so, I Am Weasel is occasionally presented as a TV show airing in the Cow and Chicken world, suggesting a separate continuity. The same occurs in another episode, but with the characters in the same universe.

Cow and Chicken started out as the pilot episode "No Smoking" on What a Cartoon! in 1995, and was greenlit to become a series. Cartoon Network demanded a second cartoon to join Cow and Chicken in its half-hour time slot, so David Feiss came up with I Am Weasel, loosely based upon the novel I Am Legend, one of his favorite books as a teenager. "I was doodling one day, and drew a weasel, with the title 'I Am Weasel', off of one of my favorite books as a teenager, Richard Matheson's I Am Legend. I thought against type, that instead of a weasel who was a weasel, this guy would be smart and heroic".