Animated Series about a luckless pirate and his anthropomorphic rat sidekick, Snuk. A wildly selfish jerk, Jack would probably be unsympathetic if not for the fact that he is absolutely the universe's Butt-Monkey. Imagine Bruce Campbell playing Black Adder, but as a Saturday-Morning Cartoon, and you'll have an idea of what it's like.
Produced by Saban Entertainment, written by Bill Kopp of Eek! The Cat and directed by Jeff DeGrandis, fresh off their run on Toonsylvania. Aired on Fox Kids, was canceled after a short run, and now can't really be found in reruns, as there are no DVDs (except for Romania.... strange, isn't it?) available but YouTube DOES show episodes (and in English too).
This series provides examples of:
- The Ace: Flash Dashing.
- Amazon Brigade: Flash Dashing's crew consist out of very attractive young ladies.
- Arbitrary Skepticism: After having met dragons and witches in the past, you'd think Mad Jack would know better than to claim that vampires don't exist.
- Artistic License: "Captain Snuk" episode revolves around Mad Jack and Snuk switching places in order to fool Jean Claude Deffet, a French, good-mannered pirate who vowed to kill Mad Jack after he sneezed on him a few years ago, even though Jean Claude never managed to see his face. When Jean Claude finally discovers who Mad Jack actually is, Mad Jack retorts than even though he did sneeze on him and didn't even say "Sorry", Jean Claude never said "Bless you", either. This results in Jean Claude committing suicide in shame. The problem is, according to savoir-vivre, you aren't actually supposed to say "Bless you" when someone sneezes...
- Artistic License – Chemistry: "The Alarming Snow Troll Encounter" has Jack and Snuk bring an ice cream maker to a Sultan. Once it's emptied, they find that to refill it, just add water. Unless it's actually a snow cone maker, then this wouldn't make sense as water is not an ingredient for ice cream, even ignoring that other ingredients would be needed to make it the presumed strawberry flavor it produces based on the coloring. Granted, this wouldn't have had Jack get back at the Sultan by using water from the melted Snow Trolls, bringing them back to life to eat the Sultan.
- Brain in a Jar: Forget jars, Jack has his brain along with his eyes in a mug at one moment, after they got ejected from his head because of eating wrong berries.
- Brain with a Manual Control: In the episode "Mad Jack and the Beanstalk", Mad Jack and Snuk try to steal a treasure from a giant's castle. When the giant gets knocked out, they enter his brain through his nose, and then use the control room found inside to lead the giant to the treasure.
- Bury Me Not on the Lone Prairie: Mad Jack's Uncle Mortimer wished to be buried at the Island of Hanna-Barbarian.
- Catchphrase: Mad Jack tends to say "This is the worst nightmare I ever experienced" (or a variation of it) quite often.
- Conscience Makes You Go Back: Played for Laughs as Mad Jack's conscience actually does make him go back, under the threat of making annoying sounds for a really long time.
- Cut Lex Luthor a Check: Jack and Snuk are always hurting for money and trying to obtain a treasure for this reason, however they never think (or at least are not shown to) about monetizing the things they do find such as singing sword or the coordinates to unknown island with a single known cure for deadly disease.
- The Death of Death: In "Of Zerzin, Fleebis, Queues and Cures", Mad Jack and Snuk are on a quest to find a cure for Mad Jack before he succumbs to Fleebis, and will be claimed by Dr. Death. They succeed just in time, and to get back at Dr. Death, they trick him into eating poisonous berries, killing him (which even Mr. Death himself thought was impossible).
- Due to the Dead: Mad Jack's Uncle Mortimer wished to be buried at the Island of Hanna-Barbarian.
- Eerily Out-of-Place Object: In "The Snuk, the Mad and the Ugly", Jack and Snuck come across a lavish club and casino called "The Platinum Nugget"... in the middle of a desert! Justified, as it turns out to be a hallucination... but the very end of the episode implies that "The Platinum Nugget" DOES actually exist.
- Everyone Went to School Together: The entire premise of the flashback episode.
- Expy: The Mayor of the Island of Hanna-Barbarian is one to Barney Rubble.
- Exact Time to Failure: In "Of Zerzin, Fleebis, Queues and Cures", Jack is given an exact time limit to find the cure before he succumbs to Fleebis. Somewhat justified, because said time limit is given to him by The Grim Reaper himself. Then subverted when Snuk feeds the correct berries to Jack after the time limit has passed and it still works, much to the Death's annoyance.
- Failure Is the Only Option: If Mad Jack ever gets a treasure, don't expect him to be able to keep it.
- Flat World: Takes place in one of these. At the end of the first episode Jack and Snuk fall out of it.
- The Grim Reaper: Shows up personally in "Of Zerzin, Fleebis, Queues and Cures". He looks like a lawyer or a bureaucrat (and he also asks Jack to fill various forms before his demise), though his pen extends to standard Sinister Scythe.
- Implausible Fencing Powers: Flash Dashing is able to turn Jack's sword into splinters by waving it around because of Rule of Funny.
- Instant A.I.: Just Add Water!: A far more literal example than most: not enjoying his birthday celebration at a Suck E. Cheese's, Jack decides to take his frustrations out by pouring water into one of the animatronics, causing it to short out, gain sentience, and become an obsessed killing machine.
- I Shall Taunt You: Used as part of a plan to slay a dragon. The dragon was more bemused than anything until the taunts started to go onto the subject of his mother.
- Jackass Genie: In "999 Delights" Jack steals a magic wand to access the titular delights. Each spell backfires while still following Jack's Exact Words.
- Killer Rabbit: The small teddy-like bear from "The Island of Pink and Fuzzy".
- Made of Explodium: Even the slightest mishandling of the blue gems from "The Curse Of The Blue Carbuncle", such as dropping them by the accident, will make them explode.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: One episode features a well-suited man called "Mr. D'eath". Jack remarks that his name sounds French until seeing the man upon which he realises the man is, in fact, Death.
- Negative Continuity: Mad Jack meets Snuk in the first episode for the first time ever. In a later episode all the characters went to school together.
- No Animals Were Harmed: After the first episode, the crow from Jack's former incident goes on a long demonstration how it can't be harmed due to being a cartoon character, until it gets grabbed by Vaudeville Hook.
- Non-Human Sidekick: Snuk. The crow in, well, Crow's nest from "The Terrifying Sea Witch Incident" counts as well.
- On One Condition: Mad Jack inherits a treasure from his Uncle Mortimer. However, the will stipulates that Uncle Mortimer's body and his dog must be taken to the Island of Hanna-Barbarian. The condition is fulfilled but, because Status Quo Is God, the treasure consists of a chest full of dog biscuits.
- Pirate Girl: The entire crew of Flash Dashing consists of (attractive) women.
- Race Lift: Various European merchandising and home entertainment releases of the show use (possibly Fox Kids/Jetix Europe-approved) artworks depicting Jack having noticeably lighter shade of skin
◊. - Rule of Funny: This show is from the makers of Eek! The Cat and Toonsylvania. Most of everything in this show runs on this rule.
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Short Runner: Only 13 episodes. - Schizo Tech: The main setting seems to be The Golden Age of Piracy. It also features contemporary family houses, neon signs and attraction parks with planes. Hell, during intro, Jack gets run over by a car.
- Shout-Out: There are many celebrity caricatures, a few cultural gags, and one island is even called the "Isle of Lucy".
- Snowlems: The eponymous snow trolls in "The Alarming Snow Troll Encounter".
- Suck E. Cheese's: One episode about Jack's birthday involves him going to one of these at Snuk's insistence. The only drink there is grape soda, and the only entree is pizza, much to Jack's annoyance. On top of that, the animatronics are run-down, and malfunction...hilariously, once Jack pours water into one of them for kicks.
- Sugar Bowl: In an episode, Mad Jack and Snuk go search for a treasure in The Island of Pink and Fuzzy: A place where almost everything is pink, trees are candy canes, and where flying talking pink poodles, strong peppermint smelling sprites, and horrible all-devouring teddy bears with knife-sharp teeth live. Mad Jack isn't amused.
- Sweeping Ashes: Jack is reduced to this at one moment (he gets better), and so is Count Dracula (he also gets better).
- Talking Weapon: In one episode, Jack goes in search of a Singeing Sword. Turns out, it's actually a Singing Sword...
- Trivial Title: The episode "The Treasure Of The Headless, Left-Handed, Peatmoss Salesman" starts with Mad Jack looking for the titular treasure until a cop finds out his license expired a long time ago. Mad Jack spends most of the episode at the DMMV tring to renew it so he can resume his search and, once he fails, he gives up on the treasure and gets a job at the DMMV. The treasure is merely mentioned.note
- Unexplained Recovery:
- Hilariously Lampshaded with Angus Dagnabbit, who was killed in his previous appearance:
Mad Jack: Didn't you die a while back?
Angus Dagnabbit: Aye. I got better.
Mad Jack: You were DEAD! How do you get better from being DEAD, you Scottish twit?!?!- Jack himself gets this a lot, often within the same scene. He can be reduced to pile of ash in one scene and be completely fine in the very next. At one moment he gets a brain and eyes ejected from his head and the only ill result he suffers is that he has to have them in a mug in the next scene. Rule of Funny is in full effect here.
- At the end of the first episode Jack and Snuk fall out of the world with their ship. How they're back in it during following episodes is never explained.
- Unmoving Plaid: Stereotypically Scottish Angus Dagnabbit wears such a kilt.
- Vile Villain, Laughable Lackey: Jack is a Villain Protagonist, and is generally more threatening than his dense Funny Animal first mate, Snuk.
- What Happened to the Mouse?: In the first episode, Jack had an entire crew of pirates, including an anthropomorphic crow who manned the crow's nest. Later episodes show that the captain and Snuk are the only two aboard the whole ship. What happened to his men? Died? Deserted?
- Who Even Needs a Brain?: In one of the episodes, Jack gets a deadly disease that can only be cured by eating specific berries from an island of unknown location. Once they arrive there, Jack quickly starts eating the first berries they come across as soon as Snuk reads from the medical book that it should be these ones. However, as Snuk reads further into the book, it turns out that these particular berries actually cause the eater's eyes and brain to explode. Cue Jack spitting all the berries immediately, but still having both his brain and his eyes literally shoot out of his head. In the next scene, he holds both in a mug filled with water, but is otherwise fine.
- Worthless Treasure Twist: Most of treasures Jack does obtain is either worthless (such as dog treats in "Uncle Mortimer"), worthless and cursed (carrots in "The Island of Pink and Fuzzy"), priceless but dangerous (blue gems in "The Curse Of The Blue Carbuncle") or outright detrimental (titular "999 Delights").
