TV REVIEW : ‘Critters’: ABC Has Built Itself a Better Mousetrap

Bill Hanna and Joe Barbera proved with “The Flintstones” and “The Jetsons” in the 1960s that a prime-time cartoon series could entertain both children and adults by parodying contemporary manners.

And now, following the successful lead of that outrageously funny and satirical Fox animated series “The Simpsons,” comes “Capitol Critters,” a Hanna-Barbera/Steven Bochco collaboration whose conventional-looking cartoon characters unconventionally spoof the federal government and comment on issues ranging from arms control to racism.

Although visually resembling a low-end spinoff from Saturday mornings, “Capitol Critters” is funny, smart and sophisticated. And, on more than one occasion, just a little bit dark.

ABC is giving it a triple push this week, starting with tonight’s premiere at 8:30 on Channels 7, 3, 10 and 42. A second episode airs at 8:30 p.m. Friday and a third in the program’s regular time slot at 8 p.m. Saturday.

The first episode introduces naive, earnest Max (the voice of “Doogie Howser” star Neil Patrick Harris), an orphaned Midwestern mouse who takes up residence with other rodents in the warrens beneath the White House. His main companions there are the sewer-tough teen-age rat, Jammet (Charles Adler); the brain-fried escaped laboratory rat, Muggle (Bob Goldthwait); Max’s ‘60s-style activist cousin, Berkeley (Jennifer Darling), and Jammet’s hardened mom, Trixi (Patti Deutsch).

In the first several episodes, executive producer/writer Nat Mauldin uses this subterranean subculture to explore political corruption (a senator on the take), the arms race (Jammet plots to shoot the presidential cat that ate his mouse pal) and gang violence. The latter is especially pointed, as the rodents nervously guard their turf and compete for White House garbage and leftovers with those “six-legged, germ-infested low-life” bums that they despise and belittle.

Yes, roaches. One named Moze (Dorian Harewood) befriends Max, and the two of them become peacemakers in this rodent-roach warfare.

Some of this is very clever (a Yiddish-talking roach complains to his brassy wife: “Toilet, shmoilet, every time we go in there someone turns on the lights and we run away”). Some of it (including a bumbling vice presidential cat that conforms to the dullard stereotype of Vice President Dan Quayle) is a little worn.

Much of it is humor with a somber undertone, typified by the squiggly voiced Goldthwait’s amusing vocalizations that strike a poignant note with Muggle, who remains confused and disoriented because of the drugs used on him in the laboratory.

Perhaps more than anything, “Capitol Critters” joins “The Simpsons” in affirming animation’s potential to entertain on more than one level. Creatively, it’s a high level.