“Animation, there’s something so wonderful about a cartoon, you can just sit there with your child and laugh like crazy,” Robin Williams once remarked, “Especially the old Warner Bros. cartoons! And that’s what Aladdin was, it was basically a Warner Bros. cartoon in Disney drag.” Pixar’s new film Hoppers is something similar—a late 2000s/2010s Cartoon Network project in Pixar drag.

That’s no surprise since this project hails from director Daniel Chong (also snagging a co-story credit here), the creator of Cartoon Network’s hit program We Bare Bears. It’s also not a complaint. Far from it. Recent Pixar films like Elemental and Elio felt too beholden to rigid narrative structures and “respectability”. While it still has heart, Hoppers is a much zanier enterprise than typical, more interested in amusing visuals and absurdism than Joseph Campbell.

Nineteen-year-old Mabel Tanaka (Piper Curda) loves two things: nature and, since her grandmother’s death, doing things on her own. Convinced she needs no one’s help, she takes on Mayor Jerry (Jon Hamm) and his plans to build a highway through a glade. Unfortunately, a sudden dearth of animals in the area has greatly undermined her efforts.

When a group of professors, led by Dr. Samantha Faifax (Kathy Najimy), unveils a kooky new way to observe nature, Mabel sees an opportunity. Why observe nature when she can become part of it? How? As Nathan Fielder might say, “The plan? Transport human brains into a robotic beaver.” So begins a wacky odyssey that teams her with the kindhearted, community-centered beaver King George (Bobby Moynihan) to bring the critters back into the ecosystem.

One of the greatest losses in American animation’s shift from 2D to CG animation is the abandonment of tiny black dots for eyes. CG requires omnipresent detail and “realism”. Thus, every character now has richly detailed pupils. It’s so cute, though, when 2D projects cut to wide shots where characters have these amusingly simple circles on their faces. There’s something so inherently comedic and endearing about those kinds of eyes. Hoppers rapidly gets on my good side here, bucking CGI standards to re-embrace that classical visual approach. Even better, it is functional, indicating when the film shows the animals through human eyes.

That’s one of many imagery-based joys scattered throughout Hoppers. Equally thrilling are the painterly backgrounds. When Mabel’s in her human form, the glade’s various trees and backdrops evoke watercolors. They contrast sharply with Beaverton, the human-dominated city Mabel calls home. That difference gives the natural world a deeply inviting flavor.

On the flipside, Chong and the animation team’s creativity in absurdly contorting characters into new positions or poses never ceases to inspire giggles. Mabel temporarily turning King George into a Geiger counter/metal detector is a vivid example of this. Ditto a random, standard-looking deer suddenly looking like a gargoyle when she mimics an off-putting noise. The Marvelous Misadventures of Flapjack and Adventure Time’s visual versatility is alive and well here.

These attributes serve a script by Pixar veteran Jesse Andrews that entertainingly keeps cranking up the absurdity. That’s especially true once many of these animals get their Furry Vengeance on and decide to “squish” Mayor Jerry. The silliness keeps on effectively escalating, taking this unhinged world to new heights of weirdness. Juxtaposing everyday reality, like a college campus or an environmentally conscious teenager, with unabashed surrealness especially echoes the era of Cartoon Network that birthed We Bare Bears.

Embracing that dissonance in Hoppers produces hysterical results. Unlike Cartoon Network shorts, though, Hoppers runs 105 minutes. Happily, the non-stop zaniness doesn’t become exhausting or irritating. The constantly inventive nature of the gags certainly helps in that regard.

The length, though, does allow Hoppers to embrace a level of pathos that the average Chowder or Regular Show installment cannot. For instance, an effective opening montage poignantly captures the bond between Mabel and her grandmother as they share in activities that show their love of the environment. Chong and Andrews even execute a touching finale without undercutting all the absurdist charms.

Once she gets into the robot beaver body, though, the heart-to-hearts have a more inconsistent track record. Some remain quite moving, especially those utilizing Curda and Moynihan’s excellently affecting voice-over performances. Still, some of the more didactic moments from them had me wishing we could speed right back to the animal kingdom quirkiness.

And it wouldn’t all have to be yuks either. Some more screentime with non-king/queen animal characters could’ve further upped the personal stakes of Mabel’s mission. Plus, it would mean more time for delightful supporting players like grizzly bear Ellen (Melissa Villaseñor) and Tom Lizard (Tom Law).

The human-based Hoppers scenes set far away from the woods deploy more standard Pixar animation choices, including familiar character designs and constant use of shallow depth of field. It all looks competent, but it speaks to how, even in this wacky endeavor, Pixar refuses to abandon its go-to visual touchstones.

Nonetheless, this kooky voyage into the animal kingdom nicely stands apart from its Pixar brethren. It’s no Hundreds of Beavers, but Hoppers still plays like the hilariously caffeinated offspring of The Wild Robot and Teen Titans Go!. What a sublime win for this late 2000s/2010s Cartoon Network project in Pixar drag.

Hoppers is now building dams and other woodland homes in theaters everywhere.

Hoppers Trailer: