Rascal the Raccoon

Rascal the Raccoon
Screenshot of the opening logo of Araiguma Rascal
あらいぐまラスカル (Araiguma Rasukaru)
Genre	Drama
Anime television series
Directed by	Hiroshi Saitô and Seiji Endô (1-29) Shigeo Koshi (30-52)
Music by	Takeo Watanabe
Studio	Nippon Animation
Original network	Fuji TV
Original run	2 January 1977 – 25 December 1977
Episodes	52

Rascal the Raccoon (あらいぐまラスカル, Araiguma Rasukaru^?) is a Japanese anime series by Nippon Animation. It is based on the 1963 autobiographical novel Rascal, A Memoir of a Better Era by Sterling North.

The series uses two pieces of theme music for the opening theme and the ending theme. The opening theme song is called "Rock River e" (ロックリバーヘ, Rokku Ribâ e^?, lit. "To Rock River"), and the ending theme is "Oide Rascal" (おいでラスカル, Oide Rasukaru^?, lit. "Rascal Come"), both sung by the Japanese vocalist by Kumiko Oosugi. The opening theme was later used as the main gameplay theme for the 1981 arcade game Frogger. The show's music was composed by Takeo Watanabe, who worked on many anime of the 1970s and 80s.

In Japan, up to 1,500 raccoons were imported as pets each year after the success of Rascal the Raccoon (1977). In 2004, the descendants of discarded or escaped animals lived in 42 of 47 prefectures and then to all 47 prefectures by 2008. It has been claimed that Rascal was actually more popular than Mickey Mouse in Japan.