Animaniacs, the wild, more excitable step-cousin of Tiny Toon Adventures, debuted September of 1993 on Fox Kids. Almost immediately, it became a hit, only losing out to the insatiable Mighty Morphin Power Rangers in the ratings. The animated variety/sketch show proved popular with viewers young and old, a development that would eventually prove to be a problem. But during its original 65-episode launch (a common initial buy for early ’90s animated kids programs), it could hardly be matched by any other animated kids show out there.
Steven Spielberg’s oversight and stamp of approval, as well as an array of creative talent like Tom Ruegger, Paul Rugg, Sherri Stoner, Andrea Romano, and Pete Hastings, ensured that bold, specific voices were allowed a freedom and looseness in the show’s animated sketches. The premise was relatively complex: Three “toons” created in the 1930s, who ostensibly came to life and wreaked havoc on the actual Warner Bros. set (as well as starred in nonsensical cartoons), are locked the Warner Bros.’ studio water tower. In 1993, they “escape.” And so the Warner siblings’ escapades are drawn into or around various stories, skits, and musical numbers, which include a large cast of animated secondaries.
The show’s influences are numerous. The designs of the siblings may have been based on 1930s-era cartoons, but the personalities were based on Ruegger’s own three sons. The characters of Pinky and the Brain were based on two people Ruegger worked with on Tiny Toon Adventures. Slappy Squirrel was based on a comment made about Sherri Stoner, the character’s creator, acting like a teenager well into old age, while still having keen insight on other cartoon characters and gags. Other characters and stories were often based on staff members’ children or experiences, and classic cartoons and movies. The creative team was given quite a bit of freedom, and had a budget to match its ambitions. Multiple studios were chosen to animate the skits (including TMS, Wang, Startoons, and AKOM), with a higher cel count than most cartoons at the time, and an approximate 30-piece orchestra to score it (the exact amount is in dispute).
With that kind of backing, Animaniacs wasn’t afraid to push boundaries, delving even further than Tiny Toon Adventures into trickier, more esoteric content to mine for comedy. Material that was usually off-limits or treated with a broad brush was now fair game. Spielberg himself described the show’s irreverence in a 1995 issue of TV Guide: “We have a point of view. We don’t sit back passively and play both sides equally. We give our writers a lot of leeway to express themselves.” He felt Animaniacs was “safe” but not “benign.” “It’s full of social sarcasm and it has a real edge, but I think it’s a safe edge.”
When people speak of Animaniacs today, they often marvel over how much the show got away with; according to Spielberg, this was intentional. “I think cartoons should make people laugh, but they should also make people stop and say, ‘Wow, did I hear that in a cartoon? Did I hear that little bit of social commentary in a cartoon?’ What a forum. In a sense, you know, Animaniacs really owes a lot to the Marx Brothers and that kind of social irreverence. We get very opinionated and sometimes even political. And then we get on our knees and apologize to everybody for being that way.”
Spielberg’s comment may have been tongue-in-cheek, but it also plays into the kind of criticisms that could be tossed at the show. For all its comedic freedoms, it also can be too esoteric and “entertainment insider-y,” with whole gags and skits requiring specific knowledge of actors, media, politics, or social behavior. Television and film has been producing deep, purposely self-aware material from the beginning, but Animaniacs’ philosophy could be aggressive, hyper-comic satire on almost every aspect of entertainment from throughout its history. Parodies and celebrity putdowns were one thing, but the show’s deep well of jokes even hit radio, social/cultural commentary, fan culture, and the production of the media itself.
There’s value in Animaniacs “safe edge” provocation. It’s a show that rewards repeat viewings, its rapid-fire references getting under your skin or tucked away in your memory to surprise you years later when you finally understand them. But it also raises a question of who’s given a platform to make such provocations. A safe edge is still an edge, and while some of those points of views can be sharp and clever, others can come across as esoteric, dated, or just plain mean-spirited. Here are 10 episodes that demonstrate how Animaniacs’ approach can work brilliantly–and how it can fall flat.
Note: For the sake of clarity, the season/episode number matches how it’s listed on Hulu.
1. “Yakko’s World/Cookies For Einstein/Win Big” (season one, episode two)
The Warner siblings work best when they’re portrayed as genuine, hyperactive children whose youthful exuberance extends hilariously into cartoon magic; here, it looks and feels like Yakko one day came up with all these national, rhythmic connections and could not wait to perform them (fun fact: Rob Paulsen did the entire song in a single take!). This energy follows through to “Cookies For Einstein,” in which the Warners constantly interrupt the scientist to try and make him buy his cookies. It all ends with an oddly heartwarming moment where the Warners end up inspiring Einstein’s energy-mass formula. The final segment, “Win Big,” introduces Pinky and the Brain, arguably the show’s best, richest, most consistent segment. Brain’s blunt, sardonic brilliance contrasts hilariously with Pinky’s abject, wacky idiocy, but neither gets far on their own. Add to that their outlandish world-conquering plan, and you have the perfect recipe for sustainability. (The pair would net itself a spin-off, which debuted in prime time.)
2. “Hercule Yakko/Home On De-Nile/A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (season one, episode 25)
The episode that revealed that “fingerprints” could be the grossest double entendre ever, “Hercule Yakko” features a slew of secondary characters along with the main trio. They don’t really do much individually, but they do open the floodgates to mixing up the various characters in new, random ways, bringing life to weaker characters like the Hippos. The episode itself is plenty funny and ridiculous, even if it steps away from the “siblings as kids” concept and uses the “siblings as aggressive protagonists” formula instead. “Home On De-Nile” exposes the flaws in the pairing of Rita and Runt, Bernadette Peters’ musical theater chops notwithstanding. It was an experiment that didn’t last, as Animaniacs dropped Rita and Runt after the initial run. “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” is a funny, basic bit, with Dot “translating” Yakko’s reading of Shakespeare, and Wakko causing mischief in the background. It skirts the line between cute, cartoony, and self-aware, but once more, the animation elevates it all.
3. “Testimonials/Babblin’ Bijou/Potty Emergency/Sir Yaksalot” (season one, episode 26)
“Babblin’ Bijou/Potty Emergency/Sir Yaksalot” might be the closest that Animaniacs gets to some kind of thesis statement, capturing the essence of the Warner siblings and the humor they embody. Each skit is buttressed by short, odd testimonials of various classic 1950s actors and producers waxing nostalgic about the Warners and their encounters with Hollywood elites. It’s nonsense, but the commitment to the bit is great, with a running gag about how Yakko and Milton Berle hated each other; this never pays off, which is somehow even funnier. “Babblin’ Bijou” allows viewers to actually see what a Warner cartoon from the 1930s looked like, while “Potty Emergency” positions itself as a spiritual sequel of sorts to “Babblin’ Bijou,” with Wakko’s frantic desperation to find a place to potty escalating in incredible, hilarious ways and ending in just as weird and off-putting a manner (Wakko is the secret weapon of the show, which becomes more obvious later). “Sir Yaksalot” sneaks in some wonderful “artist” interference gags, similar to “Duck Amuck” (something the show hadn’t riffed on it up until this point), and brings in secondary characters to stick the ending, showing that mixing up the cast still yields dividends. Animaniacs’ meta-ness could sometimes be too much, but here it actually helps the segments cohere.
4. “Very Special Opening/In The Garden Of Mindy/No Place Like Homeless/Katie Ka-Boo/Baghdad Cafe” (season one, episode 35)
The occasional cameo in an Animaniacs cartoon can, and often does, pay off, letting more lackluster characters shine where they often struggled in their own milieu. In this season-one episode, Animaniacs pushes that idea to the limit, producing unique and often hilarious pairings. With the runner of the Warner siblings using various cartoony means to mix things up, we see duos like Mindy and the Brain, or Runt with Pesto from the Goodfeathers. Placing characters outside their comfort zones, so to speak, generates a new comic element while exposing the absurdity of each specific bit. Mindy’s mom and her complaints about Buttons become pointless nattering when directed at the Brain; Rita eats Pinky in a bit that lasts less than a minute. Slappy replaces Dot in a segment that sees the Warners unload their absurdity onto a Saddam Hussein caricature (an especially provocative bit), allowing the octogenarian rodent to question how Dot’s tics and catchphrases even work outside of the Warner sister’s characterization. It’s a clever way to showcase what does and doesn’t work within the cast, and where their potential truly lies.
5. “Critical Condition/The Three Muska-Warners” (season two, episode one)
Slappy Squirrel may be the trickiest character of the bunch, especially when viewed in hindsight. On paper, she’s an old cartoon squirrel who’s worked in the cartoon industry for so long that she knows darn near every comedy bit and every other cartoon character. In practice, however, she mostly executes genuinely funny gags but cynically comments on them at the same time, often ruining them. She knows they’re coming, we know they’re coming, she knows we know they’re coming. At their worst, these bits are not-so-clever observations about how good cartoon jokes work and more circle-jerking on being smarter than the jokes themselves. “Critical Condition” is the most excessive example: It pits Slappy against two Siskel and Ebert parodies, in an episode that doesn’t bother to be that observant. It mostly has Slappy blowing them up with explosives over and over again after the two critics give her old shorts bad reviews. It never quite snaps into place joke-wise; it’s just “hurt these mean ol’ critics,” and it falls flat. “The Three Muska-Warners” is a good comeback, if only because it commits wholeheartedly to a really dumb, classic joke and actually pulls away from any particular reference to the Alexandre Dumas story. It’s just a short bit of fun in a classic literary sandbox, something the show returned to time and again.
6. “Ups And Downs/The Brave Little Trailer/Yes, Always” (season two, episode 17)
Breaking the formula of an Animaniacs episode is somewhat unremarkable, as breaking formulas is intrinsic to the show. However, “Ups And Downs/The Brave Little Trailer/Yes, Always” pulls back from the show’s general tendency to stretch its meta-sketch energy, with three shorts outside its nebulous norm. “Ups and Downs” exposes the creative limits of the writers, but it’s also hilarious. Wakko really was the secret weapon of the Warners; he doesn’t indulge in winking self-awareness as much as his siblings, mostly responding to the energy around him in an id-like fashion. The episode’s Brave Little Toaster parody is an example of Animaniacs’ occasional one-offs, which were typically weak. This one’s a bit more charming, boosted by the animation from TMS. The third skit, with Pinky and the Brain, is an absolute banger, capturing how Animaniacs could thread the needle between obscure references and comical executions. The pre-internet world of the mid-’90s meant that only a select few would recognize it as a parody of an infamous Orson Welles breakdown, which only doubles the comic layers.
7. “The Warners 65th Anniversary Special” (season two, episode 30)
Continuity is not a central concern in a show like Animaniacs, but what main ideas it did have all coalesced into this send-up of awards shows and celebrations. If “Babblin’ Bijou/Potty Emergency/Sir Yaksalot” is Animaniacs’ thesis, then “The Warners 65th Anniversary Special” is its culmination, using a celebratory retrospective to tell a fake history of the siblings’ cartoons, complete with talking heads (from famous actors, producers, and actual Looney Tunes characters), reenactments, and “real” clips from fake classic black-and-white cartoons. It’s filled with great little touches. We see Weed Menlo, finally, who throughout the series is mentioned as the Warners’ first director, and learn how the Warners were created. We even get to see the weird yet warm relationship between the siblings and Dr. Scratchansniff, their unconventional father figure. “The Warners 65th Anniversary Special” blends all of the show’s best impulses (film history, well-executed slapstick, winking satire of award showcases) while avoiding its worst (the foray into real historical moments is handled with a light touch). Wakko steals the show, and even the requisite plot—a vengeful former co-star planning to blow up the Warners—doesn’t get in the way. Viewed as a season finale, “The Warners 65th Anniversary Special” is executed in fine form.
8. “A Hard Day’s Warner/Gimme A Break/Please Please Please Get A Life Foundation” (season three, episode four)
After the move to WB Kids, Animaniacs set its sights on network censors, contemporary shows about “nothing” (particularly Friends and Seinfeld), and the perceived emptiness of educational/earnest cartoons. It also went after its own fan base, whose obsession during the burgeoning days of the internet was ripe for (lazy) mockery. “A Hard Day’s Warner” has all the elements in one short, chaotic skit, with the siblings running from throngs of fans in a parody of A Hard Day’s Night, but it hits a bit deeper as the chase travels through a cartoon convention, digging at an obsessive fan base, a critical press, and censorship. “Gimme A Break” features a Slappy who’s been noticeably pulled back from her earlier incarnation, who now feels more like a “real” exhausted former cartoon star instead of a joke-for-joke’s-sake writers’ mouthpiece. And if “A Hard Day’s Warner” was too vague, “Please Please Please Get A Life Foundation” straight up ridicules the show’s most passionate admirers, placing them in an institution where they can be cured of their said obsession, mostly by hitting them with mallets. The slapstick is funny as always, but the target’s too easy. Animaniacs’ WB Kids output was still hilarious, but you can see the beginnings of base-level, Family Guy “describe the joke as you do the joke” bits, structured around “this person/show sucks” and “reference as gag” humor.
9. “Cutie And The Beast/Boo Happens/Noel” (season four, episode two)
By season four, Animaniacs had established three basic portrayals of the Warner siblings: young, clueless kids whose individual goals trigger a hyperactive cartoonish assault on anyone standing in their way; smarmy teens all too aware of their capabilities; and self-aware, slightly arrogant “toon actor” siblings who don’t really have stakes in the cartoon they’re acting in but do it anyway. Each portrayal has its pros and cons, and it usually depends on the writer and director whether or not it ultimately works. “Cutie And The Beast” mixes all three portrayals into something that also exemplifies the show’s strengths and weaknesses. Animaniacs’ imperative to foremost make viewers laugh is evident, but applied inconsistently and, at times, hypocritically. (It’s one thing to “hit back” at those forces that may arrogantly try to define what makes good comedy—Jerry Lewis is a prime target—but the bit also thinks of itself as the correct approach to how cartoons should work.) And if you squint during “Boo Happens” and “Noel,” you can see the very, very early nonsensical, absurdist comedy that would come to fruition in shows like Billy & Mandy, Flapjack, and even Teen Titans Go!
10. “Message In A Bottle/Back In Style/Bones In The Body” (season five, episode one)
Animaniacs’ zeal and relevance was really winding down in its final season. By 1997, the Warners lacked snap, and citing more contemporary shows did nothing to bolster the humor. But “Message In A Bottle/Back In Style/Bones In The Body” is a late-period highlight. “Message In A Bottle” is a simple cold opener. “Bones In The Body” tries to put a musical spin on the “Dem Bones” song, but is a throwaway skit, padded to kill time. “Back In Style” redeems the episode: Similar to “The Warners 65th Anniversary Special,” it sees the siblings loaned out to a variety of animation studios, letting the writers poke fun at the limited animated TV programs from the 1950s through the ’70s. The reach of the shows parodied is impressive. Sure, they do the obvious ones like Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo, but they also get at Underdog, Pink Panther, and Fat Albert, while also showing caricatures of creators like Friz Freleng and Chuck Jones. The broad jokes toward that era of animation were nothing new in 1997, but the visuals and funky narratives were effective, and even the Warners themselves are unable throw off these classic animated worlds. The bit still dips into lazy humor at times (the Fat Albert kids talk very explicitly about how limited they are in animation), but overall, it stays on the right side of mean. The loan-out documentary format adds some historical winking cleverness as well. Even at this point, when the show had a target in its sights that it really grasped, it went all out.
103 Comments
NARF!
I love the fact that Brain needs Pinky even though he’s a complete idiot. Sometimes you need idiot friends, even if they hinder your attempts to take over the world.
And of course, the increasingly popular interpretation that “One is a genius, the other’s insane” isn’t referring to the characters you’d think. Who’s more insane, the mad scientist who wants to conquer the world no matter how many times it’s clear it’s never going to happen, or the simple-minded guy who’s perfectly happy with his life no matter what?
Never Forget: The one time Pinky had a plan it worked up until Brain butted in and ruined the whole thing.
There’s also the Christmas episode where the plan works but Brain is so overcome by the Christmas spirit in Pinky’s letter to Santa (“…P.S. By any chance, do you have in that big old bag of yours… the world?”) that he uses his mind control device to wish everyone a merry Christmas. Honestly, it makes me tear up.
I remember Maurice LeMarche saying the whole point was that The Brain loved Pinkie, but was too neurotic to admit it.I also remember Rob Paulsen given LeMarche the fish-eye over that interpretation.
The twist in the PatB Christmas episode…Niagra Falls.
POIT!
“Safe edge” is a great studio note.
I think so Brain, but where are we going to find rubber pants in our size?
I think so Brain, but I can’t memorize a whole opera in Yiddish.
I think so, Brain, but if they called them Sad Meals no one would buy them.
I think so, Brain, but where are we going to find a tattoo parlor at this time of night?
Stupid thing: back in the yonder-days of the Internet, Cracked had an AOL presence, and would make Letterman-style top 10 lists with user submissions. I used the Sad Meals line for one and won a prize pack from it.
I fink so Bwain but…don’t you need a pool to play watah-pohloh?
I think so, Brain — but why could Clint Eastwood do a musical?
I think so, Brain, but… burlap chafes me so.
I think so Brain, but why would anyone want to pierce Brosnan?
I think so Brain, but me and Pippi Longstockings? What would the children look like?
I think so, Brain, but I prefer Space Jelly.
So I met a woman in November 1993 and we hit it off rather quickly. I’d been recording Animaniacs each day on the VCR and watching after work. I told her about it and she was excited to finally see it. So she came over one day and I played that day’s episode for her, sight unseen. Turns out it was the one with all the character pairing mixed up, like Mindy and the Brain, and for someone who’d never seen it before, it made even less sense than usual. Fortunately she gave it another chance and it became “our show” to the point (poit?) that it was the theme of our wedding, which we still believe to be the world first and only Animaniacs-themed wedding to date. We managed to get recordings from the cast in character to play at our wedding. Pinky and the Brain’s advice to a lasting relationship was separate bathroom. The flower girl walked down the aisle to Dot Warner singing “I’m Cute.”
Rob Paulsen regularly does AV Club interviews. Somebody should ask him if he remembers recording those for you and your wife.
I’m pretty sure he would remember. I managed to contact him before my tenth anniversary and I was able to surprise my wife with a recording from him in character. Then a good friend of mine managed to reach Jess Harnell and got him to secretly record something for us as well. Then at what I believe may have been a recording of Rob’s old podcast at a small theater at Universal Studios City Walk with the entire cast in attendance, I brought a few pictures from our wedding album (there were a few touches like Yakko, Wakko and Dot dolls in the centerpieces) and Tress MacNeille remembered everything clearly. She was thrilled to see how things had worked out. They were disappointed that neither of our kids were named after them or the Warners, but I was able to save that by telling them we onlt had two kids and didn’t want one of them to feel left out. I’ve also encountered Maurice LaMarche a number of times and when he begins to get the sense of recognition, I remind him that I’m the guy who had the Animaniacs-themed wedding, and my kids are the ones who knew who Pinky and the Brain were long before they knew who Mickey Mouse was, because I’m a good parent!
That’s really awesome and heartwarming.
Tom Minton wrote “Back In Style” and he had previously worked for some of the studios he was skewering in that cartoon. If you’re an animation buff it’s a very enjoyable episode because it gets specific on a level few satires of the industry do.
“65th Anniversary Special” is the 65th episode of Season One (hence the double meaning in the title), not the 30th episode of Season Two.
I forgot how funny that Fat Albert parody is, with the laugh track and the repetition of long, relatively static character shots.
On Hulu it’s listed as the 30th episode of Season Two even though you’re 100% right. The note above in the piece is meant to clarify that.
Yeah, I looked up the Fat Albert parody and youtube and damn that was funny. Especially the digs at Filmation.
No, Kevin, fingerprints.
I love the King Yakko episode. If there’s one thing this particular episode taught me, it’s that who needs to take a sedative when you can fall asleep listening to Perry Coma sing the national anthem of Anvilania.
Polka dot?
Again?
Because this was also beyond the scope of this piece, here’s a DEFINITIVE review of all the skits this show has offered:The Warner siblings: they could be amazing or pretty annoying, although generally they’re great. Everyone says their favorite is Yakko but Wakko is clearly the best one of the batch (he has the most solo episodes of them all). Dot is fine, but they kind of overplay her “I’m cute” angle. Which, to be the fair, the show ultimately acknowledges is overplayed as well.Pinky and the Brain: The strongest and most sustainable skit of the run. Absolutely worthy of its spinoff.Slappy/Skippy Squirrel: The most shakiest of the batch. Slappy is great on paper but she ends up complaining too much about cartooning in general that it ruins jokes instead of elevating them. She’s absolutely would be the kind of character to complain about “the CalArts style”.Rita/Runt: Really, the issue with them is they usually have the worst animation and really terrible songs. This premise is in inherently not all that funny, so it needed to be a showcase of visual/musical talent, and it pretty much failed in every respect.Mindy/Buttons: A friend mentioned that this skit is really just a variation of the Coyote/Roadrunner cartoon. I don’t quite buy it. It never justifies putting Button through the ringer in his earnest attempts to protect Mindy, and only on occasion does it abuse Buttons in a cartoony way that works for the premise. This also mostly falls flat.The Hip Hippos: This is like the final skit of SNL – mostly a weird, too silly to even comment on bit that fails but also still manages to be watchable. The Hippos’ cluelessness in the face of everything that occurs is the saving grace for it.The Goodfeathers: surprisingly underrated? It’s like The Three Stooges, in that they’re clearly three numskulls who get abused because of how pathetic they are, but their false mafioso demeanor manages to elevate their idiocy. Not every skit works, but they’re hilariously more than just a Godfather knockoff.Katie Kaboom: I used to love this as a kid but now? It’s just feels like a bunch of yuppie parents ranting about their teenage girl they don’t bother to understand. The animation on these are usually also really bad.Minerva Mink: Um… no comment.Chicken Boo: This shouldn’t work, and really, it doesn’t. But the brevity of these skits save it. The build up is kind of hit or moss, depending on the premise, but the post-revelation stuff is great, if because of how INSANE everyone overreacts to finding out Boo is a chicken.
I’m putting Chicken Boo up there as a strong dark-horse third place. It’s just too sublimely stupid, and also blessedly short as you mentioned.
For the life of me, I cannot tell you why Chicken Boo works. Yet it makes me laugh every time. Best description I can muster is that they commit to the bit. Everyone genuinely can’t tell he’s a giant chicken even though he’s obviously a giant chicken.
There are two things from Animaniacs that come into my head regularly:1. The Chicken Boo theme song2. Pinky and the Brain’s “War of the Worlds” parody, specifically Brain’s line, “It’s not a matter of size, Pinky… But of scale!”
How did I forget the gem that is Pinky and the Brain, brain, brain, brain…have the theme stuck in my head. Gee Brain, what do you want to do tonight…
Pinky, Are You Pondering What I’m Pondering?
I think so Brain, but where are we gonna get a duck and a hose at this hour?
(AYPWIP’s were the best!)
And thus it is time to ask the eternal question: Which one is the genius and which one is insane?
Didn’t Pinky once prove to The Brain that actually the failure of all their crackbrained schemes for Global Domination was The Brain’s fault?Or was it Larry’s…?
Possibly. I can’t remember. There’s a good chance I was stoned when I saw that episode.
Chicken Boo is great absurdist humor.
Chicken Boo is brilliant because it has the good sense to never last more than three minutes (usually less.) It only has one joke, everyone knows that joke is coming from the first frame, but the joke is so stupid, and done so efficiently, that you end up loving it.As opposed to, say, Mindy and Buttons, which also one has one joke but the setup goes on for eleven fucking minutes.
Absolutely.
There’s one Chicken Boo that’s about 45-60 seconds longer than the norm and it absolutely ruins the absurd comedy of it. The rest of them have the perfect length.
Chicken Boo is a blank canvas upon which the other characters project their hidden fears and deepest desires, successively idolizing and absorbing him. For the viewers his vacant stare and plaintive squawks echo our existence wherein we try to present a blank, assured facade while living in fear of it being revealed that we’ve been making it all up as we go along. Chicken Boo speaks to a postmodern angst about authenticity in social roles and what it is to be an imposter. Plus the theme song is pretty catchy.
‘Abhore’ not ‘absorb’. Stupid autocorrect.
I read this in Werner Herzog’s voice.
Chicken Boo remains amazing because — when talking about censors and the inanity therein — the fact that the punchline to every CB skit is (because male chicken == rooster == well, you know) is:“He’s a giant cock!”It’s a modern interpretation of cutting away from a sex scene and driving that train through the tunnel…But agreed on Wakko being the best (other than Yakko’s songs). I still, well into middle-age, bust out “It’s a potty emergency…” in a Wakko-impression from time to time…
Do the Good Idea/Bad Idea skits count? If so I’d put them at #3 after the Warners and our favorite lab mice.Also, Goodfeather was the worst. I would turn off the TV and get a snack whenever they come on.
The evolution of Mr. Skullhead from Elmyra’s imagination on Tiny Toons to the Good Idea/Bad Idea segments on Animaniacs came out of left field.
I will make the case for Rita and Runt: Les Miseranimals was, especially to a theatre kid, absolutely genius.
Slappy Squirrel was mostly not good, but the exchange that she had with Skippy when the 2 of them wound up at Woodstock about “Who’s on stage?” “Yes!” “Yes is on stage?” “No, Yes isn’t even at this concert!” is A+ caliber homage/hilarity.I’m sorry, I cannot support any ranking that doesn’t have Buttons dead last. That was a mean-spirited, cruel, completely unfunny skit in every way. Wile E. Coyote CAUSES his slapstick mishaps, often in exactly the fashion that he intended for them to occur to Road Runner. Buttons, by contrast, is merely trying to help, and Mindy is loathsome. It’s awful.
ALL.OF THE THINGS YOU SAID ABOUT BUTTONS AND MINDYSo loathsome.
I agree with all of these other than slappy squirrel, which is my top 3 after the sibs and pinky and the brain. Boy, I did not … Like over half of the shows material.
Thoughts on the sketches that aren’t coming back for the reboot:
Rita
and Runt has its moments (Bernadette Peters elevates every scene she’s
in just by being Bernadette Peters) but mostly suffered from feeling
completely out of place. Its story of a homeless cat and dog looking for
a home feels more like the setup for a Don Bluth movie than the premise
for a recurring comedy sketch. It gives the characters a sympathetic
goal that they can never achieve, which gives the whole thing an
undercurrent of sadness (as opposed to say, Pinky and the Brain, whose
goal is so ridiculous that the inevitability of their failure makes
everything in their segments funnier.) It just feels like it belongs in a
different show.Buttons and Mindy was the worst sketch
on the show for my money. It’s just the same set of gags every time,
with the weirdly mean punchline of Buttons getting yelled at after
risking his life to save Mindy. It won’t be missed.Minerva
Mink’s sketches never seemed to have a point to them beyond “some of
our animators are horny furries.” But hey, if their goal was to make a
lasting contribution to the field of horny furrydom, it’s hard to argue
that they didn’t succeed.Slappy Squirrel is the one cut
sketch I wish they’d consider bringing back. While her stuff could be
very hit or miss, she was hilarious once the writers finally figured out
the proper angle: having her be the walking embodiment of being Too Old
For This Shit (and putting her in a double act with Skippy, the avatar
of Too Young To Know Better.) Here’s hoping they change their minds on
this one.
Buttons and Mindy is part of the same style of comedy as the Roger Rabbit and Baby Herman cartoons, only without the postmodern twist of it all being a cartoon so we see what Roger, Herman and Jessica are like off-camera. I wonder if you wouldn’t have liked it better if they’d gone there — after Spielberg talked his protégé Robert Zemeckis into not suing!I utterly forgot about Minerva Mink — and after watching “Meet Minerva Mink” on YouTube, I have no idea what the point to it was…besides “some of our animators are horny furries.” WTF? I could never decide what Slappy Squirrel was trying to do — sometimes she was a love letter to Golden Age Hollywood comedy (like their redo of Abbott & Costello’s “Who’s On First?” using rock group names, which I first heard Dick van Patten do with one of the kids playing his son on EIGHT IS ENOUGH), while other times she is, as you said, a cranky Grandma/Great-Aunt type who’s Too Old For This Shit.Rita and Runt — you’re right, it would be funnier if they weren’t cute. I once wrote this sketch about a pair of sunglasses-wearing hyenas, Jack and Christian, both doing Jack Nicholson impersonations while they try to scam people into feeding them. That would have been funny because of the incongruity of Jack Nicholson and Christan Slater trying to be adorable! (I thought so, anyway.)Goodfeathers only works on any level when the audience is aware of Scorsese’s and Coppola’s body of work. That sounds like one they did “For Steve”, since Spielberg was friends with both.
So what’ll it be — Yakko, Wakko and Dot, and Pinky and the Brain? Because that pretty much sounds like it, unless they reach back into Looney Tunes IP to grab Sylvester & Tweety, or go back to the Freakazoid! well — which I found too self-consciously “weird” to enjoy.
The standout Slappy episode for me is the one where Woodstock happens in their forest. Just tons of ridiculous gags plus hippies make such a natural enemy for an old lady and a little kid, I can’t help but laugh just thinking about the “Who’s on stage” bit.
I submit that the “Bumbie’s Mom” was the best use of Slappy the Squirrel.
As far back as I can remember, I always knew that Goodfeathers was a parody of something, but not something that I was familiar with (nor should I have been at 8 years old!) I could peg the Pesci impression from having seen Home Alone, and I knew that clearly he asked somebody why they laughed at him in the movie Goodfellas since they made that reference/“joke” constantly. Even beyond the fact that all the parody material was way over my head, that was my big criticism of the Goodfeathers as a kid: they had like 3 gags that they did in every single short, none of which were particularly funny the first time you saw them, and it had the effect of making all their appearances feel the same in the end. (I only remember laughing at one Goodfeathers joke as a kid – in the West Side Story parody, when the two gangs agree to a rumble they have an extended “No weapons?” “NO WEAPONS!” exchange. As soon as the Goodfeathers walk away, the bad guy immediately turns to his lackey – “Get the weapons.” I just pulled it up on Hulu and it still made me chuckle.)
Oh but Chicken Boo is my favorite, because… well, he’s a man-sized chicken who dresses like a dude and no one can tell in spite of his barnyard avian features. It is absurdity of epic proportions, as dumb as all hell and just thinking about the theme song in my head is enough to crack me up.
I think there’s a season premiere that was a full half hour Slappy episode that kinda surprised the crap out of me and became one of my favorite episodes of television where she goes insane from watching too much day time talk shows (Ricki Lake, Jerry Springer, etc.). It was a poignant episode where Skippy is depressed to see his elder has snapped and withering away in an old folks’ home. Idk why but it always hit me hard.Tbh, I think Goodfeathers was often great but also was just overused. I got tired of certain episodes from seeing them so much. Mindy and Buttons worked for me more than Goodfeathers did. I like that someone mentioned Chicken Boo but I have to give a huge shout-out to Good Idea Bad Idea.
I’d nominate Katie Kaboom as the weakest recurring sketch. They all have the same plot; Katie’s upset over something, she freaks out and blows up her family’s house, she gets over it. Rinse, repeat.
The problem is that you can see the family is clearly stressed out and walking on eggshells around Katie all the time. That’s not comedy, that’s abuse. They are clearly living in terror of this young woman, and that’s just not funny.
The crowning moment of funny for Mindy & Buttons was “Super Mindy”. Super Buttons is flying across the city and we get the following:Look, up in the sky!Its Super Buttons!I heard he’s not housebroken!(Everyone flees).
I seem to like Slappy more than most here. I find her cynicism oddly charming even when the humor doesn’t land (and “Bumby’s Mum” will always never fail to make me laugh).I also really like the Rita and Runt segments, for largely the same reasons other people don’t. It was a bit of calm pathos to help recover from the absurdist insanity of the other segments, and I find the title characters to be charming and I find myself wanting them to succeed. It feels out of place, but that’s why I like it; they’re a nice change of pace.I’ve never liked Goodfeathers, because if you don’t get the references (which I don’t. The only gangster movies that I’ve ever seen are The Usual Suspects and The Irishman, and that second one was pretty recent. Well, unless if you want to count Sharktale) a large chunk of the jokes fall flat. They occasionally work (the one where they have to eggsit is hysterical, and the West Side Story riff works because most of the jokes work out of context and the music is good), but I find myself almost never laughing at their segments and getting extremely bored. Other segments also have pop culture references, but there are enough solid jokes round them usually that the jokes still land even if you miss the reference, and Goodfeathers fails to in my opinion.
if I had to be any cartoon character i’d be Stampy the Elephant from the classic Simpsons episode Bart Gets an Elephant.
*raaaowrgh* stamp stamp stamp eat eat sleep.
I’m still fascinated by the premise of Chicken Boo. For one, I can’t believe that nobody can figure out he’s a giant chicken until his wig falls off. Then, when he is revealed, everyone freaks out like he just shot a puppy. They should be fucking amazed that a giant chicken fooled them into thinking he’s a man.
What about this kid?
This article skips something that made the show really great: the short skits that were interspersed between the longer, episode-title-skits. Things like the little kid waddling out of his house to tell the audience a story about how Randy Beaman’s parents fed their partygoers dog food instead of bean dip, or the ever-wonderful Wheel of Morality (come on, Trip to Tahiti!).
And Good Idea/Bad Idea! Really, sometimes the fast-paced anarchy of the short bits was so preferable to the longer skits, particularly when you’d the the opening credits come up and realize…you were in for five minutes of the Hip Hippos.
It’s the Mr. Skullhead show,
Starring him, Mr. Skullhead.
‘Cause it’s his show that he has,
Mr. Skullhead!
And now, it’s Mime Time.
Good idea, playing catch with your grandfather.
Bad idea, playing catch WITH your grandfather.
Good Idea, Bad Idea is probably the best of the minor skits, maybe tied with Randy Beaman Kid.
Good idea: Picking up litter.Bad idea: Picking up kitty litter. All these years later and that is still the funniest thing I can remember from that show.
And the moral of today’s story is:“Possums have pouches, like kangaroos.” [Yakko looks into the camera, confused]
Good idea: visiting picturesque MacLean, VirginiaBad idea: visiting picturesque Maclean Stevenson.
It’s tricky to explore those quick skits in the Top Ten feature unfortunately, but you’re right – the snap-speed of a lot of these bits worked even if the actual gag inside them could be hit or miss. I ended weirdly liking the Andy Beeman-friend bits.
They weren’t always so much about what he said as much as the delivery.
I think the main thing that always made me dislike the Animaniacs is the cynicism with which the Warner Brothers reappropriated cartoons and cartoon characters that exist almost in spite of them. People like Chuck Jones were working in their corner of the studio, vaguely tolerated and vaguely despised, struggling against the Warners cretins who had zero understanding of their humor (and had to be tricked by various censorship-bypassing devices, rendered somewhat easy by their relative indifference to the animation studio). So, okay, these cartoons were successful, and the Warners thankfully capitalized on it, but to have, decades later, cartoon characters that are the embodiment of joyous looney tunes zany chaotic absurdism, and have them actually literally be the “Warner Brothers”, that’s some radical retroactive toonwashing there.I understand that the WB company now appreciates what it had produced almost against its will, and that the triumphant WB logo may be less awkward nowadays, but no : the “warner brothers” were not the soul of surreal animated comedy. They were its enemy and almost asphyxiated it at every turn. So that extreme revisionist publicity rebrand is a tad sickening.
Interesting points, but wasn’t it ever thus? After all the cartoons always started with a branding sequence (The WB logo lunging at the audience) which is perhaps as iconic as anything in the cartoons.
A more depressing (to me) example of this phenomenon it seems to be fairly common for people to think that Fred “Car Salesman” Quimby was the brains behind Tom & Jerry.
That’s right — Hanna and Barbera didn’t get credit for Tom&Jerry until Quimby stopped producing animation!He also took credit for Tex Avery’s work, which given what a pair of Corporate Overseers Hanna & Barbera became, seems even more of a travesty.
The only studio where animation wasn’t a barely-tolerated offshoot of the main operation was Walt Disney — and Disney’s anti-union stance and insistence on branding all the studio’s output with “the Disney Look” would have been enough to keep most Warner animators from joining him! (Except for Frank Tashlin, who mostly went there to unionize the Disney animators.)
Also the fact that Disney always seemed on the verge of bankruptcy until television became a thing, which Walt was delighted to capitalize on and use to build his brand (television promotes theme park with promotes movies with promotes move to color television which promotes….).
Not sure if painstakingly recreating the ultra-limited animation of early Filmation for a parody the majority of the audience wouldn’t get or enjoy is laudable or strange and cruel, but it’s something.
Animaniacs had a pretty profound impact on my sense of humor. It still makes me laugh. Good Idea/Bad Idea and Chicken Boo are things I come back to when I need a giggle.
On my last day of work, I asked a coworker to reenact the God Pigeon with me.
So i would go up to customers, say a bunch of gibberish in a low Brando inspired hush. And my friend translated: “My Coworker here says, is there anything we can help you with?”
I highly recommend anyone and everyone try it, I’m glad the show’s coming back.
A big part of what made this show great is the voice acting. The cast is full of industry veterans who knew exactly what the show was going for and they nailed it.
Aw, I like Slappy. I gravitate toward the “bomb-and-anvil” style and I think her comments are usually funny (“If this has anything to do with Pogs, I’ll shoot myself.”). Rita and Runt were given the worst animation studios, it’s true, but the ones handled by TMS (the best studio for this show, bar none) are some of the best shorts in the entire show (“Les Miseranimals” and “Phraken-Runt”).I remember someone on some forum once said about the Kids WB era: “The show went from being a cartoon show to a cartoon show about a cartoon show.” The overly meta and parody-heaviness kinda weakened things, and it seems like that’s what the new show is going to model itself after.
The “Who’s On First?” bit set at Woodstock utilizing The Band and The Who is to this day one of my favorite comedy bits of all-time.
Yeah, but Dick van Patten did it first…
SLAPPY: Who is on stage?
SKIPPY: Yes!
SLAPPY: Oh, so the name of the band is Yes?
SKIPPY: No, Aunt Slappy. Yes isn’t even at this concert. Right now we’re listening to Who.
SLAPPY: Why are you asking me?!
SKIPPY: I’m not!
“whole gags and skits requiring specific knowledge of actors, media, politics, or social behavior.”
And growing up, I saw a lot of Pre-War Warner Bros. cartoons in the late 70’s, ones that had a lot of the same, and it did not diminish my enjoyment of those cartoons one bit. It actually made me look up some of the references (pre-Google). Give kids a bit more credit, will ya?
I think the one thing we learned from Animaniacs that should be a lesson for all of us is that Yakko and Milton Berle didn’t get along. Though I’m sure that was just the writers’ way of getting “Milton Berle” and “long” in the same sentence without running afoul of the censors.
I will not tolerate slander against Slappy Squirrel. Slappy is perfect.
One would assume that the Hello Nurse bit alone would be enough for this show to be disappeared and “canceled” by today’s standards.
The esoteric, insider-y stuff wasn’t a problem for me, who was 11 when it debuted. Much like the Looney Tunes (e.g. Porky’s Road Race), the combination of jokes, references, and slapstick meant that something that didn’t land didn’t ruin the momentum. I only vaguely understood “Variety Speak,” but the songwriting was so keenly wrought that it was still a lot of fun to sing. I didn’t even know who George Wendt or Jerry Lewis or Steven Spielberg were.
“Yes, Always” is hilarious now that I’m familiar with the source, but my dorm-mates and I were downright angry over it when it aired (that’s right, dorm-mates, and some of us were probably skipping a lecture to watch it). The promise of a Pinky and the Brain segment, ruined by that nonsense.
God I loved this show. I was the sort of kid who spent ages reading Wikipedia pages on everything I could, so the weird esoteric bullshit was my favorite part of Animaniacs. (Reader: I was insufferable.)
A list that doesn’t make me click ‘next’ and refresh the whole damn page? This is a bold innovation!
I’m sure everyone will be posting favorite episodes, and I wasn’t going to do it…especially as my favorite bits are just that…bits (“I am the very model of a cartoon individual”…not enough is written about how they brought back the awesome Warner tradition of melding classical music into their toons), but I think “King Yakko” is one that deserves to be on the list. Along with an awesome running joke (“Polka, Dot”), it’s got everything that made Animaniacs great. A silly plot, a sillier villain from the silliest nation (Dunlikus), an extremely silly song (“Anvilania”) sung by a great slam on a celebrity (Perry Coma…gotta love it)…just fun stuff.Anyway, anyone looking for a list of episodes to watch, here’s another…it’s worth it, honest!
If it makes you feel any better, the guys they’re being mean to in Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation are the same ones that’ll be sending death threats to the female writers of the new show when they see the Trump joke.
The Slappy Squirrel Siskel and Ebert bit will always remain in my head because of one gag (that I’m surprised didn’t get a shout-out.) When hosing the Ebert Stand-In’s Popcorn with butter, we get the exchange (Something like this, anyway):
Ebert-Guy: “What’s in movie theater butter?”
Slappy: “Mostly fat- That I’m LIPOSUCTIONING FROM YOUR GUT!”
*Pull back to reveal that Slappy is, indeed, hosing his popcorn with the fat from a liposuction machine hooked up to his gut*
I was watching Ren and Stimpy at the time, and that one gag felt grosser and more disturbing than anything they’d ever attempted. (I loved it, of course.)
Wheel of Morality, turn, turn, turn. Tell us the lesson that we should learn…
You can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can’t teach Madonna to act.