Like a lot of people my age, “Animaniacs” was a formative series for me. It influenced my sense of humor at least as much as it’s contemporaries like “The Simpsons” and “The Far Side”. I remember so many funny moments and terrific songs.
I also remember “Animaniacs” being wildly inconsistent in quality and tone. There are some segments where the animation is noticeably worse that it is in other segments, sometimes in the same episode. And some of the segments are just flat-out duds; I’m thinking mostly of cloying one-offs like “A Gift of Gold”. But also... (sigh) look, the wildest and least surprising thing I’ve learned recently about the original “Animaniacs” run, something that kind of helps explain a lot of my least favorite reoccurring segments, is that because the show’s creators were no longer beholden to making characters based directly on other characters like in “Tiny Toons”, literally anyone could pitch a new character. And so we got breakout hits like the Warners and Pinky and the Brain... and we also got things like Hip Hippos and Chicken Boo. And their segments always gave me that distinctive and uncomfortable “I guess I understand that this is a joke and that it’s supposed to be funny but I don’t get the joke and I’m not laughing” feeling. (And it’s fine if you liked those characters. After all, teenage me thought Katie Kaboom was hilarious, mostly because I could not and still can not believe such a blatant metaphor for PMS made it to broadcast.)
So now we have thirteen brand new episodes, and the first taste of what to expect was made specifically for me. Behold!
This teaser really does set the tone for new “Animaniacs” as a whole. It is definitely a nostalgia trip, but it's a refreshingly good one. The animation is much more consistently good and even excellent at times (holy moley the Anime sequence!) It also trims a lot of fat off the original series; by now you probably know that the Warners and Pinky and the Brain are the only characters from the original series returning with their own full segments (though other characters have cameos). There are a couple of new characters who appear in one short each. I can’t help but wonder if this is to test our reaction to them (and in case that is the case, the one Starbox and Cindy short is cute but I don’t know how sustainable the premise is in a show that already has Pinky and the Brain, get the heck rid of the creepy screamy parasitic gnome).
Overall, new “Animaniacs” is very good. I have a few more scattered thoughts but they might be a little spoilery, so meet me down by the Art of the Day until you watch all the episodes.
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* - I’ve seen some hand-wringing over whether kids will like the new “Animaniacs” or not. I think they will, especially if they’ve seen the original. And while they won’t get every joke, who among us can say we got every joke right away back in 93? Heck, not getting all the references is an old Warner Bros animation tradition.
* - Julia is the best new character hands down, and (again, just in case) I hope to see her again. She’s a terrific foil for Brain and her design and animation gives me so many good Don Bluth vibes.
* - Speaking of the Brain, I figured he’d have a sad backstory (he is a lab mouse after all), but I never expected it would be THIS sad! “Learned Helplessness” isn’t a phrase you expect to hear in context in a comedy cartoon, holy sh*t!
* - I don’t remember there being an awful lot of gross-out humor in the original “Animaniacs”, but a few new episodes dip into it here and there. It’s not to the point where it’s annoying, but that one scene where a character needs her nails done and we get a closeup? I cried. Leave that kind of thing to an “Ozzy and Drix” reboot if you must, please and thank you.
* - All told, there are two (2) episodes I flat-out did not like. I don’t even know what was going on in the episode set in Russia, where the jokes seem frozen in amber since the 80’s. And the sketch that starts out like "Autotune is bad", then does the “Shakespeare was the Original Rapper” thing, then goes into ten more different directions, is awful and a REALLY really weird sentiment to come from characters born in the 90’s.
* - On the other hand, the Halloween episode is so, so good! I’m so proud of Wakko; getting over his coulrophobia and tackling the scariest of clowns. Like and repost if you are also proud of Wakko and his journey. Well, Like anyway.
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Art of the Day! Time for some fanart why not?
