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The '90's are now widely considered among casual and hardcore fans alike to be the second "Golden Age" of Animation.
Are you the kind of person who is skeptical whenever you hear the words "golden age" of anything?
Ok, do a small exercise for me. Take a minute to think about the '90's, and see how many great cartoon shows comes to mind:
Batman The Animated Series, Spider-man and X-men (I think of these shows the "superhero trinity", but there were other shows too) Ren and Stimpy, South Park, The Simpsons (it totally counts; the series premiered on Dec 17, '89; so it's only an '80's show on a technicality), Reboot, Arthur, King of the Hill, Doug, Rugrats, most of the Disney Afternoon lineup. Besides Quack Pack, we don't talk about that one.
Even shows that were not critically acclaimed were a ton of fun to watch. Mummies Alive, Biker Mice from Mars, Mighty Max, heck, the freakin' goddamn Mighty Ducks was better then it should've been.
Fox Kids and YTV were introducing us to all kinds of stuff, from anime, to movies that we were too young to watch, to the wonders of stop-motion, even when it had long since become obsolete.
There was a lot of talent unleashed all at once during the decade. A new wave of innovation and creativity was popping up everywhere. The generation that had grown up watching Saturday morning cartoons were now making new shows for us, their kids .
Whether it was breaking new ground, finding new spins on old ideas, or paying homage to the great classics of the first Golden Age, their was now shortage of cool stuff to watch once we were free from school.
One special show managed to do all three at once, and in the process, became a classic that has endured for nearly three decades.
On the surface, Animaniacs was clearly riding on the coat tails of Tiny Toon Adventures when it premiered on September 13th, 1993. It had a lot of the same humor, the same basic setup (cartoon characters that were a) living in the "real world" alongside humans and b) cartoon "actors" who knew they were performing on a kids' show). Animaniacs even had the same staff as Tiny Toons, and aired just a year after its parent show ended in 1992.
Tiny Toons is considered a fine show in it's own right, with a large healthy fandom still going to this day. I consider Animaniacs ro be the superior show.
Why, though? Tiny Toons did it first, right? They have the same style, same people, same multi-demographic appeal. What's the special sauce that Animaniacs had that made it the TRUE successor to Looney Tunes, when the Tiny Toons cast were the literal proteges of the great masters Bugs Bunny, Porky Pig and Daffy Duck?
Well, the problem, if you want to see it that way, is that Tiny Toons was explicitly made to be the Looney Tunes of the '90's. Even though the cast and crew put in a sincere effort with the show, avoiding it coming off as a pathetically lazy cash-grab, there's no getting around the fact that the Tiny Toons were standing in the shadow of greatness. The Warner Brothers and Sister were also in that shadow, to be fair. The only difference is that Animaniacs was able to capture the spirit and magic of their predecessors without coming across as pale imitations.
To put it another way, it's the difference between reading about Harry Potter's son and another badass wizard in another setting. Even if it uses the general ideas of "wizarding schools" and "magic existing in secret alongside our world", tt takes more effort to come up with more general ideas, using the concepts and storytelling of what came before rather than "updating" Harry or trying to be Harry all over again. No matter how well-intentioned, the writer for Harry Potter 2.0 is, he or she still relying on the audience's investment in the Wizarding World.
Right from the beginning, Animaniacs was a giant, loving homage to animation history, while also being it's own thing. The Warners themselves were inspired by the simple, animal-like designs of classic characters like Bosko, Felix the Cat and Oswald the Rabbit. If, like me, you had no idea about those characters, then the Animaniacs were something new to you. For adults, it was a great easter egg; and Animaniacs were filled with them. Animaniacs may not seem original right now to you considering what I just wrote, and they weren't, not completely.
But unlike Tiny Toons, they could be more subtle, more broad, a true new cartoon that was well aware of its roots, and damn proud of it.
Ironically, by not outright claiming to be the successors to the Looney Tunes, they became the successors to the Looney Tunes. Animaniacs is, in my opinion, one the greatest cartoon shows ever made. Let me count the ways.
It did everything well. The songs were catchy (and educational without being too ham-fisted about it), the dialogue was consistently witty and delivered beautifully; there's a reason why the show has spawned so many memes, even Yakko's signature "uhhhhh" pause is funny every time. The characters were varied and fun to watch.
Although, not everything worked. Chicken Boo and Katie Kaboom were very one dimensional, one-note characters.
In Katie's case. a ordinary human teenager who would literally explode or transform into a monster when she lost her temper, it's borderline offensive. The Hip Hippos, I just didn't find funny, but they have their fans. But everyone else was great, the voice acting was always top notch, really bringing these wacky personalities to life.
Rob Paulsen (Yakko) Jess Harnell (Wakko) and Tress Macneil (Dot) were not only all great in their own right, but when they act off each other it is great stuff. Sadly though, the characters were kept in their own segments, barring a few special occasions. And of course, who could forget Maurice LaMarche as The Brain.
The writing took that classic Looney Tunes formula of being timely and timeless simultaneously. It's what happens when you have pop culture references out the wazoo, either a story ripped from the headlines (the episode "Plane Pals", for instance, had the Warners harassing a parody of Ivan Boesky, of all people) to something like "Meatballs and Consequences", where they parody The Seventh Seal, brilliantly, I might add). Skits varied wildly in content, but they were almost always consistently good.
Again, no one's perfect.
The roster of characters really allowed Animaniacs to live up to it's title. Rita and Runt had a great dynamic of being cynical and innocent; same with Slappy and Skippy, except with more slapstick and the added bonus of Slappy Squirrel being a washed out retired cartoon actor, who takes her nephew under her wing. But for every parody that has aged like fine wine (the Power Rangers spoof "Super Strong Warner Siblings" is a particularly great example), there were misshots here and there. Take this as 'exhibit A' :
It comes with the territory; but to the writers' credit, more often than not, they weren't trying too hard to be timely, which has made the show stand out from others who were cashing on popular trends, like Yo Yogi! or Street Sharks.
They weren't above that sort of thing, but Animaniacs had the balls to call itself out on it though, as well as "edutaiment" segments, which, once you see how much smack they talked about it, was mostly likely put in due to executive meddling. Oh yeah, one other thing about Animaniacs, it was really meta, and it was really awesome at it. Again, Looney Tunes and others did it first, but Animaniacs did it just as good. Need proof, here's one of the show's best running gags that capped off many episodes, "The Wheel of Morality".
To give a great example of what I mean by saying that the show's humor was timely and timeless, consider the episode "Survey Ladies", the basic premise still works; I mean, sure, surveys are all done online now. But, in my opinion, the humor still works, because it was true to life, and since there's a lot of gags slapstick and visual gags, there is something for kids and adults to enjoy. Or, an even better example, "Chairman of the Bored". For every dated reference or shallow parody the show may have done, at it's heart the show had a broad, even dare I say, universal type humor that everyone can enjoy.
It was built from the ground up as something for kids and adults. And the kids became adults, so for a lot of people (like me) the show just kept getting better over time, 'cause you kept discovering new jokes that were always waiting for you to discover them. You'll be watching episodes over and over again, because you can't get everything right away: I re-watch Animaniacs almost annually and. I see no signs of that stopping anytime soon.
So, when I heard back in 2018 they were reviving this show, it was like I was a kid again. Except now it's on Hulu; no more wating till next week's episode nowadays.
Of course, I was happy, but I was also scared. Too often I have been let down by reboots and revivals. Would even Animaniacs be just like I remembered it? Can we actually have something truly great come back, with a whole new staff, and be good? Can it be possible, in 2020, that we can have good things? Can Animaniacs, live up to its own legacy this time?
Well, after marathoning the whole of season 1 is one sitting, these are my thoughts.
**Spoilers From This Point On**
First of all, I should make a note that very few of the show's original staff are part of the reboot. If showrunner Wellesley Wild, and the writers, animators, composers ect working under him hadn't proven themselves over and over during this revival's first season to be huge fans of the original show, I wouldn't have liked this at all. I'm not one of those snobby fans who believes that a property can only work with the original creators making new stuff. That's like saying only Bob Kane can write Batman comics.
But not including original creator and executive producer of Animaniacs, Tom Reugger is a baffling move to me.
Reugger was not exactly the heart and soul of the original show, but he came up with the key concepts that became the show we all know and love. Like I already said, Wild seems more than capable of handling the property, but there was enough misfires in the jokes where I found myself thinking that including the original crew and consultants and producers would've really helped the overall quality.
Then there is the other big glaring elephant in the room. Very few of the original characters are returning to the show. It's not even that they were replaced by new characters. The Warner siblings, along with Pinky and Brain, carry the vast amount of the work-load. I could understand retiring Katie Kaboom and Hello Nurse. They really don't work at all in this day and age. But Slappy and Skippy Squirrel?! You could get so much mileage out of Slappy ranting about CGI and motion capture. Or Skippy, having grown up during the show's hiatus, has become an anime fan, and it annoys his aunt to no end. So many plotlines, so much comedic potential, wasted.
What's worse, the show explains the characters absence in one of the show's best episodes (or segments, each episode is composed of 3) "Good Warner Hunting" has them all return at the end in a great plot twist, which I won't spoil here. And...that's it, nothing else happens. They're never seen from again for the rest of the season. I don't get it. You can't revive a variety show with only a few characters. While the skits of each episode definitely delivers on a lot of different ideas, the humor lacks a certain punch without having the whole gang back together.
The lack of familiar faces is really limiting the show's potential right now. While their are a few new characters who I think work very well and can be organically integrated into the new cast, they're only given one episode each to shine, so they're not given a lot of time to prove themselves. I'll come back to these new characters later on.
Next, I want to talk about what works and what doesn't with the revival. I've seen enough to say that while the show is very good, there is room for improvement.
The segment "Warners Unbound" from episode 2, shows the new series at its best. It's a clever parody of Homer's Odyssey.
Odysseus, now a glory seeking meat-head who angers the Warner siblings up on Mount Olympus, who, in classic Animaniacs fashion, try to torture the jerk, but Odysseus is so dense he somehow enjoys himself even in Hades. thinking it's some sort of game show. \
Not only is it a great parody of an iconic story that is full of great in-jokes ("My hubris is telling me to go this way" might be one of the best lines ever written), but the satire works extremely well. The classic depiction of the ideal Greek hero has been full of huge problems for a long, from Odysseus cheating on his wife multiple times, to killing the suitors staying at his house, whose only real crime was free-loading in a stranger's house, when you think about it.
Odysseus' portrayal in the skit exaggerates his negative traits in a way that kids can understand, while the adults can pick up on the depiction of toxic masculinity. Not to mention, seeing his comeuppance by a suspicious looking cyclops who might remind you of a certain tan-skinned president, is a hilarious finish. that works in multiple levels.
Shorts like these perfectly capture the spirit of the original show's brand of slapstick visual gags and satire of contemporary trends while adding something timeless to the mix. Can't get more timeless than one the core stories of Western literature, after all.
"Ani-nyet" from episode 10, on the other hand, shows the writers trying way, way too hard to be contemporary.and political, and failing at both.
The Warner siblings are chilling out at the water tower when they stumble across a Russian made knock-off of "Animaniacs." Offended at the shallow and inaccurate portrayal of themselves, they take a plane to Russia, where they attempt to put a stop to things. The episode comes across as a script that was written back when Rocky and Bullwinkle was on the air, and Putin's name was put in to "update" it.
Russia is portrayed as such a dirt-poor, backwards hellhole, that, well, let me put it this way. If the background characters were anything besides European Caucasians, it would be taken off the air before you could say "N-word". on a talk show.
Very few of the jokes work, and outside of a cool cameo from original Animaniacs song writer Randy Rogel, where he helps the Warners with a nice musical number, there's really nothing witty or clever in this sketch. They take the same easy shots at Trump and Putin while not offering anything meaningful to say. The tone-deafness of the jokes here is so bad it's honestly baffling.
Several critics have criticized the amount of overt political humour in the revival, but honestly, it doesn't bother me. I find stuff like Edward Snowden's odd obsession with gardening funny. The Brain taking the place of Senator McCqrthy in a disguise so see-through that it's not only funny, but also a great history lesson for the kids.
It's not like the original show didn't have political humor too. Granted, it wasn't as in your face. But it's actually only a handful of skits in this 13 episode season that revolve around politics. It never got irritating or distracting to me, but of course, your mileage will vary.
It's hard to rate each episode, because each segment, even "Ani-nyet", has good and bad parts.
Episode 4's "Bun Control" for example, has an amazing anime-style fight sequence in it. But it comes out of nowhere, and doesn't fit the tone of the episode. Using bunnies, of all things, as a metaphor for guns, makes no sense to me; the bunnies aren't like the Killer Rabbit from Monty Python and the Holy Grail. They just look cute and swarm everywhere; it's an ecological problem that's portrayed in the episode, not a violence one.
There are only four new characters introduced. The new, no-nonsense CEO, Nora Rita Norita (yes, really), is great whenever she's on screen. Julia, the newest genetically enhanced mouse on the block, only appears in one episode, but she's clearly sept-up to the Brain's arch-nemesis.
Starbox and Cindy are great. A little girl keeping a small green alien as a pet, saving the world in the process. It sounds pretty one-note on paper, but there\s a lot of potential for humor here. I should know, being the huge sci-fi geek that I am.
The only things I can safely say that are too good to argue about are the voice acting, songs and animation, which are consistently top-notch. The rap battle in "Gift Rapper" highlights this the best, in my opinion. Imagine, a rap song in a kid's show that doesn't suck!
Everything else is up to personal taste. You might like surreal jokes, you might not. You might get the references, you might not. You might know who Nils Niedhart is supposed to be an expy of. Also, gross-out humor; not my cup of coffee, and thankfully, it's not prevalent.
Animaniacs is not like how I remember it. Quite a few people are upset by this fact, some of it understandable. Even the Hip Hippos were somebody's favorite. The lack of old favorites, both in the credits and on the screen, is a huge loss.
Here's the thing that a few critics seem to overlooking; Animaniacs was always contemporary, making fun of what was current. Please refer to Exhibit A. A lot of things that the show made fun of back in the '90's, 'Friends', 'Power Rangers' 'Barney' etc., only seem timeless in retrospect. It comes across as more clever to people in my demographic, because we all grew up with them. Of course Animaniacs was going to seem dated tackling internet memes, Russian election tampering, and Edward Snowden, but hey, that's what was current in 2018, what can you do?
If they made all '90's refs they missed the first time around, like The Matrix, Fight Club, Fresh Prince, Pokemon, Beverly Hills 90210, as well as many other examples, then critics would say they are selling out to Milllenial nostalgia.
The writers were, and are, between a rock and a hard place. Or more accurately, between old and new.
In my opinion, they have done a very good job navigating a tough assignment. The spirit of the original show definitely shines through. It's not as good an update, as say, the Disney Channel's fantastic reboot of Ducktales, but there is a clear, sincere effort here by the cast and crew to do right by us, the fans, even if they didn't do right by the creators.
Sure, there may be flaws and misfires. But the original show was the same way, It's a variety show, it comes with the territory. But, there is a a lot to like, a lot to recommend, If you're an old fan, I think you;ll like it overall. If you're new, it's a great intro to the Warners. as well as Pinky and the Brain, but you should check out the original show if you want the full experience.
When that opening song started, I had tears in my eyes and a huge grin on my face. Animaniacs had come back, not as I knew it, but just as good as when I watched it every day before going to school.
I can't wait for season 2. I only hope Hulu allows the show's staff to bring back everyone for a truly special reunion.
And guess what? In October of this year, less a month before the season premiere of more Animaniacs, a Tiny Toons reboot was announced to be in development for HBO Max and Cartoon Network. It's a funny role reversal, ain't it?
Animaniacs is back my friends, and it looks like their bringing some friends along for the ride.
Here's to six seasons and a movie!
