My initial criticism that Animaniacs was nothing but cutesy, educational garbage didn’t last long. By the second week of first-run shows I was watching it religiously, and episode 15 became the first one I actually videotaped. It wasn’t long before I had become infatuated with the series, and drawings of all the characters soon littered every blank piece of paper I could find, while a cassette copy of the original album was a mainstay in my tape deck. The winter ‘94 run of new episodes got me through the death of my grandfather, and I remember being obsessed with the “65th Anniversary Special” throughout that Summer. I followed the show over to the WB, kept up with it through the random airings and hour-long “H” episode nonsense, and stuck with it to the bitter end. It’s hard to believe that I was a freshman in high school when it started, and a junior in college by the time Wakko’s Wish was released. It’s even more amazing to think that my fondness for the show has never diminished despite it being gone for almost fifteen years. If anything, I love it even more now. Marathoning the series when the volume four DVD set arrived made me realize just how much I cared about it, and finally having every episode on home video was all the motivation I needed to start this blog. I never thought for a second when I began writing about Animaniacs last April that it would take me until late January to actually finish it, and I never imagined that I’d get as in depth as I eventually did. My review of the first episode looks downright embarrassing compared to the entries I was turning out even a week later and I’d be lying if I said there weren’t times I felt in over my head and considered throwing in the towel.

With the exception of Family Guy, I can’t think of many other animated shows that divide people the way Animaniacs does. For every person that loves every single thing about it and apologizes for even its worst elements, there’s someone else who thinks it’s unredeemable trash that represents everything wrong with '90s animation. In fact, the show had barely begun and John Kricfalusi was already tearing it to pieces, despite admitting that he had never even seen it. There were people who hated the series from the very beginning, and there’s even a 2000 episode of South Park that states there are two groups of people: those who like Animaniacs, and those that don’t. As I’ve made very clear over the past ten months, I don’t think the show is perfect. It’s unpredictable format and huge cast all but ensured that every segment wasn’t going to be a winner, and there were just as many clunkers as there were masterpieces. But when the series was firing on all cylinders it was nothing short of incredible, and that first production season was one of the wildest, 65-episode rides I’ve ever had with a syndicated weekday afternoon series. Animaniacs accomplished things no series had before and no series probably ever will again. It was very lucky to have come around at exactly the right time for the pieces to fall together as well as they did. Even the people who worked on the show consider it one of the high points of their careers. In August of 2010, Doug Walker (aka The Nostalgia Critic) put together an hour-long Animaniacs tribute, featuring interviews with Tom Ruegger, Sherri Stoner, Paul Rugg, John P, McCann and Nathan Ruegger and it’s clear that everyone involved loved being a part of the series. I can’t think of a better quote to end on than one by Rob Paulsen: “I tell people in interviews that Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles really changed my career, but Animaniacs really changed by life. I’m incredibly grateful.”

I’ve been asked many times over the past few months what cartoons I’d list as the best and worst of the series. For a show like Animaniacs that’s a very difficult task, so I think the best way to handle this is to break it down by character…

Best Warners Cartoons: “Hello Nice Warners”, “LA LA Law”, “Plane Pals”, “Hercule Yakko”, “Potty Emergency”, “Chairman of the Bored”, “Clown and Out”, “A Christmas Plotz”, “Ragamuffins”, “The Warners’ 65th Anniversary Special”, “Super Strong Warner Siblings”, “This Pun For Hire”

Worst Warners Cartoons: “Roll Over Beethoven” “Nothing But the Tooth”, “Moby or Not Moby”, “Broadcast Nuisance”, “Fake”, “Anchors A-Warners”, “Papers For Papa”, “Cute First…Ask Questions Later”

Best Pinky and the Brain Cartoons: “Win Big”, “Jockey For Position”, “Bubba Bo Bob Brain”, “Yes, Always”, “Brain Meets Brawn”

Worst Pinky and the Brain Cartoons: “Don’t Tread on Us”, “Hercules Unwound”

Best Slappy Squirrel Cartoons: “Bumbie’s Mom”, “Critical Condition”, “Frontier Slappy”, “Woodstock Slappy”

Worst Slappy Squirrel Cartoons: “My Mother the Squirrel”, “Soccer Coach Slappy”, “The Christmas Tree”

Best Goodfeather Cartoons: “West Side Pigeons”, “Hiccup”, “Raging Bird”

Worst Goodfeather Cartoons: “The Boids”, “Girlfeathers”, “Miami Mama Mia”, “We’re No Pigeons”

Best Mindy and Buttons Cartoons: “Les Boutons et le Ballon”, “Buttons in Ows”, “Night of the Living Buttons”

Worst Mindy and Buttons Cartoons: “Up the Crazy River”, “Mesozoic Mindy”, What a Dump", “Super Buttons”, “Mermaid Mindy”

Best Rita and Runt Cartoons: “When Rita Met Runt”, “Les Miseranimals”, “Phranken-Runt”

Worst Rita and Runt Cartoons: “The Cat and the Fiddle”, “Puttin’ on the Blitz”, “Smitten With Kittens”, “Kiki’s Kitten”, “Up a Tree”

Best Chicken Boo Cartoons: “General Boo-Regard”, “The Chicken Who Loved Me”, “Boo Happens”, “Boo Wonder”

Worst Chicken Boo Cartoons: “The Good, The Boo and the Ugly”, “Jingle Boo”

Best Hippo Cartoons: “The Pitter Patter of Little Feet”

Worst Hippo Cartoons: “La Behemoth”, “A Moving Experience”, “Can’t Buy a Thrill”

Best Song Segments: “The Monkey Song”, “Yakko’s World”, “Yakko’s Universe”, “Wakko’s America”, “The Senses Song”, “Schnitzlebank”, “A Quake, A Quake”, “The Tiger Prince”, “The Ballad of Magellan”, “Dot - the Macadamia Nut”, “The Animaniacs Suite”

Worst Song Segments: “The Return of the Great Wakkorotti”, “When You’re Traveling From Nantucket”, “Here Comes Attila”, “LA DOT”

Best of the Rest: “Yakko Warner’s World of Baldness”, “Cartoons in Wakko’s Body”, “Buttermilk, it Makes a Body Bitter”, “Branimaniacs”, “Previously on Animaniacs”, “It”

Worst of the Rest: “Wings Take Heart:, "Hollywoodchuck”, “Katie Ka-Boom: The Broken Date”, “Katie Ka-Boom: The Blemish”, “No Time For Love”

Acknowledgements

First, I want to thank the people who have worked on the show whom I’ve talked to through this blog’s Facebook group. They have given me useful information,  corrected misinformation or enlightened me in general. These include Kirk Tingblad, Tom Minton and Tom Ruegger. I also want to thank Peter Paltridge of Platypus Comix, whose interview with Jon McClenahan proved to be an indispensable source of Startoons trivia. I also want to again thank Peter for coming to my rescue for title card screen shots for episodes 51 and 55. Special thanks go to the members of the Toon Zone forum for supporting me from the very beginning, and voting the talkback for the blog the best Toon Zone thread of 2013. More thanks go out to friends and family who have been patient with me through this long process.

But the biggest thank you is reserved for my very patient and loving wife Elizabeth, who has been there for me through all of this, even when I was trying to get this done alongside wedding planning last Summer and Fall. She watched every episode with me before I reviewed them, would proofread each entry before it was published and had to listen to way too much Animaniacs music during long car rides. There is no way I could have done this without her support. I love you, sweetheart.

And of course, a special thank you is required for all the people who made Animaniacs what it was in the first place - the hard working producers, writers, directors, voice artists, animators, musicians, teamsters, coffee people, therapists, assistants, assistants to the assistants, caterers and anyone else I might have missed. All your hard work is truly appreciated.

I guess that’s it. There’s only one thing left to say…

GOODNIGHT EVERYBODY!!!!

After surviving a full blown assault from Baron Von Plotz and Constable Ralph, followed by a gigantic avalanche, the Warners find themselves staring directly at the Wishing Star. There’s only one problem: King Salazar has gotten there first!

King Salazar quickly has the villagers imprisoned, along with Plotz and Ralph for failing to eliminate the Warners, and the Goodfeathers for attempting to double cross him.  He orders the Warners to be executed immediately, but when Yakko explains that they know secrets about the Wishing Star that he doesn’t, Salazar brings them to his ice castle, where they give him the “special friend” treatment. When they refuse to tell him anything useful about the star, the king sends the Warners into the Cave of Your Worst Nightmare, where they’re terrorized by Mr. Director, the disgusting bathroom from “Potty Emergency” and Baloney. Next, Salazar brainstorms all the possible wishes he could make, with Yakko pointing out all the aggravating and/or painful ways they could go wrong. Finally sick of the kids, Salazar orders his men to do away with the Warners. Thanks to Dot’s irresistible cuteness, which once again works wonders on the Dennis Hopper captain of the guard, the trio is set free. When Salazar sees the Warners racing towards the star, he fires at them with a cannon, and manages to hit Dot. Fatally wounded, Dot asks Yakko to tell her the story about their parents one last time, then dies in his arms. This touching moment is just the distraction Wakko needs to make it to the Wishing Star, and the instant he touches it, Dot wakes up, having faked everything. Wakko wishes for two ha'pennies, and the joyous villagers carry him back to town triumphantly.

Wakko uses his first ha'penny to pay for Dot’s operation, which is nothing but plastic surgery to put a “cutie mark” on her cheek. Using the ha'penny earned from the operation, Scratchansniff begins to make a killing selling his elixir, hiring Rita and Runt as his taste testers, while Hello Nurse (who becomes the CEO of Scratchy Cola) is finally appreciated for her brains and not just her figure. Wakko then goes shopping with his other ha'penny, and all the businesses in Acme Falls begin to thrive. All over town, everyone’s wishes start to come true: Baron Von Plotz becomes the king of a fast food joint, Ralph gets a job directing traffic and the Goodfeathers get some well deserved respect (kind of). Slappy’s tree comes back to life in the Spring, while Skippy makes some new friends. Buttons brings Mindy home, and is rewarded for his loyalty with a huge pile of steaks, while Mindy finally calls her mother “mom”. Rita and Runt find a happy home with Scratchansniff, but the Warners get the best ending of all. They discover that their parents were the king and queen of Warnerstock, and that Salazar had sent them into exile upon their death. Now the rightful rulers of the kingdom, the kids kick Salazar out of the castle, where he’s mauled by a pack of guard dogs. The Warners make Brain Prime Minister and, in turn, Brain makes Pinky a royal stable mouse, so he can be close to Farfignewton. It’s not quite global domination, but Brain already has plans for the sequel. With everyone having received a happy ending, the only thing left to do is spin the Wheel of Morality. And the moral of the story? “Just cheer up and never, ever give up hope!”

The second act of Wakko’s Wish was rather lightweight, concentrating more on songs, character moments and the It’s a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World-esque pursuit of the Wishing Star. For the third act, the focus shifts rather drastically. There are no songs (with the exception of a handful of short reprises), the secondary cast is largely forgotten about, and the Warners finally start doing more than just singing and riding in a sleigh. For the most part, the scenes in Salazar’s castle are the closest the movie comes to feeling like the series, and play out like a standard “Warners annoy someone” short. That said, it’s more of a nostalgic, “best of” sequence than anything else, featuring a lot of callbacks to the types of jokes seen in earlier cartoons. Wakko calls Salazar “dadoo”, there’s a game show bit that’s straight out of “Fair Game” and the Warners trick the king into leaving the room, celebrating when he’s gone. The “Cave of Your Worst Nightmare” goes right out and references some of the most well-known moments of the show, and brings in characters that wouldn’t have worked anywhere else in this movie. But going as far as repeating the Dennis Hopper gag from “Hearts of Twilight” is a little much, especially considering this is the second time they’ve gone back to it. We know it’s coming from the very first moment we see the captain of the guard in act two, so at least we’re prepared for it. To be totally honest, I probably would have welcomed this sequence if they hadn’t already used it again in episode 93, but to do it here just seems lazy. However, this is nothing compared to the massive tonal shift that follows, with the juxtaposition between the sillier, upbeat scenes in the castle and a shot of Yakko crying over his sister’s body being unbelievably jarring. The “tell me the story” stuff between Yakko and Dot in act one was certainly corny, but it was still pretty cute, and relatively harmless. But here, they’re going for a major emotional response from the audience, and even though you know Dot isn’t really going to die, they do everything they can to turn her “death scene” into a tear jerker. This is so out of character for Animaniacs that it’s almost disturbing, and it resembles the sort of manipulative ending the show would have made fun of in the past. Before the viewer has any chance to recover from this, the movie pulls a ballsy, mind-blowing fake-out by having Dot suddenly sit up and say, “I’m feeling better now!” right after Wakko touches the Wishing Star. Yes, the joke here is a reference to a line early in the movie about Dot taking acting lessons, but this cop-out ending (not to mention Dot’s operation being nothing more than plastic surgery) winds up trivializing the entire movie. To build up the audience’s sympathy for the Warners for almost an hour and a half, testing them by tossing in a more unusual, dramatic scenario, and then throwing it away like it never mattered in the first place is more than a little infuriating.

The movie ends the same way it begins, with more narration courtesy of Tom Bodett. Over five and a half minutes are spent wrapping everything up and explaining how everyone’s wishes came true, when they probably could have saved time by simply showing instead of telling. But for what it’s worth, it’s still a relatively rewarding ending, especially when it comes to characters whose wishes actually resolve their series-long arcs. It’s wonderful to see Rita and Runt finally find a home or Buttons receive his reward, but what’s really great is Brain getting into a position of power - so close to his goal but not quite there yet. Pinky and the Brain aren’t characters who could logically get their happy ending without it being a complete game changer. So having them go out on their typical “What are we going to do tonight?” shtick (complete with one last chorus of their theme song) was truly the most fitting way of sending them off. The wishes that come true for the rest of the cast generally revolve around things that are movie-specific, and though it seems weird to see the Warners in charge of an entire kingdom, it’s not like the show hasn’t done something like this before (“King Yakko” or “Hooray For North Hollywood”). On the other hand, actually seeing the Warners’ parents (even on something as simple as a portrait) is extremely weird, and I remember being quite bothered by it the first time I saw it. I understand that, for this movie to work, the Warners had to be more than some zany cartoon characters born from an animator’s pencil, but I most definitely could have done without seeing their mom and dad. That the last scene in the movie brings in the Wheel of Morality, on the surface, is a terrific idea. Unfortunately, the actual moral is just a closing reprise of “Never Give Up Hope”, which goes against the fact that the Wheel of Morality was created to parody lame moralistic cartoons in the first place. Regardless, I’d be lying if I said I could think of a better way to end the movie, and recreating the big group shot from the theme song was a really nice touch as well. So all things considered this is about as good a finale as we could have gotten, and for the most part I’m generally satisfied when the movie ends. The credits add to the enjoyment, as they make sure to credit each voice artist for every single character they play, while Richard Stone gets to compose one last suite featuring different versions of the theme song. It’s bittersweet when you realize that this was some of the last work Stone would ever do before his death in 2001. Ironically, his final cartoon was a 2000 Looney Tunes short titled “Little Go Beep”, directed by Spike Brandt and animated by a team full of Startoons veterans.

This is the best look at Chickenboo we get in this movie. Interestingly, while only the main cast made it to the Wishing Star in the last entry, the entire town winds up imprisoned as we start act three. Where did everyone suddenly come from?

Dot’s condition is not really played for laughs, but they have a little fun in this scene. Dot introduces herself as the cute one, with the cough. “But ya gotta admit, even the cough is cute”, she says, right because she starts hacking in Salazar’s face. MacNeille does a great job here, as the coughing fit is truly very funny.

Another gookie from Wakko, the last one we’re ever going to get. Savor it.

This whole bit with Salazar having something in his nose is lifted right from a Freakazoid routine. Not bad, but it was funnier there. It would have been great if they could have come up with more original material.

The “Cave of Your Worst Nightmare” sequence is immensely entertaining. I believe all Mr. Director’s dialogue comes from older cartoons. And if not, I’m still positive the brief song he sings is directly from “Macbeth”. Baloney’s appearance features the only time someone in the movie is nailed by an anvil, but I can’t think of a better character for it to happen to.

The best animation on Yakko occurs during the scene in which he brainstorms various wishes with Salazar. Some of the poses and expressions on him here look right out of the first season. I wish more of the movie would have been like this.

Just as we think the movie has shown us all the established characters, Colin shows up riding a horse. It makes Skullhead’s absence even more baffling.

One thing the “Hearts of Twlight” reference has going for it that was missing in “Cute First, Ask Questions Later” is much better animation. It’s not as good as the spastic stuff we got from Wang, but this Dot face is all kinds of great.

I know these scenes between Yakko and Dot have their fans, but this particular sequence just goes too far in the wrong direction for me. The animation quality drops down to something resembling a cheap anime (look at Dot’s mouth in the second image), which hurts it even further. But once again, I have to give props to the musical score and Paulsen’s performance. This would have been a lot worse without them.

This burp is a lot more in line with what I expect from TMS. It’s not Wakkorotti quality, but it’s still a very strong drawing.

The Warners begin popping up in their traditional clothing as the movie draws to a close, but only for some very brief shots. I absolutely love this image of Yakko. It’s nice that we get to see them the way they normally look before the film ends.

About damn time! If there’s one thing just about everyone talks about when it comes to this movie, it’s Buttons finally getting exactly what he deserves. What a great face,

Moreso than Buttons, the characters that really deserved a happy ending were always Rita and Runt. Their whole shtick was trying to find a home, and I can’t think of a better owner for them than Scratchansniff. I’m glad this movie treated them extremely well.

The Goodfeathers can’t catch a break. They think they’re getting a little respect, but everyone is actually paying attention to the statue of the Warners. But if they don’t realize it, I guess it’s fine by me.

I remember literally cringing the first time I saw this. I really did. What were they thinking??

And of course, you’ve got to have at least one “YES!” from Brain at some point in the movie. Like I’ve been saying, Pinky and the Brain are Pinky and the Brain no matter what series, cartoon or movie they appear in. Their role in this film ends exactly as it should have. Now, let’s sing it one more time: “They’re dinky. They’re Pinky and the Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain, Brain!”

There’s still one question that bothers me…what would have happened if that wheel landed on “bankrupt”? It’s a question they never answered, at least not on the show.

Its fitting for the final screen shot on this blog to include the group shot that mirrors the one from the theme song. They even threw Newt in there.

Some final thoughts on the movie…

In 1992, Warners released Tiny Toon Adventures: How I Spent My Vacation, a direct to video movie that many agree was the greatest thing to come out of that show. It was made during the perfect time, while the series was still being produced, and featured some excellent writing and outstanding TMS animation. Everyone was truly at the top of their game when that movie was released and, in comparison, it’s easy to see why Wakko’s Wish comes up a bit short. Animaniacs had been over for quite some time before the video hit store shelves, and it’s no exaggeration to say that the final couple of years of the series saw it losing what made it so special in the first place. By the time Wakko’s Wish came along, just about everything had changed at Warner Brothers Animation. Many of the show’s greatest writers and directors had long since left, and TMS was lacking the spark it used to have. Apparently, there had been talk of giving the movie a theatrical release, but my gut tells me casual audiences wouldn’t have responded well to a film where familiarity of the subject matter was essential while the animation, though terrific for a direct-to-video movie, was still nowhere near theatrical quality. Wakko’s Wish is truly a love letter to the fans, and as such, succeeds pretty well. It’s not perfect, and what doesn’t work bothers me to this day, but there’s enough great stuff here to make the movie worthwhile. It’s not a film I watch from start to finish very often, but individual sequences - not to mention the fantastic score - keep bringing me back. It’s a shame that it hasn’t been released on DVD yet, but as the final bit of Animaniacs history that has yet to arrive on home video, let’s hope it happens soon.

Up next…one last post with my final thoughts on the series, as well as some worst and best lists. Keep reading!

When we last left the Warners, Dot needed an operation, Wakko had lost his hard-earned ha'penny and all hope in Acme Falls was dwindling. But everything is about to change thanks to the Wishing Star, the one thing that can possibly turn it all around…

Eager to head off and reach the Wishing Star the next morning, the Warners assemble a makeshift sail-powered sleigh and prepare to leave. However, in their excitement, they end up spilling the beans about the star to the entire town, and everyone becomes anxious to get to it first. Scratchansniff and Hello Nurse hitch up Farfignewton and depart, with Rita and Runt stowing away in their elixir cart. Baron Von Plotz and Ralph also attempt to go after the star, but are quickly pulled over and taken away to see King Salazar. Seeing the Wishing Star as his ticket to world domination, Brain uses Leonardo da Vinci as inspiration to create his own mini aerial screw, which carries him and Pinky into the sky. Slappy and Skippy take to the trees and eventually catch the attention of little Mindy, who has been asked by her mom to take a pie to her grandmother. The toddler is quick to climb up the nearest tree and follow the squirrels, and of course poor Buttons ends up doing whatever he can to keep her safe.

Plotz and Ralph are brought to Salazar’s castle, and attempt to play dumb about the Wishing Star. However, the king is already aware of it, and announces his desire to get to it first. The only flies in the ointment are the Warners, and Salazar commands that Plotz makes sure the kids never make it the star alive. After Plotz and Ralph leave, the king instructs his three pigeon soldiers - Bobby, Squit and Pesto - to fly to the star and have everything ready for his arrival. Once they leave the castle, the Goodfeathers, frustrated at how terribly they’re treated, decide to double cross Salazar by wishing for a little respect. As all the characters travel towards the star, they explain in song what they all plan to wish for. In addition to what we already know, we learn that Hello Nurse wants to be appreciated for her mind, Ralph wants to direct, Plotz wants to be the king and Skippy wants some friends his age.

It isn’t long before disaster strikes. The Goodfeathers crash into Pinky and the Brain and Farfignewton spots everyone plummeting to earth. The horse takes off in order to rescue Pinky, dragging Scratchy, Hello Nurse, Rita and Runt along for the ride, as well as Buttons and the Hippos when they get caught in his path. At the same time, Plotz and Ralph begin firing cannons and missiles at the Warners and manage to destroy their sleigh. Thinking quickly, Runt and Buttons toss some of Scratchansniff’s volatile elixir chemicals at the bad guys, totaling their carriage. Everyone eventually comes to a stop at the edge of a cliff, where Farfignewton is able to save the Goodfeathers, Pinky and Brain at the last second. As the chaos subsides, Scratchy discovers that numerous vials have overturned in his cart, and the resulting combination of liquids actually tastes quite good. Unfortunately, when Wakko burps after drinking some of the elixir, he causes an avalanche that sweeps everyone up and deposits them right in front of the Wishing Star. Just as the Warners are about to touch it, they discover that Salazar, who has traveled by train, has already beaten them there. “Ehhhh, this isn’t the wish I had in mind”, concludes Yakko.

As Yakko’s line marks a clear divide between the second and third acts, this is where I’ll stop and reflect once again…

While this section of the movie doesn’t really have much in the way of plot, it makes up for it with several fun moments involving the secondary cast members, some really good animation and a handful of very strong musical numbers. Two of the songs - “The Wishing Star” and a lyrical version of Franz Liszt’s “Hungarian Rhapsody” - literally come one after the other, and take up a whopping seven whole minutes of screen time.  But you’re not going to hear me complaining, since they’re easily the best songs in the entire film. “The Wishing Star” is incredibly catchy and has a very hopeful, emotional punch to it. It quickly becomes the movie’s main theme, and is reprised several more times, first by Salazar, Ralph and Plotz, then by the Goodfeathers and finally by the Warners one last time. “We’re taking a stand! We’re making a vow! This is the place! The moment is now!” is without a doubt one of my all-time favorite Animaniacs lyrics, period. But as amazing as “The Wishing Star” is, The “Hungarian Rhapsody” number is truly the movie’s centerpiece. This thing builds and builds as more and more characters get involved, until it gets to the point where it’s moving so fast that it’s virtually impossible to sing along. It’s definitely the longest song in Animaniacs history, and gives a whole bunch of background characters the opportunity to get a few lines. The best bit is the quieter breather towards the end, as Pinky cries over Farfignewton having left him, snapping out of it the instant Brain reassures him that they’ll get to the Wishing Star first. “Oh, well, that’s different then isn’t it? Troz!” is Pinky’s upbeat response. After seven minutes of non-stop singing, and after just about every cast member has announced their intention to get to the star, Dot realizes, “Maybe we should have kept this our little secret”. That’s certainly the understatement of the year. The other big song in this section is “If I Could Have My Wish Than I’d Be Happy”, which is enjoyable, if a little superfluous. It’s not something that really needs to be here (we know what most of the characters want), but it’s the only musical sequence in the movie that involves the entire Animaniacs cast. We also get a pretty good running joke out of it, as Ralph keeps trying to figure out what to wish for, only to constantly come up with synonyms for “policeman”. After the third try, Ralph concludes, “Gee, I’m not gettin’ the hang of this song.”

The Warners spend most of their time sitting in their sleigh not doing much besides singing, so the bulk of this section of the film is taken up by the supporting cast. Once again, Pinky and the Brain get all the funniest moments. When Brain first mentions da Vinci, Pinky asks, “He’s going to give us a ride there in his pant cuffs?!” After being informed that da Vinci died a long time ago, Pinky becomes distraught: “And I forgot to send flowers?! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” Not one to miss an opportunity, Brain clobbers Pinky with a pencil. Things get even funnier once the mice get up in the air, as a confused Pinky almost kills them twice by taking his feet off the pedals of the areal screw, causing them to fall hundreds of feet towards the ground. It’s another one of those moments where Maurice LaMarche gets to exercise his vocal cords by screaming in character, and stuff like that is always hysterical. Slappy and Skippy get their only solo scene here, which barely lasts a minute and mostly consists of them singing a version of “Loch Lomond”, the whole joke being that neither of them can sing very well at all. At this point, the squirrels become a plot device to get Buttons and Mindy into the movie, and immediately we see why it was such a shame that TMS never worked with these characters in the first season. All the standard formulas are here -  including the power struggle between Mindy and her mom and Buttons being told to keep Mindy out of trouble. But since this is the only time we ever get to see any of this play out with TMS handling the animation, there’s a freshness to it that makes the Mindy and Buttons sequences (what little we get of them, anyway) a highlight. A quick scene a little later of Buttons rushing in to save Mindy from falling off a rickety old bridge totally validates everything I’ve ever said about these characters desperately needing really good animation in order to work.

The last reoccurring cast members we meet are the Goodfeathers, who get one quick scene with Salazar, decide to go after the Wishing Star themselves and then have nothing else to do in the movie aside from crashing into Pinky and the Brain and starting the sequence of events that leads everyone to the star. It’s honestly great to see them, but they really have nothing to do, and are clearly just here because they have to be. The movie is already halfway over by the time the pigeons make their entrance, so there isn’t much time to do anything with them regardless. Shockingly, we don’t even get a scene of Pesto losing his temper and attacking Squit, something we had gotten every single time we saw the Goodfeathers in the last handful of episodes. And then of course there’s our villain, King Salazar. He’s basically a more realistic and threatening version of Dictator Umlatt from “King Yakko”, with his most distinctive trait being his memorable voice, supplied by Paxton Whitehead.  This is a guy with absolutely no likeable qualities, and really doesn’t have much of a personality. He just exists to be an irredeemable bad guy, while his bloodlust makes him a little out of place in the Animaniacs universe. That said, a more comic villain never would have worked for this movie so, as a character the entire audience can root against, Salazar does his job well.

My favorite sequence in the entire movie is an over seven minute stretch that’s almost completely dialogue free and set to the overture from Franz von Suppe’s “Pique Dame”. It starts as the Warners begin to cross a dangerous bridge and doesn’t stop until the avalanche lands them right in front of the Wishing Star. Setting this much of the movie to a piece of instrumental opera music was a pretty bold move, as it sounds nothing like the typical Animaniacs score, and the use of the full piece necessitates that the animation plays to the music and not the other way around. But what it does best is play to TMS’ strengths. Without dialogue to get in the way, they’re able to cut loose, and this sequence without a doubt features some of the best animation in the movie. I absolutely love how the music is full of so many highs and lows, and is able to establish a pleasant “traveling” atmosphere just as well as it’s able to accompany scenes of Ralph attacking the Warners with rockets and cannon fire. These later scenes of weaponry sailing every which way, downing trees and eventually destroying the Warners’ sleigh represent the very best TMS animation we’ve seen in a very long time. There’s no way any other studio could have handled something like this and, if anything, the subsequent avalanche is ever better. While this is mainly a visual set-piece, we do get a couple of decent character moments. Stuck hanging on to the ends of the severed bridge, Buttons finds himself right in the path of the Hip Hippos as they begin to cross. Buttons later shares a quick scene with Runt, a pairing never attempted before. There’s also a humorous scene between Farfignewton and Brain that ends with him inside the horse’s mouth.  The only downside to all of this is that, once it’s over, the movie suddenly remembers that it has a plot to focus on, and the last twenty-five minutes of the movie is where it begins to lose quite a bit of steam.

Up next: the Warners give King Salazar the “special friend” treatment, the “Cave Of Your Worst Nightmares” brings back some familiar faces, and someone finally gets their wish. Who will it be? Stay tuned for part three!

If you’re not ready for it you may miss it entirely, but just as the “Hungarian Rhapsody” number starts, Katie Ka-Boom and her mom and dad pop out of some windows. It’s the ultimate “blink and you’ll miss it” cameo, and also the only time these characters were animated by TMS. The one question is, where’s Tinker?

Most of this song uses a much looser type of animation than we’ve seen so far in the movie. The Warners look appropriately wacky in these scenes, and I think this may have been the same team who animated the second half of the “Be a Pest” song from “Cutie and the Beast”.

This is what I meant when I discussed the ha'penny song in the last entry. It just seems weird to me to see Slappy singing and dancing along with the rest of the cast. It’s definitely not like her. She should be off in the sidelines making sarcastic comments, not happily enjoying everyone else’s company and singing as part of a back-up chorus.

This scene is the primary example of something else I talked about in the last post. The rest of the characters stand around in the foreground and background just happily swaying along with the music. It just strikes me as really corny, especially in this shot, which lasts long enough to make the robotic animation of the other characters very obvious.

Brain: Pinky, are you pondering exactly what I’m pondering? Pinky: I think so Brain but just how will we get the weasel to hold still? Brian: No, that wish is what we need. Our plan could finally succeed! - not only were they able to include one final “Are you pondering what I’m pondering?” but they were clever enough to stick it in the middle of the song. Fantastic stuff.

There are a tiny handful of moments in the “Rhapsody” song that really try to break away from the more straight ahead way the sequence is animated. These shots, against solid colored backgrounds, come and go incredibly fast, but they’re creative, and make me wish that the movie had just a little bit more visual imagination.

But speaking of visual imagination, there isn’t much that beats the staging and emotion packed into this shot. Pinky is initially isolated on the right side of the scene, bathed in a melancholy blue glow and sadly singing about being left alone.  Brain’s silhouette then appears in the background, with his shadow filling in the negative space left by the light entering the mouse hole. It’s a beautifully put together shot, and kudos to Paulsen for being able to hit those high notes. The animation on Pinky is just about perfect as well.

One of the best Pinky and the Brain moments comes when Pinky suddenly sees a flaw in Brain’s “air screw” plan. “Oh wait, no”, he explains, “if we were meant to fly we would have been born with little bags of nuts.” He’s then nailed from off screen by the pencil again, after which Brain responds, “You ARE a little bag of nuts.” The dialogue and delivery is great but the animation really sells Pinky’s expressions and thought process, not to mention the impact from the pencil.

Buttons gets a cute Scooby Doo moment when Mindy gives him the pie she was supposed to deliver. Looking heavenward, Buttons growls, “Rank Rou!” before chowing down. Again, TMS’ expressions and solid drawings add a lot to Button’s personality.

Since TMS rarely worked with Buttons and Mindy, I relish their all-to-brief screentime in this movie. This particular shot of Mindy is fantastic, with a lot of confidence and attitude. Who knows…if TMS had done a whole bunch of Mindy and Buttons cartoons in the first season I could be sitting here saying this looks terrible in comparison. But they didn’t.

It’s a really big let-down that this is all we really get with Slappy and Skippy. They’re introduced in this sequence via a “George of the Jungle” version of “Humoresque”, and it’s the only time in the movie where Slappy feels in-character. She struggles to climb the tree, almost coughs up a lung doing a Tarzan yell, and calls out Skippy on his terrible singing. She sings a little bit about wishing for “a giant acorn tree, with everybody leaving me alone” during the “If I Could Have My Wish…” song, but for the most part this movie leaves me starving for more quality Slappy material. She really got the short end of the stick after the first season, no matter how much she was actually used.

Paulsen and LaMarche have a great back-and-forth during the air screw scene, with Pinky misunderstanding what Brain is saying and taking him literally when he tells him to “just stop”. We also get the trademark purple TMS irises here.

Ralph has always been depicted as a pretty tall guy, but he’s got nothing on King Salazar!

There really isn’t much to talk about when it comes to the Goodfeathers, although I believe this movie marks the only time they actually have a conversation with a human being. And just in case you forget that they’re Italian, Pesto asks for a bite of Salazar’s cannoli.

He’s a great bit of animation at the start of the “Pique Dame” sequence. The bridge starts to break under Mindy’s feet. The camera then quickly pulls out from a shot of Buttons as he moves lighting fast across the bridge in order to catch her. The energy here is incredible, and once again we get those TMS colored pupils. I bet we would have gotten a ton of good stuff like this if (say it with me now) TMS had animated some Buttons and Mindy cartoons in the first season.

Ralph is hardly ever threatening, but this shot is as close as we get. He actually succeeds at coming off as sinister in this scene, and his goofy laughter almost has an edge of deviousness to it. Impressive that they were able to pull that off.

We don’t get too many moments with the Warners where they look like they walked out of a TMS-animated season one cartoon, but this shot has an old school feel to it, especially with the way Yakko and Dot are drawn. It’s very clear that the best TMS team was working on this part of the chase scene. I wish they could have looked more like this throughout the whole movie.

It doesn’t read too well in still shots, but this bit of animation is incredible. Ralph fires a cannonball and the camera follows it as it arcs toward the screen and then down to the ground, where it hits the Warners. The kids then appear out of an explosion of snow and land on pieces of their sleigh, which they ride like snowboards. All this is done in one solitary shot and it’s unbelievably good.

I love the hell out of this shot. A cannonball flies though Scratchansniff’s cart and a bottle of liquid topples over and explodes when it hits the floor. After pulling Rita out of the way, Runt and Buttons look at each other with these amazing devilish smiles. Someone on staff must have realized they never had put these two together before, and cooked up this quick scene. I wish we could have seen more of this.

As things wind down a little bit, we get these quick character moments, some of the last we get from any of them before the focus shifts back to the Warners. Runt pops out of the snow and tells Rita she’s a good dog, while Mindy finally gives Slappy a hug. The old squirrel then turns Mindy around and gives her to Buttons, whose expressions are a riot.

When we finally get a big, LaMarche burp from Wakko, it’s defeated by some truly bad drawings and animation. This looks too Japanese, the first screenshot especially. We’re a long way from the Great Wakkorotti, folks.

And for good measure as we wrap up part two, here’s a gookie that flies by so fast that you might miss it!

On November 14th, 1998, the final episode of Animaniacs finally aired. It was first broadcast as part of an hour-long event titled “The Ultimate Animaniacs Super Special”. Placed in the middle of the episode was “Star Warners”, the Star Wars themed Pinky and the Brain series final that acted as a crossover between both shows. This entry will just discuss episode 99, with “Star Warners” following as a bonus post.

Newsreel of the Stars

You know, just in case the final episode happens to be the first one you’ve ever seen…

Extended Theme Song

For the very last time that we’re going to see the theme song, we get the extended opening with the “…while Bill Clinton plays the sax” line intact. This makes episode 99 the only way to see this longer opening the way it was originally written. If you thought the minute-long instrumental montage here was fun, just wait until “The Animaniacs Suite”.

Variable Verse: Pinky and the Brain-y

Bumper: Birds on a Wire

In a short segment that’s similar to the Goodfeathers material added to part one of “Hooray For North Hollywood”, Squit, Pesto and Bobby marvel at a beautiful sunrise. Pesto is a little confused about what direction the breeze is blowing from, and Squit makes the unfortunate mistake of correcting him. If you’ve seen the other two segments, you should know how this one ends. This is the last bit of Koko animation we’ll see on the show, and though their stuff was never perfect, the Goodfeathers look fine, about on par with how Akom handled them. I wonder if this was actually meant for episode 95 but got bumped down to this episode. That’s certainly what it seems like.

It’s funny to think that, before episode 95, we hadn’t gotten a real Squit/Pesto fight since episode 69. And now, here we are on our fourth one. Even after all this time, and even though the Goodfeathers haven’t appeared too much during the Kids WB era, LaMarche, Mariano and Venerra still do a great job with these guys and the interplay between the three of them is still pretty funny. Koko doesn’t do a bad job, either. The background sunrise painting is particularly strong.

The entire cast has gathered to record the score to a new Animaniacs episode. However, instead of Richard Stone, they’re introduced to a pompous rhinoceros named Neivel Nosenest, who explains that their usual conductor is “having a long deserved rest at the Camarillo”. Nosenest has some very specific rules regarding musician conduct, which are all broken when the Warners arrive late and unprepared to play. It takes forever to get started, as Dot questions what’s written on her sheet music, followed by everyone else. After a few more false starts, the orchestra begins to score the cartoon, which mainly features Ralph chasing the Warners around the lot. Floating music notes suddenly get out of control, causing Yakko and Wakko to bring the session to a halt when they chase them with bug spray and a fly swatter. Next, the kids decide that they’d rather conduct the orchestra themselves, with Neivel struggling to get a hold of his baton. Just as he’s about to lose his temper, the session ends, but Nosenest learns that none of the music was recorded, and he has to start again. But just as he does, Yakko calls for a lunch break, and the orchestra immediately leaves. Finally losing it, Neivel snaps completely and runs right through a wall of the building.

As the final original Animaniacs cartoon, “The Scoring Session” accomplishes several things. First, it gives the Warners one more original foil to aggravate. While I generally prefer that human characters go up against the kids as opposed to animals, Neivel is interesting enough, and Michael McKean does a good job making his voice memorable. Accompanying him is the little bluebird, who lives inside his nostril, explaining the rhino’s rather interesting last name. He’s definitely a pretentious, stuffed shirt, but you have to wonder if the Warners are intentionally trying to drive him crazy. I mean, they had no idea he was going to be there when they showed up late, so maybe there’s a really good reason why Richard Stone needed a “vacation”. Next, this is yet another short that throws a ton of characters together, and although a few of them are MIA (where’s Buttons?) among the ones we do get to see are Frau Hasenpfeffer, Walter, Sid, Beanie…and Stinkbomb Bassett…for some reason. None of the secondary characters really have anything to do and most of them don’t even talk, but it’s nice to see them all together one last time, on the series itself at least. The show also ends the same way it began, with animation supplied by Wang. Their work is about average here (strange because their last batch of Pinky and the Brain cartoons, airing around the same time, looked much better) but there are fun moments of fuller animation, and it’s nice to see the final original Animaniacs segment being animated by a studio that had been a part of the show since the very beginning. However, this wouldn’t be the last time Wang would handle these characters, as they also animated the Pinky and the Brain finale, “Star Warners”, and would continue to work with the mice on Pinky, Elmrya and the Brain, a show I’ll discuss further in the following entry.

And finally, the cartoon acts a tribute of sorts to Stone’s work on Animaniacs. By setting it in the recording studio and putting an emphasis on the importance of the show’s background score, it acknowledges how essential Stone has been to the series, as well as several other WB shows during this period. Over the years, many had called him the next Carl Stalling, and while I wouldn’t go that far, his ability to create unique musical themes and play to what was happening on-screen gave the WBTA series produced during the ‘90s a feel that has yet to be matched. Unlike many cartoons made today - which use synthesized scores or smaller orchestras - Stone not only had a full orchestra at his disposal, but he also worked in the same studio, with the same acoustics, where the classic Looney Tunes theatricals were scored over half a century earlier. It’s impossible to imagine Animaniacs, Pinky and Brain or Freakzoid  (to name just three shows) without Stone’s instrumental scores, and when he died from pancreatic cancer in 2001, it was truly the end of an era at Warner Brothers Animation.

“The Scoring Session” is certainly no masterpiece, but it’s still pretty enjoyable. It’s funny enough, and between giving so many characters quick cameos and paying tribute to the music of the show, the short does what it needs to do in order to be an appropriate “final” original Animaniacs cartoon. But that said, it’s really just a warm-up to the short that follows it.

Once again, here’s another random appearance by Vena Whaleen. She sure keeps popping up for cameos despite starring in only one, early first season cartoon. If someone hadn’t seen “Bumbie’s Mom” they’d have no idea who she even was. And yuck, Wang really lost it when it comes to Slappy, hadn’t they?

It’s very rare to see Katie Ka-Boom among the rest of the cast. They’re really trying hard to stick in as many re-occurring characters as they possibly can, which makes Buttons’ absence even stranger. But if you want to talk about strange, what in the world is Stinkbomb doing there?

The Camarillo was a mental institution in California. If the usual scoring sessions were anything like they are with Neivel conducting, I’m not surprised at all that Richard Stone would need a break. Of course, the joke works several ways, considering just how busy Stone must have been in the mid-to-late '90s at Warners.

Yakko and Dot wonder how someone could get a name like Neivel Nosenest. The real life answer is actually pretty hilarious. It was a name made up by Tom Ruegger and his kids after seeing An American Tail: Fievel Goes West. Take the last three words and switch the first letters to N’s. Neivel Nose Nest.

“Yeah, I have a G flat. Definitely a…definitely a G flat.” Yet more dialogue from Runt, whose been talking more since season five than he has in seasons three and four. Not a peep from Rita though.

Have you ever seen such off model Goodfeathers before? This wouldn’t even be so bad if they didn’t linger on this shot for so long. The weird girly faces on Pesto and Bobby are pretty hard to ignore.

Neivel tells Dot and Hello Nurse that he wants them to play the next section of the cartoon badly. “Well, you’ve come to the right place”, explains Dot. Wakko then pops in and says, “Can we play badly too?” “We won’t let you down!”, agrees Yakko. Neivel’s understated little “no” is probably the funniest part of the cartoon.

Walter reminisces about the old days of playing at the Philharmonic. This is the last time Walter, Sid and Beanie will be seen together. Beanie and Sid show up briefly in “Star Warners”, but Walter never appears again after this. Still not a bad run for a stereotypical Slappy Squirrel bad guy, though.

Speaking of the last time we’re going to see a minor character, here’s Miss Flamiel. Like Walter, this cartoon is also her final appearance.

There’s some really nice full animation in this scene as Wakko pops out of Neivel’s sleeve, grabs his baton and dives back into his clothes. Most of the better animation in this cartoon seems to go to Wakko, for whatever reason.

We get a quick appearance from Bubba Bo Bob Brain during the cartoon that’s being scored, a really great shout-out to one of the very best Pinky and the Brain cartoons.

As Yakko and Neivel struggle over the remote, the music constantly changes, while the cartoon on the screen keeps alternating between the Warners/Ralph chase and the Hip Hippos. Interesting to see Flavio and Marita treated like important Animaniacs characters in this way. They’d do little more than stand around in the background in Wakko’s Wish.

This segment uses the animation from the “Special Presentation” bumper that first appeared in episode 35. Most of the dialogue is redubbed, so that Dot and Yakko tell the viewers at home to “Gather around the TV set and celebrate…the first 99 episodes of Animaniacs.” “And here’s the good news folks…”, says Dot. Holding his nose and moving close to the camera, Wakko shouts, “It actually doesn’t stink!” This final bit of animation was what had appeared overseas, in place of “I’m not wearing any pants!”, although in that case Wakko’s line was, “It’s especially stinky!” Because US fans had never seen it, this represents the final bit of “new” TMS animation to appear on the show.

It’s nice that this last “new” piece of TMS animation had been handled by one of TMS’ best teams. I remember first seeing this intro and hoping Dot’s “good news” was that we were getting more episodes of the show. That obviously didn’t happen, but at least the following short is a fantastic sendoff…

For almost seven and a half minutes, we’re treated to an incredible piece of music by composer Richard Stone, easily his greatest achievement on the series. “The Animaniacs Suite” begins with a fantastic overture, continues with the show’s theme, runs though the signature tunes of just about every main character, and wraps up once again with the theme music. But that simplistic description isn’t near enough to describe how wonderful this suite is. There’s so much emotion put into every note: we get a haunting, romantic version of the Animaniacs theme, and a really fascinating new bit of music that leads into the standard Pinky and the Brain arrangement. Slappy’s theme (“Humoresque”) is played twice, first in a very laid back manner and then as a more manic version. The Warners’ theme gets special attention and, in a very clever bit of scoring, it’s combined with familiar motifs such as “The Stars and Stripes Forever” and “The Battle Hymn of the Republic”. The Mindy and Goodfeathers themes come and go pretty fast, but a big surprise is the appearance of Rita’s theme, which they linger on twice. All of this is so well put together and so easy to listen to on its own. In fact, it’s been constantly playing on my iPod since beginning this project, and is always a big motivator during times of frustration or moments when I wonder if I should continue. By the time we get to the final moments of the suite, with the Animaniacs theme ending in the standard five-note motif that Richard Stone often closed his cartoons with, it’s not hard to have some sort of emotional reaction. In fact, Rob Paulsen has mentioned that he had been asked by Stone to watch him record the suite, and has admitted to being in tears while listening to it.

Adding to the power of this piece is the amazing amount of episode clips accompanying it, ranging from the very first cartoon in the very first episode all the way to “The Christmas Tree”. Things begin appropriately enough with a shot of Steven Spielberg from “Three Tenors and You’re Out”, continuing with various establishing shots of the water tower, Acme Labs, Slappy’s tree, etc. Once things really begin and the music takes off, the clips start coming fast and furious. They manage to hit many of the most memorable Animaniacs moments: the Warners fighting for the phone in “Temporary Insanity”, various explosive scenes from the Slappy cartoons, Pinky kicking Brain while doing the trepak from “Pavolv’s Mice”, the Warners’ overdone freak-out from “The Warners and the Beanstalk”, Buttons quitting from “Astro Buttons” and so much more that it’s impossible to name them all. The Pinky and the Brain sequence is especially solid, although they seem to go a little overboard with the “Brain’s Apprentice” clips, ignoring many better cartoons entirely. And it’s only in retrospect when you realize that scenes from “Yakko’s World”, “Wakko’s America” or “Dot-the Macadamia Nut”, some of the best remembered musical moments in the show, aren’t shown at all. And as often happens, not much effort is paid to Rita and Runt, who appear mostly via scenes from “Home on De-Nile”, run one after the other. But this is all just nit-picking, as it must have been a daunting task for editor Al Breitenbach to comb through 98 episodes in order to pick the best clips. This all combines with the music to create something I want to watch and listen to over and over again, and I honestly never get tired of any of it. The final few seconds, which act as one last curtain call for Dot, Yakko and Wakko is absolutely perfect and is probably the moment where - when I think about it in my mind - I get the most choked up.

Very few cartoon series get to go out in style like this, and Animaniacs was very lucky to be popular and well-loved enough to actually get that final tribute that it deserved, instead of petering out and ending on some random episode because no one producing it cared any more. That the show lasted as long as it did, even after a network switch cost it ratings and viewers, was a testament to its quality and the loyalty shown to it by its fans. Animaniacs was the very definition of lightening in a bottle, and there’s never going to be another show quite like it. It’s a combination of dedicated producers, writers and directors, some incredible vocal talent, one of the best cartoon composers of the past fifty years, and some unbelievably strong animation. The show wasn’t always consistent, but when it was good, it was really damn good. And as far as I’m concerned, it’s right up there with the early Ren and Stimpy episodes and the first eight seasons of the Simpsons as one of the greatest cartoon series of the '90s. This blog isn’t quite over, but I think the following credit - the first thing seen as the credit sequence fades in after “The Animaniacs Suite” ends - says it best…

Joke Credit: Just Wait Until Episode #100!: And Wait! And Wait! And Wait!

Tower Outro: Goooodbyyye Nurse!

The penultimate Animaniacs episode, this one is really all over the place. We get the worst Slappy cartoon of the entire series, a really bizarre Chicken Boo cartoon animated by Startoons and, just when we all thought we were done with her, one final Katie Ka-Boom short. And it all starts off with a lazy, hybrid opening theme that sets a weird tone for the rest of the show.

Theme Song (Christmas Version)

This opening uses the same snowy visuals from episode 50 (including the Clinton and Pinky and the Brain animation) but pairs it with the usual Kids WB lyrics. So, for example, we see Clinton, but we hear about income taxes. It’s really bizarre that they went out of their way to do something like this when only one segment is Christmas-themed, not to mention the fact that the episode itself first aired in the Spring of 1998.

Variable Verse: Candy Cane-y!

No, a new variable verse wasn’t animated. They just took the “Citizen Cane-y!” animation and played some new audio over it.

A large pine tree is chopped down, taken from its forest home and brought to New York City, where it’s placed in Rocky Fellow Center at Christmastime. Inside the tree lives Slappy Squirrel, who is awakened from hibernation when her snack alarm goes off. She follows her map to the nuts she’s buried, little realizing that she’s no longer in the forest, and causes several multiple car pile-ups and assorted confusion. Slappy returns to her tree and goes back to sleep, only to be awakened by Skippy, who is bothered by the caroling and bright lights outside. Half asleep, Slappy tosses some water on the carolers, and smashes the electrical box controlling all the lights to the city, thinking both are just annoying forest neighbors. Thinking that someone has demolished the forest, Slappy goes after people with a broom, forcing animal control to be called. When that doesn’t work, Slappy is evicted from her tree, and is informed that she’s in the middle of New York City. Furious, the squirrel heads into the Rocky Fellow Center offices and gives the CEO (voiced by Buddy Hackett) a piece of her mind, asking him how he’d feel if his house was moved somewhere else. For her trouble, Slappy is bodily kicked out, and retaliates by moving the CEO’s house into the middle of the city, where it becomes infested with homeless people and hot dog vendors. This is enough to make the CEO see things Slappy’s way, and her tree is moved back to the forest where it belongs. At Rocky Fellow Center, meanwhile, the tree is replaced by the WB studio water tower, much to the aggravation of the Warners.

We’ve come a long way in order to get to it, but “The Christmas Tree” is the very last Slappy Squirrel cartoon. And sadly, it’s also one of the worst as well. My chief complaint (and one that’s very hard for me to look past) is how severely it messes with Slappy in order to get her to fit this story. While a couple of first season cartoons toyed with her a little bit, putting her in the Garden of Eden or Kentucky in the 1700s, all “modern” Slappy cartoons held fast to the idea that she was a vintage cartoon star who lives inside an oak tree in the middle of a park in Burbank, California. In order for this story to work, Slappy (and Skippy as well) becomes more of an everyday squirrel living in a pine tree (in Canada apparently, judging by the accents of the loggers) who goes into hibernation in the winter. It’s not like the writers didn’t know anything about this character either, since Tom Ruegger and Randy Rogel both worked on this one. Slappy’s main appeal lies in her backstory, so dumbing her down like this doesn’t make any sense to me. She’s also pretty clueless throughout most of the first act, practically channeling Mister Magoo by being oblivious to all the chaos she’s causing as she follows her map to a storage of nuts, going as far as digging a hole in the middle of a bagel store in order to find them. Then later she attacks an electrical box, attempting to make her “chipmunk neighbors” turn off their tiki lamps. In fact, until she’s told that she’s in New York City, she’s under the impression that “some no-good developer demolished our forest and put buildings all around us!” I’m sorry, but I can’t buy the idea that Slappy could possibly be this stupid. And if that wasn’t jarring enough, her size fluctuates wildly all through the short, going from being her usual height to being almost the size of a real squirrel when she confronts the Rocky Feller CEO. Then we have things like animal control being called, lingering plot holes (no one noticed this big tree had a front door?) and Wang’s generally uninteresting animation. There’s very little here I actually like, aside from “Katie Cupcake” (which is a cheap joke, but it makes me laugh anyway), the uniqueness of the New York setting, and the great design of the CEO. And even if I could get past all that, I find that Slappy’s revenge is pretty toothless, especially for her. She moves this guy’s house and inconveniences him slightly, so he immediately gives in to her demands. That’s it - no anvils, no dynamite, nothing even remotely like that in this short. There was always a remarkable sense of tameness to a lot of Slappy shorts during the Kids WB era, and it’s a shame that the last one we ever got was such a gigantic dud. I remember watching this episode when it first aired and feeling so unbelievably let down over the fact that so much airtime in the second-to-last Animaniacs episode was being taken up by this cartoon. I don’t think there’s anything left for me to say about this one.

With 24 separate cartoons to her credit, Slappy holds the record for the most active secondary character on Animaniacs, with almost as many entries made during the Kids WB years as in the original production run. Looking back on her first season cartoons, Slappy really is one of the most fascinating characters on the show. Her character was very clearly defined in her earliest shorts thanks in large part to Sherri Stoner, who not only voiced Slappy but wrote several of her cartoons as well. Stoner had a wicked sense of humor, and it’s no surprise that the Slappy cartoons she wrote are some of the best remembered in the series. But as influential as Stoner was, so much of what made the Slappy shorts work in the first place was that the majority of them went to Startoons, who very quickly made her their own. That studio’s style was unlike any other animation house WBTA farmed their work out to in the early ‘90s, and they took an immediate liking to Slappy. Thanks to Startoons, Slappy and her universe seemed visually unique compared to most of the other characters, and it always seemed like a comedown when another studio (even TMS) would work with her. Despite the basic “blow up the bad guy” nature of their plots, most Slappy cartoons didn’t follow one specific formula, unlike Pinky and the Brain, Buttons and Mindy, Chicken Boo or Katie Ka-Boom, whose shorts were all about formula. Slappy’s relationship with Skippy also added another layer to these cartoons, and young Nathan Ruegger did a lot to make Skippy just as fun a character as his aunt. As mentioned many times in the past, the decision to remove the mice from the show and overcompensate by making a proportionately large amount of Slappy cartoons in the third season really worked against her. I can’t think of any Slappy shorts from the Kids WB era that I’d say are truly great, with most being anywhere from average to terrible. Toning down the violence didn’t help either, and making her this put-upon character (or worse, an obnoxious pest) really went completely against what worked in the first season. While Pinky and the Brain thrived on their own show, and Buttons and Mindy, Chicken Boo and the Hippos showed up in their fair share of legitimately strong cartoons, Slappy’s career slipped into mediocrity as the Kids WB seasons went on. It really seemed like no one knew what to do with her anymore. That feeling was never stronger than in Wakko’s Wish, where Slappy and Skippy became such an inconsequential part of the movie that they barely had any dialogue outside of musical numbers. But we’ll cover that in due time.

So I’m to assume that Slappy didn’t feel it when her home was toppled sideways onto a flatbed truck like that? I know they’re hoping we don’t realize she’s even in there but…come on.

I’m so busy paying attention to the World Trade Center (ah, simpler times) that I always miss the Santa hat, beard and belt on the Statue of Liberty.

As much as I don’t like the cartoon, “Katie Cupcake” just breaks me. I’m already smiling at the ridiculous Katie Couric caricature, but then they say her name. I laughed at this stupid joke, and I’m not ashamed.

It just bothers me to no end that Slappy stores nuts in a forest and hibernates through the winter. I’m sorry, that’s not Slappy Squirrel. But, “I’d like to thank the academy, Jack Warner and Joan Crawford’s taxidermist”? That’s definitely a great Slappy line. Too bad it’s buried in such a weak cartoon.

I get that she’s got her nose buried in a map, but I doubt Slappy is so unobservant that she doesn’t notice what’s going on around her. She even takes her eyes off her map once she gets to the bagel store, digs a hole in the floor, notices there are no nuts and casually walks out without being aware of her surroundings. Brainless, hopelessly tunnel-visioned characters do that, not Slappy Squirrel.

They don’t bother pitching up Skippy’s voice in this cartoon, and leave it the way it sounds in “Bully For Skippy”. Too bad he’s not given anything interesting to say. Skippy is really only in this one because he NEEDS to be.

I guess Branimaniacs grows on ya, huh? Skippy certainly seems to be enjoying it.

It’s the incredible shrinking Slappy. She gets smaller and smaller as this scene progresses that, by the third screenshot, she’s literally only a few inches tall. What the bloody hell happened with this cartoon? Why is she so small? On the other hand, the design of the CEO is fantastic. Wang handles all the human characters just fine here, but they seem to have lost their touch with the squirrels.

Voiced by MacNeille, this old lady has been popping up on the show for a while. Remember the old woman from “Davy Omelette”, for example? This same character design turned up later on Histeria as The World’s Oldest Woman.

Character Cameo: so here’s our very last Warner cameo, which is also the only time they even appear in this episode. Dot shouts for someone to turn off the lights, and the entire city goes dark, followed by the cartoon itself.

Punchline part 1

(no credits given)

For tonight’s installment of “Punchline”, anchorman Ted Foppel intends to answer that age-old riddle, why did the chicken cross the road? With him is criminologist Doctor Henry Peckaboo, who is just Chicken Boo in a wig. Mistaking Peckaboo’s clucking for microphone troubles, Foppel turns to his first guest, the Brain, who offers some conspiracy theories, a la the JFK assassination. However, Pinky is pretty sure Dr. Peckaboo is just a giant chicken. The Goodfeathers are interviewed next, and deny there ever was a chicken in the first place. Squit explains that it could very well have been Pesto, and suffers for it when Pesto takes it the wrong way. Finally, Foppel turns things over to roving reporter Runt, who follows the chicken’s scent right into the television studio and reveals that Peckaboo was a giant chicken the whole time. Wrapping up the broadcast, Foppel announces that the chicken crossed the road “to get to this very studio!”

For our final Chicken Boo cartoon, we get something completely different than what we’re used to, in a number of ways. The formula is still there - Chicken Boo shows up in a disguise, one person sees him for what he is, he’s unmasked, theme music, the end - but this short seems to exist just throw a bunch of other characters into the mix. And in the case of the Goodfeathers and Runt, it’s rather welcome after seeing so little of them lately. This is probably the funniest the pigeons have been in a while, and it’s nice to see a little-used character like Runt actually contribute to a plot in some way. But perhaps the most interesting thing about this segment is that it was animated by Startoons. Most of it looks good, although this is probably their all-around weakest cartoon from this season. Animators’ styles aren’t very apparent, and I wouldn’t be shocked if this was something that slipped through the cracks and was mostly handled overseas. To be honest, there are much better Chicken Boo entries out there, but this one gets points for the fun character cameos, and is very easily the highlight of this episode. It’s actually kind of amazing to think that the Chicken Boo formula has sustained so many cartoons, and that it’s done so without becoming incredibly stale. It’s the same joke every single time, but it’s such an absurd, high concept idea that it’s hard not to love it. The fact that there were more cartoons starring Chicken Boo made during the Kids WB seasons than anyone else aside from the Warners and Slappy really speaks volumes about just how much the writers must have enjoyed this character. Re-visiting the show the way I have in the past year, I’m surprised that I ended up liking these shorts so much more than I ever did before. He wore a disguise to look like human guys. But he wasn’t a man. He was Chicken Boo. Nuff said.

“Punchline” isn’t just Chicken Boo’s swansong, but (barring a very short callback at the end of the episode) it’s the last time we’ll see Startoons on this show as well.  Their work this season was very hit or miss. When they were on - as they were through a lot of episode 92 - their stuff was just as good as it ever was, if not better. But inexperienced artists, coupled with the need to ship work overseas to be completed, really hurt the overall quality of their output, and even cartoons with some spectacular work (such as “Brain’s Apprentice”) also include some unfortunately below par animation. After they were finished with Animaniacs, Startoons was given a handful of episodes of Histeria to work on, but by this point Warners was moving away from the comedy shows and was favoring superhero series and imports. Try as they might, McClenahan and crew attempted to find outside work, but the writing was on the wall, and Startoons folded soon after. It was a very sad ending for a studio that had added so much to Animaniacs’ visual style and had given the show so many of its brightest and most enjoyable cartoons. Studios like Startoons rarely came along in the '90s and are all but gone today, and I think we should all be thankful that Jon McClenahan (as well as Jeff Siergey, Spike Brandt, Neal Sternecky, Tony Cervone, Kirk Tingblad, David Pryor and others) worked so hard to help make the series so special. “Bumbie’s Mom”, “Chairman of the Bored”, “Critical Condition”, “Plane Pals”, “Frontier Slappy”, “Ragamuffins”, “Dot-the Macadamia Nut”…all some of the best Animaniacs had to offer, and all animated by an upstart little studio in Chicago.

The “Punchline” title screen appears in both segments, and it appears to have been created via CGI. I can’t confirm it, but I’m still pretty sure.

Startoons nails Chicken Boo on the very first try, which is more than I can say for Wang. “Peckaboo” is a great name. Vaguely dirty, but not quite.

Although McClenahan doesn’t remember much about this short, he has mentioned that Neal Sternecky did some freelance work for it. Looking at this scene and recalling his style with Pinky and the Brain in the DC comic, I’m positive he handled this entire sequence. This is definitely the best scene in the cartoon from a visual standpoint, and it’s really nice to see the mice interacting with dialogue again. It’s been a while, hasn’t it? Brain’s face in the last screenshot is perfect.

Startoons had an interesting take on the Goodfeathers. Very angular, but with lots of personality. Makes me almost wish they had done a full cartoon with them in the first season. Check out the drawing in that last screenshot. Holy cow.

The animation on Runt isn’t as good as the other characters, but we see so little of him that I really don’t care. As a matter of fact, this is the first time we hear Runt’s theme music since the first season. Surprisingly, Rita and Runt are actually treated pretty well in Wakko’s Wish, which is pretty mind blowing when you think about it.

Katie Ka-Boom intro

Katie has been asked to the senior prom, and begins to make all sorts of unreasonable demands of her family, claiming it to be the most important night of her life. But it really hits the fan when Katie makes it clear that she intends to stay out all night, prompting her dad to insist on a curfew. Losing it, Katie turns into a big green monster wearing a prom dress and way too much pink lipstick. Refusing to back down, dad compromises with Katie, and she returns to normal after they settle on a 1:30 curfew. Crisis averted, dad asks, “This is a passing phase right?” “Yeah, like the Ice Age”, explains mom.

Back when I first saw episode 35, I never would have guessed that the strange, exploding teenager who came and went out of nowhere would have stuck around long enough to be showing up this late in the series. This is clearly a very, very old script that sat around for a good long time before someone thought to produce it, hence Hollander’s writing credit. I’ve heard someone say that this was a fully completed cartoon that took forever to air, but I’m not sure I believe it. The animation is too “fifth season Wang” to have been made any earlier. And as to be expected, this is the same thing we’ve seen in all the other Kaboom shorts, as if they just cut and pasted entire bits of action and dialogue from one script to another. However, one thing makes this entry stand out, and that’s Katie’s father actually standing up to her and forcing her to compromise with him. It breaks the “rules” of this series just a little bit, and I appreciate that they did something a little different here. This is enough to put it above most of the other shorts in this mediocre series. But let’s be honest…is there anyone out there that’s actually satisfied that the next-to-last Animaniacs episode in the series more or less ends on a Katie Ka-Boom cartoon? Katie makes a suprise cameo in the following episode, as well as Wakko’s Wish…as long as you know where to look.

Check out the picture in the background. It’s Wakko’s guitar from “No Pain, No Painting”. What a random reference.

The telephone monster spit telephones, the belly button monster spit clothes and the prom monster…materializes a disco ball over her head. These cartoons aren’t very funny, but they sure could be trippy.

But I can’t be too hard on this short, if only for the fact that dad actually grows a pair and stands up to his freak of a daughter, successfully getting her to say please while in monster form. See, maybe if you guys stood up to her more often this wouldn’t happen.

The house collapses even though Katie doesn’t damage it very much. But that’s part of the cut and paste nature of this series. The house HAS to collapse, no matter what happens. This might have come from a completely different cartoon.

Punchline part 2

Ted Foppel plans to figure out which really came first - the chicken or the egg. He gets his answer when an egg falls on his head, followed by Chicken Boo. There’s really nothing to be said here. Those two summary sentences took longer to write than the segment takes to watch. I do like how it appears as if we’re getting another full cartoon…and then it just ends.

Just a few frames from this last segment. Nothing special, though I like the egg-shaped iris out.

Joke Credit: You Better Not Cry, You Better Not Pout, I’m Telling You Why: Wakko Put A Little Surprise In The Eggnog

Tower Outro: “Sit, Ubu, sit.”

Newsreel of the Stars

Yup, they’re using this again, the easiest way to kill a minute of air time.

Variable Verse: Here’s the Show’s Name-y!

Ed, Phil and Jan are picking up some new members of their carpool right outside a certain water tower. Wearing business suits, the Warners pile into the car and everyone heads off to work. It doesn’t take long for the kids to get on Ed’s nerves, as they tie him up in their seat belts, steal his newspaper and aggravate the guy just by being themselves. Ed attempts to change seats with them several times, only to immediately regret it when the Warners start playing with the controls for the seat in front of him, as well as the one he’s sitting in. Everyone quickly vacates the car when Wakko announces he’s car sick, and a trip to the car wash becomes necessary when he throws up all over the seats. As they continue on, Ed forbids the kids from doing anything, but relents when they ask if they can play a game. That game of course is tag, and Phil almost runs the car off the road when Wakko covers his eyes. Losing his temper, Phil ends up yelling at a cop, and the others have to bail him out of jail. Finally, the weary threesome reach their destination, and are shocked when the Warners tell them they don’t have jobs - they’re just carpooling for the free ice cream the studio gives as incentive for doing so. “We’ll pick you guys up tonight at five. And you can relax on the way home - it’s our turn to drive!” explains Yakko, who drives off, smashing into everything on his way out of the parking lot.

“The Carpool” represents the end of an era. It’s the very last short that can truly be called a Warners cartoon (they feature heavily in episode 99’s “The Scoring Session”, but they still share screen time with the rest of the cast). And although it’s not all that memorable, at least they’re going out on an entry that brings the characters back to their roots. This is a “Warners annoy someone” cartoon in its purest form, and it puts them in a simplistic situation that wouldn’t have been at all out of place in the first season. Granted, if this had been made in the first season I’m sure the jokes, not to mention the animation, would have been much stronger. But for something produced this late in the series, what we got isn’t too bad. The most successful aspect of this short is big, surly Ed, whose on the receiving end of most of the torment in this hellish car ride. Jan and Phil (voiced by MacNeille and Paulsen respectively) are designs simply pulled from the background character model pack, but Ed was created specifically for this cartoon. Helping immensely is his voice, supplied by Stuart Pankin, who most people remember as the voice of Earl Sinclair from the Disney/Henson TV show Dinosaurs. He doesn’t necessarily deserve to be annoyed by the Warners, but he’s such a short-tempered grump that we don’t mind too much. Even Jan and Phil seem to treat him like he’s over-reacting to the kids at first. Wakko getting car sick is truly the big highlight of the cartoon and I like the way everyone (even Yakko and Dot) can’t get out of the car fast enough. As Phil, Paulsen’s read on “You’re not gonna throw up in the car?” is especially good. But aside from that, most of the jokes don’t really stick, and there are far too many moments that appear to be ADR chatter as the Warners constantly talk over each other. The final scene is great though, and the shot of Yakko trying to exit the parking lot as Ed, Jan and Phil run off screaming in terror is very funny.

Koko’s animation also doesn’t leave much of an impression. They handle the human characters well (their house style definitely fits Ed’s design) but their Warners really look off. In their earlier cartoons they seemed determined to keep the kids as close to on-model as possible, to the point where they looked like they were being animated by Akom. Here, they come off very  angular, and it takes some getting used to. There are some moments that I like - such as Wakko cracking up while looking at a photo of Ted Turner in the newspaper or Ed being pummeled by his car seat - but the majority of the animation is about average. Still, it has a little more character than Wang’s animation in the previous episode and I can’t find too much fault in it. While it’s a little bland, there’s nothing in this cartoon that’s aggressively bad, and it ends long before it manages to wear out its welcome. Is it the greatest Warners short ever made? Of course not, but it’s reasonably entertaining, and much better than most of what we’ve gotten with these characters this season. For the final Warners cartoon of the series, we could have definitely gotten something much worse. I’ll wrap up discussion on the Warners when we get to the final episode, where I’ll also sum up my thoughts on the series as a whole.

So here are Jan, Ed and Phil. Jan’s character design is recognizable as Miss Bilchmoytner from “La La Law”, which has turned up elsewhere with different hair and skin colors. Ed’s design is really great, and really plays to Koko’s strengths. He almost looks like a human version of Pankin’s Earl Sinclair.

This shot is the first of two scenes that utilize a lot of ADR of the Warners yelling over each other. Dot’s voice is hard to ignore, and comes off as borderline obnoxious.

Here’s a good look at how Koko handles the Warners. Their angular style is very apparent on Yakko, especially in the shape of his ears. It’s a little jarring at first, but I wonder what Koko would have done with the Warners if they had been given more time to work with them. They seem to be trying to make them look extremely wacky, but aren’t always able to pull it off.

That said, I love this face on Yakko when he see’s the picture of Ted Turner in the newspaper. Paulsen’s performance here (“Hahaha-haha! Oh look at him! What’s he doin’? Hee-hee hee-hee!”) is hysterical.

Here’s another scene with obvious ADR, easy to spot since the Warners don’t actually move their mouths during most of their dialogue here. This is yet another instance where Dot gets on my nerves.

This is one of the best bits of animation in the cartoon. I especially like the way the seat repeatedly slams Ed in the back. The poses read very well in this shot.

We get one of the best gookies in a long time when Wakko groans, “I’m gonna be carsick!” Everyone races out of the car as fast as they can, and Phil begs Wakko to get out as well. Wakko: Nevermind, it’s okay now! Ed: Are you sure? Wakko: Yep! Phil: You’re not gonna throw up in the car? Wakko: No!! - this is a great run of dialogue, made funnier by the way Wakko lets them know he’s already thrown up after they get back in the car.

Everyone is pretty roughed up by the time they get to work, but the cartoon takes it’s time to show Phil slowly stagger out of the car and place his hand on his lower back. He just spent some time in jail, so I really don’t want to know what this implies.

One final parting look at Koko’s Warners. To be honest, they don’t look that bad in this cartoon and I think, in time, Koko might have been able to do something interesting with them. But we’ll never know.

Slappy and Skippy intro

Slappy comes home one day to some great news from Skippy - her agent got her a job appearing in a live TV special celebrating vintage comedy acts. When Slappy questions why Skippy is nervously hiding all of her explosives, she learns there’s one catch: the network wants her to perform “The Restaurant Sketch” with her old partner, Suzy Squirrel. Slappy doesn’t think much of Suzy (which is putting it mildly) and we learn Suzy isn’t too fond of Slappy either when she shows up to rehearse the sketch. They argue over how to perform the bit, and are still at each other’s throats the following night, seconds before cameras start to roll. Things go well at first, until Suzy goes off-script and begins ad-libbing. Slappy tries to go along with it for a while, but eventually her patience runs out. The squirrels begin arguing on camera and Slappy takes her frustrations out on Suzy by dropping a piano on her and blowing her (and most of the set) away with a ton of explosives. The audience loves it and the ratings for the special go through the roof. With Skippy as their agent, Suzy and Slappy are given their own prime time series, but they end up arguing once again when attempting to apologize to each other. As the two old squirrels go at it, Skippy concludes, “Now that’s comedy, babe!”

“The Sunshine Squirrels” is based on the Neil Simon play “The Sunshine Boys”, in which a bitter vaudeville team is begrudgingly reunited in order to perform an old sketch for a television special. It’s a plot that definitely makes sense for a character like Slappy, much more than having her adopt a baby bluebird or coach a soccer team. In fact, it’s the first cartoon in a very long time that’s built around Slappy’s career as a vintage cartoon star. On top of that, they even went as far as bringing in Phyllis Diller in the role of Suzy, an interesting bit of casting, considering Diller played herself in the 1975 film adaption of “The Sunshine Boys”. Getting the comedienne to play Suzy lends some authenticity to the character, and for the most part she plays off Sherri Stoner pretty well. If this cartoon had been produced during the first (or even the third) season it might have been a real winner. But stuck at the tail end of season five, it’s a two-act, overly talky bore. The first act takes places entirely in one room of Slappy’s house, with very little happening outside of the characters spouting exposition. Tighter editing wouldn’t have hurt either, as there are some very odd pauses between dialogue that gives it a very stilted feeling. Unfortunately, this is also the first cartoon that pitches up Nathan Ruegger’s voice. He had gotten older by now, but the higher voice really hurts his performance, to the point where I would have gladly taken the deeper voice from “Bully For Skippy”. Some painful lines (“Now show us the MONEY!!”) and those huge, owl eyes that Koko gives him don’t help either. The second act is a bit stronger, because at least we get a little of the traditional Slappytoon violence. But even this is still dialogue-heavy, while the staging and animation do nothing to disguise the fact that this entire short is nothing but characters talking to each other for a full ten minutes. Sometimes I wonder what Sherri Stoner felt while reading these later scripts, since her writing had been so instrumental in making Slappy such an engaging character in the first place. Like most late Kids WB era shorts, “The Sunshine Squirrels” is another one of those cartoons that I completely forget about until I watch it again, and then forget about again immediately afterward. I had to watch it a second time just to summarize it. Visually this one is a wash-out. Koko’s animation just sort of sits there, with no personality and nothing to compensate for the non-stop dialogue. Akom might as well have animated this short, because that’s pretty much what this looks like anyway. While there are a couple of moments that are interesting, this cartoon is definitely one of the weakest Slappy shorts of the entire series. It’s not the absolute worst though…we’re getting to that one.

This cartoon gets off to an rather bizarre start. Slappy suddenly pops into the very first shot, mere seconds after the short fades in and shouts, “Booo!”. Explains Slappy: “Comedy rule number twenty-six, surprise your audience. Heh, now there’s edju-tainment for ya! My job is done” What an odd way to open the short.

Even though they stopped using the “Taming of the Screwy” footage (finally) it’s surprising they’re still doing “rim shot” cutaways this late in the series. Definitely one of the longest lived gags in the series.

Skippy shows off a few title cards from old Slappy and Suzy cartoons. This one is definitely my favorite, if only for the IV bag and the demented look on Suzy. By the way, the credits for this episode spell the name as “Suzi”, but I’m going with what we actually see in the cartoon.

This shot, and the following two images, demonstrate one of the weirdest pieces of timing in the episode. Slappy asks when rehearsal begins…

…and then we get a couple of seconds of the characters just sitting there, not saying a word…

…and then Skippy gestures to the door and says “Right now” as Suzy enters. Was this deliberate? I somehow doubt it.

This particular shot goes on forever, but it’s also useful for showing off those strange owl eyes Skippy has in a few scenes. What is Skippy tripping on in this cartoon?

So tell me, do you think this dialogue is a little too on the nose? “I’m a network executive. I wouldn’t know funny if it kicked me in the bupkiss. All I know are ratings, shares and demographics. And if we don’t get them, I’ll be fired, and so will you!”

Character Cameo: after the piano falls on Suzy and crashes through the floor and into the basement, the Warners pop out and dance on the keys. Then they run off, followed by Ralph. This is the very last cameo that features Ralph chasing the kids, though it’s not the very last Warner cameo in general. We get one more in the next episode.

Now, here’s some timing that actually works very well. Suzy looks under the table, sees the explosives and then glances pathetically at the camera for a millisecond before everything goes off. It’s easily the funniest moment in the entire episode.

Here’s our last Mary Hartless appearance. Angered that Hartless keeps billing Suzy first, Slappy hands her a bomb and walks off. The brainless host just stares at the bomb and says, “Thanks so much” before she’s blown away. You know, her and Prunella Flundergust ought to get together.

Joke Credit: Today’s Moral: Scotchguard Your Upholstery!

Tower Outro: Ciao-abunga!

Variable Verse: How Urbane-y!

The episode starts with an introduction by Skippy, who fills us in on part one - it was just “We wanna make a movie!”/“You can’t make a movie!” for a whole half hour. He then explains that part two is pretty much going to be more of the same. So they knew all along that this was a padded-out mess, and still wasted two half hours on it? Unless, of course, this was added by director Tingblad after his experience with the previous episode.

This is certainly interesting - filler material that points out how these episodes are full of filler. This works mainly because of how it just repeats the same animation, over and over and over and over. Well, I guess if they were going to do this they might as well have been clever about it, right? But why is Plotz wearing a tux?

The Warners arrive at the star-studded gala (held at the Beverly Hills Hotel), easily get past Ralph, and begin to mingle with Hollywood’s elite. Plotz is also there, attempting to schmooze with a producer named Pressberg Katzeneiserman, who turns down all of the CEO’s scripts on the grounds that none of them are able to make him laugh. A chase breaks out when Plotz spots the Warners, and their script winds up accidentally being delivered to Pressberg, literally, on a silver platter. He absolutely loves it, and immediately agrees to make the movie. “Hooray For North Hollywood” quickly becomes a huge, Oscar-winning sensation, and everyone from critics to the movie-going public fall in love with it. Plotz, meanwhile, chooses to make a movie parodying Space Jam, entitled “Jamalot”, which flops hard. As the Warners become some of the richest, most powerful celebrities in Hollywood, Plotz begins to realize that he’s made a huge mistake. Things only get worse when the chairman of the Warner Brothers studio shows up one day, chews Plotz out for letting the Warners’ script slip through his fingers, and promptly fires him. Times passes, and Yakko, Wakko and Dot begin to miss the hot-tempered little CEO, who is now homeless and penniless. The kids abduct Plotz and bring him to a fancy New Year’s Eve party, where they explain that they used all their money to buy stock, becoming the studio’s primary share holders. They give Plotz his job back and everyone happily rings in the new year together. The episode ends with the Warners finishing up a sequel script, and once again they head off to pitch it to Mr. Plotz.  

This episode is lighter on the songs and a little heavier on plot compared to part one, but it still feels like something that’s being padded with material in order to fill a half hour. The scenes at the party near the beginning recall a watered-down version of the last few minutes of “Taming of the Screwy”, right down to the chase sequence and flying food. The last act of the episode is primarily taken up by the lengthy New Years Eve musical number, which has some decent lyrics, but feels like it never ends. So most of the meat occurs during the middle of the episode, and a majority of that consists of news reports praising “Hooray For North Hollywood”, and an extended Siskel and Ebert review that includes another song that overstays its welcome pretty quickly. While there’s more going on here, the derivative first act and bland songs easily make this the weaker of the two parts.

Much like the last episode, there’s really only one joke that makes me laugh out loud, and that’s Dot slamming Joel Schumacher in the most casual way possible when she runs into him at the party. Everything else is pretty weak to be honest, though I do get a chuckle at Wakko imitating Billy Bob Thorton in one of the movie clips. But what’s with the running gag with the licorice? It’s cute the first couple of times, but it soon gets to the point where Wakko seems obsessed with it. This is really the funniest thing they can think to do with Wakko at this point? And while I guess it’s part of the joke, just what is “Hooray For North Hollywood” about anyway? We get parodies of Independence Day, Fargo, Jerry McGuire and Slingblade, a musical number about the Los Angeles Department of Transportation, and further proof that someone on staff really thought Letterman’s “Uma/Oprah” bit was hysterical (it’s not). “LA DOT” especially is dead air, one of the most forgettable songs in the history of the series. What is it about this film that people are responding to? The idea of the Warners making their own movie has boatloads of potential, but here it’s just wasted on a bunch of movie references. The visuals don’t improve much from the previous episode and, if anything, I think Wang’s animation gets even worse. There’s some weird, off model characters in this one (Ralph looks really odd, and check out the snaggle-toothed, homeless Plotz) and there are times where the celebrity caricatures are astonishingly poor. The musical sequences suffer the most, as both of them amount to little more than static layouts and talking heads. The songs themselves aren’t that bad, but the staging and animation robs them of any life they could possibly have. And much like “There’s Only One of You”, “LA DOT” doesn’t feel like it belongs in this episode. Once again, it definitely seems like this was meant to be a standalone sequence that was crammed into this episode to pad it out. Why would a Siskel and Ebert review contain an entire song sequence anyway?

There’s a depressing air of finality that’s hard to shake while watching this episode. For all their party-crashing and celebrity hob-knobbing in the past, the Warners were always just three wacky kids living in a water tower who most studio employees feared. Here, they manage to become so rich and successful that they’re able to gain control of the Warner studio. This was never a show that was ever really concerned with continuity or what was canon or what wasn’t, but this is all pretty game-changing stuff, and the episode gives off a vibe that the writers knew the series was winding down. A line in the New Year’s Song  - “We managed somehow friends to make it through another year” - gives the impression that they’re surprised that this show was actually airing new episodes into 1998. This really does feel like a “final” episode in a sense with the way it handles the Warner’s relationship with Plotz, one of their very first foils. In fact, he actually kicks the kids off the lot for good before Pressberg decides to make their movie. The trio has always been a thorn on his side, but in this episode he’s so determined to finally be rid of them that he misses the chance to make a surefire hit, and loses his job over it. But in the end, the Warners realize that even with limitless money, life isn’t much fun without the short, balding CEO around to shout at them all the time. Dumping their fortune in order to get a hold of the studio and get Plotzy’s job back is the ultimate olive branch, and not something that could easily be ignored in future episodes.

On the whole, the “Hooray For North Hollywood” two-parter is a pretty big misfire. The ideas are strong, as are a few of the songs, but none of it is able to come together to create anything satisfactory. The Warners are characters that work best in seven to twelve minute cartoons, so two episodes telling a single story is already pushing it. But the fact that there isn’t two episodes worth of story in the first place makes all the rambling filler seem so much more obvious. As mentioned in part one, these episodes were a mess long before they were shipped overseas, and the sad state of Wang’s animation doesn’t help matters. The biggest shame in all of this is that we’re only a couple of episodes away from the end of the series, with only one more truly official Warners short left. With the exception of Startoons’ stuff from episodes 92 and 94 it doesn’t feel like anyone is putting effort into this show anymore, and are just doing what they can to get these final handful of shows over with.

Ralph: Where do you think youse is going? Wakko: Inside to talk to the movie people. Yakko: And to show them our script. Dot: So they’ll make it into a big budget blockbuster. Yakko: Like the Titanic. Dot: Except our movie will cost under two-hundred million. Yakko: As long as Wakko keeps his licorice habit under control. - One thing I’ve noticed about these two episodes is dialogue that just doesn’t know when to end, like this exchange between Yakko and Dot. Though I am surprised at the timely Titanic reference.

Character Cameo: Pip Pumphandle and Mister Director are on line waiting to sit on Sharon Stone’s lap. There’s a scene later on where Mister Director is heard laughing, and it’s so clearly not Paul Rugg that it’s painful.

As Dot walks past, Schumacher can be heard saying, “Let’s put Batman in a dress, okay…” Dot tells him that she’s seen all of his films. When Schumacher asks what she thinks of them, Dot tells him that he should keep making them, then adds, “Eventually one of them is bound to turn out watchable.” Great stuff, definitely the best line in the entire episode.

Not a bad wild take, definitely an extreme one coming from Plotz. Even the soles of his shoes pop off.

What happened to Ralph in these shots? Much like those scenes of Plotz from “The Party”, Ralph looks like he’s a refugee from a bad ‘80s Hanna-Barbara Jetsons cartoon. Looks like they forgot the outline around his face in the first shot. So weird. Simplistic drawings like these aren’t unusual for this episode.

Oh, Space Jam. I know you made a lot of money, but you were so, so terrible. All the made-up cartoon characters in this clip look like they’d rather be somewhere else. One of them even checks his watch.

Dot: I suggest we evacuate immediately. Yakko: I already evacuated. Wakko: Me too. Oops. Twice. - I know bodily function humor isn’t totally beneath this show, but this is still pretty crude.

Character Cameo: Colin appears as the kid in the Slingblade parody. Harnell’s Billy Bob Thorton impression is all kinds of great. Mm-hm.

What’s with this shot during the “LA DOT” song? Why are the edges of the widescreen bars all blurry? I’d love to know what exactly happened here.

Aside from it’s length, two things bother me about this song. One is how Dot’s singing voice keeps sounding too much like Tress and not enough like Dot. And the other is that bizarre Jim Carrey caricature that’s in almost every shot. What’s Ed Norton doing there?

I’ve always found it weird how Dot’s web address isn’t even complete. “www.dot.”, without a “com” or anything like that. Did they not want to encourage kids to go online and look for a Dot-related web site? Did it not fit the rest of the lyrics or the rhyme scheme? That’s a weird profile drawing on Dot, too. She looks like Bonkers.

Get a load of the design of the chairman, surrounded by stock WBTA celebrity caricatures. This guy doesn’t look at all like he belongs on this show, does he? It’s those triangular eyes. You would have never seen anything like this in earlier seasons, and definitely not in a Wang cartoon.

Rob Paulsen usually never had trouble with longer verses during songs, or having to hit higher notes. But here, Yakko’s voice totally falls apart midway though a line. By the end it doesn’t sound anything like him. At this point all the Warners’ voices (even Dot’s to an extent) have evolved quite a bit from the early days of the first season. This is also a relatively poor piece of animation.

But speaking of falling apart, Wang’s animation totally crashes and burns during the New Years Song. Look at this awful shot. Who is the guy Dot is hanging on to and why does his face scream “creeper”? But even worse are those hideous background characters that look like they were drawn by six year olds. What the hell happened to Wang?

Ignoring the extreme poses and long tails, this is going to be the last time we ever see the Warners in a studio environment like this, happily dancing around and ready to drive Plotz crazy. We’re so close to the end now that, very quickly, we’re going to be saying goodbye to a lot of elements that made the show great.

Joke Credit: Our New Year’s Resolution: No More Sarcastic Jokes About The Brilliant WB Network…Oops!

Tower Outro: Farewell!

Variable Verse: No Pain, No Gain-y!

Written by Randy Rogel and Tom Ruegger, Directed by Stephan Lewis, Herb Moore, David Pryor and King Tingblad

The episode starts with the Goodfeathers, who are sitting on a telephone wire looking at clouds. Pesto says that one cloud in particular looks like an elephant’s head, while Squit is sure it actually looks like a snake. This doesn’t sit well with Pesto, so of course Squit gets the daylights beaten out of him. After this short sequence, the main story begins…

Yakko, Wakko and Dot put the finishing touches on their script, “Hooray For North Hollywood”. Singing the praises of Mr. Plotz (“He’s successful, he’s a genius, he’s the man who has it all”) they bring the script to the CEO’s office, hoping to get it made into a movie. Unfortunately, they find everyone else in town is already there, trying to do the exact same thing. To pass the time, Yakko and Dot take over for Plotz’ secretary and decide to teach Wakko how to “schmooze”, i.e. how to sweet talk celebrities and make deals in Hollywood. Eventually, they meet with Plotz, since he explains that he’s contractually bound to meet with them once a year anyway. They try hard to talk up their film - and even go as far as breaking into a random musical number called “There’s Only One of You” - but Plotz wants nothing to do with the script, and kicks the Warners out of his office. Down but not out, the kids decide to find someone with a lot of money to finance their film. They flip through the trade paper, and when the Hawaiian-shirt guy (the same one we’ve been seeing in the background since season one) asks what the Variety headlines mean, the Warners perform a new version of “Variety Speak” in order to explain it to him. They manage to find an article about a party being held in Beverly Hills, one that’s sure to include some of the most important people in Hollywood. Excited at the possibilities, the Warners race off to get ready for the party.

The episode then ends with another Goodfeathers segment. This time the guys are looking up at the night sky. Pesto assumes there are millions of stars out there, only for Squit to one up him and explain there are actually billions of stars in space. Once again, Pesto becomes furious and this time Squit AND Bobby feel his wrath.

It would be nice to say the first and only two part Animaniacs episode was something that was worth waiting for, but unfortunately that wasn’t the case. There’s around seven to ten minutes of actual story in this episode, and that’s being really generous. The Warners want to make a movie, they go to Plotz’ office, get kicked out, discover the information about the party and the episode ends.  And what we do get story-wise isn’t very interesting. Why do the Warners want to make a movie in the first place? Why are they singing the praises of a man they antagonize on a daily basis, a man so clueless that’s he’s been fooled multiple times by Chicken Boo? Why is this something that’s so important for them? The more time passes, the more the Warners lose that wacky edge that made them so entertaining and loveable in the first place. Here, they might as well be any trio of kids desperate to make a movie. There is one solitary non-musical sequence that actually works in this episode, and that’s the terrific back-and-forth Yakko and Plotz have about the nature of their movie. Yakko says something that piques the CEO’s interest, causing Plotz to exclaim “That’s good!”, then immediately follows it up with something that undermines it, making him flatly groan, “That’s bad”. This sequence goes on for a while (“Spielberg is going to direct.” “That’s good!” “But not this picture.” “That’s bad.” “But we’ve got Zemeckis!” “That’s good!” “Freddy Zemeckis, from accounting…” “That’s bad.”) but is a lot funnier than it sounds, mainly thanks to how Paulsen and Welker handle it. Everything else just falls flat, and we don’t really care if the Warner’s film gets made or not, because after 94 episodes we’ve been programmed to expect these characters to do anything and everything they want. Begging Plotz to make their movie and later holding up signs on a street corner just seem so beneath the Warners. With the exception of the song sequences (most of which aren’t that great either) this is a very boring episode, one that feels like it’s just biding its time waiting for the series to end. Maybe if this was a seven minute short it might have been interesting, but this is just the first installment of a two-episode story. With so little story material to work with, what we do get is a ton of filler. The Goodfeathers segments that open and close the episode are cute, but they’re not even animated by Wang, who handled the rest of the episode. They were actually added later by director Kirk Tingblad (and animated at Koko) in order to pad out the run time.. But nothing shouts “padding” louder than those songs…

The bulk of the episode consists of four musical numbers, long enough to have been standalone shorts with their own title cards if they had appeared in any other episode. It’s just one song after another, with one beginning right after another has barely ended. Keep in mind that show 82 - which was nothing but songs - included six musical cartoons, and you should get an idea how little story material is actually here. “We’re On Our Way To Go See Mr. Plotz” is the only song that actually seems crucial to the plot, even if it doesn’t make sense for the kids to speak so highly of the short tempered little CEO. It was clearly written for this episode, has some fun lyrics and a nice background chorus towards the end. It gets the story off to a decent start, but honestly, “The Schmooze” grinds everything to a halt. The thing goes on forever and - aside from Schwarzenegger threatening to kill Wakko, and the surprise Bart Simpson cameo - there isn’t much about it that I really enjoy. It just seems like an incredibly low-rent repeat of “Variety Speak”, with Yakko and Dot trying to teach Wakko a Hollywood term he doesn’t understand. And while we’re on the subject of “Variety Speak”, was it really necessary to reprise that song? Lyrically, it’s not even close to the original version from episode 71, and a lot of the lines (“Studio bomb gets Oscar nom” “Means all the actors’ gotta be Brits”) don’t even make a lot of sense. It’s not terrible, but for the most part it falls pretty flat, and is a great example of how certain things should only be done once. The first “Variety Speak” was no masterpiece, but it’s far better than this.

And then we have “There’s Only One of You”, which comes completely out of left field, having nothing whatsoever to do with the rest of the story. All the rest of the songs in the episode are about Hollywood in some way. But this one talks about all the plants, animals, insects and other organisms that exist in the universe and how the fact that “there’s only one of you” is what makes people special. The song itself was actually from the 1994 “Yakko’s World” album, meaning that it had been around for quite a while before someone thought to animate it and include it in the fifth season. It clearly was never meant for this episode, made even more obvious by the fact that it was actually a Startoon-boarded cartoon, and was directed by David Pryor and Kirk Tingblad. The song is a tad saccharine, but it’s still pretty enjoyable, and needless to say the animation makes it the definite visual highlight of the episode. Jon Mcclenahan has confessed to not remembering anything about this piece of animation, and as it turns out he probably has a very good reason not to. According to Tingblad, it was simply boarded at Startoons and shipped overseas to be animated. Tingblad was handed the episode (which was not only a complete, post-it note ridden mess but also running late) and was told to get it working because he had worked at Startoons and was considered a “perfect fit”. He did the best he could with what he was given, lamenting it was eventually sent to “one of the worst overseas studios”, and for his troubles ended up directing the sequel episode in full. Regardless, there’s some great stuff to be had in “There’s Only One of You”, the very last time the Warners were handled in a distinctly Startoons style. But at the end of the day, this sequence stands out like a sore thumb, and just doesn’t belong here. Many have speculated that this was meant to be its own standalone sequence (perhaps intended for the previous episode, hence the two minutes of filler at the beginning) but was inserted into this show instead. I really wish it had shown up on it’s own somewhere, because suddenly popping up out of nowhere in this below-average episode doesn’t do it any favors.

Wang’s animation has almost no character, which is a big letdown considering how enjoyable their stuff used to be. There’s a bland sort of sameness to their work, which adds to the overall tired feel to the episode. The series is wrapping up fast, and it’s a shame even a reliable studio like Wang is now phoning in their stuff. There’s just a depressing air to the show now, and it’s only going to get worse. There really isn’t much to say about the animation, since it’s really just there. I don’t hate this episode, because it has its moments and some of the songs are fun. Part two has more story to it (that’s good!) but if anything, it’s the weaker of the two episodes (that’s bad).

These Goodfeather sequences are some of King Tingblad’s main directorial contributions to this episode and are a lot of fun,There’s one more of these that has yet to air, and that one will show up in episode 99.

Character Cameo: Flavio and Marita walk by the water tower as Minerva Mink sits around filing her nails. Nice to see the hippos, but I still couldn’t care less about Minerva. Apparently, stuff like this was only added as filler.

The Warners don’t look this odd throughout the whole episode, but have you ever seen them look like this when Wang was animating them? There’s a nice shout-out to “Temporary Insanity” here too, with the typewriter music playing as Yakko finishes up the script.

Character Cameos: a group of characters sing along with the Warners, including the hippos, Scratchansniff, Slappy and Skippy. We won’t see Scratchy again until episode 99, a shock because of how much this show takes place at the lot.

Character Cameo: this opening song is stuffed full of quick cameos, and I had actually forgotten that Buttons and Mindy show up in this shot, along with Slappy and Skippy.

Wakko makes it clear that his math skills are terrible, so Dot asks, “You know the reason California schools scored so low in math?” When Wakko asks why, Dot screams, “You! Start going to class!” What’s that about? Wakko doesn’t go to school…soooo…California has low test scores?? Why is Dot being so harsh? What a weird scene.

By late ‘97/early '98 we all knew we were getting another Star Wars movie, so this scene stands out for being ironic, intentionally or not. “Are you crazy? It’s over George! Now give it up!”, shouts Plotz. Who knew Star Wars was going to blow up as big as it did soon after?

“And on The Simpsons you suggested that they call the kid Bart.” It’s just the top of his head, but I’m surprised they were able to show Bart at all.

Plotz has a terrible habit of falling for Chicken Boo’s disguises. First there’s the “65th Anniversary Special”, then there’s “The Boo Network” (though I’ll give him credit for eventually figuring that one out), followed by “Back in Style”. Now here’s Boo, pretending to be a lawyer once again. Some people never learn.

This is Wakko’s best scene. Hyping the script, Wakko says, “Low eight figures, non negotiable. Out the gate, in the bag, over the fence, through the woods to Grandmother’s house we go, babe!” Plotz’ response is priceless: “What are you talking about?! Are you speaking rap??”

The “That’s good/That’s bad” scene features the best Wang animation, which is really bouncy and silly. I love the dejected body language on Plotz whenever Yakko bursts his bubble.

A variety of shots from the Startoons sequence. Although he didn’t animate this himself, it’s clear it was all boarded by David Pryor. Pryor has a very interesting style. His Warners are almost angular, and the bottoms of their faces are very wide with broad smiles. Although his animation isn’t always perfect in this song, I still love it, and really wish we could have seen even more if it.

This is my favorite scene in the song. The white background recalls “Macadmaia Nut”, and that deranged face on Wakko is so well done. Even the gookie is great. Pryor was best at head-on shots, as evidenced here. The perspective and drawing on Yakko’s hand in a little weird, but that’s the fault of this particular screen shot. It looks fine in motion.

So that’s it. The last time Startoon even handled the Warners. At least they go out on a really good drawing. There’s a little more of their work in episode 98, and that’s it…

Character Cameo: Hey, look at that. The Godpigeon! I totally forgot he was also in this episode. So I was wrong. “Macadamia Nut” wasn’t his last appearance. Squit poops into the Warners’ money cup. They don’t draw it, but you hear it.

I feel like the Hawaiian shirt guy has become the unsung hero of this blog. I’ve loved pointing him out, and until last year I had no idea he appeared as much as he did. He’s easily the most distinctive background character they ever came up with. And in this episode he actually gets to talk. They simplified his design a little bit for this appearance, but it’s cool that they finally gave him (and his wife) a little moment in the spotlight,

“And everyone who reads it wonders what the headlines mean.” This probably wasn’t intentional, but the way Wakko drags out this line makes it really sound like he’s about to say, “And everyone who reads it wonders what the hell it means.” Now, I don’t think that’s what they were really going for, but it would have been hilarious if that was the intent.

I’m sorry, but this is just sad. They’re just outright copying scenes from the first “Variety Speak”. All of these shots more or less appear (with better animation) in episode 71.

I have to say, as much as I complained about Pesto attacking Squit early on, it’s been so long since he’s done it that it’s great to see it again. There’s some great lines here as he’s beating Squit up in the fight cloud - “Ya want a big dipper? I’ll give ya a big dipper! Want a little dipper? I’ll whack ya with a little dipper!” Funny stuff.

Joke Credit: Kids WB Is #1: Ha! Ha! Just Kidding!

Tower Outro: Bonsoir!

This episode has an interesting broadcast history. When it first aired in the Fall of 1997, the first cartoon (“Magic Time”) was not ready due to production delays. So “Brain’s Apprentice” aired with “Hercule Yakko” from episode 25 with additional material that would later appear in episode 98. The completed show wouldn’t actually be broadcast until the following year. The only other all-Startoons episode of the season, it isn’t an exceptionally strong show, but it definitely has its moments.

Newsreel of the Stars

Yup, they actually brought “Newsreel of the Stars” out of retirement in order to kill some time in this episode, a sure sign that they’re desperate for filler material to pad out the last batch of shows. And this isn’t even the only time they do it.

Extended Theme Song

Variable Verse: Pinky and the Brain-y!

Schnitzel and Floyd are a pair of highly unpleasant Las Vegas magicians who delight in abusing the lion and elephant they use for their act. On stage, they ask for three volunteers from the audience and get the Warners, who rush up to them begging to be part of the show. They snub Dot’s advances, and pull eggs from behind Yakko’s ears when he asks if they’re any good. Wakko gets into the act and tells the magicians to reach behind his ears, only for lobsters to snap at their fingers. Schnitzel and Floyd use the Warners for the traditional “saw a person in half” box trick, which goes nowhere. Next, the magicians place the lion and elephant in one box, and the Warners in another, attempting to have them switch places. Nothing happens, with the exception of the kids appearing in their box wearing nothing but shower caps.

Having had enough of them, Schnitzel and Floyd belittle the trio and tell them to get lost. When they try to transform the lion “into what is a pretty girl”, they instead get Yakko and Wakko, dressed as hideous cheerleaders. Their next trick, turning the elephant into a men’s chorus, results in Dot appearing with the Dover Boys, who insult the magicians in song. For the finale, the Warners give the abused animals some weapons, allowing them to take revenge on their tormentors. The kids pack what’s left of the magicians into a crate and mail them to Africa, where they find themselves at nature’s mercy. Back in Vegas, Schnitzel and Floyd have been replaced by the insult comedy of Ron Pickels, who is amused when the Warners volunteer from the audience. “I guess he hasn’t seen our act”, concludes Yakko.

One thing I really like about “Magic Time” is its simplicity. It doesn’t parody anything, it doesn’t break the fourth wall, it just gives us a classic Warners plot featuring the trio doing their best to humiliate and antagonize two guys who are entitled to every single thing they get. Their arrogance and rudeness already begs someone to cut them down to size, but the fact that they also delight in torturing animals means they probably deserve the Warners’ brand of karmic justice more than anyone else the kids have ever been up against. That said, the kids go rather easy on them for the most part, and embarrass them far more than they actually physically injure them. If anything, I really think the Warners could have been much more aggressive here, because it’s not like these two morons didn’t have it coming. That said, letting the animals deliver the final blow to the magicians is pretty appropriate, since it’s nice to see these poor, beaten down creatures get their shot at revenge. The cartoon isn’t exactly memorable, but there are some decent bits here and there. Most notable is the “pretty” girl scene with Yakko and Wakko, which is great due to McClenahan’s animation and Paulsen and Harnell’s performances. To be honest, I don’t want to be too hard on this cartoon, but if it was wasn’t for the fact that it features Startoons animation, it wouldn’t really be anything too special. I appreciate the basic season one feel to the story, but there isn’t much here that sticks with you once the short is over, unlike the best “Warners annoy someone” cartoons like “Plane Pals” and “O Silly Mio”.

Startoon’s animation is all over the place. Watching the finished cartoon, I’m not surprised that production issues delayed it for as long as they did. Jon McClenahan’s work is fantastic as always, while we get a longer look at David Pryor’s style. The more I see it, the more it brings to mind Jeff Siergey’s animation, with really loose movements and mouthless expressions. If McClenahan and Pryor had been able to handle more of this short, the visuals would have been able to compensate for all of its other weaknesses. Unfortunately, a good chuck of this cartoon features very below average to mediocre animation. The Warners generally look all right no matter who is handling them, but Schnitzel and Floyd get the worst of it, and are animated in scenes that are among some of Startoons’ worst. For every really great scene, we get another one with some truly cringe-worthy animation. With the exception of “It” and “Dot-the Macadamia Nut”, Jon McClenahan has never been very happy with the material his studio worked on in season five, and “Magic Time” seems to be the primary offender. It’s hard to shake the feeling while watching it that it could have been so much better, but suffered thanks to inexperienced animators and a difficult production. I don’t think it’s terrible (it’s easily better than the Warner cartoons in the previous episode) but it’s very far from Startoons’ best.

“Call your wife”. It’s a quick gag that might be easy to miss, but even the slot machine has taken pity on this guy. Check out those massive, bloodshot eyes.

So here our are antagonists, ready to stick a pin in a poor lion in order to get him to act ferocious. Floyd was voiced by Jeff Bennett and by the sound of it, Paulsen voiced Schnitzel. The Schwarzenegger voices get a little tiresome after a while, but I do like the line, “Be quiet and also hush!” It almost became the title for this post.

The magicians ask for volunteers from the audience, explaining that they won’t be paid, “so don’t ask.” Almost immediately, the Warners race up the aisle, screaming to be chosen. Great timing in this scene, as if (for some reason) the promise of NOT being paid was the motivation they needed to go up there.

The animation switches to Jon McClenahan when the Warners introduce themselves. Nothing too expressive in these shots, but Jon was always able to make even simple poses look fantastic. I especially like the shot of Dot sizing up Schnitzel and Floyd.

If I didn’t know that Jeff Siergey was no longer working on the show, I’d swear this was his stuff. But from the look of it, I’d say David Pryor was most likely responsible for this. This is really the most character Yakko has had in a long time.

Two great moments courtesy of Jon McClenahan. The first image is just really silly, but I love the second scene. Paulsen and Harnell really sell the old lady voices. Yakko says, “Hi, I’m a pretty girl. How’s it goin.?” Adds Wakko, “I’m her sister. I came along ‘cause I couldn’t get a date.”

Normally, I’d complain about one-shot first season characters showing up this late in the game. But since these guys appeared in another Startoons cartoon, it feels more like a shout-out than a cheap reference.

Here’s something she’s never done before. For her “solo”, Dot screeches so intensely that Floyd becomes a sound wave and ends up exploding. That’s certainly different.

Here’s one of the weirdest scenes in the cartoon. The Warners look very off here, especially Dot in the foreground The angle of the eyes, the size of the highlights, the mouth…very, very strange.

Here’s another shot that I’m positive was animated by David Pryor. There’s some great energy and attitude in this scene. Yakko, especially, looks incredible as he dances around and pops from pose to pose. I would have loved to see even more of Pryor’s work with these characters.

We end on one last McClenahan shot, the last time we’re going to see him work with the Warners. Unless he actually did do something in “Brain’s Apprentice” (though he says he didn’t), we’re not going to get any more of his animation. 

Pinky and the Brain intro (Wang)

Brain has built a machine at Acme Labs in order to create his own army, but when Pinky comes over to investigate the small robot he’s created, he unknowingly unplugs the machine when he trips over the cord. Confused as to why his robot isn’t responding, Brain grabs his plans and heads into another room to work things out. Pinky discovers what happened and plugs the machine back in, causing the robot to come to life and copy everything he does. While dancing with Pinky, the robot accidentally hits a switch that sets the machine on “mass produce”. The lab quickly fills up with little robots, and in his attempt to shut the machine down, Pinky activates the “commence world domination” command. A large group of robots then proceed to file out of the lab, hijack a tank and drive it to the White House. There, they hold the president hostage with a pen and attempt to force him to sign a paper that surrenders power to Brain. Just as things really get out of control at the lab, Brain returns and shuts down the machine, de-activating all the robots in the room. When Pinky goes to watch TV, he sees a news report about the White House takeover: those robots are still active! He tries to warn Brain, who refuses to listen and shuts off the world domination command seconds before the president is about to sign power over to him. When Brain sees the news and realizes what’s just happened, failure hits him hard. Pinky hands Brain a flyswatter, shrugs and is then hit over the head with it.

The final Pinky and the Brain cartoon to air on Animaniacs, “Brain’s Apprentice” has an awful lot going for it. Despite some schizophrenic Startoons animation, it’s one of the most enjoyable cartoons of the season. It’s surface appeal is obvious: this is the first and only cartoon of the entire Kids WB era that features Pinky and the Brain operating out of Acme Labs for a modern day, take over the world story. But what really brings it to a different level is the fact that it’s a truly entertaining take on Paul Duka’s “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”, featuring an authentic musical score with no dialogue or sound effects, along with some elements from the Disney version seen in Fantasia. The music is what really makes this work, as it’s very close to the actual “Sorcerer’s Apprentice” piece, and isn’t a warped version that only kind of sounds like it, as was done in the Tiny Toon Adventures episode “Tiny Toons Music Television”. Elements of the Pinky and the Brain theme are also incorporated into the score, which really ties everything together. There’s nothing too funny or clever about the short, but it’s forgivable considering that it’s more concerned with moving the story along to the music. One thing I do really love about this cartoon is how Brain comes so close to taking over the world and would have succeeded if he had only listened to Pinky for a second. His expressions, as he processes his failure and realizes one flip of a switch robbed him of his goal, are absolutely perfect.

This is Startoon’s only other Pinky and the Brain cartoon. As in “Meet John Brain”, it’s certainly a big switch from Wang, or Rough Draft, who had been animating the mice on their spin-off show. Like the previous cartoon, the visuals range from spectacular to terrible, giving this entry a true bi-polar feel. The opening and closing scenes with Brain are definitely the most well done, with the end of the cartoon featuring some fantastic animation as Brain re-enters the room and pushes the robots aside on the way to his machine. McClenahan claims to have not worked on this short, and his style really doesn’t appear to be present at all. On the other hand, he’s stated that Spike Brandt returned briefly to work on a few scenes, and it looks like some of the later moments with Brain might be his work. But the stuff that’s poor is very, very poor, and this cartoon contains some of the most off model Pinky drawings I’ve ever seen on this show.  In fact, the entire middle section is plagued with mediocre animation, which does bring things down a little bit. But the concept is a lot of fun, the music is great and when the animation is good, it’s really damn good. And hey, it stars Pinky and the Brain, so how bad could it possibly be? I’ll give my final thoughts on these characters, with details on their less-than-fortunate post spin-off career when I discuss “Star Warners”, the Pinky and the Brain finale that doubles as a crossover with the Animaniacs cast.

The opening sequence features some animation that’s nothing special but still gets the job done. Brain looks pretty good, although the animator working on him here seems to have a slightly hard time keeping him on model, giving him very large feet in some shots, and an oddly squat lower body in others.

The animator for this lengthy sequence has a very hard time with Pinky, and the animation is very rough, despite a few good poses. He’s having a tough time with the corners of Pinky’s mouth and those large white highlights in his eyes shouldn’t be there. Still, it’s not the worst thing in this cartoon.

This little bit of animation flies by pretty fast, but it’s very well done. Again, I’m not sure at all who animated this, but I wouldn’t be shocked it was Pryor or Spike Brandt. I love the way Pinky runs into the shot.

Not too much to say about this. It’s just a really good wild take

There’s some really nice walk cycles on the robots as they march out of the machine, arms swinging forward and back and their heads swinging back and forth, with some terrific follow-through on the antennae.

If this crazy bit of animation looks familiar to you, you’re in good company. This is taken from a 1951 Tex Avery cartoon called “Droopy’s Double Trouble”. Oh, you’ve never seen that cartoon? Then maybe you recognize it from the 1989 Roger Rabbit cartoon “Tummy Trouble”. All three cartoons use the exact same wild take.

This is definitely the weirdest-looking Pinky in the whole short. What’s up with those messed up ears?

Holy holy holy cow. This is some unbelievably animation of Brain. Especially great is the shot of him angrily walking towards the camera. But all of these scenes are amazing. Look at the poses, the expressions, the body language. It’s been a while since Brain has looked this great. I’m positive this is a scene that Spike Brandt animated. It’s too good to belong to anyone else.

This is such an atypical Pinky expression, but I still really love it.

I’m not sure who handled the last minute and a half of this cartoon, but I really like his style too. Whoever it was absolutely nailed every single one of Brain’s expressions. They’re all total knockouts. Wang usually was the master at great Brain expressions, but these shots give them a run for their money. Look at that third screenshot and try not to laugh.

My absolute favorite bit of animation in this episode is timed to the last four notes in “The Sorcerer’s Apprentice”. The shrug and big grin on Pinky is funny, but wow, check out some of these powerful drawings of Brain. There’s so much confidence in this final shot. I would love to know who animated it.

And if that final shot wasn’t already great, they get incredibly ballsy by pulling out of the lab immediately afterwards. It quickly hooks onto a slightly re-tooled version of the original TMS intro, but something like this still takes a lot of effort. It’s nice that we got to go back to Acme Labs one last time, at least on this show.

Joke Credit: If At First You Don’t Succeed: Rewrite, Rewrite, Rewrite

Tower Outro: “Lather.” “Rinse.” “Repeat.”

Variable Verse: Chicken Chow Mein-y!

This cartoon picks up where the traditional Snow White story leaves off. After being rescued from her eternal sleep by the prince, Snow White throws the evil queen off a cliff and takes over her castle. She keeps the queen’s magic mirror around, so that it can tell her how cute she is. But when she discovers that her cuteness has been eclipsed by Dot Warner, she has her two dwarves (well, this is a fabulously cheap cartoon) capture and imprison Dot in the castle. Her prison guard is none other than the Dennis Hopper caricature from “Hearts of Twilight”, so Dot uses her cute weirdness on him and manages to escape. The confrontation with Snow White ends when the clueless prince knocks them both out a window, and Snow White winds up falling to her death in a crocodile-filled moat. Dot then proceeds to take over the castle, covering the magic mirror with furniture when it has the audacity to tell her that the Olsen twins are cuter than she is.

It would be hard for any Warners segment to be much worse than “Anchors A-Warners”, but this awful little short actually manages to scrape the very bottom of the barrel. Between the Koko animation (which we’ll get to in a minute) and the character designs, it actually feels much more like a Freakazoid cartoon. A terribly unfunny Freakazoid cartoon, but a Freakazoid cartoon nonetheless. There’s an air of meanness to how the human characters are portrayed, with Snow White especially coming across as an embarrassingly shrill little shrew. The short is also pretty frank in the way it kills off the characters, as the evil queen is casually dropped off a cliff and Snow White herself is eaten with a very audible off-screen “chomp” after being tricked by Dot into falling into the castle’s moat. The “two dwarves” nonsense is incredibly lame, and pointing out how stupid it is doesn’t make it better either. And the fact that the most memorable thing about this cartoon is the way it rips off the best gag from a season one short is unbelievably sad. They couldn’t think of anything better than bringing back the whole Dennis Hopper thing again? This barely feels like a Warners short, since Yakko and Wakko have absolutely nothing to do aside from the business about the “chunnel”, which would have been much funnier in a better directed short. But hands down, the very worst part of this cartoon is the obnoxious narration, which is just painfully grating. They’re going for something that sounds like a Robin Leach parody, but it just hurts to listen to. And since this voice is the very first thing we hear, it sets the tone for the rest of the short.

This is also the first Animaniacs cartoon to feature animation from Koko Enterprises in South Korea. A relatively new studio at the time, Koko had already provided animation for Warner Brothers on shows such as Freakazoid and The Sylvester and Tweety Mysteries, and had a style that was a little more simplistic and angular than the studios that had worked on Animaniacs in the past. They really don’t bring anything new or distinctive to the show, and their animation just hangs there, with really nothing appealing to latch on to. In fact, their work really just recalls a smoothed over Akom, and I’m willing to bet that anyone going into this cartoon without realizing who was animating it would probably think Akom actually did work on it. Coming off the Startoons segments in the previous episode, Koko’s work in this show is just boring and lifeless. They didn’t really end up doing too much for the series - though episode 97 is entirely animated by the studio - but that’s probably just as well.

The queen takes Snow White to a fast food joint called Quick Nix, and poisons her with an apple in a hamburger. Right next door to the restaurant is a cemetery, with an open plot for Snow White. Wow, that’s…really dark.

The opening shots of the theme song are re-created, doing nothing more than making me miss how great TMS’ work used to be. Way to go, Koko Enterprises. This isn’t terrible, but it does beg the question: in the context of the show, do they re-film the theme song for every episode?

Says the narrator, “Meanwhile, Dot wondered how long she’d have to endure this horrible torture.” “Actually”, explains Dot, “I was wondering how long I’d have to endure this horrible narrator.” Pointing it out isn’t exactly clever, but in this case it’s pretty funny. Definitely agree with Dot on this one.

Who’s bright idea was it to go back to this joke? It worked in “Hearts of Twilight” because the situation called for the Hooper caricature, and Wang really sold the fantastic poses and expressions. It doesn’t work at all here and, unbelievably, they copied the same scene again in Wakko’s Wish. WHY??

Yakko and Wakko propose building a tunnel connecting Britain to France. Snow White explains that it’s already been done and it’s called a “chunnel”. After explaining that it sounds like a chocolate bar, Wakko shouts “Hey, who wants a chunnel?!” and then says that hey had planned to call it “Mister Timmy’s Big Underwater Tube.” In a cartoon that wasn’t so absolutely awful, this whole exchange might have been so much funnier than it is.

The Warners are Russian immigrants who have just arrived at Ellis Island. After the trio is kicked clear to Manhattan by the Statue of Liberty, we learn this opening is only a set-up to get the kids into NYC to attend the Emmys. Yakko announces that he knows some “acquaintances” they can stay with, so the Warners move in with the cast of Friends, and begin to drive them crazy. Dot begins shoving food into Monica’s mouth - causing her to fall off the wagon and gain weight again - and later smashes tone-deaf Phoebe’s guitar. Yakko meanwhile, interrupts a romantic moment between Ross and Rachel by asking if anyone wants to play Scruples. Finally, the cast is tossed out of their own apartment, with Yakko telling them that they can come back in if they can actually do something, as opposed to nothing. When the group finally re-enters, they discover the Warners have made a shambles of the apartment and proceed to kick them out for good. Needing a new group of trendy New Yorkers to hang out with, the Warners head down to the diner and harass the cast of Seinfeld.

“Acquaintances” is the ultimate “throw the Warners into a pop culture parody and let it write itself” cartoon, and is really only funny if you think Friends references are hilarious in and of themselves. The short gets off to a weird start with the immigration opening, and really has trouble shaking off this bizarre feeling that hangs over it the whole time. The cartoon isn’t really parodying Friends - this is Friends, right down to the characters’ names and the design of the apartment. The Warners are just there to cause trouble and be goofy, and the story really just regresses them down to a trio of obnoxious little house crashers with no personality. For the most part, the cartoon acts as if the viewer is going to laugh simply because they’re familiar with the show. Haha, Phoebe can’t sing. Haha, Monica is really fat. Haha, Ross has a monkey. Haha, Joey is an idiot. Haha, Chandler is sarcastic. With the exception of Dot smashing the guitar (which does make me laugh quite a bit) just pointing out stuff from the TV show isn’t funny. The team of Gordon Bressack and Charles M. Howell IV has had a hit or miss track record with Animaniacs over the years, writing some fantastic entries but oftentimes turning out some less than stellar work. I wouldn’t say this is their weakest cartoon, but it’s close.

Adding to the strange nature of this entry is the offbeat animation by a studio called Phillipine Animation, who has a style that resembles Akom, Freelance, Toon City and Walt Disney Television Animation-Australia if all four studios were tossed into a blender. There are moments that contain some terrific, fluid movement, and the caricatures of the Friends cast are generally handled very well. But more often than not, the animation completely falls apart, becoming incredibly off model and sloppy, almost painful to watch. Like Akom before them, Phillipine has no idea how to work with the Warners, giving them the same dead, soulless eyes we always get from studios who have no clue what they’re doing with these characters. There are things here you’re not going to see in any other Animaniacs cartoon, including airbrushed props (check out the couch that Yakko flips over) and a realistically rendered Statue of Liberty. I don’t know what else this studio has done, but there’s potential here, and there are some glimmers of really amazing, almost theatrical-quality work hidden amongst the mediocrity.  We’re never going to see this studio ever again, but as far as I’m concerned their work makes this cartoon a must watch just for curiosities sake.

Okay seriously, what’s up with the Ellis Island opening? It just seems so out of place with the rest of the cartoon, and is totally disposable. There’s only one joke - that the immigration officer takes their long Russian names and turns them into “Yakko”, “Wakko” and “Dot”, but that’s not enough to justify it’s existence.

Yakko asks, “Where in the world is Carmen San Diego staying?”, allowing the character to glide past in the foreground. Not a bad joke, but like everything else in this cartoon, it just feels off.

The Friends theme song parody features Ross’ monkey leaping on a man in a contamination suit. The explanation? The exact same monkey who played Marcel also appeared in the movie Outbreak. So, you know, this is funny because they referenced it.

Yakko asks to kill the laugh track, and we get this hideous drawing which lasts a couple seconds longer than it has to. Like most lower-tier studios, Phillipines just couldn’t get those eyes right.

Although the character models are a little off, this shot features some really great, fluid animation, especially of Wakko popping out of the fridge and leaping to the floor. It’s very well done, and if the whole cartoon had looked this good, it would probably be a season five standout.

Some more really fluid animation of Wakko flailing around as he jumps on the bed. I like that they went the extra mile to animate the bed sheet and pillows as well.

Dot throws herself at Joey. Again, the animation here is really nice and expressive, and I really like the face Dot settles on when she finishes her line.

This is easily my favorite moment in the short. Gail Matthius does a really funny vocal performance as Phoebe, singing yet another stupid song. Dot walks in with this terrific puss on her face and offers to tune her guitar. She then smashes it off screen and hands the remains back to Phoebe. Hands up if you wished that someone (anyone) would have done that on the show. “Smelly Cat” was only funny once, people.

This couch isn’t part of the background painting. It’s actually a piece of cel animation. They never did anything like this on the show, so this really stands out.

Some decent dialogue occurs when the characters get tossed out of the apartment. Says Chandler, “This is so what’ll we do. Could this be even more so what’ll we do?” Everyone then just looks at him and says, “Huh?” in unison. So what do they do? “Try to take over the world? No, that’s Pinky and the Brain”, thinks Phoebe. The soundtrack plays a little bit of the Pinky and the Brian theme during this bit, a nice touch.

This quick Brady Bunch parody gives us a change to see all the Friends caricatures in one shot, including skinny Monica. The Warners don’t look all that great in this cartoon, but the human characters have very strong likenesses to the actual stars of the show. In fact, the designs aren’t very typical “WB comedy show”, another thing that makes this short unique.

The worst piece of animation occurs when the Brady Bunch opening segues into a parody of Hollywood Squares. Wakko looks terrible, and it only gets worse when Ross enters and pulls him out of the shot.

Character Cameo: here are some mis-colored Goodfeathers. Squit is purple and Pesto is blue. They usually didn’t make mistakes like that, so something like this really stands out.

Ignoring how terrible Wakko looks, where is Kramer? You’d think they’d include the most popular Seinfeld character.

The Warners sing a song about Attila the Hun, packing as much info as they can into only a minute and a half and three verses. The fact that Attila liked to steal pillows is a running joke, while Dot explains that he died after gorging himself on three oxen. Though most of the lyrics in the chorus end with words that rhyme with “Attila”, we learn the Hun’s favorite ice cream was strawberry. “What can I say? It’s not a perfect world”, says Yakko. The song randomly ends with a reference to Magilla Gorilla…for some reason. There have been a whole lot of standalone musical sequences on this show over the years, and although this one is basically harmless, it’s also probably the most forgettable. I can’t even think of anything to say about it. Koko’s animation is the same as before and there’s nothing clever visually here, since it’s really just illustrating what’s being sung without any flair. As it’s less than two minutes long, the song ends as quickly as it starts. There’s a lot of Animaniacs segments that leave you saying, “What was that about?” when they end, and this is probably the most notable. And that’s a shame, because this is the very last standalone musical sequence to air. It’s certainly not the last Animaniacs song, since the “Hooray for North Hollywood” two-parter is crammed full of them, but it’s still the end of an era.

I really need to look for things to talk about here. It’s weird that Attila is fighting with a pair of clowns I suppose. Weird for the sake of being weird isn’t always funny.

Attila doesn’t speak, but the laughing is familiar. That’s Jim Cummings. He’s uncredited, but it’s definitely him.

Every so often Koko surprises me with some really on-model Warners. This shot goes by very quick, but I really like it. That’s a fantastic Dot.

I get that Magilla Gorilla (or “Attila Gorilla” as he’s called here) fits the rhyming scheme, but still…that’s a strange non sequitur ending.

Millionaire playboy Spruce Wayne (Adam West) isn’t exactly thrilled when his butler accuses his loyal sidekick, the Boo Wonder, of being a giant chicken. But more importantly, the Caped Crusader’s arch nemesis, Punchline, has taken over the local TV studio, and is threatening to program endless reruns of She’s the Sheriff if the heroes aren’t brought to him. Arriving at the TV station (with Wayne assuring the commissioner that his sidekick is NOT a giant chicken), the pair head inside and confront Punchline. Like everyone else, the villain is certain that the Boo Wonder is a giant chicken, and plans to unmask him. A fight breaks out, and the heroes are able to defeat the bad guys without incident. Unfortunately, when the Caped Crusader slaps Boo on the back for a job well done, he knocks off his wig and mask and reveals him to be Chicken Boo, much to Punchline’s delight. As always Boo is kicked clear across the city, and sadly wanders off to his theme music once again.

While it really can’t save the entire episode, on its own “Boo Wonder” is a lot of fun. In terms of Batman spoofs, this one blows away the lackluster “Cranial Crusader”, and then some. While it does make a point of dodging the names “Batman” and “Robin”, it’s still an incredibly loving tribute to the original 1960’s Batman TV show. This was right around the time that Adam West started lending his voice to all manner of animated series, and his performance here gives the short a feeling of authenticity nonsense like The Caped Opossum couldn’t possibly have. The Batmobile is straight out of the TV series, punches and kicks are all accompanied by the appropriate on-screen sound effects, and the heroes even climb the side of the building they way they did on the show. Although he’s just an amalgam of The Joker and Riddler, Punchline is still far more interesting than Johnny Badnote, helped tremendously by Rob Paulsen’s remarkably goofy voice work. On top of everything else, this is one cartoon that’s actually helped by Koko’s angular style, and is easily the most visually interesting short they did for Animaniacs. As I’ve said before, it’s incredible to think that not only are they still churning out Chicken Boo cartoons, they’re actually putting some real effort into them. There’s only one more Boo entry left, folks…

These designs would look out of place on any other Animaniacs cartoon. But they really fit the Batman parody. All three of these characters are very well designed, but Paulsen steals the show with the demented Jim Carrey voice that Punchline gets.

Ladies and gentlemen: our heroes. Batman and Colonel Sanders’ worst nightmare!

Character Cameo: Whenever Batman and Robin were walking up the side of a building, some other character (sometimes a random celebrity) would pop out a window and comment on what they were doing. So here’s Dot, commenting on how she loves men in uniform.

And of course, you couldn’t do a Chicken Boo/Batman parody without some of the sound effects being chicken related.

What happened here? Throughout most of the cartoon the Caped Crusader’s chest clearly displayed the Batman logo. But at the end of the short, it becomes a big, black W. I wonder why.

And the cartoon closes with one final Batman joke: Chicken Boo silhouetted against the moon like the Bat Signal. Funny stuff.

Joke Credit: Insert Funny Joke Credit: (Here)

Tower Outro: Sayonara!