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Animaniacs (1997)

Animaniacs

Animaniacs was one of the more bizarre cartoons to ever grace the small screen. It’s one of those rare flashes of brilliance in children’s programming where kids will enjoy the zaniness of loveable-looking anthropomorphized characters bouncing around and getting into shenanigans, teens and twenty-somethings will pick up on the innuendo, and adults will recognize the more obscure cultural references and play with the genre. At its heart, Animaniacs is a sort of postmodern homage to Looney Toons and Tex Avery crossed with Saturday Night Live and the Marx Brothers; it’s filled with winks and nods that no eight-year-old is intended to get. In the wave of early ’90s nostalgia over the last few years, the show has developed cult status and a horde of devotees dedicating lists to the songs, educational elements, and completely inappropriate humor.

The Warner brothers (Yakko and Wacko) and the Warner sister (Dot) are the main characters. They were animated actors working for the studio in the ’30s who were locked in a water tower after being deemed too insane and uncontrollable; they escape in present day (1993) to entertain with more wackiness. Similar to their Looney predecessors, each episode consists of different comedic sketches/segments; some reoccurring, some self-contained stories featuring the Warners, and the occasional random song or short transitional piece in between stories. Regular characters include Pinky and the Brain, two lab mice (one a genus, the other an idiot) who are trying to take over the world, Goodfeathers, a trio of NYC Mafioso pigeons, and Slappy Squirrel, a crotchety retired cartoon star (also from the ‘30s).

While Looney Toons always made pop culture references, they were allusions to stars and films relevant for their time. One of the things that mark Animaniacs as postmodern is they reference those references. Bugs Bunny broke the fourth wall, but for the Warners it is a comment on the classic shorts, as well as an acknowledgement of their own status as cartoon characters. Yakko sings a song in the first season about how he is able to manifest a large cannon out of nowhere to shoot a pirate (“HMS Yakko”) because he is the latest in a long line of cartoon characters with these abilities (“we are the very model of cartoon individuals”). They are calling attention to the fact that you are watching a pastiche of an old kids’ show.

Even that the show attempted to legitimately inform children on topics from geography and history to parts of the brain and propaganda was weird, given the insanity that surrounded the occasional interesting facts. It mixes high culture (the theory of relativity, ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, etc.) with low culture (sex and fart jokes). This is all part of the series’ play with the whole concept of cartoons/children’s entertainment, and why it fits right along hyper-postmodern ’90s texts like Scream (1996); the extreme intertextuality, sarcasm, and irony are hallmarks of the decade.

The (very) dated jokes, many from the days of vaudeville, are one of the reasons the show still holds up; they weren’t supposed to be culturally relevant in the ’90s, so not much has changed. Maybe some viewers will miss the odd Bill Clinton, Batman Returns, or Colombo joke, but you’re either the type of person who knows who Laurel and Hardy, Jack Benny, and Fanny Brice are or you’re not (whether it’s 1993 or 2016). Plus, slapstick is timeless. This is why the old WB cartoons never really disappeared; they have essentially been in syndication for over 75 years because every generation’s young can appreciate an anvil getting dropped on someone (whose feet then waddle away).

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