Monday, December 24, 2012

Looney TV: Animaniacs (1993)

Animaniacs wasn't meant to be just for kids. Fox & Warner Bros., discovering that the demographics for Tiny Toon Adventures included parents and young adults as well as kids, created something that would take them to the next level in the next generation of Looney Tunes.

Dot, Wakko, & Yakko Warner were housed in the WB studio water tower, but otherwise freely roamed the grounds like everyone else. In fact, the trio were the touchstone for a lot of silly happenings. Unfortunately, no one ever considered a crossover between Animaniacs & Tiny Toons, which would've been ratings gold.

The series ran for five seasons and ended with a feature film, "Wakko's Wish", which is making the rounds this month.

Following is the intro everyone knows:



Unlike Tiny Toons, Animaniacs merited a monthly comic book from DC. If you thought the Warners' sendup of the Power Rangers was wack, and it was, it's better than the ill-conceived comic book story that had the trio parodying the Wonder Twins (I guess Wakko was supposed to be Gleek?), which lacked imagination and common sense. They might as well have parodied the 80's pop trio, the Thompson Twins, and that would've made more sense......!

Rating: B.

4 comments:

magicdog said...

I caught the marathon and was laughing my butt off! I'm glad the Warners are back in syndication!

This show was probably the funniest thing since Rocky & Bullwinkle! It had a lot of great spoofs and jabs and it even bit tha hand that fed it occasionally. "Wakko's Wish" is still worth viewing! The show is a bit dated with a few 90s references but I can only imagine what jokes the Warner Brothers (and sister Dot) would be doing now! Probably spoofing reality TV (I can see what they'd do to a Honey Boo-Boo expy!) and American Idol type shows.

hobbyfan said...

Let me correct my original post. Animaniacs begins its Hub run on 1/7, so I was a bit off.

I would think a revival is do-able, but since CN just let the Hub claim the original series, there's more of a chance a revival would land on Hub instead. Which would be a good thing.

Steven Dolce said...

I hope Warner Bros. Animation remasters this show in HD and releases it on Blu-Ray.

hobbyfan said...

Give them time.