Animaniacs (2020)

So the credits listed the recap as a separate cartoon, so I need to review it. But it's a freaking recap, new spit-take animation or not. 2 1/2 stars.

Season Three And WB: Part 1:

Maybe not do movie parodies to escape if the new guard ran the studio in question and saw all the movies.

True note: The Dark Knight Rises is worse than The Dark Knight in every nearly respect. But it DID have the more memorable set-piece. Doesn't stop it from sucking, but it was a true observation from Yakko.

Meatball Man felt too far outside the franchise. And since I didn't like the original show too much, I don't tend to mind that. But when it gets TOO far outside it, it's noticeable, and noticing things like that makes the viewing experience worse. It's not bad per se, but the fact that it feels "wrong" makes my enjoyment less anyways. Does that make sense? 3 1/2 stars.

How To Friendship:

The Pinky the Brain cartoons on the relaunch are really getting in the psychological underpinnings of the codependent relationship between Brain and Pinky. It's such a conundrum that Pinky ruins everything Brain tries to do, and for some reason Brain still can't function without him.

I could be wrong, but I think Maurice La Marche played the catch-phrase at the end entirely differently for the first time ever. I don't recall him using this specific tone before. Usually when Brain does the "The same thing we do every night, Pinky" he's sort of low-key sinister followed by ambition and falsely earned triumph. Here, his voice has a measure of disgust in it. The undertone is, "How many times do I have to say this, and when are you going to stop asking me the same damn question?" That was an interesting thing, for sure. 3 1/2 stars.

Season Three And WB: Part 2:

I could be wrong, but this hit me wrong tonally too. I don't like that it turns out Nora actually beat the Warners last episode. They had to beg her for mercy, and it turns out it wasn't a con on their end, they truly cut a deal with her and held up to it.

Yeah, that's... new. But it's totally outside of the premise. The Warners are always supposed to win against their antagonists. That's the whole bit of the show. I understand Bugs Bunny lost to Cecile Turtle on occasion, but Bugs Bunny was not a franchise that had been around for nearly 30 years when Bob Clampett was messing around with the tropes. Again, this felt wrong to me. Am I crazy for thinking that? 2 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 3 stars.

Before I review the cartoon, I will offer a brief opinion of Jojo Siwa. She is one of those celebrities that absolutely makes my skin crawl. She dresses like Punky Brewster, and no lie, has a voice like Baby Huey. Everything she says and does project utter stupidity and vapidity. I'm not saying my generation didn't love stupid things. But I am hard pressed to think of a thing as obviously stupid and repulsive as Jojo Siwa gaining a huge amount of screaming fans. To me, it's obscene.

So I was looking forward to a cartoon taking shots at a stand-in for her. But it's a toothless parody instead, throwing her undeserved sympathy for supposedly not being allowed to be a kid. That annoyed me, but whatever. But the episode can't even stick that landing and makes her a psycho at the end. So what's the point of the cartoon anyways? What's the message? What is its stance?

What it is, is an utter mess in both premise and execution. 1 star.

A Starbox Is Born:

I think they aged up Cindy so they wouldn't have to change her voice actress.

And yeah, I always love that these shorts use different animation. 3 1/2 stars.

Royal Flush:

Talking about how the stand-in for Megan Markle's horse farm resides on stolen Aboriginal land raises a HELL of a lot more political questions for me than the cutesy idea that gosh, I don't understand WHY this woman of color could possibly feel like an outsider in aristocracy / monarchy. People give Megan Markle SO much crap. If that Aboriginal Lands thing is true, this is the first time I've seen anyone give her crap for a legit reason. But since I never heard of this before, I'm loathe to take it at face value. Sorry, I'm not just gonna take this show's word for it. I'll do some research later on, probably after this damn review has already been posted elsewhere. But it's sort of weird I've never heard of that.

Is Pinky actually in love with Brain? The cartoon is hinting at that, and I feel like maybe that's the show going a little too far with the fact that they like to make Pinky effeminate as a joke. I don't find that idea funny. Considering the way Brain treats him, if that were so, I'd find it tragic.

Also, why the hell did Brain randomly confess to being the paparazzo at the end? Are we sure it's Pinky who is the stupid one who always ruins everything? There was no reason, or even logical benefit to Brain doing that other than plot-related stupidity that would allow him to be "properly punished". And I am not a fan of that. Although the original show sure as hell did its share of it too.

I didn't like this cartoon either. 1 1/2 stars

Episode Overall: 2 stars.

Future seasons? Fat chance. The episode also basically admits the old episodes without Pinky And The Brain are inferior, but was clearly written and animated before anybody knew Hulu would take the original series off the service.

In fairness to the cartoon at hand, I like Hamster Hog Heron Boy. 3 stars.

Talladega Mice: The Ballad Of Pinky Brainy:

See if I were Brain at the beginning I wouldn't be chastising Pinky for playing an anti-mouse game. I'd be praising him for actually getting the damn Mouse Trap toy to work. Does he have any idea how near-impossible this is? Seeing Brain max out Pinky's stress levels is also another clue that Pinky might be halfway competent if Brain didn't treat him like crap.

I love Brain's Christopher Lloyd and Morgan Freeman impressions. I also laughed at his panic at not knowing how to do Orson Welles. Right. Here's how you do Orson Welles, Brain: Sound like you are the cast member of Transformers: The Movie most embarrassed to be there and then you're all set.

Good cartoon. 3 1/2 stars

DIWhy:

I like the fan art. I wonder what part of Wakko on it was big.

I will never tire of a character pointing out that money is an artificially agreed-upon, fictional construct. Yakko is my people.

Funny. 3 1/2 stars. 

Episode Overall: 3 1/2 stars.

Not too many cartoons where the Warners and Pinky and the Brain interact. The opening animation style is neat. 3 stars.

Uber Nachtmare:

You know what? I thought this was a little too mean. I DID like the mule who spoke like a New York cabbie though. 2 stars.

Mad Mouse: Furry Road:

Sorry, Dexter. There IS no season four. You are finished.

Still can't believe that's the same guy who voices Mickey Mouse. 3 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 3 stars.

And yet, still not as dumb as Riverdale. 4 1/2 stars.

Dog Days:

Starbox And Cindy Arc? Why not? 3 1/2 stars.

Groundmouse Day:

Two-Parter? I love it.

Great Garfield slam.

I love when Pinky talks about something Furry, Brain's worried they're playing things a little too close to that side of the fandom. And people wonder why Minerva Mink has been entirely absent on the relaunch.

The Board Store is running out of that guy! Constanza exits room.

Thinky is a funny name, but truthfully there IS every possibility that Pinky is the genius and Brain is insane. Remind yourself what the textbook definition of insanity is and yeah, Brain's not looking so hot there.

So Stephen Tobolowsky played the DJ. If I ran the show, he'd have played Egwind.

Great stuff. 5 stars.

Episode Overall: 4 1/2 stars.

Not the timeliest parody, for sure. 3 stars.

Murder Pals:

This Lassie / Flipper parody felt like the randomest trio of interstitials EVER. And then the title reveal at the end of the episode hits, and it's pretty much perfect comedy.

Take note: I think the TV-PG rating of the relaunch is bogus. And yet, I am well aware these dark Lassie and Flipper gags could NEVER be done on Fox Kids or Kids WB. And that title would certainly have to be changed as well.

I think this is brilliant. 5 stars.

Groundmouse Day Again:

The original show did this a couple of times too. And it's sort of both important to show and depressing in equal measure. Brain taking over the world is not a pipe dream. It is possible. It's just that he's too incompetent to do it under normal circumstances.

Take this episode. If he hadn't blown his stack with Pinky at the end, and destroyed the proto time machine, he could have ridden a final loop, taken over the world, THEN destroyed the machine, and then he would be Master of the World for good. Maybe Brain isn't insane. But he sure as hell isn't a genius, and is probably stupid deep down.

My favorite bit in the cartoon was the DJ telling us Brain took over the world once simply by claiming he was the ruler and everybody just went with it. I think that's kind of how most people saw the Trump Presidency too. While we are taking shots at Brain's intelligence.

Pssst! Show! Hillary won Colorado! Hillary stand-in FAIL.

I liked it though. 4 stars.

The Island Of Dr. Warneau:

Kind of a dark and gruesome cartoon. And the implications of the Warners having done away with Scratchensniff's brother without him ever being aware of it gives me the willies too.

The joke I liked was Yakko telling his island stand-in that he likes that he's the tallest so they can tell he's the oldest. I would like to think our Yakko has more to him than that (and he does) but the show poking fun at the superficiality of the design is interesting.

The animation was good too.

But that's a darker ending than freaking Murder Pals. 2 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 4 stars.

"Cleft In Twaining" is a good one.

Josh Polar has a great design.

"Here Comes The Sea" is a DAMN good song, considering Randy Rogel had nothing to do with it.

Was the ending too political? Well, yes. But if it wasn't, they couldn't really tackle the topic at all, could they? Maybe they shouldn't have. But the song tells me any uneasy preachy morals are probably worth it. At least this time. 4 stars.

Lawn In Sixty Seconds:

Cynical cartoon that I dislike simply because it makes Murder Pals feel less special. 2 stars.

All's Fair In Love And Door:

Julia continues to have the best cartoon character design and animated facial expressions on the show. I hear people taking shots at this show's animation for supposedly being worse than the original series. And in fairness it's been awhile since I've seen it. But I was an animation fan as a teenager. If they had ever animated a character as perfectly back then as they do Julia now, I would have noticed it. No question.

No, I think the series is just seriously underrated as far as animation goes. 4 stars.

Cute Things That Can Kill You:

Again, another differently animated interstitial I'm resentful for because it takes the wind out of the sails of Murder Pals. The noive. 1 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 3 1/2 stars.

Cameos from the Goodfeathers, Slappy Squirrel, and Chicken Boo.

Those guys look like Wakko smells. I love Wakko telling Yakko to punch up for once, why don'cha?

I also laughed when Yakko points out he's technically a Boomer. I totally forgot that. The old-timey nature of the Warners has been largely ignored on the relaunch.

What would be amazing would be if someone on Reddit liked the reboot.

By the way, it's not a reboot, it's a revival. Reboot is the most misused word in popular culture. Animaniacs 2020 does not fit its definition.

Jackass Monkey? Okay, I'll concede that legit earned the ep a TV-PG rating. It's normally unnecessary.

I liked some of the Terminator sequels. I thought Genisys was a lot of fun.

Funny stuff. 4 stars.

Starbox And Cindy: Bedtime:

Surprisingly sweet ending.

I also should probably say that the more I hear it, the more I think the Starbox and Cindy theme tune ("Alien Chorus") is excellent.

Weirdest Cindy line (in a show where she says nothing by weird lines) was her saying she was born with a tail, but it fell off, and that's how you can tell if a person is a monster. She then looks at Starbox's butt and tells him he's just a guy.

Turning these shorts into an arc this season has made them extra interesting. 4 1/2 stars.

WARner GAMES2:

The "sucks" and Beastwipe trying to "seduce" Wakko are more TV-PGedness.

I got the battle videogames they were parodying but I kind of think it would have been more fun to instead of seeing the Warners as 3D CGI videogame characters, for them to turn into 8/16-bit sprites instead. Granted that's been done before, but Animaniacs actually HAD a Super Nintendo game, so it would probably have felt more appropriate. 3 1/2 stars.

Crumbly's Moment:

This is essentially the Animaniacs version of a Pixar short. It's a bit of a goofy premise, but the animation is cool and it feels shockingly sweet and sincere too. Not too many Animaniacs cartoons I'd call "nice". That qualified. 4 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 4 1/2 stars.

Bringing up "A Pinky And The Brain Christmas" was smart. Not only is it great to acknowledge one of the best episodes of the original show, but doing so allowed them to manage expectations about this one and perhaps not have to do something quite as heartwarming. There is some of that here, for sure. But we'll get to that soon enough.

My favorite bit in the first part is Robot Pinky asking if we evolved from monkeys, why are there still monkeys, and Brain deadpanning that's TOO stupid. I don't think everyone in the audience is going to get that joke, but it's hilarious of you are of a certain mind. Let's keep it at that. 4 1/2 stars.

Santamaniacs:

I'm not going to say Animaniacs ripped off my Santa from Gilda And Meek, but... No, you know what? I AM gonna say it. Mine was online in 2017. Make THOSE guys defend it. Eh. I'll give them this one because I'm kind: My ripped Santa is way better and funnier. If they really ripped it off, their version would be cooler.

This show makes the excellent musical numbers look effortless. Although truth be told, they may actually be. I have a sneaking suspicion great original musical numbers aren't actually hard. Bob's Burgers just makes them LOOK hard. 3 1/2 stars.

How The Brain Thieved Christmas: Part Two:

I love that they do the same thing every Boxing Day: Finish off the nog before it goes bad, and try to take over the world.

There is a slight element of tugging at the heartstrings. But unlike the classic special it doesn't feel genuine. That's actually all right (A Pinky And The Brain Christmas was EXTREMELY unusual for an Animaniacs related project) but it's hard to take Brain's redemption at face value when the characters are literally deconstructing how the Whoville chorus works on a manipulative emotional level out-loud. But Brain doesn't have to love and appreciate Pinky this year. Him accepting part of the holidays is disappointment and regret is another valid response. And I'm glad the two Christmas specials, decades apart, reach different conclusions. And that's okay. Because some Christmases are better than others.

It feels nice to get an Animaniacs Christmas special again, but the fact that it streams on Hulu is a double-edged sword. We get all the episodes at once, but it means the Christmas special drops in February. It was a good one though. 4 1/2 stars.

Episode Overall: 4 1/2 stars.

Good intro. 4 stars.

Aliens Resurrected:

That's sort of the videogame sprites in the opening I was looking for.

And yes, I appreciate the show giving the audience a clearer picture why Hello Nurse and Minerva Mink are gone. Do you really miss them? Really? I'm gonna save my rage against dumb and pointless arguments for the last cartoon, but I think Slappy has me unleashing my inner curmudgeon today.

Also, psst! Warners? The aliens are not actually coming back. 4 stars.

Joe:

Eh. Some of these random jokes are good. This one added nothing. Although the Australian accents gave it a bit of international flavor. But if you want good parents with Aussie accents your best bet is Bluey. 2 1/2 stars.

The Stickening:

The Gnome In People's Mouths makes his one brief appearance of the season here. I'm less surprised he sat the rest of the season out, and more surprised he was brought back at ALL in season two. 3 1/2 stars.

Slappy's Return:

Slappy was a fan demanded character, and I think I like the fact that she thinks that's stupid. It was nice to throw Sherri Stoner this bone when they suspected it was the final episode, but I think Slappy finding fan outrage at her absence annoying entirely appropriate.

The irony is beside the Warners and Pink And The Brain, Slappy Squirrel was the one decent sketch on the original series. Literally everything else was awful. I'm not exaggerating my opinion. I truly think it all sucked, and I did as a teenager too. Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt, Buttons and Mindy, Hip Hippos, Chicken Boo, Katie Kaboom ALL of it sucked ass. If you didn't think so, you were young. Goodfeathers in particular confounded me. Who the HELL was that cartoon geared towards anyways? How is one pigeon repeating the line from Goodfeathers even a joke? How was this such a major recurring sketch they were in the damn theme song? What the freaking hell? Crap.

Slappy always struck me as hit and miss. When she did stuff like takes shots at Bonkers, I cringed, but mostly she was all right. And I felt the same way about the Warners, so I actually didn't really see the logic of not bringing her into the relaunch too. But damn, she was hardly an unimpeachable cartoon genius, no matter what Spielberg smugly told the kids at home at the time via obnoxious, unfunny meta jokes. I was like "Man, get over it!" to the fans whining about her absence. Maybe they didn't bring her back because the old show told every interesting story with her worth telling. That makes more sense than some massive conspiracy on the end of the producers to ruin your childhood and Tom Ruegger's legacy that his kid likes and retweets.

And yeah, I'll tell you one thing I won't miss about the reboot. The dirty laundry being aired behind the scenes. The show getting it from the fans of the old show is understandable. That goes with the territory. The show never had a remote shot so long as Tom Ruegger was turning fans against it. I found the actions of both Ruegger and his son completely unprofessional. And it strikes me as a good thing he wasn't invited back. He obviously is not a good team player or willing to share credit with anyone else. Maybe if the show had his blessing it would have either gotten a bigger fanbase or not been such a lightning rod for fan-hate. But his behavior towards the show was completely unprofessional. You think Don Rosa likes DuckTales 2017 or that Scott Bakula likes Quantum Leap 2022? They don't, but they said their piece, and that was the end of it. They didn't have their kids online nitpicking every little thing and trying to sabotage the show week by week. I'm not gonna miss that. At all.

Also should point out that math does in fact exist. Therefore even if you accepted that the reboot's versions of the Warners and Pinky And The Brain are worse than the original series' take (which is debatable, if you ask me), the fact that all of those awful cartoons I mentioned, that ate up SO much of the original series' runtime, are enirely absent, makes this show ten times better than the original. And that would be so if the Warners and Acme Labs were twice as bad. And I don't think they are, so it pisses me off the guy who let the Hip Hippos on the air is always whining about quality control. Give me a freaking break.

Wait, didn't I say I was gonna ONLY start arguing against stupid stuff in the last cartoon? I'm trying real hard to be the shepherd here, Ringo... Okay, maybe that joke's as played out as the Joe Pesci thing. But see, I'm only telling it once in this review. 5 stars.

Everyday Safety: Giant Adirondack Chair:

Well, that's it, isn't it? I don't want to hear complaints about the ending and how it's cliffhanger and unresolved or the Warners died. Don't be stupid, okay? Please? Just this once, don't make me argue against nonsense. Let's pretend a comedy ending on a joke is acceptable. Because guess what? It is.

As the last cartoon, I guess it will be important to talk about what the show did right and wrong. I know the series probably wished for more seasons, but I don't like that Julia's Arc on Pinky And The Brain wound up totally unresolved, especially since it was just warming up. Similarly, I was delighted Starbox and Cindy sort of became a bit serialized this season. But it just stopped and we're left hanging. I object to that far most than the Warners being hit by a comet they would survived had the series been renewed. Like, I have Starbox QUESTIONS, man. Don't do that to me.

So That's All, Folks. Or more like, Those Are The Facts. 4 stars.

Episode Overall: 4 stars.

Somehow I feel like the wrong guy is teaching this class. 3 1/2 stars.

For the record, I knew how to spell Mississippi since I was 8. My dad taught me: Em-eye-ess-ess-eye-ess-ess-eye-pee-pee-eye. SUPER easy to remember it that way.

I hope these are on the Animaniacs season three DVDs. Cute extras, and a little bit more of the show after it's been canceled. 3 1/2 stars.