They've Got Baloney In Their Slacks

Top 15 Animaniacs Episodes







































Ah, Animaniacs. I loved waiting for this show to come on after school. Of course, I hadn't learned to tell time yet, so I usually just turned on the television and prayed that the next show was Animaniacs. It was usually Taz-Mania, and I was let down.


It was made in the post "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" era when Steven Spielberg decided that cartoons should a) be more like Looney Tunes and b) be self aware. So we first got Tiny Toons which was about young 'toons learning to become like their predecessors. Then we got this spin-off of sorts which was awesome and "educational." The main characters were Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, who were old black and white cartoon characters from the 1920s deemed to "zany" for the modern audience. So they were locked away, until they escaped in the 1990s, still behaving like rambunctous children.

The cartoons were fun for kids to watch, but also riddled with references and jokes that only adults would bet. HERE'S A FUN EXPERIMENT: Rewatch an episode that you remember from your childhood in which Yakko says "Good night everybody!" after some unfunny line. You'll find that the preceeding line is now ten times funnier than you remember it. This is called, "getting adult humor past the censors."

Now, picking the best episodes were kind of hard, seeing as how each episode was broken up into multiple cartoons, so I'll just pick 15 cartoons and the episodes they happen to correspond with.

15) "King Yakko"

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU5it18wMAk Part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QbdHut2arE Part 2

"Get the camera out of my mouth."

That's all I have to say about that one. It's the first full length episode. Watch. Enjoy.

14) "Hercule Yakko" from Episode 25 (October 19, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q7QHYgjmV7E

"No, no, no. 'Fingerprints.'"

It was always fun seeing the other characters (Hip Hippos, Minerva Mink, Slappy, Chicken Boo, Pinky and the Brain) in roles other than their usual cartoons.

13) "White Gloves" from Episode 39 (November 11, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9ro3MBvdZiU

Sometimes you don't need dialogue to tell a good story. Just let the animation speak for itself.

I'm pretty sure those creepy gloves gave me nightmares as a child.

12) "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special"

"Silly, bizarre, loony, mad, and kooky!"

Sorry there's no video for this one. It was the season finale of the first season, and created this extensive backstory for the characters of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. Apparently they got their big break by appearing in "Buddy" cartoons. Buddy was actually one of the first Looney Tunes, but this was back when cartoon characters all acted like Mickey Mouse and just had things happen to them rather than have personalities. So, when the Warners were introduced, they created cartoon violence by hitting Buddy on the head with a mallet. At the "live" anniversary special, Buddy plans to get his revenge, but in the end, the Warners thank him greatly for giving them their big break. It's weird to see this originally simple cartoon character turned into a villain. Imagine an evil Mickey Mouse...or just watch that most recent South Park episode that has an evil Mickey Mouse.

11) "Dot - The Macademia Nut" from Episode 92 (September 13, 1997)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOePNFRFRU

"Donde que vas a Nintendo Macademia"

This came during the last season of the show, when I was still young and desperate for new Animaniacs episodes. There were very few towards the end, but this episode proved that they still had their fun parody skills. Ah, the '90s.

10) "The Tiger Prince" from Episode 74 (September 9, 1995)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZSPFWzHniTY

"They mix it up!"

Obvious Disney parody with an obivious joke. But you still have fun watching it.

9) "I'm Mad" from Episode 69 (November 12, 1994)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y6aaLBmUSbI

"My nose is snotty, need to move my body, gotta use the potty. Better stop the car."

Animaniacs was very good at songs.

8) "Les Boutons et le Ballon" from Episode 56 (February 16, 1994)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3KK7T1t2uDk

"Parce que c'est plus facile comme fait travailler."

Mindy and Buttons cartoons were fun. Buttons saves Mindy yet the parents never know and always punish him for some trivial act. Buttons is the most selfless cartoon character around.

In this episode, they are French.

Baby Plucky from Tiny Toons makes an appearance with his elevator gag. Oh crossovers.

7) "Katie Ka-Boo" from Episode 35 (November 5, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FSXBjqH2QQc

"I'm not overreacting! I'm dating a chicken!"

Chicken Boo cartoons were always the same. Boo would masquerade as some legend in his field (world's greatest dancer/cowboy/lover) and after it is revealed he is actually a chicken, everyone will get mad and run him out of town, despite his great accomplishments. I picked this one as my favorite because Boo behaves like a chicken more in this one than he does in others (although another good one is "The Big Kiss" where is disguise is only a moustache). It's never explained how he rises to fame in the first place. He just happens to be a very good human.

This cartoon came from the "mix-up" episode where characters were thrown into various situations together (like Mindy and the Brain were paired up). So the whole episode is fun to watch.

This was Katie Kaboom's first appearance, and it seems as if she was created as another one-joke character to play off of Chicken Boo's repetitive cartoon narratives.

6) "Yes, Always" from Episode 52 (February 11, 1994)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1hliTwpIGeA

"You can't emphasize 'beef.' That's like wanting me to emphasize 'In' before 'July!'"

Here's one the no child would have understood/found funny. It's basically just a huge inside joke referring to an unruly Orson Welles recording session for a frozen peas advertisement where he said most of the dialogue the Brain said throughout this episode. Since Brain's voice is a Welles impression, the crew just made this cartoon for the fun of it.

5) "The Monkey Song" from Episode 1 (September 13, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7izMvoFuDM

"Now I'm in the stew...oh poo."

The first episode was a good chance to introduce all of the characters. This cartoon was seen before any Goodfeathers, Slappy the Squirrel, Pinky and the Brain, Mindy and Buttons cartoon, yet we get a good look at all of the characters' personalities.

Richard Stone did all of the music for Animaniacs and other Spielberg cartoons, and he was a musical genius. Apart from the theme song, this was our introduction to his work, and it makes for a very fun number.

4) "Slappy Goes Walnuts" from Episode 3 (September 15, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z2jWRcCZBXc

"Don't tell him. He might crack."

Slappy the Squirrel was supposed to be a retired Looney Tune who everyone forgot about, and so aged. (In the Warner Bros. cartoon universe, toons only age if they aren't remembered, hence why Bugs Bunny always stays the same age.) So, in Slappy's debut cartoon, we see what a cartoon life is like through the perspective of one who knows all the classic routines. She's also always constantly aware that she's in a cartoon, so she knows exactly how everything will play out.

The xylopohne gag is especially brilliant. For the uneducated, there was a recurring motif in old Looney Tunes cartoons where some villian would rig explosives to a piano/xylophone and try to trick the hero (usually Bugs Bunny) into playing ...I don't know the name of the tune, but it's always the same one. The last two notes are the triggers for the explosives, but Bugs would deliberately hit the wrong notes. The bad guy would get irritated for Bugs' constant butchering of the song, and show Bugs the correct way to play it, blowing himself up in the process. Slappy skips straight to exploding the villain and cartoon historians smile.

3) "Wakko's Gizmo" from Episode 57 (February 17, 1994)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v2jG72MEkYg

"Not yet! Not yet!"

I was mesmerized by this episode as a child. I thought it was amazing how Wakko got everything to work precisely. Then I realized it was a cartoon and was just a parody of Rube-Goldberg devices. I still think the sattelite part is pretty neat.

2) "Yakko's World" from Episode 2 (September 14, 1993)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0y8jkfXoX8

"United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama"

The only way Animaniacs was allowed to exist was that it had to meet some quota of educational value. So when they had educational cartoons, they made sure it was better than any of the straight cartoons.

I'm not sure if anyone can actually learn anything from this song after one viewing, but it's sure-as-hell memorable.

1) "Drive-Insane" from Episode 53 (February 14, 1994)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lLPLD203EsA

"I can't hear myself kiss."
Apart from the great moments in the episode (including the entire snack buying scene or the look on the Warners' faces when they get into the car and lock out Scratchensniff), the reason this is my absolute favorite is for the French film alone.
As I child, I never understood why we had to sit through the boring French film along with the characters, but now I realize the glory (if you missed the joke, brush up on your French childrens songs, then look up the English translations). The emotional read of "Din Dan Don" is the apex of humor.