Animaniacs References!

Being a serious Animaniacs fan, I have looked hard to find information about this greatest of shows. At the moment I only have a few files on my own, but there are also a few references to other Web sites with better access. There is also a link to the odd Animaniacs related Ftp sites.

What are you talking about?

Animaniacs, or, more properly, Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, is a cartoon show that first premiered on FOX in the United States back in the 1993-94 television season. It was produced by Warner Brothers, and quickly became an extremely popular show. While "Tiny Toon Adventures" was a reasonable success, there was always the feeling that it was trading on the reputation that the traditional Warner Brothers characters had developed over many years and countless re-runs. After all, if they didn't need Bugs, Daffy et al., why did they have to keep giving them cameos?

Animaniacs had the odd mention of older characters, but to nowhere near the same extent as TTA. Animaniacs set up a whole new group of characters, and a whole new group of cartoons.

We have the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister) - Yakko, Wakko and Dot (the *cute* one - her words, not mine :-)). The story is they were too zany even for WB in the 1930s, and so were locked up never to be released. Of course, in cartoons you can never say never. The Warners get to do mean and nasty things to anyone that people genuinely hate - such as Survey Ladies, Jerry Lewis (aka Mr. Director), plus generally just annoy the hell out of Ralph the Security Guard. They get away with it because they're (a) children, and (b) toons.

Pinky & The Brain started out on Animaniacs, but ended up with their own series. These two form the most intellectual "group" of characters in the show, even though Pinky is a complete imbecile. The episodes of P&TB always revolve around some hare-brained scheme of Brain's to achieve total world-domination, which Pinky (or, in rarer cases, Brain himself) manages to ruin in some form or other. The cultural references in this toon are far too obscure for most kids to get, proving that Warner Brothers have returned to their best with this show.

Slappy Squirrel is a has-been toon from the start. The main advantage of this is that she gets to explain all the old jokes before she uses them again. That and the fact that she completed the "Those Endearing Young Charms" xylophone gag, 50 or more years after it was created in the original Warner Bros cartoons (you know the one, the one with the dynamite strapped to the key and they can't play the key yadda yadda yadda).. Her nephew Skippy has grown up over the four seasons or so of Animaniacs - a shame to happen when you realise it limits the character, but given that one of the producer's sons voices Skippy, there's not a lot they can do.

There are quite a few other minor characters, bits of filler and recurring cameos, as you would expect. Animaniacs is edging towards 100 shows now, but given the problems with the WB network's ratings in the United States, there are always questions over whether it is going to make it. Meanwhile, P&TB are into their second season on their own, and a new Warner Bros. series, Freakazoid! is taking meta-reference to a new height.

Other Animaniackers

After much searching around the Web and through ftp etc., I have located a few links to other Animaniacs fans. I don't know which ones actually have Animaniacs related stuff in their homepages, having merely included this set of links as a bit of a navigation exercise. If you have a home page and mention Animaniacs anywhere within it, odds are you'll end up here. Also, be warned: Some of these links have undoubtedly expired since I first set this up. Good old WB Legal last year (1996) put the bite on a lot of helpful fan sites. We can only hope that either (a) they soften their stance, or (b) something else happens which makes their stance obsolete.

The Important Stuff - Where do I go now?

Right. You don't care who else likes Animaniacs, you just want the ftp sites and other Web page links to more sounds and gifs than you could ever fit on your hard drive. You sound a lot like me. :-). Well, anyway, just in case you're a hard core gif collector or wave finder, this list is for you.

The Collection

Okay, you want to see some pictures? I only wish I could oblige. Damn things are still back home. :-(

Page by: Duncan Richer -- dcr24@cam.ac.uk