Animaniacs Reboot in the Works

[Samurai8472]

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

So we do see the old characters from the 90's show at some point

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

Also there's a surprise cameo from

Spoiler: spoiler

buster and babs bunny in episode 2

 

[Turtletrekker]

I loved the reboot song.

 

[JD]

I hated the reboot song. It was just the old lazy, whiny "Hollywood is out of ideas" crap that people have been saying for nearly as long as Hollywood has existed -- the perpetual recency fallacy that there's something new about Hollywood creating new versions of old stories, when in fact it's been doing so from the very beginning. (For instance, the most famous version of The Wizard of Oz, the Judy Garland film, was something like the eleventh film adaptation of the Oz series in just over three decades.) People were saying the same "There are too many remakes today" nonsense when the original Animaniacs was on two decades ago -- and they were saying it two decades before that, and two decades before that, and so on. The ironic thing about the complaints regarding Hollywood's "unoriginality" is how profoundly unoriginal the complaint itself is.

It's particularly preposterous and lacking in self-awareness coming from Animaniacs, whose entire core premise is an homage to the early black-and-white cartoons of the 1930s with a liberal dose of the Marx Brothers thrown in, and whose best character is an homage to Orson Welles. The whole show was rooted in nostalgia -- one segment was an extended pastiche of Goodfellas (a bizarre thing to do in a children's show), one revolved around an aging cartoon star reliving her glory days, one was an extended homage to the classic "chasing a baby through danger" formula used by '30s Popeye and Chuck Jones's Marc Antony/Pussyfoot cartoons, etc.

I suppose maybe they felt they had to put that song in to pre-empt the inevitable complaints they'd get from the audience. But I wish they'd mocked the attitude rather than playing it straight.

I just thought it was a funny song, and I didn't really need to go any deeper than that.

 

[Turtletrekker]

I kind of expected that the Hello Nurse character would be a victim of the times...

Spoiler: Goodbye Nurse?

She doesn't even appear in the episode 5 sequence in which literally every other character from the original show appears.

(Actually, I take that back. No Thadeus Plotz or Dr Scratchnsniff either.)

...but "Hellooooo Ralph!" just doesn't have the same ring to it.

 

[JD]

I was wondering about her.

 

[Christopher]

Ralph's new character design seemed odd to me. I think it's because he's in gray now instead of blue. Is that reflecting current WB Studios guard uniforms or something?

 

[Ithekro]

The Buck Rodgers theme. Hadn't heard that since the early days of the Sci-fi Channel.

 

[Redfern]

Don't have the streaming service, so what I've seen has been sequential 2 minute "slivers" posted upon YouTube, but did anybody else feel that the Brain came across as a bit more needlessly cruel (both in his words and his deeds) in the segment where he runs for president and decides to "create" a "First Lady"?

Oy, that was a clumsy sentence.

 

[Sci]

I've only had the chance to see episode one, but I absolutely loved it. It felt like they nailed everything I loved about Animaniacs when I was 8 years old, and updated the things that needed updating.

The trolls will say
We're so passé
But we did meta first!

 

[Mr. Adventure]

Weirdly, I kind of hope they do make some vague gag reference Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. Something like having Brain suddenly waking up screaming and telling Pinky he had a terrible nightmare where they were living with some little girl.

I have not watched the new show but apparently the segments with "Starbox and Cindy" are kind of an updated riff on Elmyra and Brain.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Fans of Johnny Depp call for a boycott of Animaniacs. No, really.

https://screenrant.com/animaniacs-boycott-warner-bros-johnny-depp-controversy-explained/amp/

 

[Kai "the spy"]

Fans of Johnny Depp call for a boycott of Animaniacs. No, really.

https://screenrant.com/animaniacs-boycott-warner-bros-johnny-depp-controversy-explained/amp/

Oh, for fuck's sake. There are so many companies you can boycott for many very good reasons, like child labour, or damage to the environment. But a joke about a rich celebrity which you need to freeze frame to even notice, in a cartoon famous for making fun of celebrities?

 

[JirinPanthosa]

I saw the first five episodes. It’s enjoyable and nostalgic and feels more targeted at adults than the original. That’s probably one of the reasons the other characters aren’t in it, they’re so much more formulaic, whereas the adult nostalgic audience prefers variety.

The Trump cyclops felt like a cheap pander though.

 

[Reverend]

Fans of Johnny Depp call for a boycott of Animaniacs. No, really.

https://screenrant.com/animaniacs-boycott-warner-bros-johnny-depp-controversy-explained/amp/

What? Both of them!?

 

[JD]

Fans of Johnny Depp call for a boycott of Animaniacs. No, really.

https://screenrant.com/animaniacs-boycott-warner-bros-johnny-depp-controversy-explained/amp/

Wow, people really will boycott over the most ridiculous stuff these days.

 

[Tuskin38]

I'm noticing the background music a lot more than I did the original show, like they'll play things thematically appropriate (I assume the original did this as well). Like there was a scene in Episode 4 involving Australia and the background music was Waltzing Matilda. Or earlier there was a reference to Yakko's country song from the original series and the background music switched to a hint of that.

 

[Christopher]

I'm noticing the background music a lot more than I did the original show, like they'll play things thematically appropriate (I assume the original did this as well). Like there was a scene in Episode 4 involving Australia and the background music was Waltzing Matilda. Or earlier there was a reference to Yakko's country song from the original series and the background music switched to a hint of that.

Yep, the original show did that -- following the precedent of Carl Stalling's music from the original theatrical Warner Bros. shorts, which in turn was borrowing from the conventions of silent-movie accompanists.

 

[Turtletrekker]

Why episode 6 was briefly pulled off of Hulu...

To view this content we will need your consent to set third party cookies.
For more detailed information, see our cookies page.

Accept third party cookies

 

[JD]

Oops.

 

[JirinPanthosa]

Episode 6 is back on Hulu now? Need to see that.

No wonder I can’t find this thread when I want to talk about Animaniacs, it’s in Sci-fi.

What do people think of the two sketches that are not Warners or P&B?

I think the Gnome is the best thing I’ve seen in this reboot so far. Starbox and Cindy I think the writers are testing a theory that the only reason people didn’t like Elmyra and the Brain is it changed existing characters. IT’S A TRAP!

They both remind me more of Ren & Stimpy than Animaniacs.