Animaniacs: Season 2 Review (TV Show)

It’s been almost a year since someone decided to open the Warner Bros water tower and release the Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) upon the modern world. Many questioned how characters who basically created the animated parody and satire genre in the 1990s would react with how things have changed since they went off the air. The first season of this rebooted Animaniacs did quite well with the more modern subject matter if at times a bit heavy-handed with the social activism, overall it was still a decent look at modern culture through a retro lens, mixing the best of the 1990s with a good attempt at modernization… The second season though… Well, let’s take a look.

Title: Animaniacs: Season 2
Production Company: Amblin Television, Warner Bros. Animation
Distributed by: Hulu
Directed by: Various
Produced by: Wellesley Wild, Steven Spielberg
Written by: Wellesley Wild
Starring: Rob Paulsen, Tress MacNeille, Jess Harnell, Maurice LaMarche, Frank Welker, Stephanie Escajeda
Based on: Animaniacs by Tom Ruegger
Release dates: Out Now
Running time: 22–27 minutes

More Wacky, More Zaney, More Insaney

Animaniacs jumps right back into the formula that did really well with the first season. Each episode is broken up into 3-4 segments mostly involving Yakko, Wakko, and Dot in some sort of adventure, followed up by a Pinky & The Brain episode, then closing with another sketch involving Yakko, Wakko, and Dot which would either wrap up a story or be some sort of throw-away segment. A highlight of this season was two things: A two-part segment involving the Warners doing a parody of Oliver Twist, and that the end of the season actually ends with a cliffhanger since the show was recently renewed for a third season.

Outside of this, nothing has really changed from the first season to this season of Animaniacs. But since it’s a formula that worked, and this was all produced during the COVID era, it’s hard to gripe on Animaniacs for sticking with what works for them… Even if it isn’t working as well as it did only a year ago.

A Small But Robust Cast

• Rob Paulsen as Yakko Warner / Pinky / Dr. Scratchansniff
• Jess Harnell as Wakko Warner
• Tress MacNeille as Dot Warner
• Maurice LaMarche as the Brain / Wakko’s burps
• Frank Welker as Ralph (Ralphicus/Ralphus/Ralph Yakko/Constable Ralphers), King, Chicken Boo, Judge Plotz, Baby Boo, and various background characters
• Stephanie Escajeda as Nora Rita Norita, the new CEO of Warners Studios

Since a majority of the cast in Animaniacs is coming back from the original show, there really isn’t much to say about them. Their voices, though aged a little, still sound like they did when the show was established in 1993. This shows the dedication to the voice acting craft that these people bring to the table. However, it does show the cheapness that either Hulu or Warner Bros Animation has employed to get this show back on the air since as you’ll notice above, a majority of the work is done by one man: the legendary Frank Welker. While I admire the dedication and willingness Welker brings to the show as the workhorse, it really shouldn’t be on the shoulders of one man to carry such a huge workload. Though the same should be said of Paulsen, Harnell & MacNeill as their three characters do a majority of the segments in the show. This is where opening the wallet and getting some of the other characters from the past back into the show would help these people’s voices in the long run.

The Classic Formula Works.

The thing with Animaniacs is that it is going to be hit and miss no matter what generation of the audience watches it. As someone who watched Animaniacs in its original incarnation, I can tell the difference between the things that are classic Animaniacs sketches, and what has been placed in there by the writers just to cater to the “woke” or GenZ audience. When Animaniacs goes into that classic formula that worked all those decades ago, making Animaniacs a timeless classic that fans demanded this reboot for, it works extremely well. Sketches like “Everyday Safety” (Episode 2, segment 3), “The Hamburg Tickler” (Episode 3, segment 3), and “What is that?” (Episode 9, segment 1) are examples of what made Animaniacs the great show it is, and are some of the highlights of the show in general.

What always seems to work are the Pinky & The Brain segments, which are always in the middle of each episode. Since these two characters go unchanged with this reboot, and the goal of each episode is still Brain taking over the world only to fail due to something going wrong or Pinky doing something to screw things up, it’s hard to give anything but praise to this segment as the integration of a classic formula and modern ideas and technology are well balanced and don’t go too far outside of what makes this part of the show a hit that spawned its own spin-off back in the day.

How You Doing Fellow Kids?…

As I said above, when Animaniacs is Animaniacs, it works. However, what really starts to grind on my nerves personally is when the show gets “woke” and “preachy” about specific topics. Some of the biggest offenders are “Rome Sweet Rome” (Episode 1, segment 1), “Please Submit” (Episode 2, segment 1), “Know Your Scroll” (Episode 5, segment 3), “Magna Cartoon” (Episode 7, segment 3), “Christopher Columbusted” (Episode 9, segment 3), and “Wakkiver Twist” (Episode 8, segments 1 & 3). The problem here ranges from taking classic literature tales and making them an allegory for workers rights (Wakkiver Twist), bashing political and historical figures (“Rome Sweet Rome”, “Magna Cartoon”, & “Christopher Columbusted”), or trashing technology (“Please Submit”). Doing topics in this manner really dates Animaniacs to being a product of 2019 through 2020, something that the original cartoon did not do at all.

Given the obvious political and social commentary that Animaniacs is now providing, it not only dates the show as I pointed out before, but it also shows that they are pandering to a new audience, and as many people follow these types of stupid ideas know, it never works. At least in some segments, Animaniacs will point out how stupid some of the topics they are forced to tackle are, making it meta in a way that insults just about everyone. However, Animaniacs was never about insulting anyone, it was to make light and parody the entertainment industry and moments in history in an educational manner. What we got in Animaniacs this time around was the same heavy-handed down-talking that is in too much of modern media. It’s like the writers do not know or understand the point of parody comedy.

Another thing that did get annoying after some time was the formula of the overall episode structure. Doing the 3 segments split up between the Warners and Pinky & The Brain shows how cheap and limited Hulu has made the series. Animaniacs used to have a huge cast of characters to draw upon, from Chicken Boo (Who does get a couple of cameo moments), Katie Ka-Boom, Elmyra Duff, The Goodfeathers, Slappy & Skippy Squirrel, Buttons and Mindy, and Minerva Mink. Having this larger cast of characters is something that Animaniacs utilized extremely well and gave variety to the overall show.

Animaniacs is a good show when it does what made Animaniacs a success in the 1990s. However, it has been heavily influenced by modern-day topics that the show now feels dated and insulting. The lack of character depth comes through in the structure of the show, which makes the cheapness of the show very obvious to even the most casual viewer. If Animaniacs can correct the use of political and social topics as cannon fodder and go back to making fun of the entertainment industry, and open up the wallet to get more of the old cast back, then Season 3 might be the Animaniacs show that we really deserve.