This past February, numerous Animaniacs fans finally jumped for joy as the long awaited Vol. 4 hit shelves. It has been close to six years since Vol. 3 came out, and with only a handful of episodes left, it was a nerve racking experience having to wait. When it came out, I immediately bought it and to my sheer joy, it was everything that I wanted, not only from a completionist standpoint, but also in terms of the energy. Episodes lodged into my brain from childhood were seen on my DVD player. However, is it the great finale that this animated variety show deserved?
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| Photo courtesy of Andrew Linde |
While it is hard for an average eye to figure out who we're looking at, this was an animation panel with voice actors including Maurice LaMarche and Rob Paulsen (in the blue shirt and orange hat). While the panel itself was basically fans asking the "what's it like?" questions, I found it fascinating whenever LaMarche and Pauslen would break out into characters and banter back and forth. Not scripted at all. True, I saw this at a Futurama panel a few days earlier, but there is something about watching something you saw at five years old on a beat-up VHS played out in real time.
It was a phenomenal eye opener. True, I have always been aware that voice actors existed, but never had I found an interest in the people behind the voice. I knew everyone on the Simpsons (possibly due to Nancy Cartwright appearing on both), but that was it. Suddenly, as I am watching Paulsen do the countries of the world song, I had a moment of bliss. From that moment on when he ran out screaming "Potty emergency!" I wanted to know more about these people. Also thanks to Paulsen's podcast Talkin' Toons, I have gradually become more infatuated with the cartoon medium and have gotten new appreciation for the cartoons that I grew up with.
It may seem like a dime a dozen Comic Con story, but this essentially shaped my world view afterwards. Since, I have dissected Freakazoid and Bob's Burgers on this very blog and even occasionally pop on Cartoon Network to watch Adventure Time. Still, my true love lies with that moment when I discovered that Paulsen was the voice of my childhood, and knowing that only made watching Animaniacs removed from the five year old me still as amazing.
That is why I was excited to finally get a copy of Animaniacs Vol. 4 on day of release. It began almost like normal. The familiar cast was back and ready for slapstick extravaganza. The opening episode even had a Wizard of Oz parody with Mindy and Buttons. Since I hadn't seen the last three volumes in quite some time, this was perfectly fine with me. I was just happy to have these characters back. I even pieced together some episodes that I remembered from childhood, including "This Pun for Hire," which featured an early sign of why I consider this one to be a rather weak collection.
The problem with Vol. 4 may be that it is too obsessed with pop culture. In "This Pun for Hire," it manages to break the fourth wall and talk about sweeps. I love shows that break the fourth wall, and the subtle inclusion of Freakazoid felt natural for those first few episodes, if only as cross promotion. However, things began to wane and by "A Very Very Very Very Special Show," the cracks were showing. In an attempt to win awards for presenting a positive message, the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister parodied after school specials by preaching messages about recycling and eating healthy. While it developed to a bigger joke, it almost felt like the show was going into a realm of surreal parody that I wasn't quite sure it could pull off.
The truth is that I cannot ask my five year old self if I get the references, but revisiting these episodes, I saw some shout outs to 32 Short Films About Glenn Gould, My Dinner with Andre, and That Girl to name a few. There was the occasional shout out to old school animation, and even at one point a very blatant nod to the Simpsons. I am not saying that the show cannot be referential, but for a program that I admired for its original take on kid's programming, it was a little disconcerting. Episodes like "Clown and Out" and "Yard Sale" were classics without a single parody of popular culture at the time. True, I still admire "Baloney and Friends" even if it is a direct rip-off of Barney and Friends, but even then the show had some cleverness.
However, this volume seemed to be more straight up parodies culminating in a two part episode called "Hooray for North Hollywood." As funny and expansive as it was, it was the show's last attempt at succeeding with pop culture references. There were shout outs to Quentin Tarantino and even a predictive scene involving George Lucas and how he shouldn't write Star Wars sequels. Of course the plot: to have the Warners produce a script into a movie, called for these references. However, it was also the moment that the references flew off the wall. Just listen to this song:
Right off the bat, there is references to Meryl Streep, Kevin Costner, and Keanu Reeves. Nothing too special, but it showed how reliant the show had gotten on pop culture references. Of course, this brings me to my next point, and it is quite possibly the saving grace. Composer Randy Rogel (who was on one of the best podcast episodes ever) managed to have writing credits on almost every episode because the show became more and more reliant on song and dance numbers. He is responsible for majority of the musical numbers in the "Hooray for North Hollywood" episodes, and that's quite possibly why they aren't entirely train wrecks.
Rogel was an expert when it came to music. Having composed for most of the show's music, "Hooray for North Hollywood" was an epic that got to show off his skill. Most of the songs played as broadway hits, and with the lyrics equally as catchy, it is easy to see how he was the glue to the show towards the end of its existence. Of course, from the series of songs, none were quite on par with this one:
What is fascinating about the show is its ability to be really comical and then jumping straight into an educational tune. Whether it is the countries of the world song or Wakko singing about the United States capitals, Animaniacs prided itself in making musical numbers with a purpose. In "Only One of You," it takes that concept to educate the audience on species and how that compares to human life. True, it may at times just go on and on, but Rogel was an expert and turning educational lessons into fun three minute ditties.
In fact, in the final original sketch of the entire series "The Recording Sessions," the show breaks the fourth wall by showing all of the characters with a conductor overlooking a screen from the episodes. They all have instruments and they play notes according to the scene. In typical twist, they manage to turn it into a nonsensical chaotic performance in which the Warners run amok and still manage to create the right instrumentation. Rogel got co-writing credit, and it should be noted that this pretty much sums up his involvement with the show. He added physicality cues like no other. He could use a horn noise effective and the range shown is impressive. While it is a a pretty insane routine, I feel that it is Rogel's most deliberate example of what he does on the show. Also, it presents in a clever way how recording compositions go.
While I have lambasted the series a lot so far, I want to state that I cannot call this set a failure. It just happened to have a lot of the weaker episodes. True, I was never into the Hip Hippos, which included an extensive heist episode with the Brain posing as a child to steal money from them because he thinks they are the Rockefellers. There is even the absence of "Good Idea/Bad Idea" segments. The show lost a few great bits in the process. However, along with Rogel's brilliant compositions, the show also took more risks in a different way.
Quite possibly the most amazing achievement in the show's history is "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock." Unlike most episodes, this was a singular narrative for an entire episode. Slappy Squirrel goes insane from watching TV to the point that she has to be thrown in a nursing home. Already a bleak premise, add in Skippy for emotional weight, and the show is tackling mental illness in a very informed manner. There are laughs, but that's not the point. The show is all about how mental illness affects the entire family through these two characters. It is insane to think that this made it onto TV because of its bleak subject matter, but it was one of the few evidenced proofs that the show had creative control to do whatever it wanted.
Of course, the show did go on to do "Bully for Skippy" which took the subject of bullying in a more typical Slappy Squirrel direction. The episode implies that the only way to win is to hurt your opponent until they surrender. I am not calling this show an important moral compass, but it definitely shows the different end of the spectrum that they could go to.
One of the weaker elements of the show was also that they featured more forgettable characters. While Ralph has long been an established character, he definitely was not one that needed to be more central. True, Plotz became kind of satirical at points, but not as badly as Ralph, whose work in "Boids on the Hood" saw him eventually getting naked to protect his boss' car. It was the show going more lowbrow and at times meaner. While the show has always been successful at having the Warners annoy people, it felt exceptionally blatant this time. "The Carpool" sees them annoying passengers in their car trip to work in obvious ways that almost make the characters unsympathetic.
That was the problem if the Warners had any. They were more unsympathetic to forgettable characters. Also, where Edison and Michelangelo managed to turn in memorable cameos, here we get Hercules and Attila, who have unmemorable stays. The worst that can be said is the rest of the cast is hit and miss, though depending on your tolerance for the Warners, it still was fun, despite the wearisome fourth wall breaking that almost felt like a lazy trope after awhile.
Despite my criticism, it is impossible not to recommend this to Animaniacs fans, if just because Randy Rogel did a phenomenal job with the music. Numbers like "The Ballad of Magellan " "Panama Canal," "The Brain's Apprentice," and "Noel" all are very memorable and will be stuck in your head. Also, when the show did it right, the ambitious fourth volume not only explored satire, but emotional complexity that made us care about characters. While Chicken Boo and the Hip Hippos are still problematic, the rest of the characters had their moments to shine. While we never saw too many solid Pinky and the Brain bits (probably due to them having their own show), the way that this universe has learned to collaborate with each segment is amazing.
Animaniacs Vol. 4 is flawed, but also shows where the program hit its creative peaks. They may have not always worked and the characters were sometimes poorly written, but they still were pushing the fourth wall and separating itself from other cartoons of the time. Animaniacs is a haven of nerd culture for kids with a few innuendos thrown in. Vol. 4 may be painfully 90's at times, including references to Happy Gilmore and the Postman, but at the end of the day, it is still really entertaining.
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