"Animaniacs (2020)" Series Talkback Thread (Spoilers)

2-D chirox

Active Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
230
Technically, the only notable person from Family Guy to work on the show is showrunner Wellsley Wild. Story editor Greg White worked on shows like Wander Over Yonder, The Adventures Of Puss In Boots, and Unikitty. As for the rest of the writing staff, they've mainly worked on political sketch comedies and adult sitcoms.
Yes, which plays into my point of them not being appropriate to tackle something like animaniacs. Sitcom and sketch comedy are very different things. Sitcoms are reliant on the personalities of the characters and some degree of continuity and development. Something that wasn't present in the original series and thus falls flat. Unless they fundamentally retool the characters to have more complex personalities to support something like that I don't see a way forward for this particular iteration beyond its second season. Though I think we probably will see more animaniacs after the hulu series ends.
 

JMTV

Welcome to Wally World!
Joined
Oct 2, 2020
Messages
3,857
Location
Miramar, FL
Overall I'm not impressed. This series suffers from so many issues seen in 2010s animation that it's hard to pin point all of them. To sum up I would say that the main issue is the fact that the staff who write this are clearly way too disconnected from the influences on the original animaniacs to allow for a faithful reboot. Simply put they leaned way too heavily into the pop cultural references and forgot the visual aspect of the humour. Something I always like to do with reboots is to watch the original and rebooted version in tandem with each other. When doing this with animaniacs the differences become starkly clear. Whereas the original series had plenty of visual based gags to keep the audience entertained, this had very little in the way of that. Not only were there few visual gags but the animation felt (dare I say it) worse than the 90s version. Sure it's got all the high definition colouring and what have you but it felt stiffer in comparison to the original. The original had stretching limbs and objects colliding into each other, and all the non-sensicle cartoon physics. This on the other hand seemed to downplay that element drastically. I blame this primarily on the fact that the writers are family guy writers. Their humour is more dialogue based humour. That or gross out. Speaking of which. Way more gross out humour. Way more grotesque visual design in general. So much slime and spit. I fail to understand the appeal of this.

But then there comes one of its most agregious elements. The way they fundamentally changed the warners themselves. In the original there was a very common set up. The warners were out of control children who's main purpose in life seemed to be that of irritating everyone around them. Usually other characters played the role of the straight man to the Warners' antics. Here, that's not the case anymore. The Warners aren't very zany. They're actually pretty straight edge characters overall often mocking other characters and playing the straight man to their antics. This marks this show as not just different but fundamentally opposed to what the original was. Where the silliness was one of its selling point, the new version is your typical snarky 2010s cartoon character. What has replaced the original trio is just bland by today's standards. In fact I've noticed that the sketches are a lot more... individual now. In the old series it was much more focused on the Warners as a group and how they played off of each other and/or the world around them. In the new series it is a lot more focused around the warners as individuals which I generally don't enjoy. On their own the Warners really aren't that interesting. I mean animaniacs is a sketch comedy show at its core and the characters aren't fully fledged three dimensional personalities as a result. And for a comedy sketch show that works fine. There won't be a consistent storyline and the characters will end the same as they were in the beginning. When you focus on them individually there just isn't enough to create interesting skits or stories.

Animaniacs suffers from a lot of the same issues that the PPG reboot of 2016 suffered from. Instead of being faithful to the original it decided to chase all of the trends of the modern era. Trends that won't last and thus means it cannot maintain support in the long run because of how much it just blends in with the crowd. It is now just another victim of the reboot craze.
Okay, that's completely fair criticism. I personally enjoyed the reboot, and I'm aware that most people don't, and that's okay. ;)
 

JMTV

Welcome to Wally World!
Joined
Oct 2, 2020
Messages
3,857
Location
Miramar, FL
Yes, which plays into my point of them not being appropriate to tackle something like animaniacs. Sitcom and sketch comedy are very different things. Sitcoms are reliant on the personalities of the characters and some degree of continuity and development. Something that wasn't present in the original series and thus falls flat. Unless they fundamentally retool the characters to have more complex personalities to support something like that I don't see a way forward for this particular iteration beyond its second season. Though I think we probably will see more animaniacs after the hulu series ends.
Okay, that's another fair point, as well.
 

cristian12345678

Active Member
Joined
Aug 1, 2016
Messages
261
Hello Nurse is neither a dud of a character nor a sexist joke! She’s incredibly intelligent! Go back and listen to Wakko’s “Hello Nurse” Song from the OG series and you’ll see why she really is just as empowering and deserves to come back!

And stop hating the other OG characters! They can always retool them and make them better in the reboot! Let them all come back and give them a chance to potentially become better characters than they we’re in the OG show.
hello nurse will never come back acording to tress macneille in wizardworld question and answer

minute 38:43
 

2-D chirox

Active Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
230
Whens season 2?
Seeing as it had two seasons ordered in 2018 I imagine it'll be released within the year. However don't expect a renewel for a season 3. During this series' production Disney bought out hulu which technically means that WB are now supplying a property for the benefit of their biggest competitor. I imagine WB will then greenlight a new animaniacs series to be handled by a different crew over at HBO max. The process of creating this may take some time.
 

Eurbane

Active Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2020
Messages
537
Location
Des plaines, il
Seeing as it had two seasons ordered in 2018 I imagine it'll be released within the year. However don't expect a renewel for a season 3. During this series' production Disney bought out hulu which technically means that WB are now supplying a property for the benefit of their biggest competitor. I imagine WB will then greenlight a new animaniacs series to be handled by a different crew over at HBO max. The process of creating this may take some time.
If they move to HBO max we will have another "Welcome Home Animaniacs." event like the one for the premiere of Kids WB in 1995.
 

2-D chirox

Active Member
Joined
Jan 23, 2016
Messages
230
After some thinking on the issue I've come to realise what my issue with the removal of hello nurse is. In order to figure this out we have to deconstruct the gag that existed around the character. The joke usually consisted of the nurse walking into the scene and then followed by Yakko and Wakko saying the ever famous line "HELLLLLOOO NURSE!". Usually the joke consists of them simply saying the line and acting very awkwardly in the given situation. In some cases this joke would escalate into chasing and what could (in legal terms at least) be considered harassment. However what I have found is that this is the minority of the scenes involving her. In most cases the Warners brothers will just get very excited in her presence. This is usually of bemeusement to the nurse. The justification for removing this(or what I think is the justification) is that this gag is a depiction of harassment of a woman. However with the exceptions of the outright chase sequences (which I will concede were a bit tacky) the joke is normally on the Warners for being socially awkward. The joke is designed to have the audience laugh at the Warner brothers for how they're acting around the nurse. And it's not a "how awful" kind of laugh less than it is an "oh those silly kids" kind of thing.

Which gets me to one of the crucial issues I have with its removal. This is because of the fact that young men and boys are often times very socially awkward and will result in actions somewhat similar to that of the warners (minus the chasing part). Teens in general can be very awkward. But the fact of the matter is that by removing depictions of awkward young men you just make the issue worse. Instead of having social awkwardness as something that's not a big deal and is easily approached, the idea seems to be either to add stigma or just pretend it doesn't exist. This in turn leads to a world where social awkwardness is not dealt with and will leave many socially stunted. Of course animaniacs choosing to bring back the gag won't fix the issue but it would potentially combat what I think is a very negative societal trend. I'm all for altering the joke (some of the originals were in very bad taste) but removal to me seems like a bad move on the wellness of many young people (young men inparticular).
 

disneyphilip

Member
Joined
Aug 3, 2015
Messages
85
Seeing as it had two seasons ordered in 2018 I imagine it'll be released within the year. However don't expect a renewel for a season 3. During this series' production Disney bought out hulu which technically means that WB are now supplying a property for the benefit of their biggest competitor. I imagine WB will then greenlight a new animaniacs series to be handled by a different crew over at HBO max. The process of creating this may take some time.

As long as they bring Tom Ruegger back as showrunner and bring back all the other characters, including Hello Nurse!
 
Last edited:

Eurbane

Active Member
Joined
Aug 8, 2020
Messages
537
Location
Des plaines, il
I want Slappy Squirrel back !
we already got her in good warner hunting along with the other animaniacs characters from the original series except Thaddeus Plotz and the nurse but I wish I could see them all again in an upcoming episode of season 2.
 

doglover44

Active Member
Joined
Feb 11, 2010
Messages
214
Location
Ohio
Wonder what they will make fun of in season 2 loved the Faux News skit making fun of Fox News .
 

wiley207

Well-Known Member
Joined
Jan 20, 2009
Messages
1,675
Location
USA
HBO Max would be a much more logical place for a hypothetical third season. That's really where it should've been to start with, IMO, considering all the other Warner Bros. Animation shows on there.
Oh yes. Or when planning the show a few years back they could've arranged to have it be on the Boomerang streaming service, given all the other WBA shows on there as well, and it could've drawn more subscribers to the service as well! But they didn't; instead, the Boomerang service just has the very similar (but not as good) "Scooby-Doo in Arabian Nights." And now Warner is not putting much effort into the Boomerang service anymore, not since HBO Max came out.
 

thomas2313412

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 9, 2011
Messages
1,205
You know the Russia bootleg episode in the Animaniacs revival? Well I think they could have used the episode to make fun of china instead since they control the media and bootleg other shows, but the Americans are too scared because china will ban the episode and will cut off the box office number from future warner bros movies
 
Last edited:

Spotlight

Staff online

Who's on Discord?

Latest profile posts

"I'm probably going to watch Nymphomaniac Part II on Disney+ this weekend" isn't something I didn't think I'd ever say, but here we are.
Change of plans, no concert for me tonight! Instead, if everything goes according to plan, I will instead be seeing Chris Barron (of Spin Doctors) in May.
I may actually delete my twitter account. It is just really bad these days, and I have other ways to keep in touch with the few people on there I do care about, so deleting it would be rather easy. Something I once thought I'd never think of doing.
And now: A Classic Toonzone Moment #3

On the TTTP on October 13, 2002, a couple of users question if Dumb Patrol (1964) is truly offensive, causing a long discussion about flame wars: "Dumb Patrol"
I still haven't made a real post on that Dreamwidth blog I have linked in my signature. Still deciding what I want to do with it, really. I want to practice my reviewing skills so I may use it exclusively as a review blog for whatever I feel like.

Featured Posts

Top