Animaniacs (2020 TV series)


Animaniacs is an American animated comedy musical television series developed by Wellesley Wild and produced by Warner Bros. Animation for Hulu. A revival of the 1993 TV series Animaniacs created by Tom Ruegger, the new series sees the return of the Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, and Pinky and the Brain.
The series was first announced in January 2018 with a two-season order and Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation producing; the series debuted on Hulu on November 20, 2020. The second season debuted on November 5, 2021. The third and final season was released on February 17, 2023.

Premise

Animaniacs continues to focus on the adventures of the Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot—three inseparable, hyperactive kids—as they embark on further adventures after being absent from television for 22 years, bringing with them the usual wackiness and mayhem they create while adapting to the changes and life of the 21st century. Episodes are composed of several shorts, with each episode consisting of segments following the adventures of Yakko, Wakko and Dot; the vast majority of episodes also include a segment featuring fan-favorite characters Pinky and the Brain—two lab mice, one of whom is intelligent and wants to take over the world, while the other is dim-witted and clumsy, often messing up his friend's plans.
Recurring segments new to the revival include Starbox and Cindy, which follows a miniature alien who is part of a fleet who wants to destroy the Earth. ; The Incredible Gnome in People's Mouths, centered on the titular gnome who ventures into different people's mouths to speak for them, Math-terpiece Theater, which involves dramatized math lessons taught by Dot, and Everyday Safety, a parody of 1980s safety videos featuring the Warner siblings.

Voice cast

Development

Conception

Early stages of developing the revival of Animaniacs at Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation began in May 2017. The interest in the revival was driven by a surge of popularity for the original show when it was made available on Netflix in 2016, plus numerous successful projects that have revived interest in older shows, such as Fuller House. The revival was officially announced by the streaming service Hulu in January 2018 in partnership with Spielberg and Warner Bros. Domestic Television Distribution. The broadcast rights for the new series also included rights for Hulu to stream all episodes of Tiny Toon Adventures, Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain. Hulu considered the show its first original series targeted for families.
Spielberg returned to serve as executive producer, alongside Sam Register, president of Warner Bros. Animation and Warner Digital Series, and Amblin Television co-presidents Justin Falvey and Darryl Frank. The show was produced by Amblin Television and Warner Bros. Animation. Wellesley Wild, a writer for Family Guy, was named the showrunner, while Gabe Swarr was named as co-executive producer. In addition to Wild and Swarr, Carl Faruolo served as supervising director.
Wild and Swarr developed the revival to be respectful of the original series as closely as possible. Wild stated "There's lightning in a bottle here and the first thing I'm going to do is keep that lightning in the bottle, vigilantly." In addition, with the show's 20-plus year hiatus, Wild and Swarr believed that a good portion of their audience would be parents who had watched the show as children themselves and were introducing their own children to the new show; they wanted to create a similar Jurassic World effect due to the similar gap from the original Jurassic Park film, and thus partially inspired the series' introductory short being a parody of Jurassic Park. Wild wanted to make sure to keep the same type of bi-level humor that the original show had, with more slapstick and visual comedy that would appeal to younger audiences, while having a higher level of humor that parents and adults would catch on to, often where some of the more risque humor could be included without evoking any censoring.
According to Wild, Spielberg was at every pitch meeting and insisted on maintaining most of the elements of the original show, including the original voice cast and orchestrated music, as well as producing the show as typical of most adult animated shows with a full writers' room in contrast to typical children's animated shows. Spielberg was also heavily involved throughout the storyboarding process to make sure that the show was heading in the right direction, according to Wild. Both Wild and Swarr stated that Spielberg wanted the revival to feature more political satire, and they found a middle ground between that and being a children's show.
The revival primarily features the returns of Yakko, Wakko and Dot, Dr. Scratchansniff, Ralph the Guard and Pinky and the Brain, with many of the numerous other supporting characters from the original show not included in their own segments, instead having their roles largely reduced to non-speaking cameos; in the case of Hello Nurse, this has been one of the first characters that the staff knew they could not bring back due to the changing sensibilities between the 1990s and 2020, according to Wild. Similarly, Thaddeus Plotz was confirmed to have departed Warner Bros. with a new Latina-American CEO named Nora Rita Norita in charge. For the rest of the extensive supporting cast from the original series, though there were plans for them to return in their corresponding segments in early stages of development, they were discarded because, as in a similar manner to Hello Nurse and Thaddeus Plotz, they wanted to update the reboot with a new set of characters that were far more relevant; for example, in the case of the Goodfeathers, Wild felt that a parody of Goodfellas would be "so dated", thus giving them the opportunity to make spoofs of modern films, also due to the fact that in his opinion, some jokes will not be suitable for these segments; aside from making cameos throughout the revival, there has not been a word yet if these characters will return in the future. Similarly, Dot was presented to be more reliant on her wits than being cute, an aspect Wild also believed would resonate better with current attitudes. Similar to the DuckTales reboot, they also considered careful nods to other cartoon characters from related series or past Looney Tunes, but without losing the show's focus on the Warners or Pinky and the Brain. They had attempted to have a segment to feature Freakazoid from the show of the same name, but this fell through due to actor availability.

Casting and music

The revival features Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, as well as Pinky and the Brain; Paulsen, Harnell, MacNeille, and LaMarche were confirmed to be reprising their voice roles in October 2019. Abby Trott was picked as a new voice artist on the team. Steven Bernstein, composing partner of the late Richard Stone, and his wife Julie Bernstein, composed underscore and songs during the show's original run. The Bernsteins scored the revival with a 35-piece orchestra, recording remotely after the COVID-19 lockdown. A stable of songwriters, including Roddy Hart and Tommy Reilly, and Randy Rogel who wrote featured songs in the original series, compose songs in the revival. However, other key production personnel from the original series, like Tom Ruegger, were not asked upfront to help craft the series. Ruegger said he was later offered the opportunity to submit a script but declined, as "basically it would be like an audition and I just didn't feel comfortable auditioning for a show that I created". Original series writer and voice actress Sherri Stoner returned in 2023 as the voice of Slappy Squirrel for the revival's final episode.
WaterTower Music released the first season soundtrack album of the revival digitally on August 13, 2021. An album for season two was released on August 19, 2022. An album for season three was released on September 8, 2023.

Production

Initial storyboarding work started around July 2018. Paulsen confirmed that voice recording had begun around May 2020. The music was recorded during the COVID-19 pandemic, with the Bernsteins coordinating with each musician individually from separate locations to assemble the final pieces.
Swarr said of the look for the series, they initially explored various different styles drawn by a variety of artists, but recognized that the original series had its own series of differences in how the Warners were drawn due to the different animation studios. In reviewing those, they found that the episodes produced by TMS Entertainment were generally considered the best and Swarr described their work as "The construction is so good; they have so much control." After doing a deep dive to identify the factors that made the TMS portrayals of the Warners work, the team behind the revival were introduced to Genevieve Tsai, an artist working on Warner Bros. and Netflix's Green Eggs and Ham series, who also had been a fan of the original show. Tsai helped to take the details from the TMS deep dive as well as other research into past works that had inspired the original show such as older Looney Tunes shorts, and developed the new look for the Warners, generally more angular and following the same approach TMS had used. They crafted a set of rules alongside the models for the revised characters that they then used when they sent the show off to be animated by seven different studios: Yowza! Animation in Toronto; Tonic DNA in Montreal; Titmouse, Inc. in Los Angeles ; Snipple Animation Studios in Manila, Philippines; and three studios in Seoul, South Korea: Digital eMation, Tiger Animation, and Saerom Animation. WB Animation in Burbank otherwise handled the pre- and post-production of all episodes. In additional to the character model updates, they wanted the background art to feel like paintings but avoiding some of the stylings of the 90s, like exaggerated curved features.
Paulsen said in an interview that, within the revival, the Warners are aware that they have been off the air for over 20 years. The episodes were prepared in 2019 and the writers had anticipated for events in 2020, but some ended up being affected by the COVID-19 pandemic, such as the planned 2020 Summer Olympics.