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What’s the Story?

Reviewed by Emily Ashby

ANIMANIACS is a 1990s collaborative production by Warner Bros. and Steven Spielberg. The cartoon is structured like a variety show, featuring an ensemble cast of anthropomorphic animals -- including lab mice Pinky (voiced by Rob Paulsen) and the Brain (Maurice LaMarche), the Martin Scorcese-inspired pigeon trio The Goodfeathers, and know-it-all showbiz veteran Slappy the Squirrel (Sherri Stoner) -- and three central characters known as the Warner siblings: Yakko (Paulsen again), Wakko (Jess Harnell), and the infinitely adorable Dot (Tress MacNeille). The mischievous trio lives on the Warner Bros. studio lot, but their outrageous adventures take them around the globe as well as throughout different periods in world history, where they often wreak their own brand of havoc on those around them.

Is It Any Good?

4

Satirical, witty, culturally relevant, and occasionally irreverent, Animaniacs is a bundle of fun packed with as much energy as its three off-the-wall main stars. Kids will be drawn to the characters' larger-than-life personalities and zany escapades, and parents will equally enjoy the show's slapstick exchanges, hilarious parodies, spoofs, and multiple pop-culture references.

While most of the content is frivolous and highly unrealistic, some segments do blend entertainment and educational quality in a kid-pleasing manner. Frequent musical numbers include songs that teach about the U.S. presidents or list all the states and their capital cities, for example, and the characters' travels through literature and historical times -- though highly fictionalized -- give kids a reference for famous events like World War II and significant figures like Picasso, King Arthur, and Abraham Lincoln.
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