Animaniacs Volume 4: Update 2: “Meet the Warner Brothers, and the Warner Sister Dot".

No, we’re certainly not meeting them for the first time.  More like we’re getting started on the great new DVD set Animaniacs Volume 4.   …Though, just for fun we MIGHT “…run around the Warner Movie Lot”.  Just a little, maybe…

You can find our original post on the set HERE, and our first update HERE.   This final volume begins even better than I expected.  Nothing but complete and utter enjoyment, spread out over the first three episodes.    

I’m issuing "Spoiler Warners”… I mean “Spoiler WARNINGS” on all.   Here they are: 

We're the Spoiler Warners and the Warner Sister Dot -- and you're our "Special Friend"!

Episode # 1:  “Gimme the Works” / “Buttons in Ows” / “Hercules Unwound”:

Right out of the gate, the Warners screw with your expectations…  Bless their devious little trickster hearts.

They run across a loud, foul-tempered hot-dog vendor, whom Yakko ominously declares is their new “special friend”.  But, just when you were expecting Hot-Dog Guy to get the titular “Works”, Dot declares that she’s just not into it today, and the trio walk off leaving the venomous vendor sadly un-harassed.

What's "hot" is "not" for Dot!

Heedless toddler Mindy crawls off after little dog Toto, with her canine rescuer Buttons in hot pursuit, and they all get tornadoed-away to Oz.  Does Buttons get Munchkin-mashed, and Ruby Slipper-slammed?  Whadda you think?!  Special appearance by Pinky and The Brain, as “the mice behind the curtain”.

He's off to be creamed by the Wizard!

Finally, an ultra-whiny version of Hercules faces his legendary labors… and the prospect of being heckled by Yakko, Wakko, and Dot.  But, in a marvelous “call-back” to the show’s opening, Dot’s still not into it so, believe it not, we abruptly shift into a Pinky and The Brain cartoon... using Hercules and Zeus as The Brain’s latest pawns toward achieving (ancient) world domination! 

After the Warners left... Joan Rivers?

 

Talk about screwing with your expectations!  I don’t think I’ve EVER seen such an unexpected shift in focus before.  I’m sorry if I’ve spoiled this for anyone – but it serves to show just how talented the ANIMANIACS staff of writers actually were!   

The same thing we do every night... Try to take over a cartoon!

Episode # 2:  “This Pun for Hire” / “Star Truck” / “Go Fish” / “Multiplication Song”:

Oh, did I say the writing staff on ANIMANIACS was TALENTED?  I can’t begin to adequately describe the feelings brought on by watching “This Pun for Hire”! 

I’ve not seen “This Pun for Hire” for nearly 15 years, and I loved it THEN… but NOW that I’ve come to fancy myself a writer (if even in my own mind, and a few scattered issues of Disney comic books), I view it with utter awe and unabashed envy!  How I would love to write dialogue THIS GOOD and THIS FUNNY! 

What could have been little more than a routine parody of “The Maltese Falcon” in lesser hands, is an absolutely amazing, non-stop laugh fest!  This is the kind of thing that can make you laugh heartily out loud, even when sitting alone with it late at night, after your spouse has retired.  (It did for me!) A relentless assault on your funnybone, that pushes the envelope in every conceivable direction.  When a guest appearance by FREAKAZOID! isn’t even the second-or-third funniest thing in the picture, you KNOW you’ve got something special.

You mean I didn't get the BEST LINES?!

Not to be overshadowed, “Star Truck” may very well be the best animated parody / tribute to that classic series.  What’s worse than becoming the Warners’ “special friend of the day”?  Why, having them be FANS of yours, of course!  And, like so many of us nerds and geeks, fans of “Star Truck” they are. 

This episode may have pioneered the “halting cadence” that has now become the de-facto method of vocally impersonating William Shatner.  We see the “Scotty character’s” transformation from the relatively slim engineer of 1966’s first season to the bloated, mustachioed persona of the ‘80s film series occur before our eyes.  And, the Spock character has the “expected / unexpected consequences” of a mind-meld with Wakko.  You haven’t lived until you’ve heard Wakko’s familiar “Faboo!” spoken in a Spock-parody voice!

The balance of the show has Wakko playing a card game with himself (escalating the stakes and violence level), and one of those Yakko educational songs about multiplication.   After the first two ABSOLUTE GEMS, it’s almost as if… who cares!  You could have tacked on ANYTHING, and the show would still be a success. 

I know... Let's just tack on ANYTHING!

Episode # 3:  “The Sound of Warners” / “Yabba Dabba Boo” :

Ev-ery-ting is peaceful... TOO peaceful!

The Warners meet their match in a “Julie-Andrews-like” nanny assigned to keep them out of trouble.  A really nice twist to this is that Yakko, Wakko, and Dot can’t drive her away in their usual heckling style because she has not been rude, or taken any aggressive actions against them.  It’s sort of their code, like the later Chuck Jones Bugs Bunny.  So, they get someone else to handle the job.  Care to guess who? 

Ahhh... Don't think so HARD, ya might HURT yerself!

By now, you know the drill.  Chicken Boo, now in the guise of script-doctor “Larry Gel-Boo” is brought in to save a Flintstones script, which is failing badly.  His “clucks” are amazingly just what the script needs to send the producer and the rest of the Writer's Room into fits of laughing hysterics.  A lone writer, who sees Boo as the chicken he is, sits dumbfounded until vindicated by the eventual reveal. 

Over the years, I’ve come to realize that not everyone likes Chicken Boo, nor do they find the variations on the single plot of a chicken infiltrating various areas of human endeavor to be as absurdly funny as I do.   But, I can’t apologize for that.  This tickles my sense of the absurd, and that must have been the feeling at Warner Bros. and Spielberg’s as well.  So, add a few points if you’re a “Boo-Booster”, and subtract a few if you’re not.  

Give me a "B"!  Give me an "O"! Give me an "O"!

 No matter, I just hope you're all enjoying ANIMANIACS Volume 4 as much as I am! 

Will be be ..."Back" with more?  Ya never know!