Exclusive Interview: The Voices Of Animaniacs On How The Show Still Works Thirty Years Later

Hulu’s Animaniacs is currently streaming a second season on Hulu with a third season in production. The revival of the franchise is a burgeoning trend where streamers and producers are relaunching legacy brands for a new audience. BBC’s Spitting Image just concluded a very well-done second season via Britbox. HBO MAX is threatening with revivals of The Boondocks and Clone High. ViacomCBS is either spinning off or reviving classic franchises like Beavis and Butt-Head, Daria, and Ren & Stimpy. It’s safe to say, reboots are all of the rage right now and they are working. However, at the end of the day, the franchise needs to have the important ingredients in place to make sure legacy fans can easily find what is familiar mixed with new ingredients to help grow a new audience. Fortunately for Hulu, Animaniacs has managed to find both in what is being touted as “Steven Spielberg’s favorite TV show” according to show executive producer Gabe Swarr, “When we originally revived the series, we were able to take advantage of present-day technology to allow us to continue the 2D hand-drawn format all-the-while showcasing a new coat of paint in it’s presentation”.

As we’ve learned by the recent follies coming by way of Springfield, one cannot simply replace voice actors with just anyone, so the producers of the revival for Animaniacs did the smart thing and brought back all of the ones from the original series including Jess Harnell (“Wakko”), Tress MacNeille (“Dot”), Rob Paulsen (“Pinky”/”Yakko”), and Maurice LaMarche (“Brain”).  The cast surmises that bringing back the voices for these legendary characters, despite continuing to voice for other franchises over the years, wasn’t that difficult because they are constantly doing conventions and fans are always asking them to recite famous lines anyway, ,”they never really went away”..

I suppose it’s easier when classic lines originally derived from the franchises have managed to stay regardless. The classic series featured “The Goodfeathers” essentially reworking classic Goodfellas lines into a kids animated series which became hugely popular, however the most venerable to pop culture is by far:

PINKY-What are we going to do tomorrow night, Brain?

BRAIN-The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!

The phrase certainly has seeped into common vernacular much in the same way as Homer’s “D’oh” or Achmed’s “I Kill You!”. Says Paulsen who wrote the memoir Voice Lessons: How a Couple of Ninja Turtles, Pinky, and an Animaniac Saved My Life, “I can’t tell you how much fan mail I’ve gotten over the years all over the world and still to this day on social media where everyone says those lines back to me!” Maurice LaMarche fondly remembers the Emmy win that A Pinky and the Brain Christmas stole over a very good season of The Simpsons in 1996, and points to that as proof that the two iconic titular characters actually do love each other after all of these years and that the lasting appeal certainly revolves around the fact that despite everything, the premise of Pinky and The Brain is to always keep trying, “It’s the classic Honeymooners format only it features two idiot mice, only Brain doesn’t seem to understand the fact that because he’s a mouse, he’ll never truly be able to take over the world”.

Well…he can always try.

Animaniacs season two is streaming now on Hulu, read our review here. This interview was edited and condensed for clarity.