Season Review: Animaniacs Season Three

In a world where reboots and revivals often fall short of their nostalgic counterparts, it’s surprising to see several revivals standing tall alongside them. One of them, in particular, is Animaniacs, the animany and totally insane-y reunion series that reunites the Warner siblings for more chaotic adventures in the Warner Brothers lot. Filled with zany scenarios and relevant humor fit for the 21st century, Animaniacs was a fun and satisfying comeback for the wacky characters and a great addition to the Hulu animation category. The lack of variety in its characters leaves a noticeable hole in the first two seasons, but the show does enough with the fan favorites to make it consistently enjoyable. Considering how famous the Warner siblings and Pinky and the Brain are in the past, it’s easy for me to look past this flaw.

Unfortunately, our little reunion with those silly Warners has sadly reached its end with its third and final season, which hopes to end the revival series with a bang. I enjoyed the first two seasons of the Animaniacs revival, so I was disappointed to see it close down again while the iron’s hot. On the other hand, it does look like they might’ve run out of ideas to use for their main characters, even though they have several other characters that barely exist in the seasons. I guess the writers didn’t have as much faith in “Starbox and Cindy” and “The Incredible Gnome” as they were for Hello Nurse and the Goodfeathers in the show’s original run.

The third season, consisting of ten episodes, continues the wacky adventures of the Warner siblings and Pinky and Brain’s attempts to take over the world. Although the season takes the usual streaming approach of having its first episode, “Season Three and WB”, occur after the season two finale. That two-part episode sees the siblings deal with the sudden change in the studio, with Ralph T. Guard (Frank Welker) being promoted to Chairman. It then sees the Warners teaming up with Nora to get her CEO job back when her new security guard position keeps them from leaving the tower.

Another change the series made for the season is it had four two-parter episodes compared to just one per season, not just for the Warners but also for Pinky and the Brain. One example is the ninth episode, a Christmas special entitled “How the Brain Thieved Christmas”, which involves Brain being a Grinch by stealing Christmas with a toy shaped like Pinky. Unsurprisingly, the two-parters offer the same hilarity and charm as the regular segments featuring the characters, even though they lack enough room for more crazy shenanigans for the Warners and their friends.

As for the remaining episodes, there’s not much else about the show that hasn’t been said in the previous seasons. The third season of Animaniacs is as crazy, meta, and consistently entertaining as it was in the last two seasons and the 1990s series. While some of its jokes were a bit late to the punch, the show provided enough cleverness in its meta-humor, slapstick, self-awareness, and dialogue to generate laughs for kids and adults (and avoid copyright). There are plenty of self-referential moments that I enjoyed the most, such as a kid influencer named Gigi Soda (a parody of Jojo Siwa) in “Soda-pressed” and the Warners providing preachy advice on ending climate change in “Global Warnering”.

However, there were a couple of things that I think were handled better than in the last two seasons. One is the variety of its segments. Unlike the past two seasons, “The Incredible Gnome” doesn’t appear in season three, but “Starbox and Cindy” managed to make the cut for the final season. The “Starbox and Cindy” segments in season three stood out from the ones in the previous seasons because they feature an interconnected plot involving Starbox avoiding getting killed by an assassin who wants to steal Starbox’s glory by annihilating Earth first. Aside from the cliffhanger ending featuring the alien king and his assassin clones, the “Starbox and Cindy” segments successfully grew on me after three seasons. It also has some new segments like “Murder Pals” and “Lawn in Sixty Seconds”, but they barely scratch the surface regarding the comedy. In short, I didn’t find them as hilarious as the main ones involving the Warners.

Another element I should mention is the animation. As usual, the animation team made great use of its budget to represent the surreal, energetic, and stylized essence of its wacky presentation, like the original series. The primary example of this is its eighth episode, “WARnerGAMES”, involving the Warners getting stuck inside a Smash Brothers game. That episode switched from 2D animation to CGI to fit the aesthetics of a modern 3D fighting video game. It’s a solid and well-rendered upgrade that would likely be reused if they decide to make a CGI Animaniacs movie or special.

Overall, the third season of Animaniacs is a bittersweet farewell to the revival series that was cut short way too soon. Yes, I mean bittersweet because the series ended with a meteor destroying the Earth and the Warners. However, it’s also another batch of fun and colorful shenanigans that are faithful to the original show’s wit and charm. The voice cast was still terrific regarding their performances, and the new segments are still entertaining despite their mild fumbles and the lack of the original’s supporting characters. But at least we got to see Slappy Squirrel make a brief appearance one last time. That should be enough to make us feel better. If you still haven’t watched the revival at this point, consider doing that sooner rather than later so we can convince Hulu to keep the Warner siblings alive for a couple more seasons.