Season Review: Animaniacs Season Two

Egad! It looks like our favorite zany characters are back for another round of cartoon madness. Animaniacs was one of the famous cartoons in the 1990s with its series of slapstick humor and memorable characters. When it comes to animated shows, Animaniacs knows how to cater to both kids and adults. Last year saw the long-awaited return of our nostalgic friends with a revival series on Hulu that proved to be just as good as it was in our childhoods. Now, the Warner Brothers (and Warner Sister) are looking to continue their successful run with their sophomore season.    

Like its first season and the 1993 series, season two of Animaniacs continues the misadventures of the Warner siblings, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, and their cast of random characters following their absence. Two of the sketches in almost every episode follow the Warner siblings, while the third involves Pinky and the Brain attempting to take over the world. There’s also one original short called Starbox and Cindy, which involves a young girl and a tiny alien who struggles to begin an invasion, and another called The Incredible Gnome in People’s Mouths. The plot for that one is as simple as its title.  

I enjoyed watching Animaniacs during my childhood, and I thought the revival series wasn’t too bad either. It took what I loved about the original series and put a modern spin to it with spectacular results. It was disappointing to see that it couldn’t bring back all of the memorable supporting characters from the original show to join the fun, like Slappy Squirrel and the Goodfeathers. However, it’s also understandable why they got cut from the editing room.

Unsurprisingly, the show’s second season didn’t change that much since its series premiere last year. The 13 episodes still featured shorts featuring the Warner siblings and the two lab mice, with an occasional original sketch or two. If you’re hoping to see more new characters in their own cartoons, you’ll be pretty disappointed with the final results. But you’ll also be surprised to see that the revival series still has some charm and clever ideas inside the Warner Brothers water tower to make its sophomore season zany to the max. Like its previous season, the second season boasted greatly from its voice acting, animation, and writing, mainly for its meta-humor and slapstick.

Once again, the voice cast did a fabulous job bringing a lot of soul, energy, and chemistry into our beloved, kooky characters, including Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, and Tress MacNeille as the Warner siblings. There’s not a single episode in this season in which the frenetic madness wore thin. Although, I do have to point out one minor issue that bothered me: the sound mixing for Rob Paulsen’s voice for Yakko.  

In its fourth and fifth episodes, I immediately noticed that Yakko’s voice sounded muffled compared to the other characters. Paulsen’s voice for Pinky sounded clear during those episodes, but Yakko sounded like he was inside a cup. It could be that Paulsen was recording his lines in a different room, the sound mixing team got lazy, or maybe it was my television? Whatever it was, I found it to be very distracting. Luckily, the sound mixing returned to normal after those two episodes.

The humor was some of the best stuff I’ve seen in animation television. Animaniacs never shied away from parodying classic movies, shows, genres, pop culture, world history, celebrities, even the show itself. There were also some adult jokes and visual gags that were cleverly written, nicely animated, and innocently charming. It’s no wonder the show got slapped with a TV-14 rating for some of its episodes. Not all of them stuck the landing like the original series, but it did show that the developers understand how a show like Animaniacs works regarding comedy.

The best examples of the humor were Pinky and the Brain’s “The Flawed Couple” in episode two and “Know Your Scroll” in episode five, in my opinion. “The Flawed Couple” shifts away from the “world domination” formula for a humorous collection of “failed pilots” that parodies the likes of The Brady Bunch and even The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air. “Know Your Scroll” offered a comical depiction of scrolling through different content on the streaming service. These episodes were two of my favorites because of the comedy and charming characters.

Overall, the second season of Animaniacs is totally insane-y for all the right reasons. It didn’t allow the show to showcase more original sketches outside of the Warners and Pinky and the Brain. Other than that, I highly enjoyed the kooky characters’ return as much as I enjoyed their revival in the first season. The voice cast was great, and the animation was cartoonishly vibrant and suitably unique regarding the original shorts. Plus, the episodes were mostly filled with clever humor and charismatic energy. These qualities proved that the Warners are still going strong, even after their 30-year absence. We’ll have to see if their upcoming third season is as random and crazy as this collection of zany shorts. Good night, everybody!