Animaniacs
The manic variety cartoon that slipped jokes for adults past kids and a geography lesson past everyone. Yakko, Wakko and Dot burst out of the Warner Bros. water tower alongside Pinky and the Brain, Slappy Squirrel, and a cast of oddballs — fast, smart, and endlessly quotable.
Animaniacs premiered September 13, 1993, created by Tom Ruegger and executive-produced by Steven Spielberg through Amblin and Warner Bros. Its stars were the Warner siblings — Yakko, Wakko, and sister Dot — 1930s-style cartoon characters of no fixed species who'd been "locked in the water tower" for decades and were now loose. The show was a rapid-fire variety format, cutting between segments like Pinky and the Brain, Slappy Squirrel, and the Goodfeathers.
The writing worked on two levels: slapstick and catchphrases for kids ("Hellooo, Nurse!", "Goodnight, everybody!") and a stream of pop-culture and innuendo jokes for the adults watching. It also snuck in genuine education to satisfy children's-TV rules — most famously "Yakko's World," in which Yakko sings the nations of the world to a bouncy tune that a lot of kids can still half-recite.
The series moved from Fox Kids to Kids' WB in 1995 and ran until November 14, 1998, totaling 99 episodes and winning eight Daytime Emmys and a Peabody Award. Pinky and the Brain proved popular enough to spin off into its own 1995 series. A Hulu revival arrived in 2020, but the original '90s run is the one people quote.
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