Meet the wacky cast of the Warner Bros./Steven Spielberg-produced cartoon Animaniacs and its spin-off Pinky and the Brain. They are categorized by which characters starred in which segments. The characters that show up in Pinky and the Brain, including Pinky and the Brain, who started as characters as part of a segment of Animaniacs, should get listed in the Pinky and the Brain Character Sheet.
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The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister)
Main and Major Supporting Characters
Yakko, Wakko, and Dot Warner
The Warner siblings who are the most prominent stars of the show, and as such, get the most screentime. According to the show's backstory, they were created to serve as comic relief to the very dull Looney Tunes character Buddy, but proved to be so troublesome that they were locked in the Warner Bros. Studio Water Tower. Yakko is the talkative, Groucho Marx-esque one who just wears pants, Wakko is the short one with a baseball cap and an extreme appetite, and Dot is the cute one. Voiced by Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell, and Tress MacNeille, respectively.
Tropes that apply to Yakko:
Bubble Pipe: Yakko once "puffs" on a soap-bubble pipe while parodying highbrow intellectuals.
Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Yakko just wears pants, Wakko just wears shirts, and Dot just wears a skirt. This was Lamp Shaded in a Kids' WB! promo talking about how the block featured cartoons "with pants and with no pants".
Jeff Bennett:Animaniacs gives you pants and no pants conveniently in one show! Wakko: I have pants! See? Jeff: Liar liar, pants on fire!
Inkblot Cartoon Style: The Warners were created in the 1930s when this style of animation was very prominent.
An overweight Warner Bros. studio security guard who is always trying, but never succeeding, to capture the Warners and return them to the water tower. Voiced by Frank Welker.
Characterization Marches On: He first appeared (without a name) on Tiny Toon Adventures where he was surprisingly competent at keeping the characters from getting into the studios they were trying to visit.
The Warner Bros. studio psychiatrist. He has the unfortunate duty of trying to tame the Warners, which always leads to him getting utterly frustrated (and in the case of his first sessions with them, tearing out his hair). Voiced by Rob Paulsen.
Friends All Along: When the Warners reveal to the doctor that they're capable of acting normally, he asks them why they put him through so much trouble. All three siblings glomp him and proclaim "Cause we love you!" The doctor's response? A very out-of-character moment by happily gathering up all three Warners in a bear hug.
Hair Today Gone Tomorrow: He used to have fluffy Albert Einstein esq hair before during his first session with the Warners, their antics frustrated him so much he ripped every inch of his hair off his head.
Scratchansniff's ravishing assistant whom Yakko and Wakko have the hots for. As you can guess, she is the Trope Namer for Hello Nurse. Voiced by Tress MacNeille.
Dumb Blond: In the early episodes she could occasionally come across as one, but as her characterization stabilized it was firmly averted; she's as smart as her bosses, emphasized at the end of Wakko's Wish.
Characterization Marches On: In the beginning of the show, and indeed in some of the early spin-off comics, she didn't have much of a personality and was mainly just there to be sexy — and she had several moments then when she displayed definite traits of a Literal-MindedDumb Blond. Eventually, however, she was developed a little more, to become Scratchansniff's extremely intelligent, Hypercompetent Sidekick, and her Dumb Blond moments completely vanished.
Pimped Out Dress: In the episode "King Yakko", Hello Nurse plays the prime minister of the kingdom, and she wears a magenta dress with ermine trim and a blue cloak.
She's Got Legs: Lampshaded in the musical number "Hello Nurse".
Throw the Dog a Bone: Though he was known for making bad business decisions and treating some of his employees like crap, Plotz was a step above the average corporate strawman and occasionally would get a moment where he'd realize his own foolishness and regret it, thus prompting the Warners themselves to cut him a break and even give him some small reward.
A sappy orange and light blue dinosaur who is an obvious parody of Barney & Friends. One of the few things the Warners are afraid of. Voiced by Jeff Bennett.
A monstrous creature who is always kept inside a small, white box. The creature's appearance is inconsistent and its color varied, but its most common forms are a large bull-like creature, a plant parodying The Little Shop of Horrors, and a hairy form with enormous teeth. In one case, Mr. Director was her pet.
So Proud of You: In Bully For Skippy, she wipes away a tear of joy when Skippy announces his desire to get revenge on Duke the bully by shouting "let's get ready to rumble!"
You Remind Me of X: From younger versions of celebrities to "a bad accident at Benihana."
Skippy Squirrel
Slappy's nephew who looks up to her. Voiced by Nathan Ruegger.
Beware the Nice Ones: Skippy is much more forgiving than Slappy, but if you push him far enough you'll learn that he's inherited his aunt's talents for slapstick revenge. Just ask Duke, the title character of Bully For Skippy...
Vocal Evolution: Nathan Ruegger's voice had to be pitched up in later episodes because he was getting too old for the part. It's particularly obvious in Wakko's Wish.
Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid, and Beanie the Brain-Dead Bison
Three of Slappy's old nemesises from her cartoons, who continually plot revenge on her, but still never succeed at doing her in. Walter was initially voiced by Frank Welker but for his remaining appearances he was voiced by Jess Harnell for unknown reasons, Sid was voiced by Jackie Burns and Beanie was voiced by Avery Schreiber.
Political Correctness Gone Mad: Played with; Beanie is occasionally referred to with the more PC term "the Cerebreally-Challenged Bison". Slappy, being who she is, sticks with "Brain-Dead".
Tropes that apply to two or all three of them:
Butt Monkey: They're Slappy's Rogues Gallery. They pretty much exist to take abuse. Not that they don't invite it upon themselves....
Paper-Thin Disguise: As Slappy always says, "Now this is just sad". Half the time Skippy is the one to recognize them first, and he's used to seeing them undisguised and young in his aunt's old cartoons.
Bobby is the leader of the main three pigeons. Depending on his mood, he can be the Only Sane Man who tries to keep Pesto in line or just sit back and laugh at Squit's misfortune. Pesto is the pigeon with a Hair-Trigger Temper, and is prone to taking offense at any comment given to him, even if it's in a good light, and beats up Squit for it. Squit is the rookie who joins the Goodfeathers in the first short and spends the rest of them surviving day to day life in the constant presence of the ever-violent Pesto.
Beware the Nice Ones: Well, not exactly, nice, but he's the most stoic of the group and is probably the most level-headed, as well. That being said, Pesto is actually scared of him when he gets serious.
The Don of the Goodfeathers enterprise. Typically enters a scene, dispenses some vaguely wise-sounding gibberish, chuckles a little and leaves. Held in very high regard by the other birds.
Foreshadowing: Blink and you'll miss it: In the "Up A Tree" segment, during Rita's first musical number, she goes into a very minor Disney Acid Sequence about the advantages of Chicago as they appear onscreen. One of them is the Sears Tower, which she stands on. Afterwards, she immediately jumps off, and if you look closely at the expression on her face, you can tell that she's clearly acrophobic. Guess what happens later.
Dogs Are Dumb: Runt seriously is unaware that Rita is a cat.
Occasionally subverted in that Runt will sometimes see the danger before Rita, such as when Cleopatra was going to drop her into a bonfire as a ritual sacrifice.
Local Reference: When Rita and Runt go to Poland in "Puttin on the Blitz", Rita sings that it doesn't look like Burbank, more like Van Nuys. (Both are cities in Los Angeles. You can guess which one has higher property values).
Musical Episode: Rita and Runt have at least one song per short.
A send up of Lassie. Mindy Sadlier is a toddler who constantly wanders off into dangerous situations prompting her dog, Buttons, to keep her out of it at the expense of his safety.
Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Mindy is smack-dab in the middle of growing up under some extremely neglectful conditions, though being a toddler, she's blissfully unaware of it so far.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Buttons goes to enormous lengths, risking his own hide to keep Mindy from harm. Every episode ends with Buttons getting in trouble over some (Generally minor) misbehavior he performed in the course of his duties. At least till the movie, where he finally got his due.
Vertigo Effect: Occasionally done with Buttons the moment Mindy escapes.
A woman who Mindy always calls "Lady", except in Wakko's Wish, in which she finally calls her "Mom."
Mindy's Dad
A man who Mindy always calls "Mr. Man."
Minerva Mink
Minerva Mink
A mink who is so beautiful she causes all men around her to go crazy for her.
All Men Are Perverts: Pretty much the entire basis of her shorts, which are very Red Hot Riding Hood-esque. Inverted whenever a male character is hunky enough for her to go absolutely gaga over, as those fellas seem to have an unusually high tolerance for her sex appeal.
Getting Crap Past the Radar: Sadly, the radar caught up with this series and, outside of some quick appearances, the Minerva Mink cartoons only lasted two episodes.
Hey, It's That Voice!: Julie Brown (a former MTV VJ and star of the short-lived Comedy Central show "Strip Mall") as Minerva, Peter Scolari (from "Bosom Buddies") as the nerdy wolf who turns into a hunk when the moon is full as seen in "Moon Over Minerva", and Arte Johnson (from Rowan and Martin's Laugh-In) as the bloodhound who tries (and fails) to be won over by Minerva in "Meet Minerva".
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: As revealed in the comics, Minerva has an extremely hard time doing ordinary things like grocery shopping and filing taxes, because every male of every species in the area is panting and hooting at her. Much like fans.
A rich pair of hippos who speak with Spanish accents who moved out of Africa and into a penthouse. Followed around by a zoologist named Gena Embryo who tries to keep them out of danger since the two are on the endangered list, but usually ends up battered in the process.
The zoologist who follows Flavio and Marita and tries to protect them because she considers the two to be on the endangered species list, but usually ends up battered in the process. She seems unaware that the hippos can look after themselves.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Every problem a teen could have (panicking over her date being late, trying to learn how to drive, getting a pimple, etc.) causes her to turn into a monster.
A childlike candle flame who shows up at important historical events like Jefferson's authoring of The Declaration of Independence and Longfellow's writing of Paul Revere's Ride. Voiced by Luke Ruegger.
A baby bluebird who hatches while the mother bluebird is away. He sees a F-117 Nighthawk fly by and mistakes it for his mother. Voiced by Cody Ruegger.
Buddy
One of the original stars of the Warner Bros. cartoon studio, Buddy was hastily created by animator Earl Duvall as an ersatz of Bosko The Talk Ink Kid, and from late 1933 to 1935, he served as the lead star of the Looney Tunes shorts. In real life, the character was reviled by the staff due to his complete and utter lack of personality, only magnified by the dull, plotless cartoons he starred in, and was immediately phased out once Porky Pig became the studio mascot. In-universe, he was upstaged by Yakko, Wakko and Dot, who were brought in to spice up his boring cartoons by bashing him in the head over and over again with a mallet. His sole appearance in the series is in "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special", where he comes back as a villain in an attempt to get revenge on the trio for destroying his career.
A Day in the Limelight: "The Warner 65th Anniversary Special" features the comeback of one of the original Looney Tunes stars, Buddy...as a villain, no less! And voiced by Jim Cummings!
