YMMV / Animaniacs

YMMV tropes for the 2020 revival are over here.

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• Accidental Aesop: In "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock," You Are Not Alone when dealing with a family crisis, and know when to ask for help. Presumably, Skippy would have been less stressed if he had gotten more help after Slappy suffers a breakdown. Instead, he takes over the chores and lies to everyone that everything is fine at home. This gets foster care on his case, and they take him away from a dangerous situation. Even if he had been forced to go to foster care anyway, he could have done it on his terms and asked to keep visiting Aunt Slappy.
• Adorkable:
  • Wakko is an adorable, precious Cloudcuckoolander, through and through.
  • Pinky is a complete and utter goofball and it just makes him look all the more lovable, because he's sweetly naive.
  • Runt is not nerdy but is quite the silly and lovable Kindhearted Simpleton.
• Alternative Character Interpretation:
  • In the "I'm Mad" song. Were the Warners genuinely ticked off? Or was this a mind game set up from the beginning just to drive Doctor Scratch'n'Sniff insane? (You know, like they love doing every other episode?) And if they were genuinely ticked off, did Yakko really use Dot's toothbrush, elbow her, hit her, and say he was going to "get" her, and did Dot really bite Yakko? Or was one or both of them lying or mistaken?
  • At the end of the Episode 24 segment "Wings Take Heart", why did the butterfly girl slap the moth man? Was she angry with him for (apparently) abandoning her earlier? or was it just a playful slap to get him to chase her?
• Alternative Joke Interpretation: Why does Yakko believe "conjugate" refers to a sex act in Ms. Flamiel's debut episode? Is it because he thinks it relates to conjugal rights, the legal rights in relations to sex, or is he confusing it with a word like "consummate" or "copulate"?
• Angst? What Angst?: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot don't seem to be angry, sad, bitter, or psychologically broken after being locked up in the water tower against their will for a long time. Of course it probably helps that they were frequently let out when the tower was fumigated for termites or to be loaned out to other studios in the '60s, and since they can teleport, they could have gotten out at any time if they had wanted to.
• Awesome Art: TMS Entertainment is widely agreed to be the best animated studio in the show for their episodes containing fluid and dynamic animation along with the characters' movements and expressions feeling lively. StarToons and Wang Film Productions are also up there with making the best-animated episodes.
• Base-Breaking Character:
  • Mindy is either adored for being cute and naive and loving Buttons, or hated for being the one who causes him such grief.
  • Minerva Mink is fairly divisive due to the large amount of fanservice in her two released shorts and for her very one-note personality. Some see the fanservice as a good thing, while others think it's weird because she's an animal and/or sexist because of the media's tendency to sexualise female characters in addition to her aforementioned one-note personality.
  • While people do love Rita's singing, some find her singing too much on her shorts. And while some people like both her and Runt for their sweet relationship and their cartoons' blend of humor and poignancy, others find them dull and all too unfunny.
• Best Known for the Fanservice:
  • There are numerous videos and lists compiling the innuendos and hidden sex jokes.
  • Minerva Mink is remembered so well - despite having only two cartoons (aside from guest cameos in other shorts) - precisely for this reason.
  • And of course Hello Nurse is one of the most memorable aspects of the cartoon.
• Broken Base:
  • The Mindy and Buttons segments are liked by some viewers due to their comedy and the fact that one of their protagonists is a cute little toddler girl, but other viewers absolutely hate them because they're Strictly Formula and part of that formula involves Buttons being beat up and then wrongly blamed for something.
  • To a lesser extent, the Rita and Runt segments due to the Mood Whiplash they tend to cause. Some viewers enjoy having a darker series of skits than usual, while others think it's just too dark.
  • Some of the lesser segments are quite divisive, such as The Goodfeathers, Hip Hippos, Katie Ka-Boom, Chicken Boo, etc. Likewise with some of the one-off sketches featuring none of the usual cast (one notable example being "The Flame", a mostly serious cartoon from the POV of a candle flame who watches Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence):
    • Katie Ka-boom is divisive because of the fact that she's a Bratty Teenage Daughter who literally turns into a monster when mad. Some think this is funny, while others find it either ageist or sexist, with the idea that teenagers and/or women are inherently aggressive and moody.
  • The "Hello Nurse" gag. Some fans find it outdated and sexist while most find it to be harmless comedy and no worse than any of the other stuff the Warners have done.
  • The "Noel" song. Some find it to be a rather ingenious parody of "The First Noël", while others find it to be rather bizarre because it starts with Wakko spelling Santa's name wrong ("No 'L'"), to singing about Jack and Jill ("No well"), to singing about Captain Ahab ("No whale").
• Catharsis Factor:
  • Skippy asking Slappy for help with his bully, Duke, after he's beaten up one too many times. Cue a hilarious Humiliation Conga for Duke as Skippy uses a giant magnet to knock him up and down, a boombox to blow him up, and a backpack rocket to send him into space. By the end, Duke is apologetically repairing Slappy's machine.
  • The professor in "Schnitzelbank" kicking the Warners across Germany after they sing embarrassing lyrics about him and strip off his clothes. Helping is Yakko's apologetic smile, admitting they deserved that one.
• Crazy Is Cool: The Warners are made of this, Wakko in particular. Slappy is as well.
• Covered Up: "The Monkey Song" from the first episode is actually a cover of a song called "Monkey" by Harry Belafonte. In fact, Warner Brothers was not allowed to use the song at first for their show, and the rights to use it were cleared the day before the first episode was to be broadcast.
• Crossover Ship: Yakko being shipped with Max Goof has become quite popular.
• Designated Hero:
  • While the Warners themselves are usually depicted as Karmic Tricksters who only torment and mess with people who deserve it, they occasionally cause problems unprovoked as well as annoy and inflict harm on people who haven't wronged them.
    • "Toy Shop Terror" has them wreak havoc inside a toy store during closing hours and the grumpy owner had every right to try and kick them out.
    • They remorselessly cause Otto Scratchansniff to get severely injured in "Fake" and "Anchors A-Warners".
    • "Back in Style" consists of the Warners being loaned out (against their will) to guest star in parodies of other cartoons, where the three do nothing but insult, humiliate, and injure the cartoons' main characters unprovoked. The worst offender, however, would be in the Underdog spoof, where they prevent Thunderdog from rescuing the stand-in for Sweet Polly Purebred and cause him to suffer an injury that leaves his lower body deformed for life.
    • And in "Acquaintances" they just behave in rather mean-spirited ways towards the Friends Expies, in a way that is completely unprovoked.
    • "The Carpool" has them pestering all of the passengers in the car even though they did absolutely nothing wrong, and comes off as a case of No Good Deed Goes Unpunished considering the whole purpose of carpooling is helping people without a car and/or reducing one's carbon footprint.
• Designated Monkey: Mime in "Mime Time", a concept many found too mean-spirited and cruel to actually work, as his misery is completely unprovoked; he's simply performing familiar mime acts with some outside force coming into attack him.
• Designated Villain:
  • The Wally Llama, who simply wanted a break from answering so many stupid questions. Granted, he could've explained more clearly and been more polite to the Warners that he just wanted to rest. But the audience were meant to root for the Warners who torment him to insanity.
  • Ms. Butley in "Bully for Skippy". While she was blind and stupid for not speaking to Duke, even after seeing Skippy look gradually more beaten up as days pass, she didn't exactly deserve to be put in Slappy's offscreen violence-causing machine.
• Do Not Do This Cool Thing: "Be Careful What You Eat" is meant to be A Weighty Aesop warning kids about not eating too many sugary products due to their ingredients. However, the way that the Warners gleefully sing out the names of each ingredient makes otherwise intimidating-sounding ingredients sound absolutely delicious, with the consequences of overindulging thus not being recognized until the final verse.
• Draco in Leather Pants: Plenty of fans will tout Minerva Mink as their ideal woman. While she's not necessarily evil, the fans are ignoring that she's vain, shallow, materialistic and happy to use her sex appeal to get what she wants — purely because she's just that sexy. The comics do at least give her more Pet the Dog moments.
• Ensemble Dark Horse:
  • Naturally Pinky and the Brain, the biggest darkhorses in the show, who actually achieved Breakout Character status...
    Pinky: Gee, Brain! What you wanna do tonight?
    Brain: The same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to Take Over the World!
  • Slappy Squirrel has a lot of fans due to being an entertaining Deadpan Snarker and easily outwitting her foes at all times, not to mention her heartwarming and healthy relationship with her nephew Skippy. The news that she wouldn't be included in the 2020 revival was met with mass disappointment by fans.
  • Wilford Wolf's handsome form is pretty popular, to the point where the majority of fanart shipping him with Minerva depicts him in handsome form.
  • Minerva Mink, is easily one of the most popular characters out of the entire cast despite having only two dedicated shorts. Fans who enjoy her for more than simple sex appeal will happily admit that they found her appearances to be quite funny even though the primary joke is Minerva being attractive.
  • Also Rita and Runt. Largely due to the fact that their sketch was discontinued after the first season. Rita is popular because many fans find her adorable, plus she has a beautiful singing voice and a cool personality. Then of course, there’s Runt for being a sweet, dopey comic relief, but heroic when he has to be, and an homage to Rain Man. They're also appreciated in general for being a pair of wholesome Platonic Life-Partners.
• Even Better Sequel: Animaniacs was the successor to Tiny Toon Adventures and has been considered one of the crown jewels of Warner Bros. Animation.
• Fandom VIP: Ron O'Dell, known as Keeper1st or Keeper for short, is this for the series. He wrote many webpages about the show back when it was airing, including the Animaniacs Mega Lyrics File, and has a collection of VHS tapes of various Animaniacs rarities, from the 1998 Animaniacs Attack marathon to international dubs of the series. Even Warner Bros. themselves took notice, and he was invited to tour their studios in 1995 and they drew his hat on The Lobe in Freakazoid!.
• Franchise Original Sin:
  • The 2020 revival has been accused of playing too heavily into topical humor, whether it be mocking current societal and political trends or spoofing extremely recent pop culture. This fault can be traced as far back as the Kids' WB era of this iteration, which relied a lot more on parodies of then-modern media like Rugrats, Friends, and Pocahontas. There was also a sudden bump in political jokes that a younger viewer might be lost on, especially compared to the show's premiere season. While the first season certainly wasn't without these (the easiest example being Ross Perot becoming Runt's ditzy caretaker in one short). The fact it only began to set in during the show's later years, and the fact that it neither cranked up quite as high nor had as overt of a partisan lean as the reboot chose, means some tend to forget this tidbit. It does deserve mention that even the network executives complained about the show bringing in more adults than children for its audience, which may have been an unintended result of this.
  • In another manner, the 2020 reboot also was accused of having too little variety in its shorts, as it only had the Warners and Pinky and the Brain to carry the show with only the occasional exception. Again, the Kids' WB era actually showed the first signs of this; since Pinky and the Brain had spun off into their own show, they were already dropped by default, and a number of others did not return for these seasons either, such as Minerva Mink, the Good Idea Bad Idea segments (a few did air but they were pretty clearly leftover shorts that didn't appear in the first or second season), and most notably Rita and Runt. In fact, the situation was quite similar, as the Warners and Slappy were the two shorts that pretty much carried the entire series by this point. The difference here is that some of the other characters did remain (such as the Goodfeathers and Buttons and Mindy) and still appeared frequently enough that it didn't feel too confined to those two, and the show still retained the variety format it was known for, where the reboot sticks to a Strictly Formula Three Shorts format, with all of the original characters besides the Warners and PATB not appearing at all apart from one episode.
• Genius Bonus: Much like the early Simpsons episodes, the jokes on Animaniacs can only be understood if you knew anything about pop culture. In Animaniacs' case, the jokes aren't as obvious as what The Simpsons puts out, and doesn't always go for what's popular now.
  • Les Misérables and Sweeney Todd aren't musicals that kids would (or should) watch, but Animaniacs somehow managed to put them both together in Les Miseranimals and then also use Runt and Rita (because they're not sad enough).
  • Unless you happen to be an animation buff, most of the jokes in "Back In Style" are going to be lost on you. In the first scene alone, there are references to Tex Avery directing Kool-Aid commercials in his later years, Friz Freleng being the inspiration for Yosemite Sam, and an accusation that Freleng borrowed heavily from Bugs Bunny in his design for The Pink Panther.
  • The short "Yes, Always" seems pretty random and strange unless you're aware of the Orson Welles Findus commercial taping that it brilliantly spoofs almost to the dot, save for rearranging some of the exchanges and toning down Welles' more vulgar remarks (and that Maurice LaMarche's "Brain" voice is a spot-on impersonation of a younger Welles). There's also a nested bonus when the director bemoans getting kicked out of the booth by Brain despite her having "Taft-Hartleyed" him on his first job (as in, she got him work on that gig without him having to join the union first).
  • The Suspiciously Similar version of "With a Little Help from My Friends" that the No Celebrities Were Harmed version of Joe Cocker sings in "Woodstock Slappy" has the words "Would you throw a tomato at me?" instead of "Would you stand up and walk out on me?" in the second line. In fact, as Ringo Starr has mentioned many times, "Would you throw a tomato at me?" was the original line that Lennon and McCartney wrote, but Ringo didn't like it and changed it when The Beatles recorded the song.
  • Wakko's Scouse accent sounds remarkably similar to the Irish schtick Harpo Marx used in his first performances before he found his niche.
• Germans Love David Hasselhoff:
  • The show is popular in Africa, to the point where some airlines on the continent offer the show as an in-flight viewing option, something that's rare for any show that isn't modern.
  • The show was huge in the United Kingdom during the 90s, and is still often referenced in the country (if the Dead Ringers line "My fellow Animaniacs" isn't enough of a Shout-Out).
• Harsher in Hindsight:
  • The episode "Magic Time" had famous magicians Schnitzel and Floyd being abusive to their pet lion and elephant, and later are mauled by said animals in revenge thanks to the Warners. The two magicians are even dropped off in a jungle, where it's quite obvious they get more of the same. As of October 3, 2003, that might not be so funny anymore (but, like The Simpsons example, having either Siegfried and/or Roy get attacked by the animals they use for their magic acts was pretty much going to happen some day. People just didn't expect it to be so soon).
    • For bonus harshness, the real Siegfried and Roy actually defended the tiger in question and opposed all recommendations for euthanasia, citing that the tiger was acting on protective instincts towards Roy that don't work as well on humans as they do tiger cubs.
  • Dot's crush on Mel Gibson has definitely proven to be such of late, given his recent (and sexist) transgressions. Showrunner and creator Tom Ruegger has actually acknowledged this in an old post on his blog.
  • Dot: "What's Christie Brinkley got that I ain't got?" Yakko & Wakko: "Billy Joel." Not true after 1994.
  • "A Quake, A Quake" is pretty funny, but the end line (which references the then-recent Lebanese Civil War) takes on a new Oh, Crap! meaning after 2006 and especially 2020:
  "We want to find some peace and quiet, so we're moving to Beirut"
  • The episode "Plane Pals" has an in-flight safety film that pokes fun at various potential in-flight disasters. A few years after the episode aired, one such scenario came true:
  "Welcome to Air Pacific, the Jolly Airline. Our deluxe 757 is equipped with a number of safety features to use in case of an emergency, such as our fuel tanks explode, and we crash like a fiery ball into the sea."
  • "Potty Emergency" has a scene where Wakko tries to use the women's restroom at a movie theater due to the men's room being out of order and gets kicked out. The controversy over transgender people and gender-specific bathrooms in the mid-2010s makes this moment awkward.
  • Several Pinky and the Brain shorts make nods to Pinky's relationship with Pharfignewton, that they were deeply in love with each other to the point where she saved his life a few times. It's implied in the reboot that they broke up; the unclear part is if that was due to Chicken Boo killing her temporarily or that relationships tend not to last for 22 years.
  • Wakko saying "Goodbye Nurse" in the episode "Piano Rag" becomes this due to Hello Nurse being Put on the Bus in the Reboot.
  • The "Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation" sketch depicts overtly nitpicky and entitled fans who dedicate unnecessary amounts of time to picking at every slightest perceived mistake with the show, causing the Warner siblings to implore them to cut it out and do something productive with their lives. While there is also some Values Resonance to this, it overlaps with this trope because fandoms (not just of this show or even Western Animation in general, but of all media) have only become more toxic with the rise of the Internet and social media. Entitled fans spending all of their time nitpicking at everything they can think of (as depicted in the sketch) is now far from the worst of it; there have been cases of fans, voice actors, and even creators being bullied on social media for liking a character others dislike (or vice versa), voicing a disliked character, and making changes to the work that are disliked, among other things. Some cases have gotten so out of proportion that people (fans and celebrities alike) have had to step away from the work, both physically and mentally, block their social media accounts, or worse, all over a work that most people would not take so seriously (and, in some cases, for things that are barely related to the work or the people involved at all). As such, not only have these fans refused to "please, please, please get a life" as this sketch tells them to, they've doubled down on their toxic behavior to the point that other people's lives are dragged into the abyss with them. There's a reason Why Fandom Can't Have Nice Things, and this sketch demonstrates some of the behavior of the sorts of fans who make it that way.
• Heartwarming in Hindsight: The central premise of the show was that the Warners were out-of-control Toons whose films were locked away, and doomed to obscurity. Later episodes showed that the Warners finally found their audience, running away from hordes of excited fans. Though being annoyed, Yakko thanks the fans with sincerity. The Cold Open of the revival's first episode heralds their return with a Jurassic Park homage, and the Warner siblings treated as animation icons.
• Hilarious in Hindsight: Has its own page.
• Ho Yay:
  • While the Warner brothers are mostly attracted to women, they have kissed a few men on occasion. Yakko once willingly kissed Dr. Scratchansniff (who was really trying to kiss his girlfriend) on the lips, embraced him, and said, "I didn't know you cared."
  • Pinky and Brain have their Ho Yay moments as well, especially during the spin-off.
  • For the Goodfeather segments, Squit kissed Pesto on two occasions, and once admitted that Pretty Boy Robin is kind of cute.
  • The Angry Guard Dog from "Up A Tree" is just a little too eager to sniff Runt. The way Runt reacts to the guard dog's sniffing obsession is similar to how a straight male would respond to being flirted with by a gay male.
• Jerkass Woobie:
  • The Warner siblings are tricksters and occasional cause serious damage to people who don't deserve it, but the introduction reveals they were locked in the water tower for almost sixty years. No wonder they escaped.
  • Slappy Squirrel becomes this in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo Clock". She may be one of the most vicious anti-heroes on the show but seeing her go through a dementia phase and having Skippy taken away from her is nothing but heart-wrenching.
  • Baynarts "Charlton" Woodchuck. He's kind of full of himself and keeps a list of his enemies, but he gets put through a lot of physical abuse in his rare appearances. Plus, his name is Baynarts. More than likely, he got bullied in school when growing up.
  • Mr. Plotz becomes this in the second half of "Hooray for North Hollywood", when he's fired and ends up homeless because he rejected the Warners.
• Memetic Mutation: Has its own page.
• Moe: Although Dot was advertised as the cutest character on the show, there's a few that fit this bill better:
  • Wakko, with his derpy face and his tongue sticking out most of the time.
  • Skippy Squirrel who's basically an adorable squirrel with Puppy-Dog Eyes.
  • Pinky, who's as goofy as he is adorable and charming.
  • If you don't mind Mindy, she qualifies for being a cute, innocent Cheerful Child.
  • The alien babies from "Clown and Out". Imagine The Greys as babies, but in adorable cartoon style and wearing baby accessories such as diapers and hair bows.
  • Squit has an adorable smile.
• Moral Event Horizon:
  • Walter Wolf faking his own death in order to turn everyone against Slappy Squirrel, including her own nephew.
  • King Salazar the Pushy crossed it when he tried to kill the Warner Bros. (and sis) by blasting them with a cannon. This led everyone on his side to turn against him when they believed that Dot was caught in the blast and killed.
• Most Wonderful Sound:
  • Rita's gorgeous singing, all courtesy of Bernadette Peters.
  • The fly's Spike Lee inspired "please baby" in "Meet Minerva".
  • Whenever Dot goes "and the Warner Sister" in her sweet, adorable voice.
  • The Warners' harmonies with each other in their songs; the last verse of "Noel" is a particular standout.
  • Whenever Mindy says "Okay, I love you, buh bye".
  • Hello Nurse's "No-no-no-no" is this In-Universe for Yakko.
• No Problem with Licensed Games:
  • Konami's video game adaptations for the SNES and Sega Genesis are considered to be pretty well done.
  • The Funnybone Interactive Animaniacs Game Pack was pretty well done too, featuring a collection of five arcade styled games, the cast from the show reprising their roles, lively and bouncy (if also Off-Model) animation, and one of the five games (a Zombies Ate My Neighbors play-alike called Belchinator Too where Wacko fights The Brain's robots) is lengthy and expansive enough (as it's the only game with save feature) that it could have been sold as a standalone game in and of itself.
  • Animaniacs: The Great Edgar Hunt was highly overlooked thanks to coming out seven years past the show's cancellation in 2005 and well before nostalgia for the show flared up, but was far from a forgettable experience. The game is a collectathon 3D platformer (in an era where they were beginning to fall out of favor, making it even more unique) that features the Warners running around different movie sets to retrieve stolen "Edgar" statues (an Oscar Captain Ersatz). It once again features the original voice cast reprising their roles, and stays very true to the spirit of the show, and while the game itself is not without its problems (the Camera Screw being especially bad), it's a pretty fun romp. It was effectively the last proper new piece of Animaniacs media we got up until the 2020 reboot, as the only other material that came after that was a little-known handheld game, making it stick out even more.
• Older Than They Think: "The Sound of Warners" has a parody of Maria von Trapp and her status as a Magical Nanny. None other than Julie Andrews herself parodied Maria in a sketch on The Carol Burnett Show - before she had even starred in the film version.
• Once Original, Now Common:
  • In an age where memes have become such a staple of mainstream popular culture that even the least internet-savvy people could quote the popular ones, rather than just cassette tapes traded in standup comedy circles, an episode like "Yes, Always," which recreates a pre-internet meme verbatim, doesn't seem nearly as daring. If anything, it would come off as a Bottom of the Barrel Joke if done today, when whole plot references and shot for shot remakes are so common in mainstream comedy that they're considered agonizingly lazy.
  • To a lesser extent, the show's demographically inappropriate humour and parental bonuses were considered impressive in its day, especially for a children's cartoon. Today, sneaky adult humor is the norm for kids cartoons, and people who have watched shows like Adventure Time and Regular Show before this one might find it difficult to see what was so cool about these antics.
• One-Scene Wonder:
  • You'd be surprised to find that Minerva Mink only has two cartoons from her popularity.
  • The Godpigeon only shows up in choice Goodfeathers episodes, and generally only stays around for about a scene every time he appears. Still, he's pretty memorable.
• Padding: There was a lot of this, because the episode would rarely ever be exactly 22 minutes long. So usually, they would repeat the "Newsreel of the Stars" Cold Open from the pilot, or they would sometimes extend the theme song to include an instrumental section over clips from past episodes. Or they would include a "Mime Time" short or a "Good Idea Bad Idea" short. (In two episodes, there were whole montages of "Good Idea Bad Idea".) Or they would have a Ralph chase short. But more often than not, they would fill the time by having the Wheel of Morality at the end.
• Periphery Demographic: What happens when a majority of the best jokes appeal to the older crowd. Even the educational segments have fallen under this—some of them are even popular mnemonics among college students (most of whom were young enough to have seen them when they first aired).
• Popular with Furries: Though Minerva Mink only has two of her own cartoon shorts, she's nonetheless an object of affection among furry enthusiasts. That Minerva appears in a Sexy Silhouette scene in each one tends to be her key attractant. The Warner Siblings themselves are a more minor example, as are Slappy and Skippy Squirrel, Rita and Runt, and Chicken Boo.
• Rescued from the Scrappy Heap: Skippy Squirrel was seriously annoying in his first two appearances before settling in as his aunt Slappy's sidekick.
• Rooting for the Empire: Brain is meant to be a Small Name, Big Ego who sabotages himself frequently in his bid to Take Over the World. The central premise is that we aren't supposed to believe two mice can succeed, and some of the characters even laugh when the schemes come undone. Thing is that later episodes reveal that Brain wants to take over the world to improve it, and we see he's kind of right that the Animaniacs universe is a Crapsaccharine World. It's a world where three Toon children can be locked up for the crime of acting like mischievous toons for up to seventy years, with only a psychiatrist as their guardian. Other Toons lose their jobs due to popularity, as Buddy can attest. Biologists can harass sapient hippos to stay in watery ponds rather than respect their wishes, people running garage sales may run scams, store owners will kick nuns out physically when they politely request a donation, and everyone harasses the Mime for doing his job. Worst of all sentient gloves need to be unionized to get a job. Brain also shows he will quit a scheme if he hurts Pinky's feelings and at one point goes to therapy when feeling he went too far. Wakko's Wish shows Brain outright horrified that King Salazar would murder the Warners, three children, merely because they have a chance to get to the Wishing Star first.
• The Scrappy: Katie Kaboom's segments are probably the least-liked on the show being even more despised than the already contentious Mindy and Buttons and Hippo segments. Katie Kaboom's character is overall very unappealing and her shorts tend to be very formulaic, and often seen as very sexist or ageist. Not helping is that once you have watched one, you have basically watched them all.
  • Mindy's parents also count for not only their mistreatment of Buttons but also because of their Parental Neglect in regards to their daughter who is no more than a toddler in age. Their constant inattentiveness is what causes every single incident to unfold because they can't be assed to look after their daughter to make sure she didn't run off after every little thing that catches her eye and then they have the audacity to blame Buttons for minor infractions. It's hardly a surprise that Mindy refers to her parents as "Lady" and "Mr. Man" as though they were complete strangers.
• Seasonal Rot: Under Kids' WB!, the series began to rely a lot more on pop-cultural references (including Whole Plot References) and Breaking the Fourth Wall gags, blatantly recycled material, jokes that were less clever and more mean-spirited and Running Gag repeated past the point of losing effect. It doesn't help that WB refused to produce new episodes in favor of unreleased material, and they fought the writers tooth and nail over the fact that the show was attracting more adults than children.
• Self-Fanservice: In the late 2010s, fanart began to appear depicting Slappy as a human Silver Fox. It quickly picked up in popularity, to the point artwork depicting the original Slappy glowering at her at human counterpart◊ (note: slight NSFW) in envy surfaced.
• Signature Scene: Two scenes in particular have become so iconic to the point where they’re the only two things non-fans know about Animaniacs:
  • Yakko’s World.
  • The “Finger Prince” gag from “Hercule Yakko”.
• Spiritual Successor:
  • All things considered, it was less a successor to Looney Tunes as much as it was a straight-up continuation: short cartoons with lots of slapstick, pop culture references and politically incorrect humor with a wide cast of funny cartoon animals. One could argue that Steven Spielberg used his money and power to recreate the working environment which allowed for those kinds of cartoons to be made the same way Michael Jackson used Neverland Ranch to live the childhood he never had.
  • It was produced about twenty years after another ostensibly-for-kids-actually-for-all-ages, vaudeville-inspired variety show known as The Muppet Show.
• Squick:
  • One of the "bad ideas" in "Good Idea, Bad Idea" is ordering a chili dog that makes you go. Another is finding Easter eggs on Christmas morning and it's illustrated with an Easter egg that has expired because it's been there since Easter and being so bad-smelling that Mr. Skull Head Faints in Shock.
  • The "Bran-i-maniacs" cereal is presented as another food that "makes you go" and the Warners claim that it "attacks your digestive tract" despite nutritionally lacking.
  • In "Be Careful What You Eat", the last lyric is "so we stuff 'em in our bodies 'til they make our insides rot."
  • The gag in "Critical Condition" where Slappy gets popcorn "butter" by liposuctioning from Eggbert's gut. As Skippy aptly put, "Spew!"
• Stock Footage Failure: Towards the end of the "Yakko's Universe" musical number, they recycle animation from the planets song, which is pretty noticeable considering Yakko pilots a saucer-like ship for the majority of the song where the stock footage has him piloting a rocket that looks nothing like the saucer.
• Suspiciously Similar Song:
  • During the Yogi Bear parody in "Back in Style", a song plays that sounds like "Toboggan Run" by Jack Shaindlin, which was frequently used in early '60s Hanna-Barbera cartoons.
  • "Yakko's Universe" has the same basic lyrical concept as "The Galaxy Song" from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
  • "Multiplication" has a similar theme and structure as the Tom Lehrer song "New Math", from the album That Was the Year That Was.
  • "Oh Nice And Chubby Baby" seems to be a parody of "By A Waterfall" by Rudy Vallee, given it's from 1933, it's a reference that would have even gone over most viewers' grandparents' heads.
• Take That, Scrappy!:
  • Former Looney Tunes leading star, Buddy, gets an entire episode (The Warners 65th Anniversary Special) that makes fun of him for being such a boring character.
  • In "Astro Buttons," after several shorts of Mindy's strict mom blaming Buttons and yelling at him for things he never did or were out of his control, seeing her be stuck with countless Mindy clones and Buttons leaving her forcing her to deal with them on her own is very satisfying.
• They Changed It, Now It Sucks!:
  • Almost no one has praise for the Nickelodeon version. While some of their edits were tolerable (in some sort of way), others made zero sense. Good examples of the latter was them shortening the intro, making it one pitch (making the Warners' voices higher up to the "We're Animani" line), plastering their logo everywhere and changed the variable line gag near the end to "Nickelaney" for every episode. Even Tiny Toon Adventures, the predecessor to Animaniacs, had only a single edit: the WB shield that appears in the beginning of the intro was replaced with a fade-in to the Tiny Toons logo. Let's just say fans were delighted when the DVDs were released.
• Too Good to Last: While the show itself lasted 99 episodes (which is longer than the average modern cartoon TV series for kids), two of its shorts (Minerva Mink and Rita & Runt) got retired. Minerva was too overtly sexual, and Rita and Runt quickly became Outof Focus. Though they both made the occasional appearances throughout the show and they came back for the show's finale.
• Trans Audience Interpretation:
  • In a comic◊, Noah (of the Ark fame) says that the Warners include "one of each gender": Male (Yakko), female (Dot) and other (Wakko), which has caused him to be viewed as nonbinary.
  • Some fans depict Dot as a trans girl. Support for this idea includes one of the original concepts of the Warners being three guys instead of Two Guys and a Girl, Dot's name not fitting in with the "-akko" naming scheme of the other two, and her repeated exclamation of "and the Warner sister!" whenever Yakko and Wakko introduce themself as the Warner brothers.
• Unintentional Period Piece: Less so than other '90s shows, but the 1994 segment "Baloney & Kids" includes two separate references to the Nancy Kerrigan/Tonya Harding altercation from earlier that year ^note Though Kerrigan's stint on Dancing with the Stars and the film I, Tonya have given it renewed relevance. Moreso for the Kids' WB episodes, due to it being much heavier on the 90's pop culture references then the earlier episodes. Jokes referencing films, TV series and songs at the time such as Speed, Fargo, Friends and the Macarena didn't exactly age well. The episode parodying American Gladiators was particularly bad about this, due to airing only a few months before the actual show was cancelled. The Beauty and the Beast parody was another noteworthy example, airing five years after the film's release. (And also airing two years after Rita and Runt previously parodied the film in "Witch One".) There's also the references to Michelle Pfeiffer’s Catwoman, even though, nowadays, Anne Hathaway has become the definitive Catwoman.
• Unintentionally Sympathetic: Some of the Warners' victims qualify:
  • A good example is Wally Llama mentioned below, who simply wanted a break from answering stupid and pointless questions.
  • Dan Anchorman (or Slam Fondlesome in the uncut version) in "Broadcast Nuisance" is painted as a jerk at the beginning of the episode, but thanks to the fact the Warners come off as Designated Heroes in this short (just to start, the first thing they do is show up with his lunch, and then proceed to eat it in front of him, without him even provoking them in any way), it isn't very hard to start feeling a bit bad for him and thinking he did way too little to deserve his treatment. It's likely some of the reason that the short was significantly Bowdlerised and cut down to help lessen his cruel treatment, though the overseas airings left all the original shenanigans intact.
• Values Dissonance:
  • Word of God says this is why the Hello Nurse gag was excluded from the reboot (barring the occasional Mythology Gag), as nowadays the rise of feminism has rendered it unacceptable. Doesn't stop Dot from doing the same with guys, though. Although whether you agree or not depends on what side of the fanbase you're on.
  • A possible reason why the Buttons and Mindy sketches are so disliked by modern fans and why they don't appear in the reboot (aside from a cameo). The physical and psychological dangers of child neglect are taken a lot more seriously today then they were in the 90s. There's also the mistreatment Buttons gets from his owners, which can be seen as animal abuse, so the sketches come off as offensive today.
• Values Resonance:
  • "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" has some Surprisingly Realistic Outcome when Slappy suffers a nervous breakdown; Skippy is forced to commit her to a nursing home and take over the household chores. The short emphasizes that this situation is not okay, and the adults in Skippy's life interfere when his teacher notices that he's Asleep in Class and stressed. She calls a social worker, who takes the time to assess if Slappy is at home and waits to get Skippy's side of the story before taking him to foster care. It's quite poignant that all of the adults in the short are legitimately concerned for Skippy's well-being and telling him he doesn't have to take on such a burden.
  • The "Please Please Please Get a Life Foundation" sketch, where the Warners mock fans who argue over the insignificant details of their show, became even more relevant as the Internet and social media became more accessible, leading to increased fandom visibility and online Caustic Critics being more prevalent. It's become a common meme in the 2010's to link a screenshot from the bit as a response to heated fandom drama or nitpicking.
  • The Hip Hippos, for what they're worth, can be considered quite progressive. Despite being a married couple in a comedy show, they never play any of the obvious comedy marriage tropes and instead portray them both as being mutually loving and respectful towards each other. They are also both equally as flawed as each other as well. Special mention goes towards their first episode "La Behemoth" in which their housekeeper quits due to lack of respect from the Hippos. Whilst most shows at the time would either have the wife doing to work whilst her husband lazes around or have the wife nag the husband into doing the housework, instead it's Flavio (the husband) who volunteers to does the housework with no hint from his wife, whilst Marita (the wife) pitches in later, and they both fail due to their pampered lifestyle.
• Viewer Gender Confusion: Mindy is a girl, but if her name is misheard or not heard at all, then her hairstyle and her outfit make it quite easy to assume that she is a boy. She's voiced by Nancy Cartwright, who is famous for voicing a little boy to muddy the issue further.
• What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?:
  • This, The Ren & Stimpy Show, and Rocko's Modern Life can be used as proof positive that American cartoon writers were not afraid of appealing to adults and kids back in the 1990s.
  • This effect was unintentionally created by some overly literal Russian translations of the show's title. While the official translation was safe, some promotional materials and TV program listings left the "maniacs" part untranslated. In Russian common usage the word "maniac" is used almost exclusively as a synonym for "Serial Killer".
• The Woobie:
  • Buttons, due to his efforts of ensuring Mindy's safety always ending with Mindy's parents scolding him and denying him any treats just because he accidentally violates an order they gave him in the process (and that's the whole point).
  • Also Chicken Boo himself near the end in just every Chicken Boo cartoon, after his disguise is off and everyone who's praised him starts turning against him.
  • Rita also counts as a woobie, as most of her misfortunes show examples of unfairness and inequality. Runt counts too for the same reason, but generally shrugs things off a lot easier.
  • The clown in "Clown and Out". Most victims that find themselves at the receiving end of the Warners' tricks amply deserve it, but he just wanted to cheer Wakko up, not knowing that Wakko had coulrophobia and that Mr. Plotz forced him to perform at the party, not caring that Wakko was hurting him. On the upside, the clown ended up on Mars, where a bunch of Martian kids actually like him.
  • Squit, regularly getting pummeled by Pesto (and even his own girlfriend) over innocent misunderstandings.
  • Surprisingly, Ralph becomes one in certain episodes, such as "A Hard Day's Warner", in which he is repeatedly trampled by overenthusiastic Animaniacs fans while trying to stop their stampede, and "A Christmas Plotz", when he gets fired from his job on Christmas Eve.
    • Since the latter is a Whole Plotz reference to A Christmas Carol, Thaddeus Plotz himself can arguably fall into Jerkass Woobie territory here. He doesn't see his own grave like Scrooge does, but he does have to see himself demoted to security guard, run ragged by the Warners, and then fired just like he fired Ralph earlier.
  • The title character in "Wally Llama", an apparently all-knowing creature, has spent countless hours answering increasingly stupid questions, and eventually decides he's done for the day and sits down to take a well-deserved break. Cue the Warners showing up and relentlessly heckling him to answer a supposedly "extremely important" question. His attempts to make them leave are admittedly somewhat rude and nasty, but the lengths they go to in order to get him to answer what ultimately turns out to be a petty and stupid question^note Namely, why hot dogs come in 8-packs while hot dog buns come in 10-packs were really bad for their standards. They finally trick him into listening to their question by using reverse psychology, and when it turns out he doesn't know the answer, he goes completely insane and runs off laughing insanely while the Warners simply shrug it off as the cartoon ends.
  • Katie Kaboom's family. They have to live with a hormonal teenager, who in turn transforms into a hulking monster on a daily basis and destroys the entire house, while they fear for their lives. They constantly try to calm her down, but she just gets angrier and angrier, and in turn more and more destructive. You can't help but feel sorry for them.
  • Arguably, Brain, despite being a height-and-ego challenged evil genius of a mouse bent on world domination, comes so close each and every short to his goals of world domination with brilliantly inspirational plots, but due either to the utter incompetence of Pinky or to some small blunder of his own, everything always unravels at the last moment and leaves Brain a blubbering mess.
    • Pinky himself also qualifies at times but its much more notable in the spin-off series like when he broke down in tears during the Pinky And The Brain Christmas special episode.
  • Skippy Squirrel can be this, especially in "One Flew Over The Cuckoo Clock", where he has to take care of his mentally unstable aunt and slowly spirals into a depression.
    • Skippy is also a Woobie in "Bully for Skippy" (where he gets bullied both physically and verbally and Ms. Butley's advice not working, and in "Bumbi's Mom" where he's so sad over Bumbi's mother dying that he breaks down in tears when he tries to say, "she's dead". Thankfully, Slappy puts it right. Speaking of Ms Butley, she could qualify. She was pretty naive (why didn't she talk to Duke?), but all she wanted was for Skippy and Duke to get along and didn’t deserve being pummeled in the end.

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