Animaniacs

Because they're actually aware of the stuff the new show is making fun of...

Because anything touching on modern politics sets off certain people. Ignoring how Animaniacs literally did stuff like make fun of the Whitewater scandal and shit.

Because I think we've outgrown the idea of "references = comedy"? Looking back at Animaniacs and the classic Looney Tunes shorts, those aspects haven't aged well.

I think so too, works like the Epic Movie series have clearly demonstrated that comedy should be more than just referencing other things.

Which the thing that started this discussion already was...

There is a big difference between the two; Animaniacs makes references that make contextual sense and are part of a greater joke. Seltzer and Friedberg think that the reference is the joke, and shove them in even when they don't make sense.

Edited by lbssb on Aug 7th 2021 at 3:58:48 AM

There was, for instance, an episode of the original Animaniacs that had Yakko, Wakko, and Dot tormenting Renaissance artist Michaelangelo (one of the things that I occasionally found off-putting about the original Animaniacs was when they'd have Yakko, Wakko, and Dot torment someone who didn't really deserve it, like Einstein or, in this case, Michaelangelo, but I digress). Michaelangelo is here a caricature of actor Kirk Douglas, which might seem random unless you know that Kirk Douglas played Michaelangelo in the film The Agony and the Ecstasy. Now, most kids in the 90's probably didn't know much about either Kirk Douglas or the movie in question, but they'd probably (hopefully) heard of Michaelangelo, which is really all you need to know in order to understand the episode. They'd probably get that something was being referenced, but again, it didn't really matter. If you know the movie, then you get an additional layer of meaning and get to feel clever about it.

You don't, for instance, need to be aware of all the references to the movie Chinatown in Who Framed Roger Rabbit in order to enjoy Who Framed Roger Rabbit.

Therein lies the art of this kind of reference. To keep the cartoon from being dated, or too obscure, you have to make it so the cartoon can be understood whether the audience gets your reference or not, so the jokes (or not too many of them, anyhow) can't depend entirely on getting the reference. In the original Looney Tunes, often when they'd caricature an actor, they'd make some reference to some movie or other the actor had been in, but you seldom needed to get the reference in order for the cartoon to work. Why is Bing Crosby worried about his horse coming in? Why is Eddie Cantor so eager to have a son? Who is "Mr. Dionne" and why does he have so many kids? Who is "Mr.Anthony," and why do people tell him their problems (I actually know all of those, so there's no need to tell me). Generations of viewers have been able to enjoy Looney Tunes without entirely understanding all the references. Because the references are only an additional layer, not what the cartoons hinge on. You don't need to know that Tucker Carlson is a political commentator to enjoy seeing Yakko, Wakko, and Dot torment a jerk-ass political commentator who thinks making a face like a constipated baby makes him look thoughtful (but you'd probably enjoy it more if you did).

D'oh! Right you are.

Edited by Robbery on Aug 8th 2021 at 8:46:56 AM

Douglas didn't play Michelangelo; that was Charlton Heston. Douglas did play Van Gogh in Lust for Life. I'm guessing they needed the Sistine Chapel for the setting and Maurice LaMarche couldn't do a Heston impression.

Edited by HBarnill on Aug 7th 2021 at 10:07:53 AM

I also disagree somewhat about the Looney Tunes revue cartoons exclusively about actors. Those have definitely dated, and many of the jokes don't land because they do rely on knowing the actor being referenced, and specific details the media back then focussed on. Without knowing those references, many of those jokes don't make any sense, and come off as rather random.

And the whole point of those revue episodes was the audience getting those references. Sure, some of the bits were amusing in themselves, but that was not what the jokes were about back then.

There's nothing wrong random...

They'd be random at the time as well, and not everyone watching would know the reference beforehand even back then.

Mayhaps this even been a complaint at the time as well.

Edited by randomness4 on Aug 8th 2021 at 4:24:55 AM

They were not random at the time. These cartoons were specifically tailored to moviegoing audiences who would have been much more familiar with these actors and their latest scandals and gossip. They relied heavily on in-jokes, and on their audience getting those in-jokes.

And not everyone would've gotten them even back then, so it'd be just as random to those people as it is to us now.

Just because people would be more likely to be familiar doesn't mean for certain that all of them were.

No, but pretty much everyone would be familiar with some of them, whereas today, almost everyone is not familiar with any of them. That's the difference.

The only real difference is that we have to try instead of it being topical.

Well, they're still fun with the commentary track. But that's the point: you need the movie equivalent of footnotes to follow what's going on, and if that happens too much in one short, it stops being fun to watch and just becomes confusing, just as it would be in a reference overdosed book without footnotes.

FWIW, when I watched those classic Looney Tunes shorts as a non-American kid, I found those references funny because of their specificity, even though many of them I didn't get.

Well, I found them funny too, but also baffling, because it was clear they were about real people, and it was very obvious I was missing the actual joke for a lot of them. But I guess that goes with watching those as an adult. You watch cartoons differently when you grow up.

I've noticed that even the most kid-oriented cartoons will frequently have episode titles that reference things that their primary audience isn't likely to get. I doubt the core audience of The Owl House(not saying The Owl House is exclusively kid oriented, but I think the point is still valid) knew what song was referenced in the title of the recent episode "Knock-Knock-Knockin' on Hooty's Door," or even that the title was a reference to a song. And again, they don't really need to know.

As a kid, not getting the reference never spoiled anything for me, it just made me want to learn what the reference was about. And now, you young whippersnappers have got the internet, so you can look up the reference in, like, half a second. Or you can ask, on forums like this one, if you don't even feel like expending that much effort. Can't believe people still sit around scratching their heads when most of 'em have got the greatest instrument for the dissemination of information yet invented in their hip pockets.

Edited by Robbery on Aug 8th 2021 at 9:12:20 AM

But that’s too haaaard.

Then again, I wonder if you can get answers to some of the references the original show made through Google. If you have questions like “Why is Michael Richards sitting with Dustin Hoffman and Meryl Streep?” or “Why is Marlon Brando talking about Columbus?” you probably won’t get much through the average Internet search.

'Kay, sometimes it takes a little more than half a second. For a Google search, it helps to preface the item your questioning with the name of whatever it was the item appeared in. A lot of times, you can find out what's being referenced just by going to IMDB.

In the old days there were reference guides to the 90s WB cartoons, explaining every reference in the series. I wonder if they're still out there on the Net...

Speaking of Animaniacs (the original series) and obscure references to celebrities of the time, I've been reminded of that time they made a musical sketch reviving those old cartoons like "Book Revue", where all book characters came to life and often were referencing things popular at the time. But transplanting them in a more contemporary setting i.e. a video store, with VHS in places of books. Now the ironic part is that it feels even more dated than cartoons from 60 years ago, since libraries are still a thing while video stores are pretty much extinct. It's still funny but I guess it's just as confusing when it name-drops films that weren't blockbusters or that didn't stand the test of time (The Hand that Rocks the Cradle gets named twice but I don't think anyone still cares much about it nowadays).

However for some reason I always found hilarious that they show the severed hand of Dustin Hoffman's Captain Hook turning into the Addams Family's Thing!

The show will have a virtual panel at New York Comic Con on October 10 from 2:15-3:15. There will be a season 2 sneak peek.

https://www.newyorkcomiccon.com/en-us/explore/panels/panel-information.html?gtID=748317&panel-name=Hellloooo-season-two-A0Animaniacs-Voice-Cast-Panel-Virtual-Screening

Here's a clip from season 2 of the Animaniacs revival.

Well now, I think I saw credits in there.