Talk Of The Toon

The Warner Brothers and Warner sister, Dot, return to lighten the mood in the Animaniacs revival

WHEN THE STEVEN SPIELBERG produced Animaniacs series vamoosed into the sunset in 1998, there were 99 episodes comprising 274 segments, featuring a host of beloved original characters including Slappy Squirrel, the Goodfeathers, Rita and Runt, Pinky and the Brain, and the show’s superstars: the Warner siblings Yakko, Wakko and Dot.

Twenty-two years later, the series is back with 13 new episodes under Spielberg’s guiding hand and almost all of the original voice cast reprising the Warners and Pinky and the Brain, in new adventures from showrunner Wellesley Wild (Family Guy) and co-producer Gabe Swarr (El Tigre), who is leading the design and animation.

The show’s return is the kind of nostalgic resurrection the Warner siblings would have mocked back in the day. Happily, the animated trio meets the moment by mercilessly lampooning their return in their first episode back, and even more in their slightly tweaked theme song. “The changes we made to the opening reflect and project what the show is, and what we want the show to be,” Wild tells Red Alert. “It gives people an idea of ‘this is what you’re in for’: we’re going to be self-aware, there is going to be meta humour – all the things that you like, but it’s just newer.”