Animaniacs (2001 TV series)

Animaniacs is an American animated comedy television series created by Tom Ruegger. It is produced by Amblin Television in association with Warner Bros. Animation for Cartoon Network premiering in September 2001.

Animaniacs is a variety show, with short skits featuring a large cast of characters. While the show had no set format, the majority of episodes were composed of three short mini-episodes, each starring a different set of characters, and bridging segments. Hallmarks of the series included its music, character catchphrases, and humor directed at an adult audience.

Premise
The Warner siblings and the other characters lived in Burbank, California. However, characters from the series had episodes in various places and periods of time. The Animaniacs characters interacted with famous persons and creators of the past and present as well as mythological characters and characters from modern television. Andrea Romano, the casting and recording director of Animaniacs, said that the Warner siblings functioned to "tie the show together," by appearing in and introducing other characters' segments. Each Animaniacs episode usually consisted of two or three cartoon shorts. Animaniacs segments ranged in time, from bridging segments less than a minute long to episodes spanning the entire show length; writer Peter Hastings said that the varying episode lengths gave the show a "sketch comedy" atmosphere.

Characters
Animaniacs had a large cast of characters, separated into individual segments, with each pair or set of characters acting in its own plot. The Warners, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot, were three cartoon stars from the 1930s that were locked away in the Warner Bros. water tower until the 1990s, when they escaped. They were locked in the water tower again in 1998 until 2001 when they escaped....again. After their escape, they often interacted with Warner Bros. studio workers, including Ralph, the security guard; Dr. Otto Scratchansniff, the studio psychiatrist, and his assistant Hello Nurse. Pinky and the Brain are two genetically altered laboratory mice who continuously plot and attempt to take over the world. Slappy Squirrel is an octogenarian cartoon star who can easily outwit antagonists and uses her wiles to educate her nephew, Skippy Squirrel, about cartoon techniques. Additional principal characters included Rita and Runt, Buttons and Mindy, Chicken Boo, Flavio and Marita (The Hip Hippos), Katie Ka-Boom, a trio of pigeons known as The Goodfeathers, and Minerva Mink.

Writers
The writers and animators of Animaniacs used the experience gained from the previous series to create new animated characters that were cast in the mold of Chuck Jones and Tex Avery's creations. Additional writers for the series included Liz Holzman, Paul Rugg, Deanna Oliver, John McCann, Nicholas Hollander, Charlie Howell, Gordon Bressack, Jeff Kwitny, Earl Kress, Tom Minton, and Randy Rogel. Hastings, Rugg, Stoner, McCann, Howell, and Bressack were involved in writing sketch comedy while others, including Kress, Minton, and Rogel, came from cartoon backgrounds.

Voices
Animaniacs featured Rob Paulsen as Yakko, Pinky and Dr. Otto von Scratchansniff, Tress MacNeille as Dot, Jess Harnell as Wakko, Sherri Stoner as Slappy the Squirrel, Maurice LaMarche as the Brain, Squit and the belching segments "The Great Wakkorotti" (Harnell said that he himself is commonly mistaken for the role), and veteran voice actor Frank Welker as Ralph the Security Guard, Thaddeus Plotz and Runt. Including Bernadette Peters as Rita. Other voices were provided by Jim Cummings, Paul Rugg, Vernee Watson-Johnson, Jeff Bennett and Gail Matthius (from Tiny Toon Adventures). TBA voiced Skippy Squirrel, nephew to Slappy, throughout the duration of the series; TBA voiced The Flame in historical segments on Animaniacs; and TBA voiced Birdie from Wild Blue Yonder.

Animation
Animation work on Animaniacs was farmed out to several different studios over the course of the show's production. The animation companies included Tokyo Movie Shinsha (now known as TMS Entertainment), Wang Film Productions, Yowza! Animation, and Rough Draft Korea, and most Animaniacs episodes frequently had animation from different companies in each episode's respective segments.

Animaniacs was made with a higher production value than standard television animation; the show had a higher cel count than most TV cartoons. The Animaniacs characters often move fluidly, and do not regularly stand still and speak, as in other television cartoons.

Music
Animaniacs utilized a heavy musical score for an animated program, with every episode featuring at least one original score. Animaniacs used a 35-piece orchestra, and was scored by a team of six composers, led by supervising composer Richard Stone. The composing team included Steve and Julie Bernstein, Carl Johnson, J. Eric Schmidt, Gordon Goodwin and Tim Kelly.