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Animaniacs, often referred to as Animaniacs 2001, is an American animated television series, serving as a reboot of the well-known series of the same name. The series was co-created by the original series' creator Tom Ruegger, Spike Brandt and Tony Cervone, being produced by Amblin Television for Warner Bros. Animation and aired on The WB as part of the Kids' WB block and on Cartoon Network between September 2001 and September 2005.

Premise
Like the original show, 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.

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
Various voice actors from the original Animaniacs reprise their roles from the show.

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.

Voice cast

 * Rob Paulsen as Yakko Warner, Dr. Otto Scratchansniff and Pinky
 * Jess Harnell as Wakko Warner, Krazy Kat (Season 3-5 only) and Walter Wolf
 * Tress MacNeille as Dot Warner, Hello Nurse, Ignatz Mouse (Season 3-5 only), Marita and The First Lady
 * Tress also voices guest characters Melissa Duck (first appearance only), Penelope Pussycat and Babs Bunny
 * Maurice LaMarche as The Brain, Squit, The Godpidgeon and Estroy (Season 1-2 only)
 * Maurice also voices guest characters Yosemite Sam, Pepé Le Pew and Dizzy Devil
 * Frank Welker as Thaddeus Plotz, Ralph T. Guard, Officer Bull Pupp (Season 3-5 only), Runt, Buttons, Flavio, Boskov (Season 1-2 only) and The President
 * Frank also voices guest characters Road Runner, Barnyard Dawg, Gogo Dodo, Furrball, Calamity Coyote and Little Beeper
 * Sherri Stoner as Slappy Squirrel
 * Alexander Gould as Skippy Squirrel
 * Chick Vennera as Pesto
 * John Mariano as Bobby
 * Bernadette Peters as Rita
 * Julie Brown as Minerva Mink
 * Nancy Cartwright as Mindy
 * Laura Mooney as Katie Ka-Boom
 * Grey DeLisle as Mandy (Season 1-2 only) and Major Dr. Ghastly (Season 1-2 only)
 * Grey also voices guest characters Melissa Duck and Petunia Pig
 * Paul Rugg as Mr. Director
 * Jeff Bennett as Baloney the Dinosaur
 * Jeff also voices guest character Foghorn Leghorn
 * Greg Eagles (Season 1-2 only) as The Grim Reaper
 * Phil LaMarr (Season 1-2 only) as Hector Con Carne
 * Richard Steven Horvitz (Season 1-2 only) as Billy
 * Armin Shimerman (Season 1-2 only) as General Skarr and Stomach
 * Maxwell Atoms (Season 1-2 only) as Cod Commando

Guest stars

 * Joe Alaskey as Bugs Bunny, Daffy Duck, Sylvester, Speedy Gonzales, Marvin the Martian and Plucky Duck
 * Charlie Adler as Buster Bunny
 * Bob Bergen as Porky Pig and Tweety
 * Billy West as Elmer Fudd and Hamton J. Pig
 * Bill Farmer (first appearance only) as Foghorn Leghorn
 * Dee Bradley Baker as Wile E. Coyote
 * Jim Cummings as The Tasmanian Devil
 * Kath Soucie as Lola Bunny, Petunia Pig (first appearance only) and Fifi La Fume
 * Gail Matthius as Shirley the Loon
 * Cree Summer as Elmyra Duff
 * Candi Milo as Sweetie
 * June Foray as Granny and Witch Hazel

Pre-production
Before Animaniacs was put into production, various collaboration and brainstorming efforts were thought up to create both the characters and premise of the series. For instance, ideas that were thrown out were Rita and Runt being the hosts of the show and the Warners being duck characters that senior producer Tom Ruegger drew in his college years. After the characters from the series were created, they were all shown to executive producer Steven Spielberg, who would decide which characters would make it into Animaniacs (the characters Buttons and Mindy were chosen by Spielberg's daughter). The characters' designs came from various sources, including caricatures of other writers, designs based on early cartoon characters, and characters that simply had a more modern design.

Kids' WB and Cartoon Network era
Animaniacs premiered on September 13, 1993, on the Fox Kids programming block of the Fox network, and ran there until September 8, 1995; new episodes aired from the 1993 through 1994 seasons. Animaniacs aired with a 65-episode first season because these episodes were ordered by Fox all at once. While on Fox Kids, Animaniacs gained fame for its name and became the second-most popular show among children ages 2–11 and children ages 6–11, second to Mighty Morphin Power Rangers (which began that same year). On March 30, 1994, Yakko, Wakko, and Dot first theatrically appeared in the animated short, "I'm Mad", which opened nationwide alongside the full-length animated feature, Thumbelina. The musical short featured Yakko, Wakko, and Dot bickering during a car trip. Producers Steven Spielberg, Tom Ruegger, and Jean MacCurdy wanted "I'm Mad" to be the first of a series of shorts to bring Animaniacs to a wider audience. However, "I'm Mad" was the only Animaniacs theatrical short produced. The short was later incorporated into Animaniacs episode 69. Following the 65th episode of the series, Animaniacs continued to air in reruns on Fox Kids. The only new episodes during this time included a short, four-episode long second season that was quickly put together from unused scripts. After Fox Kids aired Animaniacs reruns for a year, the series switched to the new Warner Bros. children's programming block, Kids' WB.

The series was popular enough for Warner Bros. Animation to invest in additional episodes of Animaniacs past the traditional 65-episode marker for syndication. Animaniacspremiered on the new Kids' WB line-up on September 9, 1995, with a new season of 13 episodes. At this time, the show's popular cartoon characters, Pinky and the Brain, were spun off from Animaniacs into their own TV series. Warner Bros. stated in a press release that Animaniacs gathered over one million children viewers every week.

Despite the series' success on Fox Kids, Animaniacs on Kids' WB was only successful in an unintended way, bringing in adult viewers and viewers outside the Kids' WB target demographic of young children. This unintended result of adult viewers and not enough young viewers put pressure on the WB network from advertisers and caused dissatisfaction from the WB network towards Animaniacs. Slowly, orders from the WB for more Animaniacs episodes dwindled and Animaniacs had a couple more short seasons, relying on leftover scripts and storyboards. The fourth season had eight episodes, which was reduced from 18 because of Warner Bros.' dissatisfaction with Animaniacs. The 99th and final Animaniacs episode was aired on November 14, 1998.

The Chicago Tribune reported in 1999 that the production of new Animaniacs episodes ceased and the direct-to-video film Wakko's Wish was a closer to the series. Animation World Network Reported that Warner Bros. laid off over 100 artists, contributing to the reduced production of original series. Producer Tom Ruegger explained that rather produce new episodes, Warner Bros. instead decided to use the back-catalog of Animaniacs episodes until "someone clamors for more". Animaniacs segments were shown along with segments from other cartoons as part of The Cat&Birdy Warneroonie PinkyBrainy Big Cartoonie Show. Ruegger said at the time the hiatus was "temporary". Following the end of the series, the Animaniacs team developed Wakko's Wish. On December 21, 1999, Warner Bros. released Wakko's Wish. In 2016, Ruegger said on his Reddit AMA that the decline of Animaniacs and other series was the result of Warner Bros.' investment in the much cheaper anime series Pokémon. Following Warner Bros. right to distribute the cheaper and successful anime, the network chose to invest less in original programming like Animaniacs.

Aftermath and syndication
Animaniacs continued to rerun in syndication through the 1990s into the early 2000s after production of new episodes ceased. In the US, Animaniacs aired on Cartoon Network, originally as a one-off airing on January 31, 1997, and then on the regular schedule from August 31, 1998 until the spring of 2001, when Nickelodeon bought the rights to air the series beginning on September 1, 2001. Nickelodeon transferred the series to its newly launched sister channel Nicktoons on May 1, 2002, and aired there until July 7, 2005. Animaniacs started airing on Hub Network with a 4-hour marathon on December 24, 2012 and aired regularly from January 7, 2013 until October 10, 2014 before it was rebranded Discovery Family. On April 1, 2016, all 99 episodes of Animaniacs were added to Netflix.

Trivia

 * Pinky and the Brain didn't return as a segment in the reboot, appearing now as villains for the Warner Siblings. They are instead replaced by repackaged segments of Maxwell Atoms' The Grim Adventures of Billy and Mandy and Evil Con Carne, both of which are produced by Cartoon Network Studios. In the three final seasons, following their launch as separate shows in 2003, TGAoBaM and ECC were replaced by two new segments, Super Birds (a family of superhero birds) and Krazy Kat (a adaptation of George Herriman's comic strip and its John Stanley revival, because of its designs, Krazy begin male, Ignatz begin female and Officer Pupp begin a friend of Krazy's rather than he begin in love with Krazy).
 * Thaddeus Plotz is portrayed in the reboot as the CEO of Time Warner (known as AOL Time Warner until 2003) rather than just Warner Bros., making him also responsable for AOL, HBO, Time Inc., Time Warner Cable (until 2003), Turner Broadcasting System and Warner Music Group (until 2004), being also a rival to a fictionalized version of Ted Turner. In a Season 3 episode, the Warners mention Plotz as "the big idiot behind the disaster merger with AOL".
 * The President and The First Lady are caricatures of the then-President of the United States George W. Bush and the First Lady Laura Bush.
 * Coincidentally, both Welker and MacNeille previously voiced their predecessors Bill Clinton and Hillary Clinton in the original show.