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"It's time for Ani-mani-acs!
And we're zany to the max!
So just sit back and relax!
You'll laugh 'til you collapse!
We're Animaniacs!"

"Dateline: Hollywood, 1930, the Warner Brothers' studio, home of the biggest stars in tinseltown! Here at the studio's new animation department, the artists toiled endlessly to come up with cartoon stars, ultimately creating three new characters: the Warner Brothers and their sister Dot! Unfortunately, the Warner kids were totally out of control and sent the animators running to the hills! The trio ran amok throughout the studio creating utter chaos. Finally, they were captured. The Warners' films — which made absolutely no sense — were locked away in the studio vault never to be released! As for the Warners themselves, who made even less sense, they were locked away in the studio water tower also never to be released! Publicly, the studio has disavowed all knowledge of the Warners' existence to this very day... when the Warners escaped!"

Animaniacs, also known as Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs, is an American animated comedic musical Variety Show that ran for 99 episodes (consisting of 274 segments) over five seasons from 1993 to 1998.

Produced by Steven Spielberg, Animaniacs was a revival of an old show concept: a collection of cartoon shorts in a half-hour kids' show. Rather than recycling or remaking old theatrical shorts, Animaniacs relied on original stories featuring original characters (though it did indulge in a bit of self-referential cliché-riding at times). This approach was unique in the 1990s, since goofball/slapstick-type shows (think Looney Tunes and Merrie Melodies) were being systematically driven out by Moral Guardians who thought that slapstick was too violent for children's TV (something that was frequently a target of the show's humor).

It originally aired on Fox Kids (on the Fox television network), and later Kids' WB!, both of which were programming blocks on broadcast network stations, making Animaniacs a godsend to kids without cable. On January 7, 2013, the show began airing on The Hub. The whole series is now available on DVD and digital streaming.

Shorts were generally self-contained, though they frequently crossed over with each other without much warning. Each had a cast and premise of their own:

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Recurring Segments and Characters

The Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister): This was the main segment of the show. Yakko (Rob Paulsen), Wakko (Jess Harnell), and sister Dot (Tress MacNeille) were cartoon characters that resembled anthropomorphic dogs or cats ^note Within the show they were occasionally referred to as "puppy children", "kiddies", or "kidsies." . Their Backstory indicates that they were created in the 1930s by the Warner Studios animators, then leapt off the page and ran amok through the studio. The Warners' cartoons ("which made absolutely no sense") were put in the studio vault, never to be released. As for the Warners themselves ("who made even less sense"), they were locked in the studio's water tower and the studio publicly disavowed any knowledge of their existence. The Warners eventually escape 65 years later, and Hilarity Ensues. Studio psychiatrist Dr. Otto Scratchansniff (Rob Paulsen), his exceptionally-hot female assistant (Tress MacNeille), dimwitted studio security guard Ralph (Frank Welker), and blustering studio president Thaddeus Plotz (Frank Welker again) suffer more from the trio's antics than anyone else. Some of the shorts involving the Warners were their "classic" cartoons, which played with different animation styles and tropes based on the cartoons of the time they were said to be from. When not following classic formulas, the Warners engaged in parodies of pop-culture or inserted themselves into history (wherein they would simultaneously both annoy and inspire famous figures like Abraham Lincoln and Ludwig van Beethoven). Not content with Breaking the Fourth Wall in their own shorts, they would occasionally come dashing through the other characters' shorts, usually with Ralph in hot pursuit.
Pinky and the Brain: A pair of lab mice named Pinky (Rob Paulsen) and the Brain (Maurice LaMarche) live in a laboratory. The highly intelligent Brain is constantly thinking up plans to Take Over the World overnight, but his schemes always end in spectacular failure usually due to the interference of the dimwitted Pinky or his own hubris. Nevertheless, he resolves to come up with a new idea for the next night. The shorts became popular enough to warrant their own Spin-Off show.
Rita and Runt: Two stray animals — a cat (Bernadette Peters) who sings show-tunes (with changed lyrics) and a dopey (Rain Man-inspired) dog voiced by Frank Welker — try to find a home throughout time and space. These shorts had a tendency to be a bit more melancholic than the others.
Slappy Squirrel: A washed-up old cartoon star from "the good old days" (voiced by production writer Sherri Stoner) works through modern-day problems with old-school cartoon techniques (that is to say, violence — preferably of the extreme and/or explosive kind). Her personality is based on being old and cranky (with the occasional menopause joke), and (in typical "senior citizen" fashion) she thinks all the modern cartoon stars are no-good punks. Most of her shorts center around her Medium Awareness, and she is often accompanied by her nephew Skippy (voiced by producer Tom Ruegger's son Nathan), who helps to balance out her cynical attitude with his bright-eyed child-like optimism. Her opposite number is the equally elderly Walter Wolf.
Minerva Mink: An oversexualized mink (Julie Brown) who used her feminine wiles to get what she wanted. She only starred in two shorts since she was considered inappropriate by the censors, but she showed up in others and Wakko's Wish as a background character and got a few dedicated comics in the Animaniacs comic book series.
Goodfeathers: A direct parody of Goodfellas and other gangster films. Three New Yorker pigeons named Squit, Bobby, and Pesto (Maurice LaMarche, John Mariano, and Chick Vennera) try to run the streets under the watchful eye of the Godpigeon; the trio lives on a statue of Martin Scorsese.
Buttons and Mindy: A toddler, voiced by Nancy Cartwright of The Simpsons fame, roams around unsupervised; she is completely oblivious to the dangers around her and asks questions of everyone she meets. The family dog, Buttons (Frank Welker), runs himself ragged trying to return Mindy to her parents, and invariably ends up being scolded by them for some minor mishap once she is safe.
Chicken Boo: A giant rooster whose lame attempts to pass as a human incomprehensibly succeed, one person's protests notwithstanding. A minor accident (losing a baseball cap, for instance) inexplicably reveals Boo's true nature to everyone around him, wherein he is shunned and kicked out, but he always brushes himself off and walks away to find the next big opportunity.
Katie Kaboom: A girl (Laura Mooney) who literally develops into a monster and then explodes with rage (causing massive damage to the house and landscape) over minor, stereotypical teenage problems, such as her boyfriend being late to pick her up. She was based on the teenage daughter of one of the writers.
The Hip Hippos: An exceedingly heavy hippopotamus couple, Flavio and Marita (Frank Welker and Tress MacNeille, respectively), whose nouveau-riche lifestyle and utter reliance on luxury leaves them helpless in situations where money won't make a difference. They also have a tendency to get into dangerous situations, even though their heavy frames generally protect them from any actual harm. Occasionally shadowed by a naturalist named Gina Embryo (whose name is a parody of/reference to San Diego Zoo zoologist Joan Embery) who tries (unsuccessfully) to return them to the jungle or protect them from harm (which usually ends up befalling her instead).
Other supporting cast members included Mr. Skullhead (in the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" shorts), a nameless, disaster-prone mime, a kid named Colin who is the friend of another (never shown) kid named "Randy Beaman", and Mr. Director (a crazed movie director based on Jerry Lewis and voiced by production writer Paul Rugg).

A Direct to Video movie, Wakko's Wish, was created following the show's run; rather than being a compilation of various shorts (old or new), it was a film with a self-contained plot which saw all of the show's main characters (and several background characters) interacting with one another. There was also a comic series which ran from 1995 to 2000, two years after the show ended.

On January 4, 2018, Hulu picked up the streaming rights for this show, Pinky and the Brain, and Tiny Toon Adventures while ordering two new seasons of Animaniacs direct to series. The revival premiered on November 20, 2020, with the Warner Siblings and the fan favorite Pinky and the Brain returning from the original series.

We're An-i-mane-y! Totally insaney! Hanging a lampshade-y! An-i-man-i-acs! These are the tropes!

#-A

555: In "Moby or Not Moby", Captain Ahab has a "Have You Seen This Whale?" sign asking people to call 555-harpoon.
Absent Animal Companion: A Running Gag is Dot keeping a monster in a box as a pet, but she has a different pet each time.
Absurdly Long Limousine: At Slappy Squirrel's "Lifetime Achievement" award ceremony, Slappy and Skippy arrive in one.
Slappy: Oh. The bowling-in-a-limo gag? (turns to the camera) We're stretchin' for the comedy here, folks.
Accessory-Wearing Cartoon Animal: Slappy only wears a hat (and also a scarf in Wakko's Wish).
Actor Allusion:
- The short "Sir Yaksalot" has a segment that parodies Godzilla movies and Kaiju films in general, where the Warner siblings attempt to get help against the dragon from a council used to dealing with giant monsters, complete with their voices being (poorly) overdubbed. Perry Mason is among them, referencing Raymond Burr's role in the localized versions of some of the Godzilla movies.
- Minerva's personality is that of a Valley Girl - which her voice actress Julie Brown was known for mocking in her stand-up routines.
- In the Japanese dub, Satomi Koorogi's role as Mindy could be an allusion to her role as Hima, another toddler.
Adam Westing: Adam West voiced the Caped Crusader in the "Boo Wonder" sketch. It has to be noted that DC Comics has belonged to Warner Bros. since 1967, which is why there was minimum Writing Around Trademarks in the entire sketch. ^note Except for the use of a substitute for The Joker, almost everything else is lifted directly off Batman itself
Adaptational Alternate Ending: The Casey at the Bat spoof "Mighty Wakko at Bat" initially follows the poem's premise with its own words, though Wakko is jeered instead of cheered because he's not strong enough to hold the bat. He hits the ball and the outfielders being too Distracted by the Sexy courtesy of Minerva Mink and Hello Nurse keeps them from catching it. But the ball is caught at home plate before Wakko can get there, and he is initially declared out during the last stanza ("Oh, somewhere in this favoured land...") until he pops up from the large dirt pile under home plate and is declared safe.
Adaptational Heroism: The Lee Van Cleef and Eli Wallach lookalikes in the sketch "The Good, The Boo And The Ugly" are recast as a pair of ordinary law-abiding citizens, very much unlike their outlaw counterparts.
Adult Fear: "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" starts out innocently enough, with Slappy driven crazy from daytime talk shows, causing her to spout gibberish catch phrases and repeatedly toast her hat. Things quickly turn dark when Slappy is taken to the doctor who says she's having "an episode", and encourages Skippy to send her to a nursing home. Trying to care for his aunt himself makes Skippy fall asleep in class, and Slappy nearly burns their house down. The episode shows surprisingly realistic repercussions of what amounts to a child's primary caregiver coming down with dementia... Skippy tries in vain to trigger his Aunt's memories when he visits her, and is eventually taken into foster care when its discovered he's living on his own, but without giving him the opportunity to tell Slappy what's happened. Eventually it's the irregularity of Skippy not being around that snaps Slappy back to reality, and her slapstick escape from the nursing home keeps this from being one of the most sobering children's cartoons of the 90's.
Affectionate Parody: Quite a few shorts were done in the style of the cutesy, musical cartoons of the 1930s.
All Men Are Perverts: Hello Nurse gets attention from almost all the male characters; Minerva's cartoons are built entirely around the premise.
All Psychology Is Freudian: Dr. Scratchansniff.
All Women Are Lustful: Although Dot would roll her eyes at the boys going gaga over hot ladies, she would be proved Not So Above It All as soon as an attractive man was in view (especially Mel Gibson). Minerva Mink as well turned into just as big a pervert as her own admirers when confronted with her best friend's cousin.
Alter Kocker: Walter Wolf.
Alternative Number System: Done subtly. Snow White imprisons Dot for being too cute, and Dot counts the time in hashmarks that only have four strokes each.
Ambiguously Bi: In Raging Bird, Squit admits to thinking Prettyboy Robin is cute, and also attempts to kiss Pesto in celebration of Bobby's victory.
Ambiguously Jewish:
- Yakko, who is obviously modeled on Groucho Marx, especially the voice and the eyebrows. And, of course, Yakov is the Yiddish version of Jacob, which was the real first name of studio co-founder Jack Warner. Interestingly, Yakko's sister Dot came off as only very vaguely Jewish (she was reportedly inspired by the Jewish actress Fanny Brice), while little brother Wakko had no identifiably Jewish traits at all (his voice actor based the middle Warner's voice on a younger version of Ringo Starr). However, the cartoons "'Twas the Day Before Christmas," "Little Drummer Warners" and "Noel" reveal that the kids celebrate Christmas.
- Slappy Squirrel, with her New York accent, use of Yiddish as a Second Language, and occasional jokes about menorahs and bat mitzvahs – though like the Warners, she and Skippy also celebrate Christmas. Meanwhile, her archenemy Walter Wolf is a full-blown Yiddish-accented Alter Kocker.
And Starring: In the episodes with Rita and Runt segments, the cast list would say at the end "And Bernadette Peters as Rita". (Hey, she won a Tony®, so she deserves a special place.)
Animated Actors: The Warners are an unusual example of actors playing actors. In other words, they are actors who live on the Warner Studio Lot and perform skits, in-universe. But even this premise about them living in the tower, tormenting Dr. Scratchansniff, etc. is scripted, as the theme song makes clear. On top of that, they know they are cartoons.
- The theme song also, however, mentions that "the writers flipped/we have no script/why bother to rehearse?", so whether or not anything is scripted at all within the confines of the show itself is debatable. It is still all an act, though.
- Slappy Squirrel takes the gag a bit further — as a retired animated actor, she calls in favors with her old coworkers, reminisces about when cartoons used to be 'good,' etc.
Animated Anthology: An extremely good example.
Animation Bump: The animation quality got better and better as the series went on.
Animated Outtakes: In the episode "Cutie and the Beast", Dot keeps blowing her opening line. We see take after take being shot until she gets it right, and they have to skip ahead to later in the script because they took up too much time.
Animated World Hypotheses:
- The Warner siblings are aware that they're cartoons. In fact, they once sang a parody of the Major General Song called "I am the Very Model of a Cartoon Individual".
- Slappy is also aware that she and the others are cartoon characters. In "Bumbie's Mom," after seeing a parody of Bambi, she reassures a sad Skippy that the deer's mother didn't really die, since cartoon characters never do. She demonstrates this by blowing a passerby up, only for him to survive.
Anvil on Head: It even has a theme song.
Appeal to Obscurity: Combined with Who's on First? in "Piano Rag":
Yakko: Very Pete Townshend-esque.

Wakko: Exactly.
Art Shift: The entire episode "Back in Style" is full of this: The Warners keep being inserted into various Saturday morning cartoons throughout the '60s-80s, so we get visual parodies of Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Underdog, and Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, none of which are drawn or animated in the usual Animaniacs style.
Artistic License – Geography: "Puttin on the Blitz" is guilty of this way too many times.
- At the end of "Puttin on the Blitz", set in Poland, as the train to Paris departs from Warsaw, there are some tall mountains (presumably Tatras) in the background. The thing is, the real Tatras (and any Polish mountains, for that matter) are impossible to be seen from Warsaw, no matter how one tries.
- Also, the country's outline in the beginning is the modern one, not the correct, Interwar outline.
- The map also has Ukraine separate from the USSR.
- Germany on the map has its modern borders, without Pomerania, Silesia and East Prussia.
- Finally, taking a train to Paris amid World War II isn't exactly the smartest thing to do when the Nazis are invading Europe and want your race exterminated. The Polish girl and her father would need to travel through Axis territory.
- The "Yakko's World" song omits several countries, such as Wales, names Asia (which is a continent), and refers to Korea as a single country when it's actually two separate countries, officially known as the Republic of Korea and the Democratic People's Republic of Korea and more commonly known as North Korea and South Korea (although both nations consider the other to be illegitimate, so this is mistake is legally correct in both Koreas). It makes the same mistake with Ireland, referring to simply "Ireland" when Northern Ireland and the Republic of Ireland are two different countries. The show lampshaded the mistake in "Please, Please, Please Get a Life Foundation," with an Internet user pointing out that "Technically Tibet was not a country." Of course the entire segment was pointing out that people obsessing over minor mistakes in cartoons should stop worrying about it and just get a life... wait a minute.
Artistic License – History: During the Presidents episode, Woodrow Wilson's section has the main characters marching in military uniforms past various World War 1 campaigns, such as Gallipoli, the Somme, and Verdun. The United States didn't take part in any of these battles, and only entered the war in 1917. Particularly confusing as the US did participate in several famous battles late-war, such as the Spring Offensive, Aisne, Hamel, and the Hundred Days.
Artistic License – Religion: In the episode "Home on De-Nile", Rita runs the risk of being sacrificed in Ancient Egypt. People offered sacrifices to cats; cats weren't offered as sacrifices. Killing a cat incurred the death penalty.
- Surprisingly averted. During the Hellenistic Period cats were systematically bred for the express purpose of mummification and sacrifice to the gods.
As Himself: Former figure skater and now commentator Dick Button appeared in Episode 74 to commentate, alongside Dot, Yakko's attempt to sing all the words in the English language.
Aside Glance: Yakko and Slappy are prone to giving aside glances (when they don't just start snarking to the audience directly.)
Attack! Attack... Retreat! Retreat!: The army from the cover of A Few Good Men wind up doing this against the T-Rex from the cover of Jurassic Park during "Video Revue".
Attention Deficit... Ooh, Shiny!: Quite a few characters, but Pinky gets special points.
Pinky: (distracted by a parody of Jeopardy!) What is "Narf"? What is "Poit"?
Brain: What is "inordinately short attention span", Alex?
Awesome, but Impractical: Subverted by "Wakko's Gizmo," which seems pretty pointless at first but turns out to be successful in helping Wakko order a pizza. Then double-subverted when it's revealed that ordering the pizza was just another step in the process, and that the real objective of Wakko's machine is to cause an action figure to sit on a whoopee cushion, making a farting noise and causing Wakko to laugh hysterically.
Yakko: You should see how he brushes he teeth!

Badly Battered Babysitter: Buttons the dog, to Butt-Monkey levels most of the time.
Balloonacy: This is shown happening to Buttons and Mindy in "The Monkey Song": first as a Funny Background Event before returning as a Brick Joke.
Barefoot Cartoon Animal: Minerva Mink and Howard Stern parody Howie Tern. The Warners themselves can cross between this and Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal.
Baseball Episode: The episode "Mighty Wakko at the Bat"
Based on a True Story: Buddy's backstory in the "The Warner 65th Anniversary Special" is actually based on a real thing and a real character. Buddy's first shorts were considered so dull and bland that Warner Bros refused to accept his first two cartoons, which got the original director fired. They had to bring Friz Freleng in to re-edit and condense them into a single short.
Basement-Dweller: The "examples" in the short about the "Please, Please, PLEASE Get a Life" Foundation. Thirty-something men? Check. Obsessing over the minutiae of the show? Check. Geek Physiques? Check. Interestingly, they're shown using the Internet to vent their rage; given that the show debuted in the mid-90's, this was new technology at the time.
Bathos: The lyrics of the Suspiciously Similar version of "Circle of Life" that plays in the background of "The Tiger Prince" are a great deliberate example.
Ever since we could think for ourselves
We wondered what will happen to us
But it can't be foretold
What the future will hold
If you'll get rich or get hit by a bus
Battle Discretion Shot: Slappy spends the entire episode "Bully for Skippy" circumventing Congress' new anti-animated violence bill by building a giant machine that maims a bully plaguing Skippy and a U.S. Senator off-screen, so as not to show any actual violence.
Be as Unhelpful as Possible: This is seemingly the Warner's mission in life aside from simply keeping themselves entertained.
Be Careful What You Wish For:
- "Dot's Quiet Time" sees the titular character traveling all over the world in an effort to find a silent, peaceful spot to do some reading. When she finally does find one, she sits down and turns a few pages...then realizes that it's too quiet. Dot promptly pulls out a boombox and starts blasting the theme song.
Belly Dancer: Shown rather briefly in "Plane Pals".
Berserk Button:
- Say the word "cat" around Runt, and he'll suddenly be alert and exclaiming, "CAT?? WHERE'S THE CAT??" Despite the fact that his partner Rita is a cat to begin with. This usually leads to Dogs Are Dumb.
  - "A cat? Oh no, Rita is a dog, she's definitely a dog."
  - "Definitely, definitely a dog!"
- Never give Wakko an "F." Or is it 'never write on Wakko's hat'?
- Pesto's easily irritated by the entire universe, but particularly by Squit.
- Never call Dot 'Dottie'. Call her Dottie and ya die.
  - But Yakko got away with this in "The Three Muska-Warners" and "The Big Wrap Party Tonight".
  - As well as the Bob Hope expy in the 65th Anniversary Special. Justified because Dot was asleep and didn't hear him.
- Katie Ka-Boom's berserk button is... well... anything her parents do, say, imply... or fail to do, say or imply.
Beware the Nice Ones: Played straight with the Warner sibs, but also played with: the sibs really can't bring themselves to harass genuinely nice people, even if they're naturally annoying - the sibs will endure the annoyingness while hoping the person will go away on their own. So, the sibs actually beware the nice (annoying) ones!
Big Ball of Violence: A classic Looney Tunes gag adopted into Animaniacs. Pesto uses this every time his Berserk Button is pushed.
Pesto: DAT'S IT!!!
Big Brother Instinct: When Wakko dies after eating too many Swedish meatballs, you better believe Yakko literally goes to Hell and back to rescue him. (Dot, too, of course, but she's Wakko's little sister.)
Big Eater: Guess who "packs away the snacks"? Wakko.
Bilingual Bonus: "Taming of the Screwy" has one in Japanese. The following could refer to the overpopulation in Japan noted at the time, how Tokyo gets destroyed and rebuilt constantly throughout all media or a certain radioactive kaiju... no wonder the Japanese investors laugh at the end.
Yakko: 東京はとても面白い所ですね。 ^note Tokyo wa totemo omoshiroi tokoro desu ne? (Tokyo is an very interesting place, isn't it?)

Investor: ぜひいらっしてください。 ^note Zehi irasshite kudasai. (By all means, please visit!)

Yakko: まだ行き場所があればね。 ^note Mada iki basho ga areba ne. (If there's still a place to go, eh?)
- For Spanish/French, there's a few lines in the song Macadamia Nut. An example:
Hola que pasa you grande sack o' grainia (Hello, what's up, you big sack o' grainia?)

Qui a coupé le fromage, we abstainia (Who cut the cheese? We abstainia.)

Lava tus manos, por favor, Macadamia. (Wash your hands, please, Macadamia.)
- There was also one episode with a Buttons and Mindy short, as well as the theme song for that episode, done entirely in French.
Bird-Poop Gag: Implied when the Goodfeathers claim they'll "dive-bomb" Mr. Plotz's new car and splatting is heard offscreen.
Birthday Episode: Wakko's birthday in "Clown And Out".
Biting-the-Hand Humor: Quite frequent during the earlier episodes on FOX.
Miles Standish: Begone, pests, and give me the bird!
Yakko: We'd love to, really, but the FOX censors won't allow it.

Yakko: It's that time again.
Dot: To make the Fox censors cry?
- Another instance, blink and you'll miss it, but during "Phranken-Runt", we get a shot of Phrankenstein's brain-in-a-jar shelf. The jar which contained by far the smallest is labeled "TV Network Executive Brain."
  - Made even funnier by the fact that a few bars of We're In The Money can be heard when the camera lingers on it.
- The most audacious example is in the opening credits, where they announce they have Pay-or-Play Contracts, a contract where they don't even need to work to get paid!
- One of the "Wheel of Morality" segments had Wakko and Dot complain about it, only to go a complete 180 on their opinion when Yakko informs them that the Wheel of Morality was the network executives' idea.
- The biting didn't stop once the show moved to Kids' WB!. In fact, one of the credit gags parodied the slogan at the time, "Big Kids Go First!", by saying "On The WB, Big Kids Go First - In Real Life, Big Kids Sleep In". Another credit gag stated "Be The First Kid On Your Block - To Watch Kids' WB!".
Black Comedy: "Good Idea, Bad Idea", quite often.
Boot Camp Episode: One of the Warner Siblings has them discovering boot camp (Dot thinks it has to do with fashionable footwear), which they mistake for summer camp. Hilarity Ensues. (No, this time in the usual ironic sense).
Borrowing the Beatles: In "Back in Style", one of the older cartoon shows that the Warners appeared on was a show starring The Feebles, who sing a song that's Suspiciously Similar to "Day Tripper".
She was a night traveler
One way passport, yes!
It took us quite long to get wise
But we got wise!
Bottle Episode: "Ups and Downs", featuring Wakko and Dr. Scratchansniff stuck in an elevator for the majority of the short.
Bowdlerise:
- Reruns of "Moon over Minerva" edited Minerva's low-cut outfits to show less cleavage.
- "Broadcast Nuisance" had a lot of content that didn't make it to the final airing; for instance, Dan Anchorman's name was originally Slam Fondlesome. Also, there was another minute worth of the Warners tormenting him, as well as several other altered lines (like calling him a "big fat dope"). Most of the latter edits were done to make the Warners seem less hostile. However, the edited version only airs in America, and the original uncut version still airs overseas.
- Happened with one of the songs on the first soundtrack album. In the animated version, the song "Be Careful What You Eat," about the complex chemicals that go into most prepackaged foods, the song used Black Comedy at the end to hint at what could happen if you eat too much processed food. The soundtrack version threw out that last verse for something much more ordinary and Anvilicious.
- The President's original lyrics were changed from "John F. Kennedy, he gets shot/so Lyndon Johnson took his spot" to "John Kennedy had Camelot".
- Nickelodeon were terrible with it, having a specific version of the titles, removing most of the individuality, and putting in several blatant references to Nickelodeon, including a 'special' re-edited version of the variable line gag, using "Nickelaney" instead of all the gags.
Bread, Eggs, Breaded Eggs: Taken Up to Eleven in "Survey Ladies," in which Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are accosted at the mall by two elderly women with Midwestern accents who are stopping random passersby to ask them poll questions("Wouldja like ta take a surr-vay?!" they keep asking.) The first question is "Do you like beans?" The second question is "Would you like to see a new movie starring George Wendt (the actor who played Norm Peterson on Cheers)?" And then after that come a seemingly infinite number of questions that all combine the themes of beans and George Wendt in various ways. ("Would you like to see George Wendt eating beans in a movie?" "How many beans do you eat at George Wendt bean-eating movies?" "Do you like to eat beans with George Wendt?", etc.) The poll-takers continue annoying the Warners - and various other characters - throughout the cartoon, and are still rattling off questions as the cartoon ends.
Bread, Eggs, Milk, Squick: "Good Idea, Bad Idea".
Breaking the Fourth Wall. Well, more like Pulverizing The Fourth Wall.
- Especially in the Warner shorts, in which one might say there are two missing/broken fourth walls, with one that fits the premise of the show (that they are children who live on the WB Studio and perform skits) and one that goes even beyond that (such as Dot's profanity-laden rant in Cutie and the Beast, or the cold ending, in which they plan to go out and get cappuccinos, in the same episode). Your mind will explode if you try to make too much sense of it.
Bubble Pipe: Yakko "puffs" on a soap-bubble pipe while parodying highbrow intellectuals in "Disasterpiece Theater." He uses it again in "Broadcast Nuisance", "Go Fish", and "The Panama Canal."
Burning with Anger: Katie Kaboom.
Butt-Monkey: Scratchansniff, Rita, the Brain, Pinky, Runt, Buttons, The Mime, Mr. Skullhead, Chicken Boo, the Goodfeathers, Charlton Woodchuck, Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid, Beanie the Bison, just about any non-main character... in other words, most of them, not surprising given that this is a WB cartoon.
- There's also a good deal of Iron Butt Monkey, since these characters are, for all intents and purposes, immortal (although we learn in "Meatballs or Consequences" that the Warners do have souls).
- The most common formula for the Warner shorts involved them finding and latching onto 'a Special Friend,' which pretty much meant that some Jerkass was in for six minutes of hilarious torment.
Butt Sticker: Twice:
- "The Boids" with the director, Alfred Hitchcock, sitting on the Goodfeathers. Then they're shown stuck to his butt.
- "Pitter Patter of Little Feet" During the night when the Brain tries to escape, he falls on the floor. And when the hippos go to look for him, Flavio slips and the Brain is found on his butt.

Call-Back:
- The Package conversation from "The Sound of Warners" contains one to Potty Emergency:
  Dr. Scratchansniff: As you know, when nature calls, you have to pick up the phone and say "Hello, I got your message. I've got a package for you."
  Wakko: "I've got a package for you"? Excuse me?
  Dr. Scratchansniff: Oh, look who's talking, Mr. Potty Emergency.
- "Yakko's World" ends with Yakko mentioning Sudan; when Yakko sang every word in the English language, he ended with Zaire.
- When Dot can't say her full name in "Cutie and The Beast", Yakko says it, prompting another reference to "Yakko's World".
  Dot: Oh thank you, Mr United States-Canada-Mexico-Panama.
- In "Bingo", Wakko hands Dr. Scratchansniff a soda when he mishears him saying "I-30!" as "I'm thirsty!". The soda in question? Abyss Boy, the catalyst to Wakko's Potty Emergency.
Calling Your Nausea: In "Bumbie's Mom", Slappy and Skippy are on a plane when Skippy announces he's airsick. When he feels the need to vomit, Slappy advances the episode to the next scene with them on a bus, canceling out his nausea.
Calling Me a Logarithm: Pesto routinely misunderstands Squit, resulting in a Big Ball of Violence.
The Cameo:
- Taz showed up twice at the end of "Draculee, Draculaa" and a more major role in "Cutie and The Beast".
- Private Snafu gets his head shaved in "Boot Camping".
- Also: Fifi LaFume from Tiny Toon Adventures appears as a perfume store owner in "Survey Ladies".
- Buster and Babs appear in "Noah's Lark". They're also seen in "The Big Wrap Party" song along with Plucky, Hamton, Dizzy and Gogo during the line "The Entire Crew came from Acme Loo for big wrap party tonight"
- Elmer Fudd makes an appearance in "Turkey Jerky".
- Elmyra cameos once or twice, and has a full guest appearance in "Lookit the Fuzzy Heads".
- Baby Plucky appears in "Guardin' the Garden", "Survey Ladies", "Video Review" and "Les Boutons et le Ballon", repeating the elevator gag from the Tiny Toon episode "Going Up". What's weird about his cameo in "Video Review" is that when he and Daffy fall into the pot of the Duck Soup video cover, Plucky reverts back to his regular age.
- The Dover Boys are the smart-alack chorus in "Frontier Slappy" and "Magic Time.
- Used quite often In-Universe where shorts dedicated to one set of characters would find another set of the cast (typically the Warners) running through) - often ending in BLAMs.
- Bugs, Daffy, Tweety, Porky, Yosemite Sam and Foghorn Leghorn show up in "The Warners 65th Anniversary Special".
- Sylvester, Tweety and the Tiny Toons appeared in "The Big Wrap Party".
- Batman and Robin make a very quick cameo at the end of "A Midsummer Night's Dream" to rescue Yakko, Wakko, and Dot from Queen Titania.
- Freakazoid! once wandered in looking for his set.
- The homeless father toward the end of "The Gift of Gold" was the poor construction worker who first found Michigan J. Frog.
- During Dot's constant journey for some quiet time to read her novel, she tries to do so in Scotland. But then gets disturbed by bagpipes played by the very same bagpiper that challenged Bugs Bunny to a game of golf.
- Shirley the Loon appears in "Critical Condition".
- Bugs, Daffy and both baby and regular Plucky appear in "Video Review".
- Fowlmouth makes a voice-only appearance in "Meet Minerva".
Cannot Tell a Joke: One time, okay see, one time there was a character in Animaniacs who was a small boy who told stories about stuff that had happened to his friend Randy Beaman and the stories were always told in a near-monotone and in one long run-on sentence and at the end he'd recite the punchline in the same way and you wouldn't be sure if he'd reached it or not. Okay, bye.
Captain Ersatz/Expy: The Warners are based heavily on the Marx Brothers, with bits and pieces from other characters: Dot shows roots from Gilda Radner, and Wakko shows influences from Ringo Starr.
- Slappy's jerkass behavior in her old cartoons (which she gleefully indulges any time she meets her old nemeses) gives her an uncanny resemblance to Screwy Squirrel. She also appears to have Barbra Streisand's interpretation of Fanny Brice in her ancestry.
- The Brain bears some pretty clear similarities to Orson Welles, most notably the voice, which actor Maurice LaMarche describes as "65% Orson Welles, 35% Vincent Price".
- In "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock", there are basically elderly versions of Tom and Jerry, Woody Woodpecker, Wally Walrus, Mighty Mouse, Goofy, Minnie Mouse and Donald Duck at the retirement home Slappy is staying at.
- The stork in "Pitter Patter of Little Feet" has the same voice and mannerisms as Concord Condor.
Captain Obvious: The Japanese dub turns "Citizen Kaney" into "This is a sled."
Cardboard Pal: The Warner Brothers (and Dot) create nodding dummies of themselves to allow them to sneak off a boring chat show that they are hosting.
Cardboard Prison: The WB Water Tower for the Warners.
Cartoon Creature: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot.
Cartoony Tail: The Brain has a tail like a real mouse, except it is kinked in a way that it looks like stair steps. Truth in Television to an extent; in labs where many mice are handled on a frequent basis, kinks occasionally occur due to careless handling.
Cassandra Truth: Every Chicken Boo short has a naysayer that sees through Boo's disguise and points out that he's a giant chicken. The naysayer is rarely believed until Chicken Boo ends up blowing his cover, which prompts the naysayer to show up and say "I told you that guy was a chicken!"
Catchphrase: There were several.
- Yakko and Wakko had "Hello, Nurse!" and its variants.
- Yakko had "Goodnight, everybody!"
- Yakko also had "Of course you know, this means Warners.", though his siblings joined in on at least one occasion.
- Dot had variations on "I can't help it if I'm cute," as well as "Wanna see my pet?"
- Wakko had "Faboo!"
- Slappy had "You remind me of..." (See below.)
- Skippy had "Spew!!" as an Unusual Euphemism.
- Mindy had "OK-I-love-you-bye-bye."
- The Brain had the running gags that started with "Are you pondering what I'm pondering?" as well as a Cassandra Truth: "We are two lab mice engaged in the early stages of a plot to conquer the world." Also: "Stop that, or I shall have to hurt you."
- Pinky's catch phrases were largely of the Verbal Tic variety, most notably "Narf!"
- Pesto's usual one was the running gag (and homage to Goodfellas) that started with "What are you saying?" or "What do you mean by that?"
The Cat Came Back: The Warners did this to practically everybody they tormented. This was inverted in "Survey Ladies" and "Chairman of the Bored," in which they are tormented by ubiquitous characters.
Cats Are Superior: Rita and Runt, a cats-rule-dogs-drool Odd Friendship.
Changing Chorus:
- In "The Monkey Song", the only consistent line in the chorus is "I don't know what to say! The monkeys won't do!", and even that gets changed to "We don't know what to say! The Warners won't do!" at the end.
- In "Shnitzelbank", each chorus is a list of items pointed out in the previous verse, followed by "O de schone, o de schone, o de schone schnitzelbank."
Chaotic Car Ride:
- The premise of the song "I'm Mad," which features Dr. Scratchnsniff trying to take the Warners on a day trip in his car. Unfortunately Yakko and Dot are apparently at each other's throats while Wakko has a litany of complaints that combine to make Scratchy lose his mind. All set to a fun song that was probably the bane of parents from the 90s to the early 2000s.
- In "The Carpool", the Warners annoy the man in the back seat so much, he has them trade seats, including him sitting in a bagel and cream cheese, and getting pummelled by the seat in front severely reclining. Wakko gets carsick, but it's ok, he won't throw up in the car... because he already did. Eventually they reach the transit center, and it's revealed the Warners didn't need to get anywhere, and only carpooled to get perks at the studio.
Chess with Death: In "Meatballs or Consequences", an parody of The Seventh Seal, the Animaniacs play checkers (as Dot and Yakko say that chess is unknown to them) for Wakko's life with Death. (The Warners win, but they blatantly cheat, and for some reason, Death fails to notice). They play to stay together, which Death interprets as taking all three, but Death finds them too annoying to keep dead.
The Chew Toy: Squit. Even Bobby usually laughs at Pesto's abuse towards him.
Childish Older Sibling: The middle Warner sibling, Wakko, is much more of a ditzy goofball than his younger sister, Dot.
Christmas Carolers: One of the "Good Idea, Bad Idea":
Good Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors.
Bad Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors...on the Fourth of July. (said carolers are blown up with dynamite)
"The End."
Christmas Episode: There were three.
Circus Episode: "I'm Mad" combines this with Road Trip Plot. Dr. Scratchansniff takes the Warners on a long car trip, only to struggle greatly because the Warners are fighting and arguing like bratty little kids the whole way. When they reach their destination, which turns out to be a circus, the Warners finally stop fighting and brighten up. We then skip to the end of the day, with the Warners and Dr. Scratchansniff returning to the car, and the Warners talk about how much they enjoyed their time at the circus. But then, the moment they start to drive away, the Warners start fighting again.
Cloudcuckoolander: Wakko, on more than one occasion.
- Pinky as well, especially after Brain says "Are You Pondering What I'm Pondering?"
- Runt has his moments, too.
City People Eat Sushi: Alluded to in the episode "Hooray for North Hollywood", where sushi is portrayed as the go-to lunch for all the power brokers of Tinseltown.
Clip-Art Animation: "The Presidents Song" utilized this in an intentional Terry Gilliam-esque manner, "animating" old portraits and photographs of the past presidents.
Cluster F-Bomb: Dot drops an intentionally unintelligible one (complete with bleeps) during the Beauty and the Beast parody, after screwing up her Overly Long Name gag one too many times.
Yakko: That's my cute little sister who said that! (blows a kiss) Goodnight everybody!
Cold Open: Before the theme song, most episodes start with "Newsreel of the Stars" which explains the origins of Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. When it retired, it mainly started with short sketches or a wraparound segment that is a framing device.
Comical Overreacting: The Katie Kaboom and Minerva Mink shorts both relied on comical overreaction.
Comically Missing the Point:
- A common gag. Wakko and Pinky are particularly prone to it.
  Wakko (aboard a plane): Hey, Mister! What's this?
  Passenger: It's a vomit bag.
  Wakko (opening it): Ah, phoo! I got gypped! There's none in here!
- In the "Chicken Boo" segments, the person wise to Chicken Boo's disguise often insists "He's a chicken, I tell you! A giant chicken!" Occasionally, the people who disbelieve this claim are implied to assume that the person meant "chicken" as in "coward".
The Comically Serious: Principally the Brain and the Narrator of "Good Idea, Bad Idea," although any character playing the 'straight man' would generally qualify as well.
Company Cross References:
- One of the lyrics in "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual" mentions several other Warner Brothers cartoon characters: Tweety Bird, Daffy Duck and Babs and Buster Bunny.
- In "Potty Emergency", a poster of Gossamer from Looney Tunes is seen outside the movie theater. In the coloring book adapting the same episode, Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck are seen as posters.
- In the episode "Take My Siblings, Please", Wakko sings the theme to Tiny Toon Adventures, which is also a Warner Brothers cartoon.
- The cast of Tiny Toon Adventures show up in "The Big Wrap Party Tonight".
Compliment Backfire: The Goodfeathers Running Gag is that Pesto always takes Squit's compliments as insults and proceeds to beat him up afterwards.
The Con: In "Garage Sale Of The Century", Papa Bear is obviously scamming his neighbors and others out of their money by overcharging for crappy and broken items, and refusing to give them refunds. They all end up reporting Papa Bear to the police in order to get their money back.
Conforming OOC Moment: During some crowd scenes such as the theme song, the Mime (who never speaks due to his occupation, besides an occasion when he said, "Le ow...") can be seen singing along with the others. His voice can't be heard, though.
Continuity Nod: In the Continuity Snarl entry below, it mentions a cartoon where old vaudeville actors reminisce about the Warners. One of them mentions that 'once they pantsed 'Jimmy Cagney' something had to be done. James Cagney expy aside, later on in the 65th Anniversary episode, Foghorn Leghorn notes that the Warners seemed to favor bothering Jimmy, and it turns out they did in fact pants him.
Continuity Porn: "Big Wrap Party Tonight".
Continuity Snarl: The original explanation that the kids have been locked in a water tower for 63 years is contradicted in a later episode showing various older Hollywood stars reminiscing about spending nights on the town with them - and these photos are in black and white, meaning those nighttime adventures almost surely took place before 1993. Did the Warners actually escape many times, but the studio succeed in covering up their existence until the '90s? If so, how was that accomplished? Did they massively bribe all the people in those nightclubs?
- The 65th Anniversary Special gives it a retcon—the tower had to be cleaned/repaired every few years or so, letting the Warners out for a single day for the work (they just didn't stay in the studio—Plotz says he has no clue where they went and we're later shown them at a disco club, the Berlin Wall, and so on).
Conveyor Belt o' Doom: The accidental version happens to Mindy and Buttons in "Up the Crazy River", where Mindy, oblivious as usual, sidesteps out of the way at the last possible second. As always, Buttons comes off the worst for it.
Cool and Unusual Punishment: In one episode, Satan threatens to torture the captive Warner siblings by forcing them to listen to "whiny protest songs from The Sixties." They scream in terror.
Cool Old Lady: Slappy Squirrel.
Couch Gag:
- The second to last line of the opening song is interchangeable with several other lines, all of which rhyme with "Animani—". ^note For re-runs on Nickelodeon, the line was changed to "Nickel-ayni!" for every episode, while The Hub just used the generic "Here's the show's namey" for most episodes.
- The closing credits would also have various credits gags that changed from episode to episode, plus the occasional closing joke after the credits finish. Episode 65 deserves special mention for the sheer number of credits gags.
Corpsing: In Episode 41's "Good Idea/Bad Idea" segment, Tom Bodett noticeably laughs when reading the line "Bad idea: Whistling while you eat."
Courtroom Episode: "La La Law".
Cowboy Episode: "The Good, the Boo and the Ugly"
Credits Gag: During the first two seasons, Kathryn Page would be listed under an obviously-fake role of some kind. In the final three seasons, this was replaced with a more general credits joke that would just have a quick one-liner.
Crossover: Within itself, and with Tiny Toon Adventures, Freakazoid! and Pinky and the Brain when they ran concurrently. One episode in particular was dedicated to this: every segment featured characters from different shorts going through the typical plots of their own cartoons. Mindy was paired with Brain, who attempted to create a revolting stink bomb while babysitting her; Rita and Pinky shared a (very brief) short wherein the cat, quite logically, ate the mouse; Pesto and Runt tried to find themselves a decent home, only to be doomed by the pigeon's short temper; Katie Ka-Boom brought her new boyfriend "C.B."—that is, Chicken Boo—over for a date, and became furious when her family pointed out that he was a chicken; Dot briefly took over Slappy's tree and blew up the audience with a bomb for calling her Dottie; and Slappy herself (along with Flavio the Hip Hippo in a cameo as Skippy) joined the Warners in their own cartoon, where she lost all patience for their zany antics and wordplay and ended up using her traditional arsenal of bombs.
Cultural Translation: The German dub changes from Hello Nurse playing Chopin without rehearsing, to playing Brahms, to fit the rhythm of the song about her better.
Curse Cut Short:
- In the song "I'm Cute":
  Yakko and Wakko: She's becoming a pain in the-
  Dot: -but I'm also real nice...
- Also the Dot song in Cutie and the Beast:
  Man: This song makes me want to curse! (hits his finger with a hammer) F-
  Yakko: (grabs man's mouth) Please move on to the next verse!
Cut the Juice: Dot tries this in "Our Final Space Cartoon, We Promise", but it doesn't work.
Cuteness Proximity: Dot has used this to her advantage on more than one occasion.

Damned by a Fool's Praise: Slappy tells Skippy that all that junk food has rotted his brain, and adds "No wonder you like that Bonkers show."
A Day in the Limelight: "The Warner 65th Anniversary Special" features the comeback of one of the original Looney Tunes stars, "Buddy"—as a villain, no less! And voiced by Jim Cummings!
Deadpan Snarker: All the Warner siblings, The Brain, Slappy Squirrel, Rita, Bobby...
Department of Redundancy Department: In the sketch "Mobster Mash", the Warners pretend to be waiters and harass the Godfather Don Pepperoni. Part of this is saying the things on the menu two different ways. "What'll it be? Calamari or the squid? Pasta or the noodles? Red sauce or marinara? Zucchini or squash? Ham or prosciutto? Drink or beverage?"
Depending on the Artist: The show had a passel of different animation studios working on it, often leading to examples of this trope. One of the most blatant examples was the short "Be Careful What You Eat". It was animated by StarToons but the first minute looks nothing like the studio's usual style (in fact, it looks more like something AKOM would put out). According to Jon McClenahan, this minute was animated by somebody on the west coast that the studio didn't usually employ and to this day, he refuses to say who it is out of respect.
Deranged Animation: When Katie Ka-Boom becomes a monster, it gets pretty freaky.
Detective Drama: "This Pun for Hire" and "Hercule Yakko".
Diegetic Soundtrack Usage: In "Take My Sibling, Please", Wakko sings the Tiny Toon Adventures theme before getting tired of it, and instead sings his show's theme on the way over the troll bridge.
Disgusting Public Toilet: The cartoon "Potty Emergency" has Wakko desperate for a place to relieve himself. He tries a gas station, where the owner says he hasn't cleaned the restroom in a year (and gives an Evil Laugh). Despite his desperation, Wakko still finds that too gross to use.
Disproportionate Retribution: In "I Got Yer Can", Slappy drives Candie the chipmunk insane via psychological warfare because Candie wouldn't let Slappy put her soda can in Candie's trash can.
- In a Christmas edition of the "Good Idea, Bad Idea" segments:
  Good Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors. [shot of carolers singing in front of a house in the snow]
  Bad Idea: Singing Christmas carols to your neighbors... on the Fourth of July. [residents of said house use dynamite to blow up the carolers]
- Another holiday-themed "Good Idea, Bad Idea":
  Good Idea: Going trick-or-treating on Halloween. [Mr. Skullhead and kids receive candy from a neighbor]
  Bad Idea: Going trick-or-treating on St. Patrick's Day. [A man dressed in stereotypical leprechaun attire emerges and punches Mr. Skullhead across the yard]
Distracted by the Sexy: Happens to Newt in when he try to catch Minerva Mink and is victim of her beauty. To his credit which would make him a Determinator as well?.
The Ditz: Runt and the Studio Guard Ralph are the recurring examples. They even had the same voice.
DIY Dentistry: In a "Good Idea Bad Idea" segment, Mr. Skullhead demonstrates why serving as your own dentist is a bad idea, especially if it involves drilling.
Dogs Are Dumb: Runt. He even thinks Rita is a dog herself. Occasionally subverted in that Runt will sometimes see the danger before Rita, such as when Cleopatra was going to drop her into a bonfire as a ritual sacrifice.
Dogs Hate Squirrels: In the episode, "Slappy Goes Walnuts", one of Slappy Squirrel's archenemies is Doug the Dog, a bulldog who guards a walnut tree, which Slappy wants to collect walnuts from for her walnut fig-dough.
Dogs Love Fire Hydrants: In "Potty Emergency", Wakko sees a dog trying to use a fire hydrant.
Don't Look Down:
- Invoked in "The Big Candy Store" when Flaxseed climbs an impossibly high shelf.
- Also in Wakko's Wish.
  Yakko: Whoa! Just don't look down!
  Wakko: Do you get vertigo?
  Yakko: No.
  Wakko: Me neither.
  Yakko: Yeah, I've seen that movie three times, and I still don't get it.
Downer Ending: "The Ballad of Magellan", which is to be expected, considering the real Magellan did not survive the journey.
Drill Sergeant Nasty: One appears in "Boot Camping".
Drive-In Theater: The setting for "Drive Insane".
Driving Up a Wall: In the Animaniacs stew segment "Mindy and The Brain", Brain finds himself chased by a lawnmower and attempts to escape it by climbing up a tree. The lawnmower ends up following him up to his surprise.
Brain: This is most unexpected.
Due to the Dead: Played for Laughs and Hypocritical Humor in a Slappy Squirrel skit where Walter Wolf fakes his death. Skippy's watching Slappy's old cartoons and laughing at Walter's Amusing Injuries, but when he hears the news he does an about-face and verbally attacks Slappy for tormenting him in those toons.

E-F

Early-Bird Cameo:
- Most of the regular characters have cameos in the first episode, even though all the cartoons in that episode star the Warner siblings and the others wouldn't get their first full-length cartoons until at least an episode or two later.
- A young Walter Wolf appears as Slappy's co-star in the old cartoon she watches at the beginning of her debut, "Slappy Goes Walnuts," and she also mentions Sid the Squid and Beanie the Bison. They wouldn't appear in the "present" until "Hooray For Slappy" in Episode 16.
Ears as Hair: Dot.
Easy Evangelism: Spoofed in "A Very, Very, Very, Very Special Show."
Edible Ammunition: Shows up now and then.
Educational Song: Lots, including songs for all the U.S. presidents up to Bill Clinton (who was president at the time), the 50 states and their capitals, and of course, the famous Nations of the World song. See also the Edutainment Show entry below.
Edutainment Show: Despite Yakko's claim that the Wheel of Morality was the only thing that "adds boring educational content to what would otherwise be an entertaining program!" Animaniacs regularly took a moment to teach its audience. They have been used as teaching material, and there is even testimony of them aiding history students as far as college-level.
- How many normal kids' cartoons would bother to do a surprisingly accurate and funny translation from Late 16th Century English to Modern English of the Yorick speech from Hamlet when they could easily make a nonsensical version?
- They had songs relating from everything to the solar system to every President of the United States at the time of production (ending with Hillary - uh, Bill Clinton ^note This is one of a very small number of times where Steven Spielberg personally intervened to change a cartoon. The lyrics originally had "Clinton, first name Hillary" for the Clinton entry; Spielberg, a friend of the Clintons, forced them to change it to "the Clintons, Bill and Hillary" because he didn't like jokes implying that Hillary was really running things, a common trope at the time ).
- Parodied outrageously in "A Very, Very, Very, Very Special Show", where virtually every line is Yakko, Wakko, or Dot giving a soapbox on various issues (the dangers of second-hand smoke, walking instead of driving, not littering, not treating women as sex objects, not being violent, practicing a healthy diet and exercise). They were shamelessly shilling to win the lucrative "Humanitarian Animation" award but lost anyway, at which point they immediately did all the things they rallied against.
- United States, Canada, Mexico, Panama, Haiti, Jamaica, Peru.... It's a shame that "Yakko's World" missed a few.
  - It's worth noting that the map in "Yakko's World" had the Soviet Union on it, simply referred to by Yakko as "Russia," even though the Soviet Union had officially disbanded in 1991.
Eldritch Abomination: Dot's "pet".
Elvis Lives: A favorite Running Gag. He turns up in "Space Probed," hanging out with Bigfoot and Amelia Earhart; is standing in a long cafeteria line in "Windsor Hassle"; and is pulled out of Wakko's gag bag while Wakko is rummaging through it in "Potty Emergency."
- One of the stingers saw the Warner Trio saying goodnight to one another, offscreen. It ended with:
Yakko: Good night, Elvis.
Elvis: Thank you very much, but I don't want anyone to know I'm here.
- And from The Wheel of Morality: "Elvis lives on in our hearts, in his music, and in a trailer park outside Milwaukee."
- In "Wakko's America", Wakko tells us that Elvis hung out a lot in Nashville.
Emergency Taxi: One of the ways Dali Llama tries to escape the Warner siblings is hailing a cab (keeping in mind he lives in the mountains of India). However, the Warners were also in the cab with Dot driving.
Enlightenment Superpowers: Wally Llama, a Dalai Lama Expy, attempts to get away from the Warners by meditating, transporting himself up among the clouds with the mantra "Llama, llama, llama..." Unfortunately for him, the Warners reached Enlightenment too.
Episode Title Card
Equippable Ally: One scene features Dot using Wakko as a gatling gun to shoot malted milk balls at a candy store owner.
Everyone Hates Fruitcakes: Fruitcakes being given to Mr. Plotz is a running gag in the episode "A Christmas Plotz," which he rejects because he hates fruitcake (and has an whole office full of fruitcakes that were given to him). It gets to the point where he thinks that Dot, who is disguised as a gift box when she enters as the Ghost of Christmas Present, is probably another fruitcake, which she is insulted by ("fruitcake" being a term for an insane person). At the end of the story, after he has reformed, instead of sending a turkey to Ralph's house, Plotz tells the Warners to buy the biggest fruitcake they can find and send it to Ralph's house. They bring a gigantic fruitcake the size of Ralph's trailer house using a helicopter and drop it, where it lands on top of Plotz. Listening to Plotz's screams underneath the fruitcake, Wakko replies that "We'll have you out of there by Easter." The trope is possibly subverted given that the Warners don't seem to mind the task of eating the giant fruitcake (although Wakko is an Extreme Omnivore so saying he doesn't mind fruitcake isn't saying much).
Exact Words: A favorite gag of the Warners is interpreting things to the word of a statement rather than the spirit.
- Plotz accidentally hires the Warners as his temporary secretaries and tells Dot to file a stack of documents. Once left to their own devices, Dot pulls out a giant nail file and begins to file down the stack of paper.
- When Wakko is visiting a dollar store, he asks the cashier what every little thing is worth. The cashier eventually blows up and yells that everything in the store is a dollar. Wakko thanks him and proceeds to load everything in the store into a shopping cart while leaving a dollar at the cash register.
Expository Theme Tune:
- Both the main Animaniacs theme and the introductory tunes for the "Rita and Runt" and "Pinky and the Brain" shorts qualify.
- "Baloney & Kids" parodies the Real Life Barney & Friends theme.
  Baloney is our friendly friend
  That we made up ourselves
  He likes to play and sing all day
  That we made our ourselves
The Faceless: The Nazis are this in Puttin On the Blitz. We see their bodies and hear them speak however.
Fairest of Them All: Snow White was no better than her Wicked Stepmother. She had the dwarfs abduct Dot for being the cutest of the all. In the end, after Snow is defeated, Dot had the Magic Mirror covered so it'd be no longer able to have anyone Driven by Envy.
The Fake Cutie: Dot takes pride in being "the cute one", but she's hardly the innocent type.
Fan Disservice: The very first thing shown in the "Macadamia Nut" video is Ralph the Guard dancing suggestively with his fat gut hanging out of his shirt.
Fanservice: Provided mainly by Hello Nurse and, in her few appearances, Minerva Mink.
Fanservice Extra: Some women that are not the two above-mentioned. Special mention to Yakko's Chorus Girls that he summon in two episodes.
"I love cartoons!"
Fantastic Racism: Pretty much the whole point of Chicken Boo cartoons is everyone turning against the title character when it turns out that he is indeed a chicken.
Female Feline, Male Mutt: Rita and Runt.
Fighting Back Is Wrong: In one Slappy Squirrel episode, Skippy is constantly being picked on by a school bully. Slappy suggests fighting back, but Skippy refuses because of his counselor telling that is the wrong thing to do and instead tries everything his counselor suggests to him. When nothing the counselor suggests works, Skippy gives up and gets Aunt Slappy to help him get back at the bully, and the end result not only stops the bullying, but the bully also becomes Skippy's friend. When the chairman of the FTA and Skippy's counselor arrive to lecture Slappy, she deals with them too.
Fire and Brimstone Hell: "Hot, Bothered, and Bedeviled".
Fluffy the Terrible: Most of Dot's "Pets" when she does the "Wanna See My Pet?"
Follow the Bouncing Ball: The two sing-along VHS tapes (Animaniacs Sing-Along: Yakko's World and Animaniacs Sing-Along: Mostly in Toon) were yet another example of sing-along collections with the lyrics written on screen. Some songs used the trope's name, while others would highlight the words as they were sung, and some even used a mixture of both methods. In some pretty unusual cases, "Yakko's World" and "All the Words in the English Language" had the words crawl upwards one at a time (due to both being List Songs), and "Wakko's America" and "The Presidents" used neither "bouncing ball" method, instead opting to highlight the state and capital or the president names, respectively.
Food Songs Are Funny: "Be Careful What You Eat"
Four-Fingered Hands: The entire cast.
- Though hands have been seen to turn five-fingered on a close-up, or sometimes a character will grow a pinky while counting.
- There's also a really weird instance where a judge points as the Warners and asks, "What is the meaning of this?" Yakko replies, "That's a finger. You have five of them on each hand." In that instant, the judge has five fingers, but is seen to revert to being four fingered afterward.
- Averted with King Salazar, who is always shown with five-fingered hands.
Freeze-Frame Bonus: In "Garage Sale of the Century", a large crowd of people charge Papa Bear's lawn to get their refunds. Among (and on top of) them are Babs and Buster Bunny, Dizzy Devil, and Batman.
Funny Background Event: In other character sketches you can see Yakko, Wakko and Dot being chased by Ralph as a brief (*ahem*) Running Gag.
- Also, in the background of the song "The Ballad of Magellan" when they reach Argentina, there's a sign that says: "Coming soon: Evita".
- In the Quake Song when Buttons is saving Mindy from a collapsing wall; Wakko and Dot can be seen behind it with crowbars and hammers.
Fun with Foreign Languages: One episode was French-themed, including a rendition of the opening theme in French and a subtitled "Buttons and Mindy" segment. While the "Rita and Runt" segment was in English, it was their parody of Les Misérables, which of course took place in The French Revolution.
Fun with Subtitles: The short "Space Probed" has the Warners kidnapped by an alien, who talks in an alien language with subtitles, which the Warners are fully aware of and can even manipulate (such as turning "THESE ARE TYPICAL EARTH CREATURES" into "ARE THESE TYPICAL EARTH CREATURES?").

Gag Nose: In the episode "Back In Style", the Warners are on a parody of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids called "Obese Orson" that has a literal example of this trope. One of the characters is "Hooknosed Harold" who has a running gag of his nose hanging so low that it keeps getting in his mouth.
Gainaxing:
- Hello Nurse is sometimes animated this way.
- So was the Queen in "Windsor Hassle".
Game Show Appearance:
- Downplayed in "Wakko's America". Their teacher organizes a Jeopardy!-style quiz in-class, where he sings the 50 U.S. states and their capitals. He loses because he doesn't sing it in the form of a question.
- In another episode, the Warners ended up on a quiz show, and were constantly guessing "Isaac Newton" for the answers...except for the questions actually about Isaac Newton.
- They once hosted a game show that parodied You Bet Your Life in one short skit.
- The Jeopardy!-style show Gyp-Parody! also figured in the Brain's very first attempt in-series to take over the world.
Gasshole: Wakko, especially in the Great Wakkoroti shorts, where he basically plays the role of a concert vocalist using nothing but belches.
- A single installment had Wakko nearly lose his voice and "perform" by squeezing together his hands to make fart noises. Except for the last note.
Genre Throwback: To the slapstick and goofball comic stylings of Looney Tunes/Merrie Melodies, minus the fourth wall.
- Which is really saying something, considering how often those classic shorts broke the fourth wall themselves.

"Getting Ready for Bed" Plot: The skit "Nighty-Night Toons" has a rhyming narrator, parodying Goodnight Moon, and is about the whole cast getting ready to go to bed.
Gigantic Gulp: Wakko drinks from a huge cup of soda labelled Abyss Boy at the movie theater, then promptly has a Potty Emergency. The same drink also appears again in "Bingo" when Wakko mishears Dr. Scratchansniff say "I-30" as "I'm thirsty!".
Gleeful and Grumpy Pairing:
- The Warners are annoyingly cheerful, while Dr. Scratchensniff is a Nervous Wreck who has to put up with them, much to his frustration.
- Pinky is cheerful and carefree, Brain is grumpy and irritable. They are still this in their own show, Pinky and the Brain.
- Slappy Squirrel is a sarcastic and resourceful old lady while her nephew, Skippy, is a nice and happy young boy (even if he does adopt some of his aunt's mannerisms as the series progresses).
- Runt is a happy-go-lucky Kindhearted Simpleton, Rita is aloof and sarcastic.
- Out of the Goodfeathers, we have the cheerful and naive Squit and the cranky, short-tempered Pesto. The latter always beats up the former.
Go Mad from the Revelation: Wally Llama snaps when he realises that he doesn't know why hot dogs and hot dog buns are sold in different quantities. Of course, he'd just spent seven minutes in the company of the Warners with their deliberately annoying meter running at 100%, which could not have helped.
Gory Discretion Shot: Used in "Valuable Lesson" when Attila the Hun attacks the two censors that have spent the entire short nagging the Warners about the violence in their cartoons. The carnage happens entirely off-screen, but Yakko's remark that the censors came in handy after all indicates that the censors didn't survive.
Grand Finale: Wakko's Wish.
Gratuitous Foreign Language: A spoof of the "Macarena" (Macadamia Nuts) contained the phrases "Donde Kielbasa Nintendo," "qui a coupe le fromage," and "Lava tus manos por favor."
Groupie Brigade: Lampshaded in an episode, where the Warner Brothers and the Warner Sister Dot are in the middle of a parody of A Hard Day's Night, and sing "We are running from our fans".

Hair-Trigger Sound Effect: One episode has the Warner siblings facing a terrifying troll, whose very mention is always accompanied by an organ sting.
Hair-Trigger Temper: Pesto, for obvious reasons. Katie Kaboom, too.
Half-Dressed Cartoon Animal: Most of the furry characters.
Hammerspace: Wakko uses his most often.
Hammerspace Hideaway: Dot had a special box in which she keeps a gigantic monster. The Warner brothers themselves can pop out of incredibly small places as well.
Hammerspace Police Force: In the Slappy Squirrel short "Little Old Slappy from Pasadena", Slappy Squirrel races through town in her car at great speed and causes indirect harm to passersby. At the end of the short, she returns home only to be surrounded by police ready to turn her in for exceeding the speed limit and being a public nuisance.
Handbag of Hurt:
- From the intro: "Goodfeathers flock together, Slappy whacks 'em with her purse."
Harmless Liquefaction: In one of the "Animator's Alley" segments in episode 42, all three of the Warners melt from the sheer boredom of Cappy Capbarnhouse's long-winded tangents.
Heart Beats out of Chest: Yakko and Wakko got through this when they see Hello Nurse for the first time. In "Moon Over Minerva," the titular Mink goes through an interesting variant; Each beat causes her head to expand, until it detaches from her body, nearly floating away before she pulls it back down.
Head-Turning Beauty: Hello Nurse, the source of the former Trope Namer (it is her actual name), and Minerva Mink cause this reaction to men. However Yakko and Wakko generally have this reaction to every beautiful woman. Minerva Mink is also a prime example of the variant in which the one guy who has the same effect on her that she has on men is completely uninterested.
Here We Go Again!:
- "Bumbie's Mom" ends with a sendup of Old Yeller.
  Slappy: (Aside Glance) Fade out already, we got the joke!
- The ending of "Sound of Warners".
- At the end of "Roll Over, Beethoven", with said composer having forcibly ejected the chimney sweeping Warner siblings from his house (though they have just given him the melody for his famous Symphony No.5), they look at their list of clients to see whose chimney they're due to clean next - Vincent van Gogh. Wakko picks a nearby sunflower in the hope that it might cheer the guy up a bit.
- The end of the repeated "Yakko sings all the words in the English Language" scenes is Dot announcing that next week, Yakko will sing all of the numbers, starting with one. Yakko, who only barely got through the English dictionary, promptly faints upon hearing this.
Heroic BSoD: Wally Llama in his self-titled short, after insisting he knows the answer to EVERY question, goes nuts when he doesn't know the Warners' question of why hot dogs come in packages of eight and their buns come in ten.
Herr Doktor: Dr. Scratchansniff is a psychiatrist and he speaks in a vaguely Austrian accent.
Hiccup Hijinks: The main plot of two shorts, one revolving around Squit, the other around Wakko.
Hide and No Seek: Yakko and Dot hide on Wakko's birthday. He meant to seek them out, but got distracted by the Jerry Lewis-like clown who came to visit the water tower.
Hidden Backup Prince: Yakko.
Hilariously Abusive Childhood: Mindy is smack-dab in the middle of growing up under some extremely neglectful conditions, though being a toddler, she's blissfully unaware of it so far. Buttons is the one who takes most of the physical and verbal abuse, though.
His Name Really Is "Barkeep": The constant exclamation of "Hello Nurse!" whenever she appears onscreen became so ingrained in her character that by the end of the series, her first name is literally "Hello" and her last name is literally "Nurse."
Historical In-Joke: The Warners often interact with figures like Ludwig van Beethoven and Albert Einstein and become the inspiration for some of their famous works. (E=MC^2 is ACME backwards with Wakko's skewed penmanship of the letter A.)
Hollywood California: The water tower and the surrounding area are a nod to Burbank.
Honesty Aesop: In "We're Not Pigeons", the Goodfeathers are hunted down by a young Owl who is trying to hunt pigeons. To avoid being hunted, Pesto and Bobby tell the Owl they're macaroni birds and that pigeons look different from them. Squit warns Bobby and Pesto that lying to the Owl will get them in trouble, but Bobby and Pesto don't listen to him. After the Owl catches Pepé Le Pew, a Sewer Gator, and an elephant, the Goodfeathers confess that they're pigeons, but learn from the Owl that the Owls have made a deal with the Godpigeon not to hunt the Goodfeathers. Unfortunately for them, the Owl captures them anyway, believing that since they lied to him about being macaroni birds, they're probably lying to him about being the Goodfeathers.
House Amnesia: Happens to Einstein during a heated argument with the Warners in "Cookies for Einstein".
Humanlike Hand Anatomy: Any animal character in Animaniacs and Pinky and the Brain except Runt and Buttons (two "non-anthro" dogs), Pharfignewton (a "non-anthro" horse) and Minerva Mink (a mink [obviously] with somewhat human-like feet). The Goodfeathers, Godpigeon, Girlfeathers, and Chicken Boo have Feather Fingers instead.
Humiliation Conga: Downplayed:
(to Ralph) We're so sad we have no time together
Just to drop an anvil on your head
And stuff your pockets full of dynamite...
Then tie you to a rhino's head!
- This was the Warners' general shtick, probably best seen in The Monkey Song.
Hurricane of Puns: Mostly, in the Warners and the Slappy segments, but taken Up to Eleven in "This Pun for Hire".
Hyperspace Arsenal: By all of the Warners quite often, but it's pointed out specifically in "I Am the Very Model of a Cartoon Individual":
Yakko: From this bag here, why, I can pull most anything imaginable,
like office desks and lava lights and Bert who is a cannibal.
Hypocritical Humor:
- Yakko and Wakko's "Hello, Nurse!" is often followed with a disparaging "Boys - go fig." from Dot. And then comes a muscular man...
- Also:
  Yakko: (aside) The stuff they're getting away with on kids' shows these days...
- In the Please Please Please Get A Life Foundation skit, they talk about people obsessing over miniscule background details that have been inserted into cartoon shows (specifically their own), talking about how they need to get a life... details that they themselves put into the show in the first place. They even lampshade their inclusion of such trivial details within the short, encouraging people to "call us before you rewind to see what was in the room in the opening shot!"

I Am Not Shazam:
- The three main characters are actually called "the Warner Brothers (and the Warner Sister"), not "Animaniacs." A first-time viewer might be a little confused because the opening theme song has them repeatedly shouting "We're Animaniacs!" However, this is really just a descriptive term (kind of like a bunch of people shouting "We're human beings!") and applies to all the show's characters, not just the Warners.
- There's an arguable in-universe one in "The Panama Canal" (sung to the tune of "The Erie Canal.") Yakko is a ship captain crossing from the Atlantic to the Pacific, and he mentions that his ship is named "Hal" (to rhyme with "Canal," of course). After the ship makes it safely through the canal, the sailors shout "Thank you, Hal!" - and Yakko takes the credit, implying that "Hal" is his name. So either Yakko believes that he and his ship are somehow psychically connected, or he is playing a character named Hal in-universe and named the ship after himself.
"I Want" Song: Every time Rita sings a song, it's about how much she wants a home or thinks she's found one.
Improvised Parachute: In "Operation: Lollipop", Buttons uses a mailbag as a parachute.
In Case You Forgot Who Wrote It: The show is sometimes called "Steven Spielberg Presents Animaniacs".
Incessant Chorus: The national anthem of Anvilania, which is such a boring dirge that it is used as a weapon later on.
Inflating Body Gag: One episode began with Wakko drinking a huge root beer float, expanding, and floating back onto his seat afterwards... then he got hiccups. He also inflated with air in the first episode.
Informed Ability: Played with (for laughs) by Chicken Boo, who has a different one every time he appears. He's a karate champ! He's a master strategist! He's a great ballet dancer! He's the sexiest man in Hollywood! (He did turn out to be a two-fisted dealer of frontier justice, though.)
Ink Blot Test: The series pokes fun at this often enough given that Dr. Scratchansniff fits into the role of the stereotypical psychologist. The first episode "De-Zanitized" has him giving Dot the test. When Dr. Scratchansniff gives the test to Yakko, every picture looks like "girls". (Except the last one, a completely black page that reminds him of "The next cartoon!")
Scratchansniff: YOU ARE OBSESSED WITH GIRLS!

Yakko: Hey, you're the one showing me all the sexy pictures.
Ink-Suit Actor: Pip Pumphandle, based directly off his voice actor Ben Stein.
Insignificant Little Blue Planet: Yakko's Universe, which seems to be a Homage to the Universe Song from Monty Python's The Meaning of Life.
Insistent Terminology: Whenever someone addresses the Warner brothers, Dot (or someone) will pipe in, "And the Warner sister."
- Also, "Call me 'Dottie', and you die."
Interspecies Romance:
- The Warner Brothers and Sister, from an ambiguous species, keep getting lustful for other species, especially humans.
- In the Minerva Mink segments, animals from many different species and anthropomorphic levels get the hots for her, and in the comics even humans, while Minerva gets the hots for hunky males no matter the species.
- Rita's song lyrics and body language seem to indicate that she has romantic feelings for Runt. Runt, naturally, is completely oblivious.
- In the short West Side Pigeons, Squit (pidgeon) falls in love with Carloota (sparrow).
- In the short Wings Take Heart, there's a romance between a male moth and a female butterfly.
- In the short Katie Ka-Boo, Katie (human girl) gets a new boyfriend, but it's Chicken Boo disguised.
Is This Thing Still On?: An episode from 1996 ends with the Warners badmouthing the people in the end credits, not realizing until the very end that we've just heard them saying all that.
- Especially amusing in that some of the people they badmouth are their own voice actors.
It's What I Do: Stinkbomb D. Bassett (one of Slappy's enemies) explains why dogs chase squirrels:
Stinkbomb: It's our sworn duty to chase 'em, catch 'em and shake 'em like rag dolls!
Grandson: Why?
Stinkbomb: I dunno. It's what we do.

J-L

Jaw Drop: The show uses this a lot.
- In the episode "Meet Minerva", this is a squirrel's reaction to seeing the title character clad in nothing but a towel.
- At one point in the Pinky and the Brain short "The Brain's Apprentice," not only does Pinky's jaw drop, but also his nose and his eyes.
"Jeopardy!" Intelligence Test: The first Pinky and the Brain short had Brain go on the quiz show "Gyp-Parody!" in order to raise enough money for a device to Take Over the World. He gets every single question right, but bombs the final question and loses everything. Of course, the answer to the final question was Ralph Kramden, which Brain would have known if he had listened to Pinky earlier in the episode.
Jerk with a Heart of Gold:
- Slappy hates to admit this, but she does care for her nephew Skippy.
- Mr. Plotz appears to hate the Warners, but he does harbor some respect for them. He'll even enlist their help on occasion when the pressures of running a major studio become too much for him.
- Much of the humor from the "Pinky and the Brain" shorts derives from Brain's constant verbal and even physical abuse of Pinky, but he also takes a paternal stance toward his lesser partner. (And Pinky admires Brain in return, once referring to him as "very honest and hard-working.")
- Rita sometimes falls into this trope, particularly in "When Rita Met Runt" and "Smitten With Kittens."
Jesus Was Way Cool: One short in a Christmas Episode features a medley of Christmas carols, with the Warners playing the shepherds in the nativity story. In something of a meta-example, it's one of only two shorts that they don't treat as an excuse for irreverent havoc.
Jury and Witness Tampering: A Slappy the Squirrel short has Slappy accused of cartoon violence against Walter Wolf. Slappy's defense consists of describing how she basically blasted Walter to smithereens, leading the jury to find her...not guilty, at which point it's revealed that Slappy rigged explosives under the jury's seats.
Just Desserts: Befalls a Jerkass magician duo in "Magic Time".
Kangaroo Court: In one episode, Slappy is put on trial for "assault with intent to squash" on her nemesis Walter Wolf. Given that the judge and jury are all wolves, Skippy is understandably afraid that Slappy is gonna get railroaded. Slappy tells Skippy not to worry, as she's got "a dynamite case". That is to say, she's wired the jury box with explosives, and gets off without a hitch.
Karmic Protection: The Warners were only truly malevolent to the bad guys, which justifies a lot of the mayhem they cause. Even people who were annoyed by them but otherwise good characters would ultimately get the Warners' help in the end. One episode even lampshaded it and discussed it, when a kid watching at home wondered why the Warners weren't doing more to the antagonist.
- One episode had them frustrated because a character they wanted to get rid of (a Sound of Music style Julie Andrews Expy) did nothing to invite retribution. In the end, they sicced Slappy Squirrel on her. Problem solved.
- Still, a lot of what the Warners do could be needlessly cruel to the point of making them unsympathetic, such as stripping Otto in the "Schnitzelbank" song or leaving the woodchuck in the toilet in "Kid in the Lid"... until you remember that everyone's an actor; hardly any of what takes place is "real".
- One cartoon was cut because they were too malicious.
Karmic Trickster: From a proud Warner Brothers tradition. Both the Warners and Slappy Squirrel enjoy taking the air out of Jerkasses
Kevlard: The Hip Hippos are very fat and also very durable, which comes in handy given their less than stellar common sense.
Knows a Guy Who Knows a Guy: Yakko explains in song why he is now the king of Anvilania:
Yakko: I'm the cousin to the sister / Of son's niece's brother / Of the uncle's daughter's father / Of the nephew's sister's mother / And my grandpa's only cousin / Was the King's daughter's sibling, / But they're all gone,
Crowd: So that is why
Yakko: I am now your king!
Know Your Vines: In "Sound of the Warners" After using the bathroom in a bush, Dr. Scratchansniff gets an awful itch, because he was in a poison oak bush.
Lampshaded Double Entendre: "Goodnight everybody!"
Lampshaded the Obscure Reference: In a short where the Warner Bros (and the Warner sister) met Rasputin. They did a pun between "Anastasia" and "anesthesia", and Dot said "Obscure Joke. Ask your parents".
Last-Second Word Swap: During the song, "A Quake, A Quake" Yakko makes this clever pun.
Yakko: Whose fault? Whose fault? The San Andreas Fault! 'Cause Mr. Richter can't predict 'er kicking our asphalt!
Late to the Punchline: Most people who saw the show as kids. Seriously, watch it as an adult and embrace the revelations.
Leitmotif: Just about every character had one. Nicely shown off in the last short: The Animaniacs Suite.
- Certain actions warranted their own theme music too. For example, a character eating was usually accompanied by "Shortnin' Bread" and a character cleaning something would be accompanied by "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush". This is an obvious callback to Carl Stalling's work.
- Hello Nurse's leitmotif (a sultry drumbeat) is an interesting case, where hers was started by Wakko in the first short ("Dezanitizsed") just to screw with the audience in true Warner fashion, but has since stuck with the character ever since.
Limited Animation: Parodied in "Back in Style". Rumor has it that, in a rare subversion, the animation kept being sent back to AKOM because it came out looking too good.
- Thanks to uneven animation, Varga Studio's "When You're Traveling" and most of Freelance Animators New Zealand's shorts tend to fall into this quite often.
"Lion King" Lift: There's a spoof of the The Lion King (1994) where Yakko is the one to lift Simba, only to drop him off Pride Rock.
List Song: "Yakko's World", among others.
Little Guy, Big Buddy: Rita and Runt; also arguably Pinky and the Brain and Buttons and Mindy.
Local Reference: When Rita and Runt go to Poland in "Puttin on the Blitz", Rita sings that it doesn't look like Burbank, more like Van Nuys. (Both are cities in the Los Angeles Area. You can guess which one has higher property values).
Location Song: "Yakko's World" is a List Song listing every country in the world.
Loophole Abuse: The candy store episode has Flaxseed save himself from the nuns about to attack him by pointing out they aren't allowed to resort to violence. They actually agree with him and pray for assistance, which brings the Notre Dame football team to the store so they can do it instead. Nothing stops the nuns from allowing sympathetic souls to take action they want to but their vows prevent them from doing.
Losing Your Head: Happens to Minerva Mink in "Moon over Minerva" (see Heart Beats out of Chest above).
Lustful Melt: Happens to Minerva in both her cartoons, and to Dot and some aliens in "Space Probed".

Mad Hatter: All three main characters, in the tradition of Looney Tunes and similar cartoons. "We're not monkeys, we're just cuckoo! Don't know what to say the Warners won't do!"
Madwoman in the Attic: Yakko, Wakko and Dot were locked in a water tower for decades for being too zany.
The Mafia: The Goodfeathers are an Affectionate Parody of Goodfellas and mob films in general. And, naturally, are The Family for the Whole Family.
Magic Pants: Taken in an unusual direction in "Moon Over Minerva." Whenever Wilford changes into his hunky werewolf form, his pants actually shrink.
Malaproper: A source for so much of the humor.
Manchild: Ralph and Mr. Director (an Expy of Jerry Lewis), but special mention goes to Hercules in the "Hercules Unwound" episode, whose whining about Zeus making him do the 12 Labors is reminiscent of a teenager complaining about unpleasant chores.
Mars Needs Women: All three of the Warner siblings. Although they seem to see themselves as more or less human-ish.
Meaningful Name:
- Dr. Scratchansniff's German last name is Freudlos, a double pun; it literally means "joyless", but it's also a reference to yet another psychiatrist...
- Yakko and Wakko. Wakko, a play on "wacko", as in someone who is a little whacky (strange or crazy), and Yakko, a play on "yakking away" or talking incessantly. Yakko almost never shuts up.
Medium Awareness: Mostly Slappy and the Warners. Slappy beats the Warners here:
Mickey Mousing: Animaniacs actually had orchestral accompaniment - very, very rare for a televised cartoon series - and took full advantage of that.
Mime and Music-Only Cartoon: "The Brain's Apprentice" and a couple of the Retraux Warners shorts.
Misplaced Wildlife: In the "Tiger Prince" cold open, there are tigers substituting for lions in Africa... because they're parodying The Lion King (1994).
Mocky Mouse: The Slappy Squirrel segment "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" has Slappy wind up in a nursing home after losing her memory, with the other senior citizens there being elderly spoofs of classic cartoon characters. Three of them are Rhena Rat (spoofing Minnie Mouse), Doofy (parodying Goofy) and Quacky Duck (a Donald Duck ersatz).
Modesty Towel The episode "Meet Minerva" start with Minerva Mink walking out of home with just a towel (and another for the head), causing a head-turning reaction (Tex Avery-styled) to males of every species, before bathing naked in a lake. Then again, this trope was applied to Ms. Mink every chance the writers got in the comics.
Monster Clown: A birthday-party clown is viewed this way in-universe in "Clown and Out" (by two characters who are afraid of clowns), but he's actually a very nice guy.
Mood Whiplash:
- There was one serious Slappy cartoon in which Slappy was put away in an asylum and Skippy was taken away by social services, and... to say that this episode was just an example of this trope is an understatement. The mood jumped up and down OVER AND OVER again, to the point of being a highly compressed intra-episode version of Cerebus Roller Coaster. It leads in with a comedic stretch where Slappy is driven mad by watching too many daytime talk shows (Jerry Springer etc.), which she can't stand. Then her madness is played for laughs for a while. Then Skippy takes her to the doctor, and even amidst there being a few gags in the scene, suddenly it starts portraying realistic consequences of her going insane. Then it just keeps REPEATEDLY ALTERNATING between playing it for laughs and portraying the tragic real consequences of a kid's aunt losing her mental faculties. Then she suddenly gets better and escapes the asylum for a happy ending. Then as a Continuity Nod in later episodes she references that now she actually LIKES those talk shows.
- "The Ballad of Magellan" really makes us feel sympathy for the man, after which The Great Wakkorotti is brought in for comic relief.
Mook–Face Turn: Several shorts involved Dot escaping from confinement by convincing the prison guard on duty with her cuteness.
Moral Guardians: A frequent target of the show.
- "Valuable Lesson" is centered around this.
- "Bully for Skippy" involved an obnoxious senator imposing standards on cartoons to make them "safe and educational" for children. That same episode had Skippy repeatedly beaten up by a bully after following ineffectual advice from his guidance counselor. When Slappy and Skippy finally do use violence (cartoon violence) on the bully and it works, the senator and the counselor are both livid. Slappy's response to both their complaints is to use the machine the senator had sent to her, which carries out all cartoon violence off screen. Naturally, they both concede to Slappy's methods when they emerge as charred, beaten wrecks.
Mr. Exposition: Lampshaded by Slappy.
"Doug the Dog!? But he hates you, Aunt Slappy! He's been trying to eat you for years!!
"Thank you, Mr. Exposition."
Multiple Demographic Appeal: Was specifically designed for this. Kids will laugh at the potty jokes and the slapstick, but there's still plenty of Parental Bonuses to keep the adults entertained.
Musical Episode:
- Rita and Runt have at least one song per short. There are also numerous episodes that parody Broadway without those two characters that still act as musical episodes. Combining the two, one extended Rita and Runt segment is basically a parody of Les Misérables.
- Episode 82 consists entirely of episodes based around music: "Wakko's 2-Note Song," "Panama Canal," "Hello Nurse," "The Ballad of Magellan," "The Return of the Great Wakkorotti," and "The Big Wrap Party Tonight." It even includes the extended theme song.
My Friends... and Zoidberg: Dot is one of the few inversions in western animation that willingly introduces herself as this trope on a regular basis.
Mythology Gag: Or more of a coincidence that was taken advantage of. Many animated shows only run for 65 episodes, a number deemed large enough for syndication. Animaniacs was originally to be no different, and it turned out that the fictional backstory of the Warner siblings had already established their debut as being around 1929, 65 years prior to the finale's broadcast. The episode thus played up the number, revolving entirely around a "65th Anniversary Special" tribute to the Warners.

Naïve Animal Lover: A sketch ("The Hip Hippos") involved a Jane Goodall Expy maintaining vigilance over a pair of City Slicker, Nigh Invulnerable (because of their obesity) Idle Rich hippos. The Running Gag was her seeing them in (what she believed to be) danger and try to save them, only for the hippos to come out of the stunt all right and her hurt in some comedic fashion (with them not even noticing she was there).
The Napoleon:
- Mr. Plotz, the WB CEO.
- Eli, a character in a Chicken Boo sketch.
Nigh-Invulnerability: Baloney the dinosaur just laughs off anvils much to the horror of the Warners. He can actually be harmed though, through the most mundane method you can imagine. Literally. If you imagine him in pain and suffering that's what happens. But the Warners don't properly catch on.
Noah's Story Arc: There was at least one sketch called "Noah's Lark" that went like this. Buster and Babs Bunny walked up and stated they were no relation, so Noah let them on, along with the Hip Hippos.
No Celebrities Were Harmed: ...at least not by name.
- Several notable public figures of the period were hilariously parodied in the show with such gems as Codger Eggbert and Lean Hisskill, as well as the Iraqi dictator Sodarn Hinsane.
- The "Used Cow Salesman" in 'The Warners and the Beanstalk' is basically Pat Buttram.
- The clown in "Clown and Out" is pretty much Jerry Lewis in whiteface and a silly outfit.
No Fourth Wall: Was central to its humor, and is some of the best Postmodernism ever put in kids' comedy TV.
No Good Deed Goes Unpunished: Buttons goes to enormous lengths, risking his own hide to keep Mindy from harm. Every episode ends with Buttons getting in trouble over some (Generally minor) misbehavior he performed in the course of his duties.
No Punctuation Period: And that's why the writers created Katie Kaboom to explain to innocent little children why their big sister chucks a psycho for NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON WHATSOEVER once a month. Basically, their explanation was Teens Are Monsters.
- "I'm Not Overreacting!! I'm a Teenager!!" .
Noir Episode: The episode "This Pun for Hire" with the Warners do a film noir parody, taking every cliché and killing them with many bad puns. Feature Scratchansniff and Ralph as villains and also Hello Nurse (and, after, Minerva Mink) as Femme Fatale.
Non Sequitur, *Thud*: Happens a lot, this being a cartoon.
- Slappy: *waking up suddenly* I'd like to buy a vowel!
- And in another episode:
  Death: *after falling off a cliff* I'll have the linguine with clams...
- In "Frontier Slappy":
  Daniel Boone: (after attempting to break down Slappy's door, only to fail and bump his head on a tree) Daniel Boone was a great big guy!
Not Allowed to Grow Up: The Warners' in-universe backstory states they were drawn in 1930, essentially making them all 80, and yet, none of them are geriatrics. It's particularly odd in that the Skippy and Slappy Squirrel segments make it quite clear that cartoon characters do age.
- Maybe it's because cartoon characters come from their creators' imaginations, so it depends on whether they were imagined as characters that age. The Warners come from the era of monochrome, where cartoon characters were kind of simple/crude, while Slappy seems like she's more from the 40's, as a more realistic character.
- Slappy throws a bit of a grim skew on it though in the short 'Rest in Pieces'. Though she and her old co-stars are clearly getting on in years, she tells Skippy that she knew Walter wasn't dead because 'there is no dying in the world of cartoons'.
Nothing Is Scarier: We never see the faces of the Nazis in "Puttin On The Blitz."

Not Where They Thought: In the episode "Meatballs or Consequences?", The Grim Reaper takes the Warner siblings to a dimension where he will officially make them dead if they lose a board game. Dot wonders if the place is Ohio.
Nuns Are Funny: The candy store episode had the Warners tormenting a stuck-up store proprietor named Flaxseed after he refused to donate candy to a orphanage run by nuns. After driving him nuts, Flaxseed finally gets hold of Wakko and Dot... only for the nun from before to come back with reinforcements. They're about to kick his ass before Flaxseed points out that nuns aren't supposed to resort to violence. So, the nuns proceed to pray, and the Notre Dame college football team shows up to pummel the living crap out of Flaxseed.
Head Nun: Our prayers have been answered!

Odd Name Out: Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name doesn't rhyme with the others'.
- And let's not forget their voice actors: Jess, Tress and Rob.
Ode to Food:
- "Ice Cream" is about different types of ice cream.
- "Be Careful What You Eat" is about food ingredients, which, despite the title, aren't all bad (it even includes beta carotene, a nutrient).
Off-Model: There were eight, count them, EIGHT animation companies that worked on the show; ^note Those studios are TMS Entertainment, AKOM, Wang Film Productions, StarToons, Koko Enterprises, Freelance Animators New Zealand, Philippine Animation Studio Inc.., and Varga Studios. all had different drawing and animation styles (and that does not even count the studios that TMS used under contract ^note these included Nakamura Productions, Ajia-Do, Tatsunoko Production, Kyoto Animation, Anime Spot, Tokyo Kids, Mizo Planning, Spectrum Animation, Flying Dragon, Studio Jungle Gym, Oh Production, Magic Bus, Studio Junio, Studio Nue and Far Eastern (the latter also working with Wang). All of them uncredited. However, almost all of them used TMS' style).
- Mostly with segments animated by Freelance Animators New Zealand, take a look.
- StarToons tended to dip into this, as well with the Slappy the Squirrel intro and "Wakko's America", though not to the extreme as Freelance, as well as tending to make the animation even more expressive. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about shorts like "The Big Candy Store" or "Wally Llama".
- AKOM, of course. Though it's the more bland and uninteresting animation and sometimes horrific, rather than cartoonish, expressions as opposed to poor drawings as was usually the case with the studio.
- Many of the later episodes (such as the "Hooray For North Hollywood" two-parter and "The Carpool) fall deep into this.
- Happened occasionally with TMS's episodes as well, as several of their shorts went though numerous subcontractors and animation teams. For instance, "Taming of the Screwy" was given to Tatsunoko Production and the end result wasn't pretty ^note The animation is far below TMS' usual standards of liveliness and comes off looking like a low-budget late 80s anime at times, the Warners' noses are too small through most of the cartoon, and in one scene an object (a plate with a lobster claw, in this case) teleports from one spot to a slightly different spot between frames. "Roll Over Beethoven", "Home on De Nile" and "H.M.S. Yakko" are also guilty of this.
- The show was also so expensive that it couldn't afford character layout drawings. The animators instead blew up the storyboard panels to ten-field size so they could be registered to the animation pegs. Some of the more exaggerated board drawings would end up getting animated, resulting in weird proportional shifts. The other Spielberg/Rugger shows also did this, with similar results.
Offscreen Teleportation: Often employed by the Warners. Performed on the Warners by the survey ladies ("Would you like to take a survey?")
Oh God, with the Verbing!: Mr Director speaks like this.
Old-Fashioned Rowboat Date: Dot briefly fantasizes about going on one with Dr. Scratchansniff, and creeps herself out, in "De-Zanitized".
Old Shame: The Warner trio themselves, In-Universe; The company sealed them (and the cartoons which featured them) away in the early 20th century, refusing to release them because they (both the characters and their films) were nonsensical. Even in present time, they're trying to keep them locked up.
One Steve Limit: Averted with Kiki the Girlfeather and Kiki the gorilla from the Rita and Runt episode, "Kiki's Kitten."
Only Sane Man: Whoever is the one person that knows Chicken Boo is a giant chicken — except in the Batman parody... in which Batman, voiced of course by Adam West, was the only one who didn't see through the Boo Wonder's Paper-Thin Disguise.
Opening Narration: Done via a Deliberately Monochrome (with a splash of tomato red on the Warner's noses) newsreel called Newsreel of the Stars, used to explain the Warner's genesis, how they got loose, drove the world insane, humiliated the studio executives, and became sealed chaos in a can.
Our Werewolves Are Different: As seen in "Moon over Minerva," the light of a full moon turns the nerdy Wilford Wolf into a Fabio-esque hunk.
Out of Focus: Most of the characters got reduced screentime in favor of more Warners and Slappy cartoons in the Kids WB era seasons. They tried fixing this in season 4, only to go back to focusing on the Warners and Slappy in season 5. Pinky and the Brain have gotten their own show at this point. In Rita and Runt's case, it was getting expensive to fly Rita's voice actress to the studio.
Overly Long Name:
- Professor Otto von Schnitzelbuskrankengescheitmeier from the song "Schnitzelbank." It gets lampshaded during of the verses ("Is das nicht ein incredibly long name to have to try and say?").
- Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca III - but you can call her Dot. Call her Dotty and you die.
Overly Long Gag: Who's on Stage?
Overly Pre-Prepared Gag: At least three Warners shorts are examples of these:
- "Wakko's Gizmo" has Wakko showing his siblings a giant Rube Goldberg contraption that ends up pushing a whoopee cushion.
- "The Party" has the Warners inviting everyone up to the water tower for a party. Thaddeus Plotz at first refuses to go, but then they mention that "Steven" will be there. The party is a disaster, and Plotz keeps intending to leave, but the Warners remind them that "Steven" will be disappointed. At the end, "Steven" finally shows up... Steven Pudner, that is, a schlubby fat nerd the Warners met on the Internet. Of course, Plotz was expecting Steven Spielberg. Yakko lampshades this, saying, "Was that a long way to go for a gag or what?"
- "Our Final Space Cartoon, We Promise!" is set up as yet another parody of 2001: A Space Odyssey, with AL replacing HAL. At the end, when AL begins humming "Hail to the Chief", the Warners realize AL is really Al Gore.

Panty Shot:
- Often of Dot, who wears either white or pink panties.
- Ms. Butley in the "Bully For Skippy" segment. As she and Reef Blunt are each grabbed and picked up from behind, and by the hemline of their clothes by a mechanical claw, Ms. Butley's skirt is lifted from the back and she's shown to wear lace-trimmed, white panties.
Paper-Thin Disguise: Exaggerated with Chicken Boo. Every sketch opened with a new group of people (Hollywood actors, Confederate soldiers, people in a karate tournament, etc.) singing the praises of Boo—-who, as a reminder, is a six-foot tall chicken with absolutely no anthropomorphic features—who would then show up in the absolutely flimsiest of disguises (such as an extremely small mustache, a robe and headband, or a hat and wig). Exactly one person would realize Boo's true nature and try to tell everyone one about it ("HE'S A CHICKEN, I TELL YOU! A GIANT CHICKEN!") only to be disregarded. When Boo's disguise inevitably came off, the entire group would react in shock, and the chicken would be forced to move on to find another bunch to join.
Parental Bonus: To the point where watching this show as a child and watching it years later as an adult are completely different experiences. While the show is well known enough for Demographically Inappropriate Humour, there is also a high amount of pop culture references, political commentary, and references to current events that virtually no child would be familiar with, but a grown-up sure would. As noted over in Real Life Writes the Plot, there was actually a list of all the Parental Bonuses compiled by fans on Usenet. Reading that after having seen the show will likely as not have you in stitches from all the Late to the Punchline moments.
Parental Neglect: Mindy's parents, which is probably why she never calls them "mom" and "dad" like they want her to (except in Wakko's Wish) and instead calls them "Lady" and "Mr Man", something she might refer to a stranger as.
Parody: Anything from The Sound of Music to Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers to Barney & Friends to Godzilla (naturally, Barney was far more frightening).
The Parody Before Christmas: This show has "The Day Before Christmas", in which Ralph, with a sleigh drawn by the gangster pigeons, delivers presents to the Warner siblings.
Parody Magic Spell:
- A Pinky and the Brain episode had "Charlie Sheen, Ben Vereen, Shrink to the size of a lima bean!".
- From their Shakespeare "translation":
Witches: Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.
Yakko: Loosely translated, "Abracadabra".
Dot: Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.
Yakko: "Let's cook a snake." Start with my agent.
Parody Sue: The musical number "Hello Nurse" is all about this trope.
Patter Song: "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual," Parody of Gilbert and Sullivan's "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General. To make the parody more blatant, it was sung to a pirate. A good amount of songs in the Animaniacs songbook are patter songs, including their most famous one of all, "Yakko's World."
Phrase Catcher: "Hello, Nurse!" Guess who this is usually said to.
Pimped-Out Dress: In the episode "King Yakko", Hello Nurse plays the prime minister of the kingdom, and she wears a magenta dress with ermine trim and a blue cloak.
Pin-Pulling Teeth: In "I Got Yer Can", an Escalating War with Slappy Squirrel causes Candie Chipmunk to do this; terrifying a pair of nuns before blowing herself up.
Pintsized Powerhouse: The robots in "The Brain's Apprentice". A single one can raise a standard fridge off the ground.
Platonic Life-Partners: Rita and Runt.
Plane Awful Flight: In "Plane Pals", an obnoxious executive has the bad luck of sitting next to the Warners, who decide to make him their "special friend" for the flight.
Playing Catch With The Old Man: Played for laughs in Good Idea, Bad Idea. The Bad Idea is playing catch using grandpa as the ball.
Good idea: Playing catch with your grandfather. [Mr. and Grandpa Skullhead toss a ball back and forth]
Bad idea: Playing catch, with your grandfather. [Mr. Skullhead and a teen toss Grandpa Skullhead back and forth; Grandpa falls to pieces in midair]
Plot Hole: Provides the page quote from a sketch of Shakespere's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" being translated for kids.
Puck (played by Yakko): And this weak and idling theme, no more yielding, but a dream!

Dot (the translator): There is a hole in this plot you could drive a truck through.
Poorly Disguised Pilot: The episode "Spell-Bound" is presumably one to Pinky and the Brain as a test to see if the sketch could work as its own show. This is made apparent because of the entire episode being a half-hour Pinky and the Brain cartoon with the only connections to Animaniacs being cameos by Slappy Squirrel and the Goodfeathers.
Potty Dance: See below.
Potty Emergency: Trope Namer, for the segment of episode 26 where Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are at the movies and Wakko drinks from an insanely large cup of soda and spends the rest of the short desperately looking for a bathroom. Wakko also has this happen on a car trip in "I'm Mad!" and when he gets scared of the cartoon world in "The Girl With The Googily Goop". It also happens in 2 Cartoon Network promos ^note One where the Warners are going into other shows on the channel and one where Wakko is watching a barber cut someone's hair as well as the Kids WB Kooky Karolfest promo "We Flush You A Merry Christmas".
Potty Failure: Lampshaded. In the episode with Rasputin, at the end when the moral of the day is revealed to be "Brush your teeth," Dot says, "That makes me feel all warm and squishy. Either that or I need to wear diapers." In episode 35, she said "That makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Either that, or I sat in something."
Pounds Are Animal Prisons: Rita and Runt first met in one of these, and "Les Miseranimals" opens with Runt escaping from one.
The Prankster: Slappy Squirrel and the Warner Brothers both waver between this trope and being Karmic Tricksters.
Precocious Crush: Yakko & Wakko's iconic crush on Hello Nurse. Dot also has one on Mel Gibson.
Pro Wrestling Episode: "Fake"
Previously On…: The first episode aired on Kids' WB! opened with a parody of this trope.
Punctuated! For! Emphasis!: "I! AM! SATAN!!! MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!"
Pun With Pi: In one episode, the teacher Ms. Flamiel has a textbook called "Mathematics: Easy as [Pi symbol]."

Raiders of the Lost Parody: An early episode wound up with Yakko directing Mr. Director through a few movie parodies. In one, Mr. Director was "Illinois Smith" and utterly failed with the whip - first he ends up tying himself up with the thing, then when he gets free he cracks it and it gets caught on the set rafters, bringing them down on him.
- "I think it's a not-working whip."
Rail-Car Separation: In "Whistlestop Mindy", Mindy strays onto the mail car of a train. When Buttons chases after her, Mindy pulls out the bolt that keeps the mail car coupled to the passenger coach, causing the two cars to separate. Buttons grabs the couplings of the two cars to keep them together and lets Mindy walk across him like a bridge. When Mindy gets to the passenger car, Buttons puts the bolt back in the couplings.
Real Life Writes the Plot: The "Please Please PLEASE Get a Life Foundation" was written using actual nitpicks from a newsgroup-made reference guide (the Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs) verbatim. The show's writers even e-mailed the people who wrote that guide for permission to use their quotes. The show's run coincided with the early days of wide Internet access, and in those days (early to mid 1990's) most online discussions were done in newsgroups.
Will Bell: (founder and maintainer of the CRGA) Several months ago I received email from [writer] Peter Hastings asking for copies of the CRGA by email and snail mail, which I provided.
- A group of these fans were subsequently invited to the studios to see the short before its broadcast premiere, as shown in this E! news segment from 1995.
  - After the short was screened for the fans, one fan pointed out an error in the short's quoting of one of the nitpicks. From memory. This was met with incredulity by the staffers and no surprise at all by the fans.
- During the brief point in time when it looked unlikely that Bill Clinton would serve a second term, the creators hedged their bets by changing the theme song lyrics from "While Bill Clinton play the sax" to "We pay tons of income tax".
Recurring Extra: The Hip Hippos.

Refuge in Audacity: So much.
- In "Hot, Bothered and Bedeviled," the Warners take a wrong turn at Kennebunkport and end up in Hell, tormenting Satan. The same episode features Saddam Hussein plunging into a lake of lava and three demonic stand-ins for The Andrews Sisters singing a jazz tune about eternal damnation.
- An in-universe example in the "Baghdad Cafe" portion of the Animaniacs Stew episode, the villain-of-the-week is "Sodarn Insane" - presumably the same guy. The Warners mistake him for the headwaiter, but the part of Dot is being played by Slappy, who sees no reason not to cut directly to Comedic Sociopathy:
Slappy: And I'm Princess Louisa Francesca... y'know what: forget it. I'm done. Have some dynamite down yer pants.
Regional Riff: In "Yakko's World", as Yakko mentions Japan, the famous "Asian Riff" is briefly interpolated into the melody of the song.
Remember the New Guy?: The backstories of the Warner siblings and Slappy Squirrel were that the Warner siblings were created as Buddy's co-stars in an attempt to spice up his bland cartoons and Slappy is a retired Looney Tunes star.
Reminder of Impossibility: Provides the page quote.
- In one Slappy episode, Slappy and Skippy are dealing with a dog named Stinkbomb. After climbing their tree, Stinkbomb follows them up. Leave Slappy to bring up one important fact that Stinkbomb forgot about. Dogs can't climb trees.
- One instance of Buttons protecting Mindy has him following her up a tree. After she tells him that dogs can't actually climb, he immediately falls.
The Resolution Will Not Be Televised: The Direct to Video movie Wakko's Wish, an Alternate Universe medieval fantasy with a semi-serious plot that ultimately gave all of the characters in the series resolution despite the fact they were all removed from their traditional settings.
- One could also consider it a Massive Multiplayer Crossover — while the characters were all in the same show, they rarely all interacted in the same place.
Retraux: The "lost" shorts.
Rhyming with Itself: At the end of the "Wakko's America" song about 50 states and their capitals:
Sacramento, California; Oklahoma and its City;
Charleston, West Virginia; and Nevada, Carson City.
- For the more grievous example see Humiliation Conga.
Rich in Dollars, Poor in Sense: The hippos.
Right Behind Me: In one episode the Warners proceeded to trash talk the people working on the show ^note including their own voice actors as the credits rolled, not realizing that their microphone was still on.
- Slappy subverts this in the very first short featuring her, whipping out a club to hit the eavesdropping Doug the Dog without even looking at him.
Right Way/Wrong Way Pair: The "Good Idea, Bad Idea" shorts.
Roommate Com: The Warners appear in in-verse show Acquaintances, which is a parody of Friends (a prime example of Roommate Com).
Rouge Angles of Satin: Played for laughs at the end of the Get A Life sketch. The anal-retentive nerd points out they intentionally misspelled The "Please Please Pleese Get A Life Foundation" just to see if we were paying attention.
Rude Hero, Nice Sidekick: The show uses this trope a lot:
- The Brain is a condescending Insufferable Genius, while Pinky is a Minion with an F in Evil who still likes and admires Brain, no matter how much abuse he gets from him. They are still this in their own show, Pinky and the Brain.
- Slappy Squirrel is a cranky old lady. Her sidekick in all her segments is her nephew, the cheerful and adorable Skippy.
- Rita is an arrogant and sarcastic cat who is always accompanied by dimwitted Big Friendly Dog Runt.
Rule of Funny: A given on this show in general, but lampshaded in the Slappy short "I Got Yer Can", when Skippy drops an anvil on Candie Chipmunk apropos of nothing, justifying it to his aunt with a nonchalant "Who cares? Anvils are funny."
Running Gag: Again, too many to count. Notably "Wanna See My Pet?", the Warners being chased by Ralph in the background of other shorts, and Yakko announcing "Good Night Everybody!" if something even remotely suggestive was said.
- A short-lived one was used in both "This Pun For Hire" and "Anchors A-Warners": A character says "No no no." Yakko in the first instance and Dot in the latter instance asked the character to repeat that. The character again said, "No no no." Then each replied, "I love that!"
- What about the dragon!? The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon!
  - Would someone please stop this man from saying "Dragon"?

Satire: The show loves to take aim at and spoof many of the most popular topics of the day, including poiltics, history, and Warner Bros itself.
Scary Science Words: Enforced in the song "Be Careful What You Eat". It's meant to make kids beware of what they're eating and Scare 'Em Straight by reading out the ingredients with long words such as "bisulphate". In reality, not all of these ingredients are bad for you— in fact, some, such as "beta carotene" and "lactic acid", are good for you.
Scary Shadow Fakeout: Subverted in one of the Randy Beaman stories:
"One time Randy Beaman was alone in his bed, and he was in the dark, and he saw some shadows and thought it was Dracula, but his mom said it was the coat hanging on the rack, and he turned on the light and it really was Dracula."
The Scottish Trope: In "Sir Yaksalot", Yakko get so annoyed by people saying the word "dragon" that everytime somebody says it, an anvil will be summoned to drop on their heads.
Screw This, I'm Outta Here!: Fairly regular.
- The Warner Brothers attempted to escape "Balony and Friends" multiple times, but for once their efforts were fruitless.
- Slappy had a strong distaste for cameos and would regularly threaten to leave.
- Dot's feeling out of it in "Gimme the Works," so the Warners decide to walk off the set and end the thing early. She's not feeling any better in their second short that episode, "Hercules Unwound," but in that case the cartoon goes on without them.
Sealed Chaos in a Can: The Warners were created in The '30s, but their cartoons were nonsensical, they caused havoc all over the studio and they drove their creator insane, so the bigwigs locked them in the Water Tower until FOR-E-VER. The series starts in The '90s when they finally make their escape, and as the theme song suggests, numerous attempts to lock them back in there are foiled time after time, to the point where most people seem to just leave them to their business, give the tower a wide berth and hope they don't cross their path.
Seashell Bra:
- Averted with Mindy in the episode "Mermaid Mindy" (because she is just a little child) while implied with her mother (that we see just from behind).
Second Episode Introduction: "The Monkey Song", the second total short in the series, introduces literally every single secondary and minor supporting character in the series, some pantomiming what they'll be doing for the rest of the series. The third short, "Good Night, Toon", slightly fleshes out some more of their personalities.
Secret Chaser: One in every Chicken Boo short.
Seemingly Profound Fool: The basic premise of the Chicken Boo shorts, though there were rare moments where Chicken Boo showed actual competence at his supposed job.
Self-Deprecation:
- "The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special". The crux of this episode is Warner Bros. acknowledging just how awful cartoons featuring the character Buddy were.
- "Valuable Lesson" has a scene where Attila the Hun storms into Warner Bros. Studios while shouting "Crush Warners!" A guard based on Don Knotts witnesses Attila and remarks "Must be from one of our affiliates."
Self-Fulfilling Prophecy: In the episode "Taming of the Screwy," Mr. Plotz is holding a banquet for foreign investors, and said investors want to meet all of the workers at the Warner Bros. studio, including Yakko, Wakko, and Dot. Under his orders, Dr. Scratchansniff manages to convince the Warners to keep their lunacy under control so they can attend the banquet... only for Mr. Plotz to force them out of the banquet after they meet the investors regardless because he doesn't trust them not to screw things up. Snubbed and insulted, the Warners return to the banquet and ruin it in their usual Karmic Trickster fashion. In a nutshell, if Mr. Plotz had just let them stay since they were behaving, the entire thing would have gone off without a hitch.
Sensational Staircase Sequence: In "A Christmas Plotz", the Warners play the Spirits of Christmas in Yet Another Christmas Carol. When Yakko, as the Spirit of Christmas Future, makes his entrance, it's as a flashy musical number in a stairway flanked by beautiful chorus girls.
Sexier Alter Ego: Wilford B. Wolf in the Minerva Mink short "Moon Over Minerva". The geeky wolf turns into a hunk under the light of a full moon.
Sexy Silhouette: Minerva Mink (in a nice Parent Service).
Sexy Walk: Hello Nurse does this a lot: Minerva Mink, almost constantly.
"Shaggy Dog" Story: The premise of the "Randy Beaman story" shorts.
Shaking the Rump: The Macarena parody "Macadamia Nut" features some Grade-A booty shaking from Dot, Hello Nurse and Minerva Mink.
Shockingly Expensive Bill: In "Anchors A-Warners", The Warners run up Dr. Scratchansniff's room service bill to $26,590. He screams and starts swimming to China.
Shout-Out: Has its own page. The show slightly dates itself with a lot of early 90's and other contemporary-at-the-time references, but it also abounds in references dating back to the dawn of television comedy.
Shown Their Work:
- "Yes Always" is based on a recording of Orson Welles trying to do a commercial, and criticising the director trying to give him feedback. It's taken almost verbatim, except for the profanity in the original recording.
- "Win Big" has Brain losing on Gyp-Parody! when he gets the final question wrong after wagering his entire earnings, and he is not invited to come back on the next game. On the actual show, no champion is crowned if neither contestant finishes Final Jeopardy! with a score above $0.
Sir Verb-a-Lot: In one episode, Yakko, Wakko and Dot are given the titles "Sir Yaks-A-Lot", "Sir Waks-A-Lot" and "Lady Dots-A-Lot".
Sit on the Camera: In episode "The Boids" with the director, Alfred Hitchcock, sitting on the Goodfeathers. Then they're shown stuck to his butt.
Smarter Than You Look:
- The Warners. They can perform and explain Shakespeare; name every country, as well as every American state and capital, and every President, from memory; and generally make frequent references to science, history, literature, politics, and a host of other subjects. At the same time they act as if they haven't half a brain between them whenever Dr. Scratchansniff tries to talk to or explain something to them. They are completely insane, but they are geniuses.
- Pinky and the Brain. One is a genius, the other is insane. But which is which? The one who tries to take over the world every single night? Or the one who "accidentally" foils his mad schemes every night with his convenient mask of idiocy?
Soap Punishment: In "Roll Over, Beethoven", Yakko, Wakko and Dot do this to Beethoven after he describes himself as a 'pianist'.
So Beautiful, It's a Curse: Minerva Mink's intro song is her singing in the shower about how difficult it is to be so pretty.
Minerva Mink: It's not as easy as ya' think, to be a gorgeous mink!
Social Services Does Not Exist: Tear-jerkingly averted in the Slappy cartoon "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock".
Solid Clouds: When the Warners try to convince the giant from Jack and the Beanstalk to try gold eggs and meat:
Yakko: Eat them, eat them, on a cloud.

Giant: Oh, all right, for crying out loud! [eats it] Mmm! Gold eggs and meat I do not hate.
Something Completely Different: Some of the sketches featured none of the usual cast. One notable example is "The Flame", a mostly-serious cartoon entirely about a candle flame watching Thomas Jefferson write the Declaration of Independence.
- Even the "regular" cast can do this, such as the Rita and Runt segment "Puttin' on the Blitz", set in World War II Poland, and "The Little Old Lady From Pasadena," a straight-up music video of the song's original recording with Slappy in the titular role.
Something Else Also Rises:
- Whenever Yakko and Wakko saw an attractive woman like Hello Nurse, their normally bent ears and tails would stiffen and shoot up.
- Every male who encounters Minerva Mink falls prey to this, especially in the comic.
Soundtrack Lullaby: When the Warner siblings fall Asleep in Class, "Rock-a-Bye Baby" plays in the background.
Space Jews: Yakko, Wakko, and Dot portrayed Native Americans on at least two occasions.
Spared by the Adaptation: Parodied. In "The Taming of the Screwy", Thelma & Louise show up at the stars' party. They arrive by dropping out of the sky in their car.
Spin-Off: Pinky and the Brain (and to an extent, Histeria! - two of that show's characters debuted on this show).
Spiritual Successor:
- To Tiny Toon Adventures, which was also produced by Amblin Entertainment. More to the point, just as Tiny Toon Adventures was a reimagining of Looney Tunes, Animaniacs was something of a Deconstruction of Tex Avery's cartoons.
- 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.
Spit Take: In the Chicken Boo sketch "The Good, The Boo And The Ugly", Eli spits out his spaghetti (Get it? "Spaghetti Western"?) after the bartender tells him that the "Man with No Personality" is a giant chicken. Of course, he doesn't believe her.
Spoof Aesop:
- An especially brilliant use, an almost Once per Episode gag using the Wheel of Morality.
  Wheel of Morality, turn turn turn, tell us the lesson that we should learn!
  Yakko: ...If you can't say anything nice, you're probably at the Ice Capades.
  Early to rise, Early to bed, makes a man healthy but socially dead!
  You can teach an old dog new tricks, but you can't teach Madonna to act.
  Don't chew with your mouth full.
  People in glass houses should get dressed with the lights off.
- The Mighty Morphin' Power Rangers parody "Super Strong Warner Siblings" mimicked that show's earnest, And That's Terrible!-style post-show morality lessons:
  Yakko: Remember, kids, playing with giant bugs isn't cool. If somebody asks you to play with a giant bug, just say no! That's cool.
- Subverted in Wakko's Wish, where the Wheel provides the (non-ironic) moral of the movie.
Squick: In-Universe Example. One of the lessons provided by the Wheel of Morality is "Never ask what hot dogs are made of." and Yakko winces while reading it.
Standard Snippet: Despite Warners having access to a huge music publishing library that was made of good use in the original Looney Tunes shorts, the only frequently quoted song is "We're in the Money" from Gold Diggers Of 42 used to represent money or millionaires.
Stealth Pun: The Wheel of Morality has a "Bankrupt" space... ^note Not really a reference to Wheel of Fortune. Just morally bankrupt.
- ...and while the cartoons never showed them hitting it, the comic book did.
- "Warner Bros." = "Warner Brothers" + a "dot".
Sticky Situation: In the Warners' 65th anniversary special, Daffy Duck recalls the Warners' first solo cartoon where they had flypaper stuck on their fannies, which he admitted, was funny for an animated short, but this went on for eight hours!
The Stinger: After the credits, the door to the water tower swings open, and a character delivers one last joke of some sort.
"Stop Having Fun" Guys: The parody of Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids in "Back in Style" has all of the characters telling the Warners that fun is bad, and that it's better to "preach pro-social values until they spew out everyone's ears and all over the ground".
Straw Fan: Of the Affectionate Parody version, in the "Please Please Pleese ^* If you were upset by this misspelling, you need this foundation's help! Get a Life Foundation"
Strictly Formula: Most characters have a very strict plotline attached to their shorts. The quality of the writing usually depends on how much can be done with that given formula.
- The Warner sibling shorts: the Warners encounter a Straight Man (which could be anything from a celebrity to a Historical Domain Character to a mythical or literary figure), whom they drive insane with their zany Literal-Minded antics.
  - Occasionally the formula is inverted by the Warners encountering someone even more annoying than them, and they are the ones driven insane.
- The Pinky and the Brain shorts: Brain comes up with an elaborate Zany Scheme to take over the world while Pinky absent-mindedly tags along. The scheme backfires either due to Pinky's idiocy or Brain making some fatal mistake, so Brain has to return back to the drawing board to come up with a new scheme.
- The Buttons and Mindy shorts: Mindy's mother trusts Buttons to take care of Mindy, who wanders around while Buttons suffers Amusing Injuries. The French episode shows that the formula doesn't need to be in English to work, and the caveman episode proves that it doesn't even need an intelligible language.
- The Chicken Boo shorts: Chicken Boo wears a Paper-Thin Disguise to blend in with a group of humans, which fools everyone except one guy who points out he's a giant chicken. Then, following some zany antics, the disguise falls off and the angry mob chases away Chicken Boo.
- The Katie Ka-Boom shorts: Katie does something ordinary for a teenager when one of her family members presses her Berserk Button, which makes her turn into a giant monster of some sort. The family flees in terror until Katie calms down and the conflict is resolved.
  - The episode "Katie Ka-Boo" combines the above two formulas: Chicken Boo disguises himself as Katie's boyfriend, and Katie's little brother enrages her by pointing out that her boyfriend is a giant chicken.
Stupidity Is the Only Option: When going to Dracula's Castle.
Stupidly Long Filler Sound: "Macadamia Nut," which is "The Macarena" with parody lyrics, has the cast break out in a giggling fit. Slappy Squirrel, as implacable as ever, has to ask "What's so funny?" Several characters emits lengthy "uhh"s, trying to explain the joke. Yakko gives a drawn out one solo, before giving up and beginning the third stanza. Viewable here at the 02:48 mark.
Subverted Catchphrase: At the end of "Meet John Brain", there's a twist on Brain's usual catchphrase, "The same thing we do every night, Pinky: Try to take over the world":
Pinky: Why, Brain? What are we gonna do tomorrow night?
Brain: ...You know.
Suckiness Is Painful: In "Video Revue", "bombs" (bad movies) were treated as weapons grade ordinance and would explode after falling off the shelves. Yes, names were named.
Suddenly Speaking:
- The Mime, Chicken Boo and Buttons (all ordinarily voiceless) can be seen singing along with everyone else in the opening credits when the characters shout "We're Animaney, totally insaney!"
- We also see the mime move his lips in Wakko's Wish, and he actually says something in "Les Boutons et le Ballon". " Le Owwwwww".
Suspiciously Specific Denial: Dr. Scratchansniff's fear aversion therapy includes repeating a few "comforting" phases.

Take That!: If it's in public media, it's a target. Nothing, NOTHING is safe (not even the fans), though Disney and network censors are choice victims.
Yakko: It's that time again.

Dot: To make fun of the Disney Channel?
- In "Sound of Warners":
  Dot: Why don't you go bug the kids in Goof Troop?
- In "Deduces Wild," some of the items they're searching for in a scavenger hunt are...
  Wakko: A happy postal worker.
  Dot: Edible fruitcake.
  Yakko: A funny episode of Bonkers.
- In "Slappy Goes Walnuts", after trying Skippy's favorite sugary cereal, Slappy says...
  Slappy: No wonder you like that Bonkers show. That junk's rotting out your brains there!
- One really obscure take that is aimed at a vintage Disney short, "Playful Pluto", specifically the famous flypaper sequence that it's known for. The skit involved the Warners in one of their early works, "Flies in the Ointment" , where they get flypaper stuck to their butts, and the film ran for eight hours.
- The dog that Slappy abuses during "Bumbie's Mom" appears to be based on Pluto.
- In "No Face Like Home", the surgeons make Slappy unconscious by making her watch Alan Alda movies. Slappy says she'd rather get whacked in the head with a hammer.
- "Back in Style" has the Warners loaned out to guest-star on parodies of Yogi Bear, Scooby-Doo, Where Are You!, Fat Albert and the Cosby Kids, and Underdog. During all their guest appearances, the Warners riff the cartoons for their cheap animation and bland plots and also inflict injuries on the characters. In the case of the Yogi Bear and Scooby-Doo parodies, they count as Take That and not Self-Deprecation because Hannah-Barbera was still a separate entity from Warner Bros. at the time.
- Every one of Chicken Boo's disguises is based on a historical figure (Baryshnikov, Beauregard) or a fictional pastiche (the Jock, the Western Gunslinger, the Frontiersman) that is renowned as a masculine archetype. Their more accurate biographies and portrayals, however, are less than flattering; like Boo's disguises, if you look past the surface, you're likely to lose some respect for the person or pastiche he portrays.
- The series loves to take swipes at Disney. For instance, in "Jokahontas", the Pocahontas parody is merely jabbing Disney for milking the cash cow of using the same plotline for all its female heroines (like Ariel and Belle).
Take That, Audience!: The famous "Please, Please, Pleese Get a Life Foundation" sketch made fun of their Periphery Demographic (which features geeks rattling off Animaniacs trivia and nitpicks culled from an actual list found on a newsgroup).
- The cartoon was previewed for a group of hardcore Internet fans who made a pilgrimage to the studios. Afterwards, one of them pointed out an error in one of the quotations from the list - from memory. The response: "It's very layered, isn't it?"...that is, after the producer picked his jaw up off the floor.
Team Dad: Dr. Scratchansniff sometimes takes on this role with the Warners, particularly in the short, "I'm Mad", where he tries to take them on a long road trip only to try and keep Yakko and Dot from arguing and Wakko from complaining the whole trip.
Teens Are Monsters: Katie Kaboom literally turns into a monster Once per Episode, and spends most of it as one.
Terrible Trio: Dr. Scratchansniff and Hello Nurse join Ralph in chasing the Warners in one episode.
Tertiary Sexual Characteristics: Marita of "The Hip Hippos" segments is a perfect example, differing from her husband Flavio because she's colored purple and wears a bow and lipstick.
That Makes Me Feel Angry:
- The end of "I'm Cute", where Dot expresses anger over her brothers for ruining her song.
- Throughout the entire song "I'm Mad."
The Friends Who Never Hang: Given how it's a show with a large cast of characters, it's not surprising how not all of the characters interact with each other. Most segments are self-contained, and the ones that do feature all of the characters together only show them interacting with characters that are in their respective segment.
- Averted with Animaniacs Stew.
Theme Tune Roll Call: "Come join the Warner Brothers and the Warner sister Dot", followed later by "Meet Pinky and the Brain who want to rule the universe / Goodfeathers flock together, Slappy whacks them with her purse / Buttons chases Mindy, while Rita sings a verse". Another variation of the theme song includes Ralph, Dr. Scratchansniff, and Hello Nurse while leaving out Pinky and the Brain.
Theme Tuneless Episode: "The Warners' 65th Anniversary Special" and "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" do not open with the Animaniacs theme song, as the first was presented as a special event In-Universe and the second was a Poorly Disguised Pilot.
This Is Gonna Suck: Done with Slappy Squirrel in "Bumbie's Mom," after Slappy has cheered Skippy up from the trauma of Bumbie, on the plane ride home they watch the in-flight movie, which turns out to be Old Yellow. Slappy gives an Oh, Crap! face when we hear the titular dog being shot, and then she flatly comments "Uh-oh," not amused by what's about to happen (Skippy bawling loudly again.)
This Is Reality: Happens in other shorts, such as "Smell Ya' Later" and "Turkey Jerky," where the villain finds themselves suspended in mid-air somehow, only for the other characters to point out the impossibility and causing them to plummet to the ground.
¡Three Amigos!: Yakko, Wakko and Dot, naturally.
Throw the Pin: There's a short where the Warners are being put through military training, and their sergeant is instructing them about grenades with the line "Pull the pin and then throw it". Wakko, naturally, throws the pin.
Tired After the Song: In "All the Words in the English Language", Yakko is already a bit out of breath by the middle of the song, is straight-up tired towards the end, and nearly falls asleep, but then he wakes up and says, "Zaire!" completing the song.
Title Drop: Given that the show can go to levels of meta, the show's title is mentioned at least in almost every episode featuring Yakko, Wakko, and Dot.
Token Minority: the Warners are Maltese, Dr. Scratchansniff is German, Goodfeathers are Italian and Flavio and Marita are Spanish.
Too Hot for TV: In a rare case of self-censorship, the staff retired the Minerva Mink shorts after only two episodes because the sexual undertones were too blatant.
Too Long; Didn't Dub: In the Latin American Spanish dub of the short "I'm Mad", Wakko's line "Gotta use the potty, better stop the car!" is translated into "Tengo que ir al baño para la potty" ^note "I gotta get to a bathroom soon to use the potty!". This is justified, as the Spanish word for "potty", "orinal", also happens to be the word for "urinal".
Too Spicy for Yog-Sothoth:
- The Warners themselves, repeatedly.
- Also Baloney (a Barney Captain Ersatz), a Captain Ersatz of Maria from The Sound of Music, and the dangerously affectionate Elmyra from Tiny Toons Adventures have proven too much for the Warners. Notably, the Warners escape Elmyra by enticing her to follow Mindy, due to Mindy's cuteness. Cue Amusing Injuries, and Button's relief.
Toothy Bird: The Goodfeathers. Chicken Boo often averts this, except in some cases when he shows expressions.
To the Tune of...:
- "The Warners Lot Song" is a parody of the Gilligan's Island theme song.
- "Yakko's World" is to the tune of The Mexican Hat Dance.
- "Wakko's America" is to the tune of Turkey in the Straw.
- "The Presidents Song" is to the tune of William Tell Overture.
Trailer Park Tornado Magnet: There was a short called "The Brave Little Trailer", in which the title character battles a tornado that always attacks the trailer park he inhabits
Tricked into Signing: There's an episode where the Warners are taking the place of Plotz's sick secretary. So one of them gives Plotz a few documents to sign, hiding among them a check for 80 billion. He then shouts to his brother and sister "We're rich!" Plotz takes the check away, to which the brother merely says "We're poor!"
Truncated Theme Tune:
- When the show aired on Nickelodeon and Nicktoons, a shortened intro was created that just consisted of these lyrics: "It's time for Animaniacs / And we're zany to the max, / So just sit back and relax, / You'll laugh 'til you collapse! / We're Animaney, / Totally insaney, / Nick-a-laney, / Animaniacs, those are the facts!"
- Instead of the regular clips they were set to, Nickelodeon set the lyrics to different clips making the lip-syncing off-key To keep the shortened intro on the same key, they pitched up the first half of the intro. But because they didn't re-record the intro, the Warners' voices were pitched up and sound effects like Dr. Scratchansniff's laughter are still heard confusing viewers (who took notice) who didn't see the show on Kids' WB!, Fox Kids or Cartoon Network.
Truth in Television:
- A lot of skits, especially of the Warner trio, mimic real-life situations that happen to real people (some, even, on situations that happened to the writers themselves). Though they're incredibly exaggerated, there's always that one line where you hear it and think, "Oh, that is so true."
"Would ya like to take a survey?"

Nanny: You must be Dit.
Dot: That's Dot.
Nanny: Dot. Right. Wikkie!
Wakko: Wakko.
Nanny: And you must be...
Yakko: (deadpan) This oughta be good.
Nanny: Petey-pie!

Dr. Scratchansniff: Hello, we are stuck in an elevator, and we are late for an appointment with Mr. Plotz.
Voice on Intercom: Ooh, that's bad. Okay, you sit tight and we'll get you out in a minute.
Ten hours later...
Voice on Intercom: You still in there? It was our indication that you got out.
Dr. Scratchansniff: Really? What gave you that indication?
Voice on Intercom: That's...just the indication we had.
- And of course, the entire premise of "Bumbie's Mom."
- The absurd event that triggers Slappy's antics in "I Got Yer Can" ("Please don't throw your trash in my trash can.") came from that exact thing happening to one of the writers.
- And of course there's Buddy in the Warners 65th Anniversary Special, who was a real WB cartoon character in the 1930s and yes, his cartoons were infamous even back then for legit being incredibly boring.
Tummy Cushion:
- "Drive Insane" Wakko and Dot lay on Frau Hassenfeffer; Dot even tells her she's comfy.
- "Hollywoodchuck" Charlton Woodchuck reads a book while lying on a grizzly bear's stomach while shooting a movie.

U-V

Unexplained Accent:
- Wakko has a Liverpudlian brogue for absolutely no damn reason — at least not one ever explained on the show.
- He was actually based specifically on Ringo Starr. Still, that's not an in-universe explanation.
  - Given the nature of the Warners (cartoon characters come to life) that may very well be an in-universe explanation.
  - Interestingly, he's the one that sings the states and capitals. He's the only Warner that does not have an American accent.
Ungrateful Townsfolk: In "The Good, the Bad and the Boo", a wild west town's residents offer to make Chicken Boo their new Sheriff if he captures the bad guy who's terrorizing them. Boo manages to honor his end of the deal but, once his human disguise falls off, they turn on him, release the bad guy and chase him away.
Universal-Adaptor Cast: Cartoons take place anywhere and everywhere. The Warners bugging Einstein, Picasso, or Beethoven? Pinky and the Brain as Pavlov's mice? Slappy vs. Daniel Boone? Mindy and Buttons in Prehistoria? The Goodfeathers as WWI carrier pigeons? Chicken Boo as a Civil War general? Rita and Runt in ancient Egypt? Yes, all those and more!
Un-person: The "Newsreel of the Stars" segment explains that a sort of damnatio memoriae was ordered against the Warners after they were imprisoned in the water tower — their films were locked in the vault never to see the light of day, and the studio employees were sworn against ever after publicly acknowledging their existence. It was successful, if only for 63 years.
Unusual Euphemism: The Goodfeathers often use "coo" as a swear word, such as "coo you" or "coo off".
Uranus Is Showing
Vertigo Effect: Occasionally done with Buttons the moment Mindy escapes.
Very Loosely Based on a True Story: The Warners 65th Anniversary Special. While his creation didn't lead to the creation of the Warner Brothers, Buddy is actually a very real cartoon character created in 1933 and his cartoons were particularly infamous even back then for being insanely boring. Also, they indeed brought another animator to try and spice things up after his first cartoons failed.
Very Special Episode:
- "The Little Drummer Warners" has Yakko, Wakko, and Dot go back in time to first-century Bethlehem to witness the birth of the baby Jesus (religion always a controversial subject for kids' cartoons, for various reasons). You'll notice they are unusually low-keyed and respectful - at least until they start performing "The Little Drummer Boy" and suddenly turn it into a 1940s-style swing number. (Hey, they had to do something wacky.)
- "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" as well, in which Slappy Squirrel suffers a nervous breakdown after watching too much daytime TV and has to be sent to a nursing home. This eventually results in Skippy being taken away by a CPS agent. The whole thing reminds one of an older relative going senile, seeing how it was based on Tom Ruegger's memories of visiting his aunt in a nursing home.
- Also parodied in one episode opener. The opener begins with a subdued Yakko and Dot, talking about how the upcoming episode was a very special episode, and how it had special meaning to all of the cast, with both sounding very earnest... until they get to The Reveal about what made the episode so very special...
- Parodied in "A Very Very Very Very Special Show". The Warner siblings try to win a humanitarian award, so they preach throughout the whole cartoon about smoking, violence, sexism etc. Once the award goes to a different cartoon, the Warners instantly revert back to their normal selves and go against everything they were preaching.
Victoria's Secret Compartment:
- Ms. Flameil keeps a red marker in her bra, apparently. Also a rare example of a not particularly attractive woman making use of this trope.
  Yakko: Ooh, what else do you have in there?
- This is where Minerva Mink keeps the key to her diary.
Visual Pun: "It's not a joke, it's a visual gag."
Vocal Evolution: All three Warners went through this. Yakko originally had more of a "tough guy" sound; Wakko originally sounded more like Ringo Starr; and Dot was higher-pitched. Also, Skippy's voice got deeper as Nathan Ruegger aged, to the point that some of the last Skippy/Slappy segments have him pitch-shifted.

W-Z

The War Room: Parodied in a episode where the Warners get pulled to Camelot to deal with a dragon that's causing havoc across the kingdom. Yakko calls his siblings to the War Room, then asks King Arthur where the War Room is. When Arthur says they don't have one, Wakko pulls one out of his bag. Inside is a setup that would make any general or Mad Scientist envious, with monitors on every wall showing the rampaging dragon and at the bottom a group of military leaders and scientists around a table debating whether to destroy the dragon or capture it for study. The Warners decide to forget the War Room after that.
Wasn't That Fun?: Wakko in the episode "Ups and Downs", after the maintenance men raise the elevator he and Dr Scratchansniff are trapped in and drop it really quick:
"Wasn't that neat?"
Weaponized Landmark: The Warners weaponized the Warner Bros. water tower in "Super Strong Warner Siblings."
We Have Forgotten the Phlebotinum:
- When Dr. Scratchansniff and Wakko were stuck in an elevator (in probably the only instance where Wakko was the Straight Man).
Dr: You've got to get us out of here! Do something big and silly from your gaggy bag!
Wakko: I didn't bring it!
Dr: (Searching Wakko frantically) "But you ALWAYS has your gaggy bag!! Where iz it?!? GIVE ME YOUR GAGGY BAG!!"
What Are You in For?: Rita asks Runt this when they first meet in the city pound. Runt's answer is "peeing on the floor".
What Measure Is a Non-Human?:
- The number of times Chicken Boo has been ostracized just for being a chicken, regardless of whether he was any good at his job before being unmasked...
- Reminiscent of the Chicken Boo shorts, Brain running a successful campaign to become president only to be ridiculed when the people find that he is a mouse.
Wheel o' Feet: Subverted in "Draculee, Dracula" — at one point the Warners rev up with this to start running, but then just walk off instead of darting.
Wheel of Decisions: The Wheel of Morality.
Whole Plot Reference: Far too many to count.
- Among those that haven't already been listed, A Christmas Carol and Disney's Beauty and the Beast are some of the most notable examples. They also did an entire parody on Disney movies in general, and Pocahontas in particular.
- And a Rita-and-Runt full-on musical parody of Les Misérables, and the Goodfeather parodies of West Side Story and Fiddler on the Roof.
Who's on First?:
- Just with 1960s band names instead of baseball players. i.e. "Who's on stage?" "Yes." "So Yes is on stage?" "No, Yes isn't at this concert."
- They also get a bit more mileage out of the same gag in "Piano Rag":
  Yakko: Very Pete Townshend-esque.
  Dot: Who?
  Wakko: Exactly.
- There was another one involving Wakko participating in Dr. Scratchansniff's bingo game:
  Dr. Scratchansniff: Now our first combination is...B4!
  Wakko: Before what?
  Dr. Scratchansniff: I29.
  Wakko: Oh, no you're not! You must be at least 50! Really, 29.
  Dr. Scratchansniff: Oh nein. Oh nein.
  Wakko: O9? Bingo!
Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: Wakko and Plotz are both so terrified of clowns that the mere presence of one in "Clown and Out" makes them uncharacteristically nervous.
- The Topps trading card game reveals that Wakko's biggest fear is having a Potty Emergency. It also mentions that Chicken Boo is scared of being revealed to other people as actually being a chicken, while Rita is afraid of heights.
Wily Walrus: In the episode "Bumbie's Mom", a walrus lady complains when Skippy starts crying in the theater, and she's very rude about it. However, Slappy quickly shuts her up.
The Witch Hunter: On one "Rita and Runt" segment set in Colonial Salem, Massachusetts, a witch hunter is after Rita, claiming she's a witch's familiar.
Worm in an Apple: In the episode "Guardin' the Garden", after much trouble with Slappy, the serpent in the Garden of Eden finally gets its tail on an apple to feed to Eve. However, she declines when she spots a worm sticking out of it. The serpent only barely realizes in time that the worm is actually a lit fuse and that the apple is a bomb.
Wormsign: In "Draculee, Draculaa", the Warner siblings leave a trail as they reach Transylvania during a failed attempt to go to Pennsylvania and Yakko explains and he and his siblings know they aren't bunnies but it's a Warner Bros tradition. In the end, they try to go to Pennsylvania that way again but end up in Tasmania.
Wounded Gazelle Gambit: In "The Big Candy Store", Flaxseed manages to grab Wakko and Dot by their scruffs and hoists them up to his eye level. Unfortunately for him, the nun from earlier shows up with her convent as backup in a second attempt to get donations from the candy store, and thinks he was abusing them. Wakko and Dot happily roll with the assumption by fake-crying to get Flaxseed to let them go.
Wraparound Background: Seen in the Yogi Bear parody of "Back in Style".
Wrong Parachute Gag: In a Boot Camp Episode, while plummeting towards the ground with their Drill Sergeant, the Warners tell him that they took the liberty of washing the sheets he stores in his backpack. He pulls the cord and a duck headed flotation device comes out.
Wunza Plot: "Boo Wonder": One's a human, the other's a chicken. Together, they fight crime!
Xylophone Gag: Subverted and lampshaded by Slappy here.
- "Old gag. New twist."
Yank the Dog's Chain: "Whoopi-ti-yi-yo, oh, ghost of Magellan, the East Indies islands were right over there!"
- Chicken Boo. Just when you think he's about to succeed, his disguise comes undone at the worst possible moment.
Yet Another Christmas Carol: Starring Mr. Plotz in the Scrooge role, Ralph the Guard as Bob Cratchit with his son Ralph Jr. in the Tiny Tim role, Slappy as Jacob Marley and the Warner siblings as the three ghosts. The main difference from the original A Christmas Carol is that rather than having the Tiny Tim character die, Ralph Jr. vows revenge on Plotz for firing his dad and in the hypothetical future grows up to take over the Warner Bros. studio, with Plotz working as the security guard. Ralph Jr. fires Plotz in a similarly callous manner to the way Plotz fired his dad.
Yodel Land: "Schnitzelbank".
You All Meet in a Cell: Rita and Runt first meet in the pound.
You Are Worth Hell: "Meatballs or Consequences."
You Have to Believe Me!: Every Chicken Boo short has one character who points out the Paper-Thin Disguise and is scorned.
You Remind Me of X: Pretty much Slappy's Catchphrase.
You Say Tomato: Mr. Director discusses this trope.
Take the word 'animal'. Transpose the letters 'n' and 'm' and you get 'aminal'. That, in a nutshell, is comedy.
- An aminal is a kind of chemical compound.
You're Cute When You're Angry: Yakko says this to Dot after he and Wakko piss her off during "I'm Cute". Considering how seriously she takes her cuteness, it works.
You Sexy Beast: In the Minerva Mink short "Moon Over Minerva". A geeky wolf, named Wilford B. Wolf, would turn into a hunky Fabio-like wolf when exposed to the full moon. Minerva won't give his geeky self the time of day, but she goes crazy for his moonlit self. Needless to say the short is pretty heavy on the Fanservice for both the male and female audiences.

Wakko's America

Wakko takes kids on a tour of all 50 United States capitals.

Example of:
Listing Cities

Alternative Title(s): Animaniacs 1993

Source: https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/WesternAnimation/Animaniacs

Posted by: berryinceiren64.blogspot.com

Pinky and Rex and the Bully Read Online - berryinceiren64

Western Animation / Animaniacs

We're An-i-mane-y! Totally insaney! Hanging a lampshade-y! An-i-man-i-acs! These are the tropes!

Wakko's America

Alternative Title(s): Animaniacs 1993

Pinky and Rex and the Bully Read Online

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