After a much-needed weekend respite, welcome back to the Daily Cartoon on Car JoeMez! Remember to check out the latest episode of the show, The Car JoeMez Podcast on iTunes, Soundcloud or wherever you get your podcasts. Make sure to subscribe, like, rate, leave a review and share it with your friends.
I wanted to start the week off with something light and I remembered that Animaniacs was on Netflix and voila! I can’t admit to being a big fan of this show when I was a kid. I liked it, thought it was OK, but it was nothing I was ever too into. Also, by the time of its premiere (September 13, 1993 – which also happened to be my 12th birthday) I was already into the too-old for cartoons stage of life so only kept a passing interest in this.
I’ve since watched some episodes here and there since it was added to the streaming services and I have enjoyed the ones I’ve watched. There’s a lot of adult humor in there that I’m 100% positive I didn’t get or understand as a kid, but makes me do the “how the fuck did they sneak that one in there?!”
In addition, this show also introduced us to Pinky & The Brain who eventually got their own spinoff that – dare I say – was even better than the home base they emerged from. As a whole, Animaniacs lasted 99 episodes total combined from its runs on Fox and then, eventually, Kids WB and was pretty popular for its time. Not that it had a toy line that I can remember, but I know for a fact that it had a video game on Genesis and Super Nintendo. I even have the Genesis version!
See? I wasn’t lying. Hell, I’ve even got the Warners in Funko form too!
So, yeah, I suppose I’ve grown to appreciate this show much more as I’ve gotten older and re-watched it here and there. One thing I did absolutely love as a kid, however was this:
I would say that’s enough background on this show. Let’s watch a cartoon.
Animaniacs: S.1, E.24: “Opportunity Knox/Wings Take Heart”
Originally Aired: October 18, 1993
We open with a quick infomercial where the Warner brothers and their sister, Dot, want to shave you bald for just $19.95. They demonstrate on that poor security guard that they’re always terrorizing around the Warner movie lot. Cute and quick and sends us into the opening theme which will get in your head like nobody’s business.
From there, we go into a Pinky and the Brain bit. Pinky wonders what Brain wants to do tonight and, of course, Brain informs him that they’ll try to do the same thing they do every night: try to take over the world.
Brain has invented a new strain of pollen that causes a temporary allergic fit in all humans and plans to use it to rob Fort Knox. How do they plan on even getting to Fort Knox? They’ll use one of the labs technological resources: the minivan.
Of course, just miles away from Fort Knox, the duo get pulled over, but are able to get out of it by telling the officer that once they control all of the world’s gold, their budget will result in substantial spending increases for law enforcement.
They arrive at Fort Knox, hit the security team with Brain’s allergy pollen and then go about lifting all the gold. There’s just one problem: gold bars are heavy AF and Pinky and the Brain are lab mice who are unable to move them. They end up dropping the first bar they lift on top of themselves and the next we see of them, are back in their cage at Acme Labs sporting slings and bandages where Brain promises a better plan for tomorrow night. Pinky asks what they’ll be doing then and Brain answers, “the same thing we do every night, Pinky. Try to take over the world!”
We then segue into a quick “Good Idea, Bad Idea” segment that was used to buffer between stories. Good idea: stopping to smell the roses. Bad idea: stopping to feel the roses and puncturing yourself on thorns on the stem of said roses.
It’s on to our second story of the day, “Wings Take Heart”. A nondescript insect is taking a nap when he spots a beautiful butterfly girl and becomes immediately smitten. She spots him gawking at her in her mirror while she’s brushing her hair. They make eye contact and start flying all over town together.
OK, let me hit pause for a second. Folks, I can tell you from tons of experience that creepily staring at chicks from across the way never ends up with you flying all over town with them. Never. Sometimes they make and uggo face at you. Sometimes they turn around. Sometimes they flip you the bird or send their really big boyfriend over to you so he can ask what your problem is. At no point does it work out like this show has thus far. Just something to keep in mind next time you’re feeling like a creep at the bar.
Our unnamed insect is about to kiss his dream butterfly when he’s suddenly smashed by a passing tractor-trailer. And I’m not talking about former basketball great Robert “Tractor” Traylor either.
Our bug protagonist gets shuttled around from a number of different trucks that end up smashing him and taking him further and further away from where he needs to be when finally his little bug body has had all it can stand. He’s done. Laid out. A mama vulture picks him up to feed to her kids, but there’s a forest fire bearing down, so she packs up her hatchlings and takes off. Our beaten bug tries escaping, but he’s no match for the quick-moving fire.
Just when it looks as if all hope is lost, a helicopter does a massive water drop on the fire which washes it out and flows our little guy to temporary safety. He’s floating on a leaf and about to fall into a sewer drain when he sees his pretty butterfly girlfriend sitting under a rose crying. He calls to her, she perks up, he flies up and finally gets his kiss.
Now, I think it’s important to state that this is also ridiculous. Everybody knows that these hoes ain’t loyal. The second he was taken away, you know that butterfly chick was gonna be on Bug-Tinder or back in the bars getting a new thirsty-ass dude to give her some attention. She certainly ain’t going to be sitting under a rose waiting for this dude to just appear out of nowhere like an RKO again. This is just reality. This is how the world works. Plenty of other bugs all over.
Now with both of our stories for the day concluded, the Warners pull out the Wheel of Morality to tell us today’s learned lesson: “If you can’t say something nice, you’re probably at the Ice Capades”. Hahahahaahahahahahahhaahahahahahahhaha. Poor Ice Capades. I actually went once when I was a kid and the big thing was Super Mario Bros. I remember having a good time. But, for now, sick burn, Yakko.
Final Thoughts:
This show is great. There was a couple of swipes at Disney in there which, for the time, were probably scandalous, but they’re done tongue-in-cheek and are pretty funny. The show as a whole is a good time.
I don’t really get the whole bug story, but it just was what it was and the music overlayed did a really good job of conveying danger and emotions in the vein of the classic Looney Tunes cartoons.
The more of these shows that I watch, I become convinced that they’re just not meant to be binge-watched. An episode here or there, fine, but if I tried running three, four episodes in a row, I may hate myself.
But for one episode and 20 minutes today, this was fun and is probably something I could just put on with my sleep timer as I’m going to bed some nights.
I know for a fact there are DVD sets of this show available, but you can find all 99 episodes on Netflix as well if you’re looking to check it out which I think you should. Especially if it’s something you haven’t watched in a while. I think you’ll be able to appreciate a lot of the jokes and humor a lot better as a learned adult. Thumbs up.
See you tomorrow.
❤ Joe
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