The word that appears most often in my notes is lampshading: a trope wherein a creator specifically calls out some ludicrous thing they're doing (i.e., hanging a lampshade on it) to make sure you know they know that you know. The new show, however, lays that on so thick in the first couple of episodes that the charm wears off. The nostalgia is the jokeĪnimaniacs was always a deliberately self-aware show that existed to break the fourth wall and frolic in a meta-referential field. Much like Good Idea, Bad Idea, you need to see the positives and the negatives juxtaposed in order to get the most out of what you're watching. The answer, luckily, is yes-but it takes some time to get there. I watched the first four episodes this weekend with my 7-year-old (more about her opinions in a bit) to find out.
In a show carefully designed for the kids and the adults to laugh in completely different places, I was able to laugh in both, and Animaniacs seemed to relish giving me the opportunity. Suddenly all that absolutely useless knowledge in my head about 1930s and 1940s Hollywood was useful. Not only could you get your daily dose of slapstick (and how), but also it had educational songs that actually stuck, wrapped in layers of slyly referential humor that rewarded you for paying attention-and for being able to get the references. It felt, at the time, as though it had infinite layers. I could tell you anything you'd like to know about the Hollywood studio system, the music of George Frideric Handel, or the rise and fall of the Soviet bloc, but I couldn't name more than two of 1993's Top 40 songs if you'd paid me.Īnd along came Animaniacs, a kids' show that didn't talk down to me. I was the only child of two classical musicians, one of whom was also a politics junkie and total history buff. I was in middle school when Animaniacs began airing, right on the cusp of an exceptionally awkward and uncomfortable adolescence.
And that suited me perfectly because I was, frankly, a pretty weird kid. Further Reading Hulu brings back that irreverent magic with trailer for Animaniacs rebootĪnimaniacs was, in the end, a pretty weird show, equal parts absurdist and educational.
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