Hey what's up. Dumb Reviews has decided that every Friday, we will do a special segment. Last week was special segment week, and those went over well enough. So every month has 4 Fridays, and each of those will correlate to a special segment I did last week. But some months have 5 Fridays, and that's where this post comes in. This special segment is called The Search for Higher Meaning. I did a post like this before about Tex Avery's Who Killed Who, and I like cartoons so much that I might as well do a post like this every once in a while. Today: Animaniacs in "Acquaintences".
The Animaniacs took Steven Spielberg's idea of bastard Looney Tune Children that became Tiny Toons, into a more satirical, original route. It was a more conventional comedic grouping, and moved away from the shadows of Looney Tunes into a more Chuck Jones/ Tex Avery style of mayhem. Needless to say Chuck Jones and Tex Avery made the best Looney Tunes, but their shadows extend to a much more prolific grounds. That's just me on my high horse though.
Animaniacs took risks and didn't really care about its child audience. They simply knew the kids would be there because its a cartoon. The result of which was a smart, modern comedy. This specific episode captures the mentality pretty well. The 3 antagonistic protagonists are thrown in a situation and annoy people we find annoying. Simple simple simple. The jokes work on many levels. As physical gags, and as just a parody of Friends.
We get a small undercut of immigration jokes which is made all the more funnier when put against the idea of a show like Friends. People come to New York for this freedom, but really Americans are just spoiled 'trendies drinking cups of joe'. That line is taken from the Acquaintences Theme Song, as biting satire to sum up Friends in with the opening line "who would ever thought that this could be a show?" The music throughout the episode is spot on- from the clapping in the theme to the linking electric guitar riffs. Everything is spot (but by design, not necessarily) on. Broad strokes are taken to the Friends paradigm, which comes off as mean- but I kind of enjoy that.
The criticisms of the episode, and in fact Animaniacs overall, is their stagnation in remaining a testament. The bits, such as instead of throwing the Warners out- the Friends cast is somehow thrown out instead, are funny- but funny in a classic manner. It really all depends how much you have seen the joke before. They even hit the same joke twice in referencing sitcoms. While The Brady Bunch joke works more as a non sequitar to eat up time, the Seinfeld joke works as a natural ending. It's more ho hum than anything, but so was the nature of cartoons in the 90s. They were great to an extent, bogged down by their love of nostalgia. Animaniacs can deliver episodes like Acquaintances all they want, and they'll make you laugh (directly calling Matt LeBlanc Tony Danza is really funny). They also make you want to watch other cartoons as well. Thank goodness we had Slappy the Squirrel, the Hip Hippos, Good Feathers, Chicken Boo, Randy Beaman's friend Colin, Good Idea Bad Idea, and Pinky et the Brain to round them all out.
I'm glad that Animaniacs existed and had the same view of Friends I did. I'm glad they can sneak in jokes like a sexy silhouette and make it turn out to be just Yakko. I'm glad they can reference how stupid laugh tracks are, and I'm glad they can make fat jokes and references to foiles bergere without batting an eye. I'm just not going to tell you I love it. Animaniacs- you're about a B in my book.
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