Saturday, August 24, 2019

Variety Speak / Three Tenors and You're Out / Bingo / Finale (Animaniacs Vol 3 Part 21) - 'Toon Reviews 32


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Episode 71

Variety Speak


Interesting topics for songs just keep coming for the show at the start of this episode.  Actually, this one is well suited for the Hollywood environment of much of the characters in the cast, particularly the Warners. 
What starts off as an innocent skit of Wakko playing dog as he and his siblings wait for an appointment turns into an elaborate show biz commentary when papers are laid out for him.  The papers are actually articles from Variety magazine whose headlines Wakko doesn’t understand. 
With that, the song begins highlighting the honest nature of actors, directors, producers and all members of Hollywood movie crews.  Through the exciting tune and apparent capabilities to pack in a lot of information into something so fast, the thought going into this song shows.  It doesn’t hold back with discussing the easy ways people in the movie business make it big.  There’s talk of how studio heads unjustly fire most people involved, movies without big name actors being pushed to video, fixing films in editing to easily appease critics, and more. 
Making the song even more remarkable is how even if it’s a product of the 90s, it gives surprisingly accurate predictions to big moments in movies that come to pass many years later.  It’s here where we get things like a direct mention of Rocky VI before it actually becomes a thing 16 years later.  There’s accuracy to mention of how big moments in news become the driving force for films.  For instance, a big media event at the time was the OJ trial, and now we have quite a few films on that topic, and modern current events seem to inspire film ideas now more than ever.  There’s also a jab at how Disney is the richest of all studios with Michael Eisner rolling in the dough, and the innumerable Batman films with a poster of him as an old man.  I’d say they’re exaggerations, but considering how these factors stand out more today than ever, there’s some accuracy to them in this song. 
As you can see, this song has an absolute blast looking into areas of the film industry and highlighting how they really work.  Backed up with great singing and a fitting showstopper melody, it’s one of the smartest songs you’ll find on this show.
A+
Three Tenors and You’re Out


This has got to be Slappy Squirrel at her most clueless which undermines any understandable frustrations she may have. Yet, it seems to work as her character strengths still shine through. 
We have her and Skippy excited about going to a baseball game one night at the local Los Angeles stadium, Dodgers Stadium.  At the actual stadium though, something doesn’t seem right.  The place looks like the appropriate spot for a baseball game, but then you have everyone in fancy clothes and highlights of people who don’t look or sound like famous players.  The squirrels claim those people are umpires, but this clearly doesn’t seem like the case.  Then in the actual stadium, things further drift away from the thought of a baseball game.  At best, the event starts with a playing of the National Anthem, but then we have a trio of tenors coming out to perform with nothing they do connecting to baseball at all. 
It turns out that this setup is a very clever reference to something that actually happened in Dodgers Stadium which I was surprised to only just find out about.  It was July 1994 when a singing group actually called The Three Tenors gave a one-night only performance of classical pieces and older contemporary show tunes.  As someone aiming to move to Los Angeles someday and a lover of classical music, this is an interesting fact which makes me wish I could have been there for it.  There’s no doubt it must have been on the minds of the show’s crew considering that this cartoon came out just a year after.  It also enhances the concept of going to one place for one event, but you’re stuck watching a completely different one there, leaving you caught off-guard. 
However, the thing with Slappy in this case is that she never understands that this is not a baseball game and considers the concert a pre-game show that’s taking forever.  For that, whenever she’s haggling the performers or making a scene while calling for the concessions guy, it’s hard to side with her.  It would be better if the tenors were actually jerks, but they just seem like average performers doing their job.  Slappy may be cranky and unruly, but she’s not stupid, and it shouldn’t feel justified to get her kicked out. 
Fortunately, working in the cartoon’s favor is one key element to Slappy that is retained, and that’s her relationship with Skippy.  The driving force of her actions is to make sure they see a Dodgers’ game, and like any great relative, she makes sure nothing stands in the way of her nephew’s desire.  The ways they go on the stage and mess with the tenors’ performance to get them out of the way do bring a fair share of humorous moments.  They make the stage all slippery as they sing and put them in ridiculous umpire costumes to make them sing their desired baseball tunes.  These gags build up to the most elaborate one of all.  Through epic staging, the tenors are up against a huge ship straight out of Close Encounters of the Third Kind.  Something as silly as making them play Simon with their voices so to they’re worn out could never feel so big and grand as it does here.  The tenors are all right though as they’re more than happy to take part in a baseball game that takes place at last at Slappy’s request.  That said, if they were more deserving of their humiliation, the outcome would be much stronger.
As it stands, this is a flawed Slappy Squirrel cartoon, but manages to work with clever references and genuine endearment.
B
Bingo


There’s no way of denying that Wakko is the biggest oddball in the entire cast of the show.  It’s no wonder he gets a good number of short cartoons of putting his unusual spin on a common pastime.  Here, he shows up as the only one interested in taking part in Dr. Scratchansniff’s Sunday bingo game, and from there hilarity ensues. 
The big thing about this setup is that Wakko doesn’t really know how to play bingo, though as this cartoon shows, the real problem is that his logic of it is totally backwards.  As part of the usual course of the game, Dr. Scratchansniff calls out a letter-number combination.  However, Wakko hears them as things he’s actually telling him.  Things like I-29 make it seem like Dr. Scratchansniff is saying he’s 29 years old, and B-10 sounds like he wants to give Wakko a beating.  Then when Dr. Scratchansniff says something off hand like asking Wakko to “be one” good boy Wakko considers this a call for B-1.  It’s also an excuse for him to call out “bingo” even if it’s only one space. 
From there, Wakko’s mindset when it comes to this game is perfectly clear.  All Dr. Scratchansniff has to do is say something like a letter-number combination, and Wakko believes he has a bingo, and therefore delights in calling out “bingo.”  Sometimes, it calls for combinations that wouldn’t really work given the traditional bingo arrangements.  Examples include O-9 (oh nein), N-8 (innate), G-10 (cheating), and N-4 (inform). 
The cartoon also runs the risk of getting old and repetitive fast no matter how funny it is to watch Wakko’s beliefs that he has a bingo.  Luckily, it ends before it can really get old as Dr. Scratchansniff declares Wakko eligible for a prize.  As a fitting punchline, it’s free bingo for a year, though to Dr. Scratchansniff it’s something to really dread.  At least it feels like Wakko is acting out of simple misguidedness and not intentionally trying to make Dr. Scratchansniff’s life difficult. 
That’s a big way the humor works through a creative and hilarious, albeit totally off, approach to life’s simple pastimes.

A


Finale

To close the episode, we got the three tenors again at Dodgers’ Stadium as a direct tie to the featured Slappy Squirrel cartoon.  As a way for them to get in one last performance, they bring their own personal cover of the Animaniacs theme song. 
That’s all there is to the closing, so there’s nothing much to cover.  One thing I will point is that at a time when Pinky and the Brain are dropped from the main intro having gotten their own spinoff, they show up in this abridged version.  That said, there’s still an alteration, particularly in the part that mentions the Goodfeathers and Slappy.  In that part, Slappy and Skippy come first, and Hello Nurse completes the rhyme of Pinky and the Brain wanting to rule the universe.  The rest of the performance is pretty much par for the course and doesn’t require thorough dissection. 
All more I can say is that it’s a standard, but still grand-scale close to this episode.
B+


Cartoon Ranking
  1. The Warners’ 65th Anniversary Special
  2. Super Strong Warner Siblings
  3. Baloney and Kids
  4. Ragamuffins
  5. Frontier Slappy
  6. Woodstock Slappy
  7. Wakko’s Gizmo
  8. The Warners and the Beanstalk
  9. Brain Meets Brawn
  10. Morning Malaise
  11. Meet John Brain
  12. Yes, Always
  13. Drive Insane
  14. Lookit the Fuzzy Heads
  15. Take My Siblings Please
  16. Wakko’s New Gookie
  17. Karaoke Dokie
  18. Nutcracker Slappy
  19. Witch One
  20. Of Course, You Know This Means Warners
  21. No Face Like Home
  22. Meet Minerva
  23. The Chicken Who Loved Me
  24. Scare Happy Slappy
  25. Bingo
  26. Smell Ya Later
  27. A Gift of Gold
  28. Ups and Downs
  29. The Helpinki Formula
  30. The Mindy 500
  31. Les Boutons et le Ballon
  32. Bad Mood Bobby
  33. Whistle Stop Mindy
  34. Three Tenors and You’re Out
  35. Gold Rush
  36. Up a Tree
  37. Cranial Crusader
  38. Mermaid Mindy
  39. Katie Ka-Boom: The Driving Lesson
  40. With Three You Get Eggroll
  41. Kung Boo
  42. Pigeon on the Roof
  43. The Brave Little Trailer
  44. Girlfeathers
  45. Super Buttons
  46. We’re No Pigeons
  47. Miami-Mama Mia
  48. Fake
  49. Katie Ka-Boom: Call Waiting
  50. Katie Ka-Boon: The Blemish
  51. Katie Ka-Boom: The Broken Date



Song Ranking
  1. A Quake! A Quake!
  2. Variety Speak
  3. Schnitzelbank
  4. I’m Mad
  5. I’m Cute
  6. Dot’s Quiet Time
  7. Finale
  8. Coo


Miscellaneous Ranking
  1. Branimaniacs
  2. Macbeth
  3. Oh, Oh, Ethel
  4. Spike

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode featuring the Warners taking on Sherlock Holmes, Slappy dealing with toons who actually believe she killed Walter Wolf, and an interesting musical number about the UN.

If you would like to check out other Animaniacs reviews on this blog, click here for the guide made especially for them. 

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