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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
- The Warners’ 65th Anniversary Special
- Super Strong Warner Siblings
- Baloney and Kids
- Ragamuffins
- Frontier Slappy
- Woodstock Slappy
- Wakko’s Gizmo
- The Warners and the Beanstalk
- Brain Meets Brawn
- Morning Malaise
- Meet John Brain
- Yes, Always
- Drive Insane
- Lookit the Fuzzy Heads
- Take My Siblings Please
- Wakko’s New Gookie
- Karaoke Dokie
- Nutcracker Slappy
- Witch One
- Of Course, You Know This Means Warners
- No Face Like Home
- Meet Minerva
- The Chicken Who Loved Me
- Scare Happy Slappy
- Bingo
- Smell Ya Later
- A Gift of Gold
- Ups and Downs
- The Helpinki Formula
- The Mindy 500
- Les Boutons et le Ballon
- Bad Mood Bobby
- Whistle Stop Mindy
- Three Tenors and You’re Out
- Gold Rush
- Up a Tree
- Cranial Crusader
- Mermaid Mindy
- Katie Ka-Boom: The Driving Lesson
- With Three You Get Eggroll
- Kung Boo
- Pigeon on the Roof
- The Brave Little Trailer
- Girlfeathers
- Super Buttons
- We’re No Pigeons
- Miami-Mama Mia
- Fake
- Katie Ka-Boom: Call Waiting
- Katie Ka-Boon: The Blemish
- Katie Ka-Boom: The Broken Date
Song Ranking
- A Quake! A Quake!
- Variety Speak
- Schnitzelbank
- I’m Mad
- I’m Cute
- Dot’s Quiet Time
- Finale
- Coo
Miscellaneous Ranking
- Branimaniacs
- Macbeth
- Oh, Oh, Ethel
- 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.
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