'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 12: Garage Sale of the Century/West Side Pigeons

Episode 12

Garage Sale of the Century

This Warners cartoon is the wacky hijinks abounding escapade of the kids faced off against a total jerk mixed with a simple slice-of-life plotline.  Slice-of-life means the whole story revolves around an occurrence common to everyday life which includes, in this particular cartoon's case, garage sales. 

The garage sale in this cartoon is staged as one that wouldn’t seem out of place in reality with random objects for sale and bystanders looking for something to buy.  The catch is that it’s held by a bear named Vern who pulls out all the stops to make a quick buck out of all the junk in his garage whether it’s making up a name and purpose for a useless knick-knack or denying claims that something he sold is defective.  He’s basically a greedy jerk putting money ahead of customer satisfaction just begging to be taken down a peg.  With that in mind, it’s perfectly fitting that the Warners enter the garage sale ensuring that they’ll get up to something zany that will give Vern his comeuppance. 

While that is ultimately what happens, there’s something about the role of the Warners that’s a bit off-putting.  It’s not that they go too far with their treatment of Vern, but the whole reason they’re at the garage sale in the first place doesn’t seem to be in line with their characters.  Since this is a garage sale, they believe that this means Vern’s whole garage, building and all, is for sale and intend to buy it for the top of their water tower.  Yes, the Warners are zany joke-driven characters with oddball mindsets, but it’s hard to believe that they’d actually be this naïve.  They take buying Vern’s garage seriously when a mention of wanting to do it would be better as a one-and-done joke. 

Even if it’s hard to buy the Warners’ portrayal, they still work in a lot of great comedy suited to their cartoony nature. It includes them treating buying Vern’s garage as an auction with a lot of fast-talking for potential deals, and their attempts leading Wakko to get a hold of the garage door opener which works on opening everything except the garage thus resulting in many great well-timed physical gags.  When all is said and done though, we once again end with another instance of the Warners becoming overpowered by their target when Vern has enough of their antics and someone else, in this case a mob of his earlier customers who told the police, finish him off.  Though even if they don’t do as much work, their earlier garage door opener gag does expose the money Vern scammed the people out of.  Still, it’s satisfying enough that Vern gets appropriate punishments for his scam, and the Warners still get the last laugh when they end up buying his garage for the reasonable price of 26 cents. 

While this isn’t the best cartoon for characterization, the comedy and great sense of justice make it a very solid one to check out. 9/10

West Side Pigeons

Like in the last episode, we have a cartoon that’s a parody of a famous musical.  This time the Goodfeathers star in a parody of the street-smart romantic tragedy West Side Story, and it’s a great take on the musical with respect for the source material and likable characters at the lead. 

The whole plot is pretty much a simplified, to-the-point retelling of the original musical.  Even technical things like bits of cinematography and especially the songs feel directly inspired.  This could be a problem if they were all exactly the same as the real movie because it could leave very little reason for the cartoon to be viewed when you can just watch the source material.  However, the story, music, and so on are distinct enough to exist as their own thing. 

The Goodfeathers themselves and many of their ways of life make what happens feel like something that would fit in their own world and not just an homage to a popular musical.  As they protect their turf of a statue of Martin Scorsese from the sparrows like the Jets protected their street from the Sharks, the roles of certain members of Jets feel like perfect fits for certain Goodfeathers.  The best example of this is naïve and innocent Squit wanting to find love while street-smart and tough Bobby and Pesto keeping their main focus on their rivalry with the sparrows, akin to the main character of West Side Story, Tony and his gang of Jets respectively.  These three characters fitting so well into the roles has them to shine as their true selves, making for some interesting chemistry.  This is an especially pleasing break from the usual routine of the pigeons frequently getting hit by things for the whole duration of most of their cartoons. 

Their main traits are still felt as they go through the motions of West Side Story. Squit instantly falls in love with Carloota, the sister of the sparrow leader, and plans to migrate with her, the sparrows show dissatisfaction with living on a rooftop instead of Scorsese’s head, and the Goodfeathers get caught in a rumble with the sparrows and Squit appears to “beak” the sparrow leader.  Following established characters who fit the source material’s roles and a few bird mannerisms like getting eaten by a cop cat and performing a high note to get out and wanting to be at the statue for food humans drop give the cartoon a unique feel. 

The cartoon also stands out for certain alterations to the source material.  Some examples include poking fun at its questionable moments like how Squit and Carloota fall in love and decide to migrate without question like the main couple in West Side Story do, how the sparrows immediately go against the no weapons rule in the rumble, and how fast Squit believes that Carloota got beaked.  The self-awareness not only continues to help the cartoon stand as its own, but allows it to feel at home in this show.  Speaking of which, it also gets away of not showing any dying like in the original with everything simply wrapping up with Carloota getting back together with her apparent original sparrow boyfriend, so to avoid getting too heavy.  Plus, there are good moments of heart like when Carloota genuinely lets Squit down gently, and a heartwarming musical number to further establish the bonds of the Goodfeathers that literally bring the statue down. 

In the end, we’re left with a respectful parody that, while modeling its plot heavily on the source, stands on its own with great use of characters, pokes at the source’s weak points, and great use of music and heart.  Given what Goodfeathers cartoons are mostly like, this is one of their more amazing works. 10/10

Cartoon Ranking

1. King Yakko
2. Slappy Goes Walnuts
3. H.M.S. Yakko
4. Hooked on a Ceiling
5. Temporary Insanity
6. Bumbie’s Mom
7. Les Miseranimals
8. West Side Pigeons
9. When Rita Met Runt
10. De-zanitized
11. Win Big
12. Taming of the Screwy
13. Piano Rag
14. Cookies for Einstein
15. The Big Candy Store
16. Garage Sale of the Century
17. Wally Llama
18. Where Rodents Dare
19. Operation: Lollipop
20. No Pain No Painting
21. Goodfeathers: The Beginning

Song Ranking

1. Yakko’s Universe
2. Yakko’s World
3. The Monkey Song
4. What Are We?

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
2. Nighty-Night Toon
3. Flipper Parody

This blog is going on a 10-day hiatus and will resume operation on 4/15 when the next episode will be reviewed featuring the Warners meeting a supposed comedy "genius" modeled after the late Jerry Lewis, the first Hip Hippos cartoon with an operatic feel, and Slappy Squirrel going for a wild drive set to the Dan and Jean song, "Little Old Lady from Pasadena."

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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

'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 11: No Pain No Painting/Les Miseranimals

Episode 11

No Pain No Painting

For this next entry in the types of Warner siblings cartoons where they annoy a historical figure into creating his biggest accomplishment, we have them in the presence of Pablo Picasso trying to convince him to make Dot his new model while he struggles to come up with a new style.  It doesn’t have the same comedic edge or as endearing characterizations as the previous Warners in a historical event cartoons, but it’s still funny and likable as it is. 

Like the other historical figures, Picasso is portrayed as relatable with his constant frustrations of finding his style as well as easily agitated with his lack of progress and good people to work with.  Of course, when the Warners show up and unleash their brand of antics, his matters aren’t helped at all.  The characterization of Picasso is good and entertaining, but is not as appealing as other versions of historical figures for lacking the endearment of Einstein and charismatics of Michelangelo.  He’s basically a mildly amusing egotistical artist having a bad day with not much else too him. 

As for the Warners, their jokes aren’t as plentiful as usual, but they’re still the highlights of this cartoon as they always are when they’re the stars.  There’s some solid witty remarks to Picasso as he boasts about his accomplishments and when he tells them to go away if he gives them “franks.”  Also, while I’m usually not fond of bathroom humor, there are a few instances of that which work for their subtlety when presented and how they lead to humorous punchlines about the vulgar subjects like the P.P. on Picasso’s smock or his mention of the French phrase, “oui, oui”. 

The zany ways of the Warners continue when, in a sloppy bit of storytelling that completely drops the model plot as if it never existed, they convince Picasso to play “Guess the Picture.”  The catch is that whenever Picasso draws something professionally, the Warners play dumb and don’t get the artist’s obvious pictures.  However, when the Warners draw something, they do so in a ridiculous manner with certain features being abnormally large and they get what’s drawn instantly.  It’s a humorous play on the mind for both Picasso and the audience that perfectly fit how the Warners function.  It’s unfortunate though that when Picasso is too annoyed by how the Warners mess with him, they just leave, and it’s unlike them to give up without getting what they want from who they encounter.  Then again, they leave at the right time when Picasso ends up using their crazy drawings as his new style, cubism.  This is mostly a solid conclusion to his main arc, but it can get concerning when after two cartoons where the Warners simply laid the groundwork for historical discoveries and creations, here they completely come up with it and someone else takes the credit for it.  It’s further shown when at the end, they’re seen doing the paintings everyone thinks Picasso did.  Plagiarism much?  At least we get a funny follow-up to the earlier “franks” gag. 

This cartoon is flawed and somewhat dull in parts, but the Warners continue to delight and what we have still has some good entertainment, so you’re still in for something good if only a bit artistic.  8/10

Les Miseranimals

Whenever the dramatic and soulful tone of Rita and Runt cartoons is fully embraced, the result is something that’s vastly different from most of the show, but still beautiful and impactful achievements.  Usually, the heavy stuff is only for a few scenes amidst a typical funny cartoon, but this cartoon prides itself in what makes cartoons starring these characters stand out in the cast, modelled after one of the most dramatic musicals, Les Miserables. 

It presents Rita in a bleak situation where she’s trapped in a pen with cats who frequently insult and talk down to her, and the owner, Monsieur Tristesse, is planning on putting her and the others into pies to attract customers to his restaurant.  Her only hope of escape is for a big dumb dog, Runt Valrunt, who’s on the run from the pound who has accused him of stealing a bone, to break through the walls.  Through such a simple setup, the cartoon goes all out with theatrical qualities and drama.  Set against the moody streets of France at night, you get a very dark and foreboding tone tying into Rita’s dire situation and how serious it is for her and the cats. 

Plus, there are the songs which are straight-up parodies of those from Les Miserables.   From the sounds of it, you may think that the songs are just all jokes on the heartfelt numbers of this emotionally heavy story, and at times, the songs do work in some goofy concepts in the lyrics. They include how Rita is insulted by the cats, how Tristesse’s customers complain about their pies, Rita berating Runt for trying to pull her out of the pen, Runt appointing an army of poodles to dig the cats out, and Tristesse commenting on getting bitten in the butt.  Even with these bits of comedy, the dramatic weight of the situation is thoroughly elevated musically, and has the comedic bits mesh with the serious tone.  Even if they’re simple takes on the songs from the original, they’re all composed with the same dignity, helping to make all the moments, in spite of their light-heartedness, stand as grand and unforgettable.  We also get a few song parodies that shed anything comedic to be full-on emotional.  These bring the heart out in moments such as Rita dreaming of being out of the pen in a perfect home helped by the great singing talents of Bernadette Peters, the triumphant and intense climax of Runt and the poodles digging the cats out, and the ending of Tristesse and the dog pursuing Runt getting defeated and the strays escaping to Paris. 

The whole cartoon is easily one of the most theatrical of the series, and it further impresses with how it makes every moment, even the comedic ones, fit well with the simple yet dramatic story.  With songs that give everything an epically dramatic feel, likable characters at the focus, and a strong crafting of a story worth taking seriously but still finding some things to laugh at, this not only pays great respect for Les Miserables, but it also stands as an interesting achievement for the show and a great example of the appeal of Rita and Runt. 10/10

Cartoon Ranking

1. King Yakko
2. Slappy Goes Walnuts
3. H.M.S. Yakko
4. Hooked on a Ceiling
5. Temporary Insanity
6. Bumbie’s Mom
7. Les Miseranimals
8. When Rita Met Runt
9. De-zanitized
10. Win Big
11. Taming of the Screwy
12. Piano Rag
13. Cookies for Einstein
14. The Big Candy Store
15. Wally Llama
16. Where Rodents Dare
17. Operation: Lollipop
18. No Pain No Painting
19. Goodfeathers: The Beginning

Song Ranking

1. Yakko’s Universe
2. Yakko’s World
3. The Monkey Song
4. What Are We?

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
2. Nighty-Night Toon
3. Flipper Parody

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where the Warners go to a garage sale to buy a garage, and we see another musical parody, this time of West Side Story starring the Goodfeathers.

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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

'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 10: King Yakko

Episode 10

King Yakko

Now we’ve come to the cartoon that fully convinced me that this animated series would stand above all others.  The story, characters, animation, music, and comedy all together show the appeal of animation for how it can tell big grand stories and make for creative gags that stand out better than in any other medium. 

It’s about the Warners coming to a small kingdom called Anvilania, the largest producer of anvils in the world, because Yakko is the only living member of the king’s royal lineage.  In such a high position, Yakko is in top form with jokes coming a mile a minute through everything he does like giving witty remarks to his assignments, making big speeches to his subjects to see if they can make funny faces, how he flirts with the prime minister, and more.  Yakko also gets in great entertainment through music with variations of a bombastic musical number to address his subjects on certain matters, which is especially useful in explaining complex things like his family tree.  These comedic moments greatly displays how well animation works as a generation of laughs.  Every single one hits a bullseye and brings out a lot in the main characters. 

However, these funny moments really mean something when Yakko gets involved in a serious situation.  Because he’s a kid in charge, that leaves the kingdom open for invasion from other forces such as a man named Umlatt of Dunlikus.  When he first demands Anvilania, Yakko isn’t threatened by the force and jokes on Umlatt’s control attempts, his uniform, his dictator status, and how he wages war on the kingdom, all of which are hilarious.  The hilarity also continues when everyone prepares for the coming war, and Yakko just has a grand old time with witty remarks on everyone’s battle preparations and putting more concern on frivolous things like changing the national anthem. 

As enormously entertaining as everything is, Yakko seems completely incompetent when his own kingdom is at stake.  That turns out to be where the thing that makes this cartoon so amazing lies when in the end, Yakko turns out to be completely competent.  He and his siblings end up facing Umlatt and his army alone with their zany knowhow. In the process, they take out his army with a payoff to one of the many jokes, get Umlatt to admit that all he wants is the kingdom’s anvils, and let him have them in a grand tribute to animation as a comic vehicle modeled after the classic cartoon gag of an anvil dropping on one’s head.  It starts off with the kids simply dropping an anvil on Umlatt’s head, but gradually grows to a big display of falling anvils with their own comic blow aided by a big orchestral piece.  It’s both hilarious and epic at the same time, and brings an appropriate end to the war when Umlatt can’t take any more of the anvils. 

The big thing about all this is the approach to a deal as big as a war.  While most would act serious and fearful at such a thing, what we see here has characters enter light-heartedly without fear or worry, and win through wit and comedy.  With the aid of more great usage of gags, music, and cartoony animation, the result is the ultimate example of animation’s versatility.  Then, we finish with a combination of one last triumphant variation of the main song and even more hilarious gags. 

In conclusion, “King Yakko” is no doubt the greatest success of Animaniacs with an endless collection of top-tier jokes and character moments tying into a creative and impactful way to solve a big conflict.  It’s a cartoon that’s sure to get you into this show the most and one that confirms this animated series’ status as the absolute best. 10/10

Cartoon Ranking

1. King Yakko
2. Slappy Goes Walnuts
3. H.M.S. Yakko
4. Hooked on a Ceiling
5. Temporary Insanity
6. Bumbie’s Mom
7. When Rita Met Runt
8. De-zanitized
9. Win Big
10. Taming of the Screwy
11. Piano Rag
12. Cookies for Einstein
13. The Big Candy Store
14. Wally Llama
15. Where Rodents Dare
16. Operation: Lollipop
17. Goodfeathers: The Beginning

Song Ranking

1. Yakko’s Universe
2. Yakko’s World
3. The Monkey Song
4. What Are We?

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
2. Nighty-Night Toon
3. Flipper Parody
   

The second disc of the set is now officially covered.  Next time we'll start on the third one with a review of Episode 11 in which it's Pablo Picasso's turn to deal with the Warners, and Rita and Runt steal the show in a parody of Les Miserables.

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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

'Toon Reviews 14: Animaniacs Vol 1 Part 9: Wally Llama/Where Rodents Dare

Episode 9

Wally Llama

For this cartoon, we have the Warners faced against a character who’s a play on the word, “Dalai lama” known as Wally Llama.  Fitting for a concept with a funny name, he’s a literal llama who lives in the Himalayas and can answer any question imaginable.  With this background is a touch of relatability when he gets so worn out from answering questions and knowing the answers for all of them that he simply doesn’t want to answer anymore.  You can easily identify yourself with this entity, since anyone can get tired of doing the same thing at some point showing that one’s strengths can be a blessing and a curse. 

As for the Warners, they come in just as Wally Llama steps down from answering questions, and when he turns down the offer to help them, the kids clearly don’t take “no” for an answer.  They mostly spend the cartoon popping up in places that Wally Llama wouldn’t expect.  It starts off with them simply outside doors, but then their surprise entrances build to showing up inside his TV, at the driver seat of the taxi he’s using to get away and even inside his own psyche when he tries cleansing himself through meditation. 

Every time the kids take him by surprise, it’s an appropriate shock for the audience that turn out to be big on laughs and witty responses.  At the same time, you have to wonder if the Warners are worth getting behind in this case.  They keep infringing on Wally Llama’s privacy when he clearly doesn’t want to answer questions at the moment which makes the kids look inconsiderate.  Still, Wally Llama does come off as a little rude when he says he doesn’t want to answer any more questions and there’s no reason why he shouldn’t answer the one the kids have.  Then again, you could argue that this factors into his relatability on how people can get easily annoyed when people pester you to do something you don’t want to do.  You can also make the point that maybe what the Warners need answered is very important especially since they clearly travelled a long way to Wally Llama for an answer.  Wakko even got sick in Phoenix over it.  Basically, it’s hard to find out who to side with in this scenario. 

Thankfully, in addition to the overall great comedy from the Warners popping in on Wally Llama for an answer, the whole watch is aided by a satisfactory payoff.  Following a humorous back and forward between Yakko and Wally Llama about if the llama really can answer any question, we get the very question the Warners wanted an answer to.  It’s both humorous for its oddball topic on hotdogs and buns, but also one that’s truly worth pondering about how one’s sold in 10-packs and the other’s sold in 8-packs.  It also does the trick to break Wally Llama from his question funk when he finds out that he really doesn’t know the answer despite being claimed to be all-knowing.  So we end with one of the most intellectual jokes of the series and get a satisfying conclusion for Wally Llama’s arc. 

Even if it’s hard to pick who to side with most of the time, everything else is so big on entertainment it hardly matters. 9/10

Where Rodents Dare

There’s no doubt that Pinky and the Brain proved to be such a winning pair of characters with their first cartoon, so it’s great to see them back in action for another one in this episode.  While they basically do the same thing in every cartoon, try to take over the world, each one stands out with something different always being done with the formula and the two great characters of dynamically clashing personalities being at the center. 

This time, their plan is to infiltrate a peace summit all the world leaders are attending, and if Brain’s over bloated ego is anything to go by, taking control of the summit will allow them to take over the world…somehow.  As is to be expected with these cartoons, much of the entertainment comes from how well Pinky and the Brain themselves work off each other through Brain’s egotistical intellect and Pinky just wanting to have fun throughout the whole plan as shown through the running gag of a loud drumbeat that turns out to be coming from him all along.  An even stronger running gag comes from how Pinky and Brain communicate through walkie-talkies whether they’re doing so despite being very close to each other, or in unusual places like inside birds. 

The previous cartoon featured the mice getting to their goal easily with nothing working against them until the end.  Here, lots of things are working against them as they struggle to even get to the summit for a majority of the cartoon.  It is interesting that both Pinky and Brain are to blame for them constantly falling off the gondola into a snowy abyss far below the summit with Brain’s intellect miscalculating when to jump out of a plane to the summit, and Pinky’s lack of intelligence distracting Brain from recognizing the time to get off the gondola.  For the latter part though, it does prove problematic that they bring up this gag several times making it feel monotonous and boring. 

Speaking of which, that’s a good way to describe much of what we get in the cartoon.  So much time is spent on Pinky and Brain struggling to get out of the abyss and up to the summit that nothing really exciting relating to Brain’s plan happens, and it only gets worse when they end up in the abyss again when they were so close.  By the time they finally do get to where they need to be, the cartoon is nearly over, leaving little time for anything interesting to happen.  At least what does happen is interesting by itself when the very thing that makes the plan fail is, for once, out of any of the mice’s control when someone puts a glass on top of them just when they’re about to freeze the world leaders, so they get frozen themselves. 

Even if this does turn out to be one of the duller Pinky and the Brain cartoons, there’s still a lot of strong comedy, character interactions, and interesting twists to the formulaic setup to make it worth watching. 8/10

Cartoon Ranking

1. Slappy Goes Walnuts
2. H.M.S. Yakko
3. Hooked on a Ceiling
4. Temporary Insanity
5. Bumbie’s Mom
6. When Rita Met Runt
7. De-zanitized
8. Win Big
9. Taming of the Screwy
10. Piano Rag
11. Cookies for Einstein
12. The Big Candy Store
13. Wally Llama
14. Where Rodents Dare
15. Operation: Lollipop
16. Goodfeathers: The Beginning

Song Ranking

1. Yakko’s Universe
2. Yakko’s World
3. The Monkey Song
4. What Are We?

Miscellaneous Ranking

1. Gilligan’s Island Parody
2. Nighty-Night Toon
3. Flipper Parody

Be sure to stay tuned for the review of the next episode where we let the anvils ring for what's not only my personal favorite Animaniacs episode, but also my favorite animated TV show episode in general.

If you want to stay updated for more reviews, become a follower of this blog, click here to like the official Facebook page, and click here to follow me on Twitter.

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