Animaniacs: April 1996
Cover
Drawn by: Allen Helbig
The Warner Happy Face: a big yellow happy face, with eyes and a smile...but the eyes are Warner eyes, and Dot's flower is at the top. The background is solid purple. The caption reads, "Have A Nice Day!!! (100% Polyester Issue)".
Credits
Synopsis
San Francisco in the beatnik era. The Drooling Eye coffee house is having a poetry contest, and Dot Warner wants to enter to gain fame and glamour. They go inside to register for the contest, but the proprietor thinks they're not hip and refuses to let Dot participate. He tells the Warners that the contest is for beat poets only. They misunderstand, in typical Warner fashion, and the proprietor lets Dot participate to get her out of his hair.
Dot gets up in front of the crowd and delivers a typically Dot-esque poem. The crowd, expecting depressing beat poetry, hates it, and lets her know about it. Later, after more poets give their readings, Dot comes to the conclusion that she must become miserable to be a poet. They go off to soak up despairat the most miserable place on earth: the Department of Motor Vehicles. Dot finally becomes miserable enough and goes back to the contest. She takes off her flower, replacing it with a beret, and becomes the most depressing - and winning - poet there.
This misery proves to be too much for Yakko and Wakko, who point out that comic books are supposed to be funny. They remind Dot of the terms of their contract with WB, which says that they're required to be merry-makers. Dot can't be happy without her flower, but Wakko finds one in his Wacky Sack - after all, he's got one of everything in there. They return to their normal zany selves.
The Warners return to the Drooling Eye. They give a beatnik poet a whole new outfit straight from a thrift shop, then dump a truckload of fertilizer on another poet who claims that that's what life is. They plant flower seeds in the fertilizer, and the proprietor objects to the new decor...until one of the poets sees a flower and is inspired. By the time everyone's done, the flower child movement is born.
Did You Notice...
The chronology is correct; the beatnik movement started in San Francisco in the late fifties, and the flower children in the mid-sixties.- Wakko is dressed as Fred Flintstone as he beats a poet on page 3.
- Allen Glumsberg refers to beat poet Allen Ginsberg. (I've never seen a picture of Ginsberg; anyone out there want to comment on how good the likeness is? -- JM)
- Wakko's sack has the usual collection of stuff, including a bomb, an anvil, and Pinky and the Brain.
- The Warners are dressed in the costumes from Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band in their last appearance.
- The signs at the end all refer to flower-child icons: "Make love, not war", "Tune in, turn on, drop out" (slogan of the LSD culture), and "And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make" (from The End, on the Beatles' Abbey Road album).
- The beatnik on page 7 who says "Like, cool, man!" is Carzon. He appears again on page 16.
Technical nits
Carzon still can't seem to decide whether Dot's tail should pass through (the standard representation) or under her skirt.- In one place on page 7, not only does Dot's tail pass beneath her skirt...she's also not wearing any underwear!
- The Great Dot Ear Debate: There's no definitive answer, either here or from the cartoons, as to where Dot's ears are attached to her head. There are only two cartoons that show Dot with her ears not held together by some kind of band: Hercule Yakko, from Animaniacs episode 25, shows her ears in the same place as her brothers', while Turkey Jerky, from Animaniacs episode 46, is inconsistent: the first act shows them together without being held, but the second act mostly shows them apart. It would have been nice to have had them consistently one way or the other, but Carzon can hardly be blamed for this one when there's no definitive guidance from the authoritative source. For what it's worth, my personal opinion is that they're like her brothers', but she chooses to wear them together because it's cuter. (Anyone who says that she can move them around to suit the occasion gets an anvil dropped on their head...debates like this are fun! -- JM)
- One more spot where Dot's not wearing underwear, at the bottom of page 15.
Credits
Synopsis
It's 1962, and the Brain has yet another plan to take over the world: he will threaten to shoot the Earth into the sun with a giant slingshot if he isn't given control. He has a major obstacle, though: he needs rubber, and the entire rubber supply has been diverted to make rubber go-go boots. Just as the Brain ponders the problem, Pinky turns on a TV program which provides the answer: he'll throw a big party, luring the "mods" in to steal their go-go boots by using static electricity.
Two days later, the party is set up. Hordes of young women have come to hear the band the Brain hired: the Fab Four. The Brain, of course, has never heard of them, but the rest of the world has, including Pinky. After the Brain explains to the band his plans, they take the stage. The Brain introduces them, and they start playing. As the audience dances, their boots stick to the floor, just as planned.
In fact, the plan works too well: There are too many partygoers, and the Brain's static electricity generator overloads despite Pinky's best efforts. He is eventually sucked into the machine, with disastrous results: it explodes from the load. The band stops playing to help deal with the problem, and the audience leaves, believing the concert to be over. The Brain bemoans his fate, but the band has been inspired by the words the mice have used, and goes off to fame and fortune...as the Beetles.
Did You Notice...
- The title refers to the Neil Simon play The Odd Couple, which later became a successful TV series. Pinky and the Brain are certainly an odd couple, though in a different manner than the original.
- There are 19 Beatles song references, all told:
- Page 25:
- panel 2: Revolution 1, The White Album
- panel 3: Helter Skelter, The White Album
- panel 4: Getting Better, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- panel 5:
- Eleanor Rigby, Revolver
- Strawberry Fields Forever, Magical Mystery Tour
- Page 26:
- panel 2: Twist and Shout, The Early Beatles/Please Please Me
- Page 29:
- panel 4: Ticket to Ride, Help!
- panel 5: Hey, Jude, Hey Jude/Past Masters 2
- Page 30:
- panel 1:
- Get Back, Let It Be
- Why Don't We Do It in the Road?, The White Album
- panel 3: Help!, Help!
- Page 31:
- panel 3:
- Nowhere Man, "Yesterday"...and Today/Rubber Soul
- A Hard Day's Night, A Hard Day's Night
- panel 4:
- Yesterday, "Yesterday"...and Today/Help!
- Ob-La-Di, Ob-La-Da, The White Album
- panel 5:
- Happiness Is a Warm Gun, The White Album
- A Little Help from My Friends, Sgt Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band
- Page 32:
- panel 1: Let It Be, Let It Be
- panel 3: Free As a Bird, Beatles Anthology I
For more Beatles information on the net, check out Dave Mervis' BeatleLink.
- Slappy's in the audience as the Brain introduces the band...with blonde hair, even!
- The Fab Four was a common nickname for the Beatles.
Technical nits
- Normally, I'd include a complaint here about Pinky's British slang, as his word usage is almost entirely American, his accent (best described as "Cockney with a speech impediment") notwithstanding. In this case, though, it's arguably appropriate, and he uses the British words correctly, as far as I can tell.
- The name changing is worse in this story than just about any other...replacing the first character of each name with B produces some names that are downright unpronounceable. I hope that they knock it off...after all, the show uses celebrities' names with impunity.
Other items:
There is one two-page filler in this issue:
- Dot's Dress-Up
- Paper doll time, with our favorite cute one as the doll. There are three sets of clothes for her: a mod set, a flower power outfit, and a disco get-up.
Jay Maynard, jmaynard@phoenix.net
Last updated 21 March 1996