Animaniacs: April 1997
Cover
Drawn by: Omar Aranda
The Warners in turn-of-the-century Brooklyn. At the top, they're standing behind a banner at the top of a wall; in the distance is the Brooklyn Bridge. Yakko says, "Buy now, and we'll throw in Staten Island for free!" Wakko's eating a Coney Island hot dog and wearing a cap from the era. Below the Brooklyn banner on the wall are pictures of the Warners playing stickball, Johnny-on-the-pony, and pitching pennies (in the latter, Wakko has a huge penny). The normal logo is replaced by the title in lettering of that time period, as well.
Credits
Synopsis
The Goodfeathers are doing some birdwatching when the Girlfeathers fly up and catch them at it. Since the birds they're watching are cute females, they're naturally quite upset...and further, they never go anywhere anyway. The girls demand to go somewhere fun and romantic, and Bobby knows just the place: the Jackie Robinson apartments, in Brooklyn. The guys are quickly overcome with the emotional history of the place, while the girls are just bored.
Artful Dodgers is shown here...
We return from the flashback to see the birds flying away from the apartments, where Pesto, overcome by emotion, has bombed the guard. The girls want to go somewhere interesting, but make the mistake of letting Bobby choose...and so they wind up high atop the Brooklyn Bridge.
Brooklyn Brain is shown here...
Another flashback over, and we see the birds getting chased away from the bridge after just twenty minutes and another Pesto bombing run. Disgusted, the girls fly home, leaving the guys to discuss their means of keeping the relationships going. The Godpigeon interrupts their repartee just as Pesto's getting ready to explain matters to Squit in his usual direct manner. He tells them to go spend some time with the girls. They return to the statue, loaded with presents, only to find that they're doing some birdwatching of their own.
Did You Notice...
Kurtin gets the relationships right: Bobby and Lana (the blue female), Pesto and Kiki (the green female), and Sasha and Squit (the reddish-purple female).- The Jackie Robinson Apartments are indeed on the site of Ebbets Field.
- The places the girls want to go are all Brooklyn landmarks: Prospect Park is a large park in central Brooklyn; Brooklyn Heights is a residential neighborhood across from Lower Manhattan, known for its 19th century houses and cobblestone streets; the Promenade is the common name for what's officially known as the Esplanade (also located in Brooklyn Heights), a spot with a great view of the Manhattan skyline. (EC)
Technical nits
It's spelled Ebbets Field...one T, no apostrophe. It was named after the president of the Brooklyn Dodgers organization in 1913, when the stadium was built. The lettering and the sign on the side of the apartment building both get it wrong, in different ways, on page 2...and then the lettering is correct on page 15. (EC)- Sasha is drawn with Kiki's head on page 2, in the third panel. (Or maybe that's Kiki, and she's colored like Sasha...either way, it's a booboo.) It should be noted here that the Girlfeathers appear in just two cartoons, Girlfeathers in Animaniacs episode 53, and Pigeon on the Roof in Animaniacs episode 67, and they are not included in the standard WB model sheet package, which means they're not as well-defined as the Goodfeathers themselves.
- Coloring errors: The Godpigeon's main body is white, instead of the light blue shown on page 32; the Goodfeathers' underbellies are shown as a medium yellow instead of the standard light beige.
- Birds can stand on power lines because they only touch one at a time, never completing a circuit. The Godpigeon should get fried as his foot touches two lines at the top of page 32.
Credits
Synopsis
It's 1955, and the Warners are at the last game of the World Series, at Ebbets Field. Wakko's especially happy about it, since it's also Free Side o'Beef Night, but Dot's less than thrilled, since they're far too high in the stadium for her to run down and kiss the cute outfielders. Then again, maybe that's just as well, as Yakko points out, since the Brooklyn Codgers players look too old and tired to be interested, and they're losing, too. Wakko interrupts this discussion to ask for some sauce for his side of beef. Nobody nearby has any, so they go off to find a condiment vendor.
They catch up with him in the dugout of the opposing team, the Bombers. The manager is about to throw them out when he is told that their bat boy is out of action, and he hires the Warners, who just happen to have dressed in batboy (and batgirl, and Batman) uniforms. He tells them to go out and knock 'em dead, and that's exactly what the Warners do: they beat up on the Bombers players with their bats. The manager quickly gets them as far away from the bats as possible, by turning them into base coaches. They give the runners signals, and everyone starts dancing.
The next inning or so finds the Bombers in the field. A Codger batter hits a long fly ball, and two Bombers fielders call for it, and then back off when the Warners all call for it as well. The ball drops in for a hit. A bit later, there's a close play at the plate; the Warners argue, and after Dot kicks dirt on the umpire, they're ejected. Dot breaks out crying at this news, and the brothers make the ump feel guilty; he has to throw someonoe out of the game, and so the Bombers players find themselves tossed out of the park. 12 innings later, the Codgers win the game, and with it the World Series; they reward the Warners with more beef, and sauce to go with it.
Did You Notice...
- Aranda has finally managed to understand the Warners' facial expressions and mannerisms. Very few of them are out of place in this story.
- The teams refer to the actual teams in the 1955 World Series, the Brooklyn Dodgers and the New York Yankees (also referred to as the Bronx Bombers).
- The running "sauce" gag refers to a long-standing in-joke on the DALnet IRC channel #watertower, where Carolan and Moore hang out when not writing. One feature of that joke is that the channel's Wakko hates sauce, instead of liking it.
- Wakko's "Please, sir, could I have some sauce?", with pleading expression, refers to Dickens' story Oliver Twist and the musical version, Oliver!.
- Note that Dot wears her baseball cap the same way she wears her flower: as a band around her ears.
- One of the absolutely inviolate rules of playing the outfield in baseball: if you're running after a fly ball, and you know you're going to get it, you're supposed to yell "I got it!". Anyone who hears that is supposed to break off the chase and let the player calling for the ball make the play. This avoids collisions in the outfield between running players, which can cause very serious injuries. The outfielders are, therefore, right to back off when the Warners call the play.
Technical nits
- The final game of the 1955 World Series was played at Yankee Stadium, not Ebbets Field. Since that was the only World Series the Dodgers won before the move to Los Angeles, and since the issue's theme was Brooklyn, a little historical alteration was needed. (SC)
- The inside of Wakko's mouth isn't colored in the middle panel on the left on page 4.
- The Bombers' uniforms should probably have been drawn with pinstripes, as the traditional Yankees uniforms have.
- Dot's ears are missing in a few panels on page 8. Note that they stick up above her hat in later views.
- The Bombers coach is wearing a Codgers hat as Dot's kicking dirt at the umpire on page 11.
Credits
Synopsis
The Brain's latest plan for world domination involves his newest invention: the inflatable bustle, which women would wear under their skirts to enhance their figures. Upon the Brain's signal, they will all inflate, lifting the women into the air and rendering the world's men helpless with nobody to cook or clean for them, forcing them to surrender. The only problem is a familiar one: the Brain is short of cash.
The Brain plans to raise the needed cash by taking control of the Brooklyn Bridge and charging tolls for using it, thus taking in a large amount of money. The bridge's chief engineer has died recently, and the Brain plans to present himself as the engineer's son and take over the project. He finds the job foreman and makes his claim, but the real son intervenes. The construction workers are forced to choose between the two.
First, the Brain shows himself to be a real engineer by sucking down donuts and ignoring blueprints. This forces a test of construction manlines between the Brain and the engineer's son. The Brain wins a test of digging ability, using an enhancement device that Pinky misadjusts. He wriggles out of a contest of making suggestive comments to passing women by arguing that it's disrespectful to the memory of the engineer. Finally, he wins a contest of binding the wires holding up the bridge into one cable, with the help of Pinky, who has appropriated the enhancement device for the job.
The foreman can't decide which is the engineer's real son, so he calls in the widow to decide. She examines both, and decides that she can only tell by looking at the tushie she diapered as an infant. The Brain calls for Pinky to inflate the prototype bustle he's wearing under his suit, so he'll have a chance, and it does its other job, as well: they are lifted into the air and float away. As they float off, Pinky tells the Brain not to worry: he's bought the bridge, even though it took all their life savings to do it.
Did You Notice...
- The historical facts here are correct: the original engineer, John Roebling, died during construction of injuries he sustained in an accident, and his son, Washington Roebling, took over. It should be noted that the younger Roebling himself was crippled by a case of the bends he sustained while digging at the base of the bridge; he was confined to a wheelchair for the rest of his life. (EC)
- This isn't the first "asphalt" joke in the Animaniacs canon; the cartoon A Quake, A Quake, in episode 70, had the line "Cause Mister Richter can't predict 'er kicking our asphalt".
- The shots at engineers would be insulting if they didn't have that ring of truth to them...
- The Dunk 'em Donuts box refers to the Dunkin' Donuts chain.
- Squit's sitting on the side of the bridge as the rude comments contest is going on on page 24.
Technical nits
- The lettering looks like it was redone by someone besides Mapa at the bottom of page 18 and the top of page 21.
- Pinky doesn't appear to handle chopsticks properly at the top of page 24.
- The speech balloon pointing to the engineer's son in the third panel of page 24 should be pointing to the foreman, instead.
Jay Maynard, jmaynard@phoenix.net
Last updated 27 March 1997