Animaniacs: February 1996

Cover

Drawn by: Allen Helbig

The Special Gratuitous Pinup Cover! Yakko and Wakko are standing on a scaffold suspended from the ceiling on ropes. They're drooling over a full-sized picture of Hello Nurse they've just painted in her standard blonde bombshell pose. Yakko's holding a paintbrush, and there's a can of paint next to Wakko. There are paint splatters on the scaffold and the ground beneath them.

Dot stands on the other side of the picture, pointing her thumb at her brothers. She says, "Boys. All instincts, no intellects."

A Comic Book is Born

Credits

• Writer: Dana Kurtin
• Penciller: Neal Sternecky
• Inker: Scott McRae
• Letterer: Bob Pinaha
• Colorist: Jo Meuginot
• and Hello Nurse as herself

Synopsis

Dr. Scratchansniff has just returned to his office with a copy of his favorite comic book, Pinky and the Brain. As he settles down to enjoy it, he hopes that the Warners don't bother him, but they hear their names and come charging in. They see the comic, think it is cute, and ask when it was born. Scratchy replies that comics are made, not born, and convinces the Warners to watch a film about the process - but they decide to jump in the middle of the film instead.

The first stop is with the writer. He has the usual difficult time creating the story, but the Warners don't appreciate that, since writing is a mental process and so they can't see it happening. Scratchy manages to prevent them from livening up the process with dynamite. The writer finally comes up with a story and, after some begging and pleading, gets permission from the editor to create the script. The penciller comes next; he takes the script and produces the actual drawings that make up the pages, in rough form.

Dot notices that nobody's saying anything. That's because the next step is where that happens: the lettering. The letterer takes the penciled drawing and adds the text balloons, with the dialogue from the script inside. Inking is the next stage, where the rough pencil art is cleaned up by an inker, who goes over every line to produce the final art. Finally, the art is colored in by the colorist to produce the finished page.

Everyone steps out of the finished movie with the finished comic. Scratchy sings the praises of the editor, whose job it is to see that things go smoothly; Yakko points out that the writer of this story is courting the editor so she can do another one. The Warners disappear just as Scratchy realizes he's gotten through to them. He finds them in the real world of comics production, a hellish place with an editor who cracks the whip over artists chained to their drawing boards.

Did You Notice...

• Magazines in Scratchy's waiting room: Psychotics Quarterly (refers to Gentlemen's Quarterly), Nutsweek (a reference to Newsweek).
• There's a portrait of Sigmund Fraid on the wall in Scratchy's office.
• The Krebs cycle is the 27-step biochemical process by which glucose and adenosine diphosphate (ADP) are metabolized into carbon dioxide, water, and adenosine triphosphate (ATP). Cells get the energy they need to function from ATP, turning it into ADP in the process. Diglycerides have no direct part in it, however; they're short-chain lipids that are eventually broken down into glucose and used as input into the process. (GC)
• Everybody's refrigerator has the same contents.
• The writer is in the same pose as Rodin's The Thinker.
• The penciller is wearing a Freakazoid! T-shirt. (HG) He has a Plucky Duck trash can, too.
• The bird who gets his cage lined with the new comic is Squit.
• Kurtin's next story, The Mod Couple, appeared in Animaniacs issue #12, so she was successful in courting the editor.
• The marketing department occupies a lower level of hell than the artists.
• Wile E. Coyote appears on a page on the floor of hell.
• "I guess Wertham was right.": Dr. Fredric Wertham was the impetus behind the comics controversy of the late 1940s and early 1950s. He contended that comics were destroying kids' minds, and launched a campaign to censor comics in an effort to protect children. The result was the creation of the Comics Code Authority (that little stamp on the cover, and the organization behind it), and the demise of the whole "EC" series of comics produced by William Gaines - leaving only one, transformed into Mad Magazine. (SC) (Don't feel bad if you didn't get this one. I didn't!...JM)

Technical nits

• The highlight on Wakko's nose is colored in on the bottom of page 2,
• Yakko's ear is partially covered by a dialogue balloon the letterer has drawn on the sample page. (page 10)
• The Mime's face in the sample comic is flesh-toned instead of the standard white. His clothes are also miscolored; he normally wears a white and red striped shirt and black pants.
• The tufts are missing from the side of Yakko's face at the bottom of the sample comic. (page 10)

The Ice Cream Man Cometh

Credits

• Writer: Jesse Leon McCann
• Penciller: Leonardo Batic
• Inker: Scott McRae
• Letterer: Bob Pinaha
• Colorist: Jo Meuginot

Synopsis

It's a very hot day on the WB lot. The Warners are on the tower catwalk, relaxing; the boys are fishing, while Dot's singing a song about baking. The ice cream truck comes on the lot, and they all scream for ice cream (though Dot has to be prompted), then they outwit Ralph and go meet it.

The ice cream man turns out to be a real grouch. He runs off a kid who only brought 75 cents for an item that cost 75 cents yesterday but 76 cents today. The Warners see that, and decide to retaliate. First, Yakko has a hard time deciding between two complex flavors, so he settles on plain old vanilla. He eats the bar while commenting that free ice cream isn't an everyday thing, then points to the side of the truck when challenged on the issue. The Z in FREEZE is hidden by a post. The vendor tries to take back the bar Yakko's eating, but he finishes it first, then points out that the vendor should stop his brother and sister, who are passing out more free ice cream. He does, and Wakko lets him have one of his trademark belches; this stuns him, and Dot kisses him and makes him all better - and covers him in chocolate fudge in the process.

By now, the vendor is thoroughly steamed. Yakko suggests he take his mind off work, and they strap ice cream bars to their feet and go skating, then fling the vendor into a tree. They hide inside the truck, where they run into a polar bear and his penguin friends, then have a swordfight with the vendor, who turns out to be better than they'd guessed - but Dot wins the fight with a big stick. The vendor wakes up to find the Warners about to go over a big waterfall. He's convinced to rescue them, but winds up falling down the suddenly frozen waterfall instead and gets frozen himself inside a snowball. He breaks free just in time to ride an avalanche back out of the truck, where the first kid's big brother - a cop - is waiting with a few co-workers, who take an interest in his business deficiencies.

Did You Notice...

• As Yakko notes, the title refers to the play The Ice Man Cometh, even though the plot doesn't.
• The fishing poles and clothes on the first page refer to Huckleberry Finn.
• The "Bad Humor" Man refers to that American icon, the Good Humor Man.
• The polar bear and penguins refer to the animated Coca-Cola commercials. They even got the trademark bottle shape right.
• The boys wear Musketeer costumes while swordfighting, and Robespierre was the villain of that story.

Technical nits

• Coloring errors: Yakko's neck isn't colored in in the first panel, and Wakko's and Dot's aren't in the second panel on page 19; Wakko's collar isn't in the second panel on page 26. Wakko's shirt varies throughout from a medium blue to a light blue-green.
• Wakko's hat is on sideways in the first panel on page 20.
• Batic sometimes draws the Warners' eyes too small for their faces; see, for example, the first panel on page 30.

Other items:

Useless Facts

Three useless facts about letters.

What's In a Name?

The world's easiest crossword puzzle...though some folks have been seen spending several minutes on it before getting the joke.