Drawn by: Allen Helbig
A newsmagazine-style cover: "IS THIS THE END?" in bold white letters on a solid black background, with a photograph of Pinky and the Brain almost torn in half in the bottom right corner.
This is Helbig's first art featuring Pinky and the Brain. He gets the Brain right, though Pinky's grin seems a bit too wide...but then, Pinky has the most variable facial expressions of any of the Animaniacs characters, so this one's not too unusual.
The Brain doesn't plan to take over the world tonight...at least, not the usual way. He believes that his plans fail because of Pinky's stupidity. He's built a duplication ray, and intends to use it to get a new, intelligent partner: an exact copy of himself. Pinky, who thought that the duplicator was a hair dryer (just because it looks like one), has become superfluous to the Brain's plans, and so the Brain throws him out of the cage. He leaves in tears.
The Brain fights off his sentimental reaction to losing his friend and gets to work. He duplicates himself, and runs into a problem: the duplicate is so perfect that there's no way to tell them apart. He solves the problem by stamping a big 2 on the duplicate's head. The duplicate objects to this, since he believes he's the real Brain. After an argument, the duplicate takes the duplicator and leaves. The Brain catches up with him just in time to discover that he's made his own duplicate, with the same results: the new duplicate has run off with the duplicator.
This cycle goes on for a few hundred more rounds, and soon there are hundreds of Brains bemoaning their stupidity. The original Brain hears Pinky, who has camped out on a park bench, and begs him to return; he does after exacting a couple of concessions. The Brain explains the situation, and he and Pinky return to the lab. The duplicates soon follow, and the original Brain suggests the duplicates all follow him as leader. This starts another big argument among the Brains.
The original Brain realizes the duplicates will be uncontrollable, and so he uses the duplicator to un-duplicate them. He is successful in that effort, but has a side effect: the duplication ray strikes a mirror and duplicates Pinky a few hundred times. The duplicator is broken, but the Brain will definitely fix it...
The strip at the top of the story starts out the same as the other Pinky and the Brain stories, with the mice in the same pose. Pinky's bench is in Schpielberg Park. Do I really need to point out that this refers to executive producer and movie mogul Steven Spielberg?
For the Brain to run off Pinky, even for the good of the world, is a bit out of character; Pinky is the one constant in his life, even above and beyond his goal of world domination. For a comparison, see the cartoon That Smarts, where the Brain solves this problem by making Pinky smart. The lettering in the third panel on page 13 appears to have been done by a different person. There are two Brains numbered 21 in the last panel on page 14. The #11 duplicate's upper lip is black in the bottom panel on page 15.The Warners have shipped themselves to the set of a new Frankenstein...or so they thought when they climbed in the crate. It lands, instead, in a town near Castle Frankenstein, Austria. After Dot chastises Yakko for the error, they decide to deliver the crate to its destination, collect a tip, and buy skates with which to get back to Burbank. They get directions to the castle from a nearby innkeeper, who warns them to stay away.
They walk up to the castle and knock on the door. Dr. Scratchansniff answers, and introduces himself as Dr. Frankansniff. They deliver his crate, but the only tip they get for their trouble is that a bird in the hand is worth two in the bush. He finishes the insult by slamming the door in their faces, then goes inside to unpack the crate. The Warners interrupt him, though, and invade the castle dressed as local citizens. He recognizes the kids and runs them out, still without a tip.
The Doctor gives his aide Igor (in reality, Hello Nurse) strict instructions to see the Warners off of the castle grounds if they return. No sooner has he left to decorate his lab, however, than they knock on the door and race in, then downstairs. They find the Doctor in his lab, working on his project in the dark. Wakko pulls a handle to turn on some lights, but instead powers up the Doctor's apparatus - and gives life to his creation. The monster, Thaddeus Plotz in makeup, gets off the table and attacks Wakko. Dot takes exception to that and slaps the monster, which makes him cry, and then points hm at the Doctor as the source of his troubles. He chases the Doctor out of sight.
A loud "CUT!" is heard from off to one side. The Warners wound up on the lot in Burbank after all, and have been in a movie. They comment on the casting, especially of Plotz as a mindless monster, and note that he never scared them as he sneaks up behind them. We fade out on Plotz, still in makeup, scaring the Warners up close...
The bit with Ishmael refers to the opening of Moby Dick. The legend on the clapperboard on the top of page 32 is correct, not only for page and writer, but also the director...the penciller of a comics story is the closest thing to the director of a cartoon. Dot's leg is bent strangely as she jumps out of the crate. (page 19) Several text balloons are done differently: the writing is different, the pen lines are thinner, and some punctuation is missing. See, for example, the third panel on page 20. Yakko's arm looks like it's coming from a funny direction as he holds his nose on page 20. Coloring errors: Most of Dot's flower is colored black in the bottom left-hand panel on page 24; Yakko's pants aren't colored in in the last panel on page 32. Dot's native dress, until that point a plain green, magically grows flowers on page 26. Spelling error: "pratically", on the next-to-last panel on page 32.Both items were drawn by Neal Sternecky.