Drawn by: Neal Sternecky
A day at the amusement park. The Warners, Slappy Squirrel, Hello Nurse, Colin (Randy Beaman's pal), Pinky and the Brain, and the Goodfeathers are crammed into a car on the roller-coaster, which is topping a hill. Pesto and Squit are fighting, as usual; HN is in Yakko's arms; The Brain is riding on Wakko's hat; and Pinky is wrapped in a banner that says "Surrender humans!". The Mime is running from the car, holding up a sign that says, "Today on Mime Time: Running for your life!!". Ralph is chasing them in the next car. Mindy is being carried away by some balloons, and Buttons has been hurled into the Animaniacs logo, squashing it some.
There are several errors in this one: The Mime's face is natural flesh tone instead of the whiteface makeup he uses in the cartoons; Yakko's eyeballs aren't colored in; and Wakko normally doesn't show his teeth in that expression.
It's a lovely spring day in the 19th century, and Dot is out to have a picnic. She lugs her enormously heavy basket into the woods, and finds the almost perfect spot, where she sets the basket down. It was enormously heavy for a reason: her brothers stowed away inside, and ate all the food - or so they thought: the real picnic was in a secret compartment. They eat the real thing, and meet an artist painting the landscape. The artist is a far-from-famous James Whistler. It turns out that he paints landscapes because he cannot afford models, and the Warners volunteer.
They return to Whistler's studio, where they make the usual Warner mess of the place. Dot asks why Whistler paints in the park when he has such a great studio to work in, and Whistler tells her that it's because his mother took it over while he was away at art school. Right on cue, his mother comes in, with an oompah band and a bunch of friends, and they have a wild polka party.
The Warners decide that Whistler wil never make it as a painter as long as his studio is overrun by parties. Wakko has a brainchild - literally - and comes up with a plan. They play a game of musical chairs, and get down to Whistler and his mother, with one chair. The last round is run, and Mom wins the game, only to find that she's now glued to the chair. Whistler gets to paint his famous portrait, since his mother can't run out on him any more.
The sign, "Perfect spot for a picnic - 2 kilometers" is historically correct: Whistler lived in France at the time, and France went metric during the Revolution, nearly 100 years before this story. The repainted Yakko and Wakko on page 4 are done in Cubist style; this is, as noted, ahead of the story's time, since it wasn't introduced until the 1920s or so. (BD)
Costanza has finally figured out that Dot's tail passes through her skirt, but the coloration of her underwear still changes from white (pages 1, 3) to pink (page 9). Costanza also still has a bit of trouble with the Warners' profiles from odd angles, especially from a rear quarter view. See the last panel on page 2, for example. All 3 Warners have paint on their butts where they've sat on wet paint, but only Wakko has some on his tail, too. (page 3) Yakko and Wakko's lines are reversed in the top panel on page 7. Since when does Wakko care what something tastes like? He's eaten so much weird stuff that wax fruit shouldn't bother him at all. (page 7) Dot's wings are back, but only in a few rear views, and not as objectionably as in Guitars and Cadillacs. (pages 1, 3, 7)A North Carolina beach in December, 1903. Orville and Wilbur Wright are standing in front of their airplane, about to make history, but there's one problem: Neither wants to be the pilot. They come to blows over the issue. The Warners show up, but instead of girls in skimpy bikinis, they find the fight in progress. The Wrights realize that neither one will have to fly it - they can get one of the kids to do that. The Warners agree immediately.
They first choose Dot as their pilot. She climbs aboard, but gets caught in a propeller despite the Wrights' warnings and thrown clear. She changes her mind, and Wakko gets to try next. He jumps aboard and takes off before anyone else is ready. After a very short flight, he crashes nose-first, wrecking the plane. Wakko thinks that's so fun he wants to do it again, but the Wrights, understandably, object. Finally, the plane is rebuilt. Orville tells Wakko to give him all his candy before he makes a mess; Wakko digs huge quantities out of his gag bag, and finally the Wrights decided they need a less immature pilot. After a huddle, that turns out to be Yakko.
Orville tells Yakko to get aboard and go, but first Yakko has something to tell him: "Tag! You're it!" Orville chases Yakko, while Wilbur observes that trained monkeys would have been a better choice. Dot and Wakko show that they can act like monkeys, too, and Wakko drops a banana peel in front of the racing Orville. He crashes into Wilbur, and they go flying onto the plane, where they hit the lever that starts the engine. They go flying off into history, but might have a hard time landing without wheels...
The depiction of the Wright Flyer is very accurate throughout. In particular, it flew with the propellers in back and the horizontal stabilizers in front, and the controls and pilot's accomodations are correct. This is penciller Kelly Jarvis' only work so far. She does an excellent job, overall. There are only two real trouble spots: She uses three lines to show the Warners' eyelids, leading to a strange effect, and she has trouble with sarcastic looks from Yakko (page 15) and Dot (page 18). Overall, though, her Dot is the cutest so far. Coloring error: Dot's underwear is the same color as her skirt. (page 20) There is one inaccuracy in the Wright Flyer: The real thing didn't use wheels for takeoff and landing, but wooden skids that slid on a track for takeoff, and on the ground for landing.Thaddeus Plotz has a meeting coming up in his office. He's uncharacteristically scared, and we soon see why: The meeting is to tell the Warners that they'll have to earn their keep around the studio. Ralph has been assigned to see that they do - they are to become his assistants. Their escape effort is thwarted, and off they go to train.
Ralph vows to turn them into proper security guards. Wakko would rather turn into something else, and Ralph gets into a fight with a lion in the process. After Ralph explains that the Warners will have to work in the most vile, feared place in the studio if they don't act right - the commissary - they become more cooperative. They do pushups their way, sitting on top of Ralph. He then shows them the most important part of studio security, the gate, and how it goes up. Wakko demonstrates how it goes down, right on top of Ralph's head. Ralph again threatens them with the commissary, and they get to serious work.
Six weeks later, the Warners are ready to go to work. Plotz and Dr. Scratchansniff smile as they contemplate going back to normal...but their reverie is interrupted by the phone. There's an emergency at the gate. The Warners have taken Ralph's dictum about the importance of the gate to its logical conclusion, and completely blocked it, allowing nobody in or out. Plotz has Scratchansniff take the Warners away, and tries to get the angry movie stars to come back.
This is the first time that the names of real, modern-day people have been used unaltered. Wakko's "None shall pass!" is a reference to the Black Knight's oath in Monty Python and the Holy Grail. Saavedra's Warners are not as well drawn this time as they were in his first work, Helloooo, Watson!. They're skinnier, their facial expressions are stranger, and the eyes are consistently wrong. Coloring error: Dot's leg appears to be interrupted by her skirt. (page 26) Wakko's hat somehow sticks out of Ralph's net. (page 26) Coloring error: Wakko's shirt is white in one panel, and Dr. Scratchansniff's glasses should be drawn with black edges instead of blue or clear. (pages 30, 31) (AM)