Pinky and the Brain: October 1996

Cover

Drawn by: Walter Carzon and Mike DeCarlo

The mice are in a scene from The Wizard of Oz, walking down the Yellow Brick Road, away from the Emerald City. In the background is a rainbow, with a pot of gold at the end, and someone's stockinged feet sticking out from under a rock.

Pinky is dressed as Dorothy, with dress, red slippers, braids, and wicker basket with a none-too-pleased Toto over one arm. The Brain is dressed as the Scarecrow, with straw sticking out from various places of his clothing. Pinky says, "Isn't it ironic, Brain, you being the brainless scarecrow and all?" Brain replies, "Well, it's only fitting that you be the one from Kansas."

Pink o' the Irish

Credits

• Writer: Bobbi JG Weiss and David Cody Weiss
• Penciller: Walter Carzon
• Inker: Mike DeCarlo
• Letterer: John Costanza
• Colorist: Tom Ziuko

Synopsis

We join the mice in their cage as the sun is setting. Pinky is bemoaning the fate of some poor mouse who has been turned into a hat, but the Brain quickly sets him straight, and they go to work. The Brain outlines his plan for the evening, and Pinky immediately says how good it is...and then points out that it won't work: they tried it last year, and it failed then. The Brain comes up with two more plans, only to have Pinky point out each time that they'd tried it and failed. Finally, the Brain realizes that he might be a failure, and starts to give up in despair.

Pinky, ever undaunted, gets an idea of his own: If the Brain's plans never succeed, then maybe one of his will. He pesters the Brain as only he can, and the Brain finally agrees in order to get some peace. The new plan involves getting a pot of gold to buy all the chocolate in the world, so they mail themselves to Ireland to find a rainbow with a pot of gold at the end. Pinky plays campaign speeches to generate hot air, thus making the moisture in the Irish air form a rainbow, and they go off in search of its end - and find it, just as they are ready to give up. They rush up to the pot, but are stopped by the leprechaun whose gold it is.

Thinking fast, they talk the leprechaun into thinking they're long-lost relatives from America home for a visit. There's just one problem: Leprechauns always have their gold with them. Of course, the mice don't have any, and this is a real tragedy to the leprechaun community. They have to earn their gold back right away by passing the three Trials of Worthiness. Of course, since they need the gold anyway, this is as good a chance as any to get it, so they accept.

The first trial is one of speed, to pluck a whisker off of a wild boar, which they accomplish by having Pinky distract him while the Brain runs past and snatches it. The second trial, of cleverness under pressure, is to recite a limerick while holding up a potato - and it must be a clean limerick. This, as one might guess, is difficult, but the Brain manages. The last, and hardest, test is to defeat a troll in combat to prove their bravery. They pass this test too, though mangled, and are awarded new pots of gold of their very own. It's leprechaun gold, of course, and they're warned that people see it as gold only if they believe it is...otherwise it reverts to its original state of twigs and leaves. The pots are shrunk by a magic spell, and the mice are given a grand sendoff.

On the airplane back, they discuss how to complete their plan. Pinky starts talking about the gold as it really is. The Brain starts to doubt its reality, and it turns back to twigs and leaves - huge quantities, since it's no longer covered by the miniaturization spell. The Brain accuses Pinky of sabotaging the plan, but Pinky reminds him that the plan all along was for the plan to fail so the Brain would get his confidence back. He does, and they head back to the lab so they can try again tomorrow night.

Did You Notice...

• It's a Mickey Mouse hat, all right, but the label says "Mortimer" - a reference to Berkeley Breathed's strip Outland. Mortimer's ears are different sizes, however, and one is notched.
• The three plans mentioned are all variations of plans that appeared on the cartoon series: the first refers to The Helpinki Formula from Animaniacs episode 56, the second to Brainania from Pinky and the Brain episode 5, and the third to Battle for the Planet from Animaniacs episode 15.
• The first "editor's translation" translates to "Would you like a box?" (anyone out there know if that's what the Gaelic original said?...JM), and the second one refers to the end product of a cow's digestive process. (The last is particularly appropriate for campaign '96...JM)
• A shillelagh is a club like the one the king is holding; the word itself is often misspelled as it's pronounced, "shila-uh-lie".
• This is one of the very few clean limericks I've ever seen, and coming up with it must have been no small feat for the Weisses.
• Date tag on one of the suitcases in the plane: 8-3-67. Boy, that's some zippy shipping service.

Technical nits

• Coloring errors: The Brain's tail isn't colored in in the first panel on page 4; Pinky's nose and its highlight are reversed in the next-to-last panel on page 4 and the first panel on page 8; the Brain's nose isn't colored in in the second panel on page 8; one whole leprechaun (the one running across the bridge) isn't colored in on the bottom of page 11 (and where's the page number?). Ziuko's usually more careful than this.
• The airplane grows two extra engines between the ramp and the picture in flight.

Caged Heat

Credits

• Writer: Dana Kurtin and Dan Slott
• Penciller: Walter Carzon
• Inker: Mike DeCarlo
• Letterer: John Costanza
• Colorist: Dave Tanguay

Synopsis

The Brain's plan for tonight involves using a carefully styled home perm kit to catch astral rays and use them to create an aura of power. It's 12 midnight, and all that remains is to place the device into the exact position to catch the rays. He must simply exit the cage and position the device...

The lock is jammed when he tries to open it with his tail. Pinky has eaten the backup key made from food pellets. Next, Pinky tries to run fast enough to vibrate his molecules through the bars, but the exercise wheel falls off and flattens the Brain, and Pinky doesn't recover in time to slip him through the bars. They try to shake up their water bottle to blast the door free, but all they get is a wet door. The Brain tries to use his mental powers to bend the cage bars, but all he bends is Pinky.

As the critical time approaches, they still haven't succeeded in escaping the cage. Pinky produces a hairpin with which to unlock the door - but it's from the device, and the aura of power, which arrives a moment later, isn't contained by the device. Instead of taking over the world, the Brain just gets fried by the energy.

Did You Notice...

• Once upon a time, I observed that it was hard to take over the world in 6 pages. This story more or less proves the point - but it's still quite entertaining, because it questions a basic assumption of the Pinky and the Brain universe: that the mice can escape the cage at will.
• The Brain's noises on the middle of page 32 appear to be Morse code, but without spaces, it's hard to tell what it might say.

Technical nits

• Another coloring error: The Brain's nose isn't colored in in the second panel of page 26.
• Pinky's speech balloon in the third panel of page 29 implies that he's behind the wheel, but he's shown inside it before and after that point.