Hulu’s Rebooted Animaniacs Carries Forth the Zaniness and Charm of the Original

It’s been a rough year, to say the least. So rough that globally heightened anxiety and pain has changed our tolerance for dark, gritty entertainment. Even Black Mirror’s writer has taken a break from working on the show, since the world now seems like one particularly long and twisted episode from that dystopian anthology series.

It’s in this climate that Animaniacs—the zany, satirical slapstick show about three cartoon characters causing mayhem—returns after 22 years off the air, and it couldn’t be more welcome. It’s not an escape from reality, as the reboot leans into its political commentary, but it’s a much more colorful, joyful version of it, where nearly any problem can be solved with a giant hammer pulled out of one’s pocket. Animaniacs only wants one reaction from audiences of any age, and that’s laughs. It succeeds tremendously.

Hulu’s rebooted series maintains the same core of the original series, bringing back Steven Spielberg as a producer and many of the same voice actors, composers, and writers who created it. Each 24-minute episode block consists of three shorts of varying length, usually two starring the Warner brothers Yakko (Rob Paulsen) and Wakko (Jess Harnell), and the Warner sister, Dot (Tress MacNeille), with the middle segment going to Pinky (Paulsen) and the Brain (Laurice LaMarche). Without any narrative throughline, Animaniacs remains a show you can watch in any order and enjoy.

In terms of style and format, Animaniacs’ closest cousin is likely Looney Tunes, which similarly features a cast of both anthropomorphic animals and humans who get into all kinds of slapstick situations. However, the former strikes its own unique tone, combining the physical comedy with under-the-radar adult humor and satire. Its satire in particular appears the most changed through the reboot, leaning even more heavily into modern politics and trends to the point where I worry that younger audiences may grow tired of the near-constant barrage of references and innuendos. But then again, especially today, kids understand a lot more than people give them credit for, so I imagine many of them will be in on the jokes as well. In any case, the flow of action is fast enough that one or two missed jokes hardly matter, as another is sure to come mere seconds later.

For older audiences, however, it’s refreshing to see the show’s satire actually take political stances instead of falling into the crowd-pleasing “both sides”-isms many modern comedies now take. Although it’s never radical, the series addresses issues such as gun control and the corruption of our outgoing administration with conviction and wit. (Don’t expect any references to the pandemic, however, since Yakko explicitly tells the audience the script was written in 2018. Instead, they resort to “wild guesses” about the past two years, including that we all live underground to hide from vengeful polar bears, which is close enough.)