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Animaniacs: 20 Years of HELLLO Nurse Birthday
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Valjean Lafitte
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Animaniacs, Pinky and the Brain, and Freakazoid! were my childhood life. I so regret that I missed the anniversary yesterday, because I basically watched all the Spielberg toons from Animaniacs onward from day one (Hysteria! did not happen). And I did not watch them casually; at some point between the Fox episodes and the move to the WB! I became a card-carrying member of the PPPGALF. And I was only 14 years old when the show ended.
I have to get this off my chest: I find it really very irritating that whenever Animaniacs brought up there's always a couple of dozen people who say that the adult jokes and the celebrity/political references went way over their heads as a child. I wish I could take the time to explain why this is irritating, but to do so might derail this thread so I won't.
But thing is, from as far back as I can remember
(or at least as far back as the start of the Kids WB! episodes), I can vividly recall recording each and every episode of Animaniacs and Freakazoid! for the purposes of 1) rewatching them and 2), catching any in-jokes I might have missed.
My Saturday morning wasn't complete if I didn't rewind to see the obligatory hidden credit in Animaniacs
or Freakazoid!:
And speaking of Emmitt Nervend, I always played the "game" of seeing how many times he could be found in every episode--another great reason to tape them all:
It sometimes felt awkward discussing these shows with my friends who only watched them casually and didn't get the references. One day a friend of mine was digging through the pages of one of my art notebooks, and alongside the "normal" things that a 13 year video gamer might have drawn in 1997 like Sonic, Earthworm Jim, and Mario was a picture of Emmitt Nervend. "Who is that?!" I recall him asking. I pried the notebook away from him and sheepishly declared that it was just a random doodle...I didn't want to have to explain that there's this weird guy hidden in every episode of Freakazoid! and I've paused the tapes so many times that I recall perfectly well what he looks like.
I don't remember many of the jokes going over my head either. When Beethoven said he was a "PIANIST, a PIANIST!" and Yakko blew a kiss at the screen saying "Goodnight everybody!", I got the joke. A couple of things like the infamous "Finger prints" joke I wouldn't find out about till years later, but virtually no celebrity or political reference was wasted on me. I knew what Variety was, who Rush Limbaugh was. Bill Clinton really plays the sax..I got the references, and laughed when there was a joke attached. Whether you were a moderately well-read kid or just watched a lot of TV, I don't think there was much that should have gone over anyone's head.
So I guess what I really want to know is, what I'm using this thread as a platform to ask is: was I the only one? There were adults picking this show apart piece by piece, discussing all the in-jokes in the alt.tv.animaniacs newsgroup, but was I really the only kid who recorded episodes and bothered to rewind when a blink-and-you-missed-it gag would happen in the background, or when there were hidden messages in the credits (or, in Pinky and the Brain's case, the intro)? Or wasn't bored or clueless when the Warner Bros. would riff on Hollywood movie stars?
I can't have been the only one, can I? I'd like to think I wasn't freakishly forward-thinking for my age, and that the creators actually intended the subversive stuff for kids like me, too.
I have to get this off my chest: I find it really very irritating that whenever Animaniacs brought up there's always a couple of dozen people who say that the adult jokes and the celebrity/political references went way over their heads as a child. I wish I could take the time to explain why this is irritating, but to do so might derail this thread so I won't.
But thing is, from as far back as I can remember
My Saturday morning wasn't complete if I didn't rewind to see the obligatory hidden credit in Animaniacs
or Freakazoid!:
And speaking of Emmitt Nervend, I always played the "game" of seeing how many times he could be found in every episode--another great reason to tape them all:
It sometimes felt awkward discussing these shows with my friends who only watched them casually and didn't get the references. One day a friend of mine was digging through the pages of one of my art notebooks, and alongside the "normal" things that a 13 year video gamer might have drawn in 1997 like Sonic, Earthworm Jim, and Mario was a picture of Emmitt Nervend. "Who is that?!" I recall him asking. I pried the notebook away from him and sheepishly declared that it was just a random doodle...I didn't want to have to explain that there's this weird guy hidden in every episode of Freakazoid! and I've paused the tapes so many times that I recall perfectly well what he looks like.
I don't remember many of the jokes going over my head either. When Beethoven said he was a "PIANIST, a PIANIST!" and Yakko blew a kiss at the screen saying "Goodnight everybody!", I got the joke. A couple of things like the infamous "Finger prints" joke I wouldn't find out about till years later, but virtually no celebrity or political reference was wasted on me. I knew what Variety was, who Rush Limbaugh was. Bill Clinton really plays the sax..I got the references, and laughed when there was a joke attached. Whether you were a moderately well-read kid or just watched a lot of TV, I don't think there was much that should have gone over anyone's head.
So I guess what I really want to know is, what I'm using this thread as a platform to ask is: was I the only one? There were adults picking this show apart piece by piece, discussing all the in-jokes in the alt.tv.animaniacs newsgroup, but was I really the only kid who recorded episodes and bothered to rewind when a blink-and-you-missed-it gag would happen in the background, or when there were hidden messages in the credits (or, in Pinky and the Brain's case, the intro)? Or wasn't bored or clueless when the Warner Bros. would riff on Hollywood movie stars?
I can't have been the only one, can I? I'd like to think I wasn't freakishly forward-thinking for my age, and that the creators actually intended the subversive stuff for kids like me, too.
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