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ream was a little bit of a learning curve. Soon, trust was developed, and we got to a place where he said he was going to pull back.” Swarr adds, “He is a filmmaker and not animator, so he has a live-action approach to animation. I had to be very specific about what we could do and couldn’t. I had to reboard the first eight episodes to make sure we got what he wanted. We showed him the first episode last year, and he told us that he thought we had a very strong start.” “When he likes a script, he always says, ‘Now, we’re really cooking!’” shares Wild. The showrunner and his team tried very hard to hit the ground running from that very first episode. “We wanted to let the fans know from the very first lines that came out of the Warners’ mouths that this is the show that they’ve been waiting for and wanted almost 20 years after the original aired on TV in 1993. We wanted fans to know immediately that we wanted to retain the nostalgia, the meta humor and social commentary, and that we were continuing that tradition by making fun of reboots in that first episode. That self-awareness is the trademark of the original show.” Of course, one of the big challenges of the show is to remain topical while serving up unexpected storylines, great slapstick humor and showcasing hilarious songs that stay with the audience long after they’ve seen the show. “It’s hard to believe, but we wrote the first episode about two years before it’s airing,” says Swarr. Wild adds, “It’s really hard to be timely and topical since we send our show overseas and it takes about 12 months to make an episode. We had the same situation with Family Guy.” What Wild and his writers did was take a look at the calendar and see what was coming up in 2020-2021. They had no way of predicting the surreal turns the world took this year, but they were able to pin down election-year humor. “Some of those events, like the Olym-
pics, were derailed by the coronavirus. Occasionally, we can also sneak in something toward the end of the development process, and we can dub a line or two about four months before the show airs. So that all helps.” Both Wild and Swarr say they love the way the show continues to maintain its antiauthoritarian voice. “Smartasses are always funny,” says Swarr. “That counterculture voice always feels young and fresh. The show has Marx Brothers’ comedies in its DNA. That’s what Steven was drawn to.” The producers also believe that this 2020 version of Animaniacs is the perfect antidote to our cynical, troubled times. “There is something inherently funny about baloney in your pants or genetically altered mice taking over the world, especially during these troubled, polarizing times. What better time to deliver jabs to the establishment?” Wild says the music and its catchy songs continue to be a huge part of the equation. “There is one episode that you will see in about a month and a half, and I’m not going to spoil anything for you, but I really love one of the songs, because it has a great mix of warm comedy and a plot about an alien trying to de-
Familiar Voices: Original actors Rob Paulsen, Jess Harnell and Tress MacNeille are back to voice Yakko, Wakko and Dot Warner.
stroy Earth. I just think it all worked out really well, and the voiceover work is really wonderful.”
Heirs of Looney Tunes “I like to think of Animaniacs as the heir of Looney Tunes,” adds Wild. “The slapstick, the self-aware comedy and the hand-drawn feeling are all part of the staying power of the show. Gabe and his team of animators work so hard to make it feel fresh and new, and we feel like we’re being taken back to the old days of the Warner Bros. cartoons.” “The thing that I like is the diversity of the looks,” says Swarr. “You have these segments with Pinky and the Brain or the Warners, and the animation is done so well that they really feel like real characters. You don’t see that very often in small-screen projects, because you don’t have as much time to produce the animation as you do in features.” Both the producers hope a new generation of fans will fall for the mad antics of Yakko, Wakko and Dot (and Pinky and the Brain, too). “We hope we can capture that lightning in the bottle again and recreate the feeling the original audience felt when they watched the show in the ’90s,” concludes Wild. “I hope they will have fun and be surprised,” adds Swarr. “I hope we keep them guessing and that they are always surprised but what comes next!” ◆ The new Animaniacs show will premiere on Hulu on November 20.
www.animationmagazine.net
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december 20
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