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Dead link for CRGA replaced
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The "Please Please PLEASE Get a Life Foundation" was written using actual nitpicks from a newsgroup-made reference guide (the [[http://webspace.webring.com/people/cu/um_4922/crg/ Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs]]) verbatim. The show's writers even e-mailed the people who wrote that guide for permission to use their quotes. The show's run coincided with the early days of wide Internet access, and in those days (early to mid 1990's) most online discussions were done in newsgroups.
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* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The "Please Please PLEASE Get a Life Foundation" was written using actual nitpicks from a newsgroup-made reference guide (the [[http://webspace.webring.com/people/cu/um_4922/crg/ [[https://www.oocities.org/wakkanne/crg/ Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs]]) verbatim. The show's writers even e-mailed the people who wrote that guide for permission to use their quotes. The show's run coincided with the early days of wide Internet access, and in those days (early to mid 1990's) most online discussions were done in newsgroups.
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* RhymingWizardry:
** A ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode had '' "Creator/CharlieSheen, Creator/BenVereen, Shrink to the size of a lima bean!"''
** In the same vein, one of their skits "translating" Creator/WilliamShakespeare covered the Three Witches scene from Theatre/{{Macbeth}}:
--->'''Witches:''' ''Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.''
--->'''Yakko:''' Loosely translated, "Abracadabra".
--->'''Dot:''' ''Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.''
--->'''Yakko:''' "Let's cook a snake." Start with my agent.
** A ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' episode had '' "Creator/CharlieSheen, Creator/BenVereen, Shrink to the size of a lima bean!"''
** In the same vein, one of their skits "translating" Creator/WilliamShakespeare covered the Three Witches scene from Theatre/{{Macbeth}}:
--->'''Witches:''' ''Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.''
--->'''Yakko:''' Loosely translated, "Abracadabra".
--->'''Dot:''' ''Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.''
--->'''Yakko:''' "Let's cook a snake." Start with my agent.
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* PowerTrio: Yakko, Wakko and Dot, naturally.
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...and this one's now an index (it's misused anyways)
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* OddNameOut: Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers doesn't rhyme with the others'.]]
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* OddNameOut: OddNameOut:
** Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name[[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers doesn't rhyme with the others'.]]
** Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name
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Trivia item
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* NowWhichOneWasThatVoice: In the original series, actors generally only got credited with one character per episode, even when they played multiple roles in multiple shorts (which was often the case for Creator/FrankWelker), and the actors playing the Warners were ''only'' listed for that role (meaning that it took a while for fans to figure out that Creator/RobPaulsen was voicing Pinky and Scratchansniff along with Yakko).
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no longer a trope, moving to trivia
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* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The DirectToVideo movie ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'', an AlternateUniverse medieval fantasy with a semi-serious plot that ultimately gave all of the characters in the series resolution despite the fact they were all removed from their traditional settings.
** One could also consider it a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover -- while the characters were all in the same show, they rarely all interacted in the same place.
** One could also consider it a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover -- while the characters were all in the same show, they rarely all interacted in the same place.
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* LorreLookalike: In the first episode, a photo of Creator/PeterLorre's caricature from "WesternAnimation/HollywoodStepsOut" can be seen hanging on the wall of Doctor Scratchansniff's office.
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* NowWhichOneWasThatVoice: In the original series, actors generally only got credited with one character per episode, even when they played multiple roles in multiple shorts (which was often the case for Creator/FrankWelker), and the actors playing the Warners were ''only'' listed for that role (meaning that it took a while for fans to figure out that Creator/RobPaulsen was voicing Pinky and Scratchansniff along with Yakko).
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* LosingYourHead: Happens to Minerva Mink in "Moon over Minerva" (see HeartBeatsOutOfChest above).
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* LosingYourHead: Happens to Minerva Mink in "Moon over Minerva" (see HeartBeatsOutOfChest above).HeartBeatsOutOfChest).
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no chained sinkholes
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* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: The first ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' short had Brain go on the quiz show "Gyp-Parody!" in order to raise enough money for a device to TakeOverTheWorld. He gets every single question right, but bombs the final question and loses everything. Of course, the answer to the final question was [[Series/TheHoneymooners Ralph Kramden]], which Brain would have known [[NotNowKiddo if he had listened to]] [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinky]] earlier in the episode.
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* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: The first ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' short had Brain go on the quiz show "Gyp-Parody!" in order to raise enough money for a device to TakeOverTheWorld. He gets every single question right, but bombs the final question and loses everything. Of course, the answer to the final question was [[Series/TheHoneymooners Ralph Kramden]], which Brain would have known [[NotNowKiddo if he had listened to]] listened]] to [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinky]] earlier in the episode.
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* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "I! AM! '''[[{{Satan}} SATAN!!!]] [[EvilLaugh MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!]]'''"
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* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "I! AM! '''[[{{Satan}} SATAN!!!]] SATAN]]!!! [[EvilLaugh MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!]]'''"
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* OffModel: There were eight, count them, EIGHT animation companies that worked on the show; [[note]] Those studios are Creator/TMSEntertainment, Creator/{{AKOM}}, Creator/WangFilmProductions, Creator/StarToons, Creator/KokoEnterprises, Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, Creator/PhilippineAnimationStudioInc., and Varga Studios.[[/note]] all had different drawing and animation styles (and that does not even count the studios that TMS used under contract [[note]]these included Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/AjiaDo, Creator/TatsunokoProduction, Creator/KyotoAnimation, Creator/AnimeSpot, Creator/TokyoKids, Creator/MizoPlanning, Creator/SpectrumAnimation, Creator/FlyingDragon, Creator/StudioJungleGym, Creator/OhProduction, Creator/MagicBus, Creator/StudioJunio, Creator/StudioNue and Creator/FarEastern (the latter also working with Wang). All of them uncredited.[[/note]] However, almost all of them used TMS' style).
** Mostly with segments animated by Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, [[http://legion1979.tumblr.com/post/49399216720/yakko-can-you-conjugate-episode-16 take a look]].
** [=StarToons=] tended to dip into this, as well with the Slappy the Squirrel intro and "Wakko's America", though not to the extreme as Freelance, as well as [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools tending to make the animation even more expressive]]. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about shorts like "The Big Candy Store" or "Wally Llama".
** AKOM, of course. Though it's the more bland and uninteresting animation and sometimes horrific, rather than cartoonish, expressions as opposed to poor drawings as was usually the case with the studio.
** Many of the later episodes (such as the "Hooray For North Hollywood" two-parter and "The Carpool) fall deep into this.
** Happened occasionally with TMS's episodes as well, as several of their shorts went though numerous subcontractors and animation teams. For instance, "Taming of the Screwy" was given to Creator/TatsunokoProduction and the end result wasn't pretty[[note]]The animation is far below TMS' usual standards of liveliness and comes off looking like a low-budget late 80s anime at times, the Warners' noses are too small through most of the cartoon, and in one scene an object (a plate with a lobster claw, in this case) teleports from one spot to a slightly different spot between frames[[/note]]. "Roll Over Beethoven", "Home on De Nile" and "H.M.S. Yakko" are also guilty of this.
** The show was also so expensive that it couldn't afford character layout drawings. The animators instead blew up the storyboard panels to ten-field size so they could be registered to the animation pegs. Some of the more exaggerated board drawings would end up getting animated, resulting in weird proportional shifts. The [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain other]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}} Spielberg/Rugger]] [[WesternAnimation/PinkyElmyraAndTheBrain shows]] also did this, with similar results.
** Mostly with segments animated by Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, [[http://legion1979.tumblr.com/post/49399216720/yakko-can-you-conjugate-episode-16 take a look]].
** [=StarToons=] tended to dip into this, as well with the Slappy the Squirrel intro and "Wakko's America", though not to the extreme as Freelance, as well as [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools tending to make the animation even more expressive]]. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about shorts like "The Big Candy Store" or "Wally Llama".
** AKOM, of course. Though it's the more bland and uninteresting animation and sometimes horrific, rather than cartoonish, expressions as opposed to poor drawings as was usually the case with the studio.
** Many of the later episodes (such as the "Hooray For North Hollywood" two-parter and "The Carpool) fall deep into this.
** Happened occasionally with TMS's episodes as well, as several of their shorts went though numerous subcontractors and animation teams. For instance, "Taming of the Screwy" was given to Creator/TatsunokoProduction and the end result wasn't pretty[[note]]The animation is far below TMS' usual standards of liveliness and comes off looking like a low-budget late 80s anime at times, the Warners' noses are too small through most of the cartoon, and in one scene an object (a plate with a lobster claw, in this case) teleports from one spot to a slightly different spot between frames[[/note]]. "Roll Over Beethoven", "Home on De Nile" and "H.M.S. Yakko" are also guilty of this.
** The show was also so expensive that it couldn't afford character layout drawings. The animators instead blew up the storyboard panels to ten-field size so they could be registered to the animation pegs. Some of the more exaggerated board drawings would end up getting animated, resulting in weird proportional shifts. The [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain other]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}} Spielberg/Rugger]] [[WesternAnimation/PinkyElmyraAndTheBrain shows]] also did this, with similar results.
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[[WesternAnimation/{{Animaniacs}} Main page]] | [[Animaniacs/TropesAToI A to I]] | '''J to R''' | [[Animaniacs/TropesSToZ S to Z]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: J-L]]
* JawDrop: The show uses this a lot.
** In the episode "Meet Minerva", this is a squirrel's reaction to seeing the title character clad in nothing but a towel.
** At one point in the ''Pinky and the Brain'' short "The Brain's Apprentice," not only does Pinky's jaw drop, but also his nose and his eyes.
* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: The first ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' short had Brain go on the quiz show "Gyp-Parody!" in order to raise enough money for a device to TakeOverTheWorld. He gets every single question right, but bombs the final question and loses everything. Of course, the answer to the final question was [[Series/TheHoneymooners Ralph Kramden]], which Brain would have known [[NotNowKiddo if he had listened to]] [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinky]] earlier in the episode.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Slappy hates to admit this, but she does care for her nephew Skippy.
** Mr. Plotz appears to hate the Warners, but he does harbor some respect for them. He'll even enlist their help on occasion when the pressures of running a major studio become too much for him.
** Much of the humor from the "Pinky and the Brain" shorts derives from Brain's constant verbal and even physical abuse of Pinky, but he also takes a paternal stance toward his lesser partner. (And Pinky admires Brain in return, once referring to him as "very honest and hard-working.")
** Rita [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] falls into this trope, particularly in "When Rita Met Runt" and "Smitten With Kittens."
* JesusWasWayCool: One short in a ChristmasEpisode features a medley of Christmas carols, with the Warners playing the shepherds in the nativity story. In something of a meta-example, it's one of only two shorts that they ''don't'' treat as an excuse for irreverent havoc.
* JuryAndWitnessTampering: A Slappy the Squirrel short has Slappy accused of cartoon violence against Walter Wolf. Slappy's defense consists of describing how she basically blasted Walter to smithereens, leading the jury to find her...not guilty, at which point it's revealed that Slappy rigged explosives under the jury's seats.
* JustDesserts: Befalls a {{Jerkass}} magician duo in "Magic Time".
* KangarooCourt: In one episode, Slappy is put on trial for "assault with intent to squash" on her nemesis Walter Wolf. Given that the judge and jury are all wolves, Skippy is understandably afraid that Slappy is gonna get railroaded. Slappy tells Skippy not to worry, as she's got "a dynamite case". That is to say, she's wired the jury box with explosives, and gets off without a hitch.
* KarmicProtection: The Warners were only truly malevolent to the bad guys, which justifies a lot of the mayhem they cause. Even people who were annoyed by them but otherwise good characters would ultimately get the Warners' help in the end. One episode even lampshaded it and discussed it, when a kid watching at home wondered why the Warners weren't doing more to the antagonist.
** One episode had them frustrated because a character they wanted to get rid of (a ''[[Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic Sound of Music]]'' style Creator/JulieAndrews {{Expy}}) did nothing to invite retribution. [[spoiler:In the end, they sicced [[ScrewballSquirrel Slappy Squirrel]] on her.]] [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork Problem solved]].
** Still, a lot of what the Warners do could be needlessly cruel to the point of making them unsympathetic, such as stripping Otto in the "Schnitzelbank" song or leaving the woodchuck in the toilet in "Kid in the Lid"... until you remember that [[spoiler:everyone's an actor; hardly any of what takes place is "real"]].
** One cartoon ''was'' cut because they were too malicious.
* KarmicTrickster: From a proud Warner Bros. tradition. Both the Warners and Slappy Squirrel enjoy taking the air out of [[JerkAss Jerkasses]]
* {{Kevlard}}: The Hip Hippos are very fat and also very durable, which comes in handy given their less than stellar common sense.
* KnowsAGuyWhoKnowsAGuy: Yakko explains in song why he is now the king of Anvilania:
-->'''Yakko''': I'm the cousin to the sister / Of son's niece's brother / Of the uncle's daughter's father / Of the nephew's sister's mother / And my grandpa's only cousin / Was the King's daughter's sibling, / But they're all gone,\\
'''Crowd''': So that is why\\
'''Yakko''': I am now your king!
* KnowYourVines: In "Sound of the Warners" After using the bathroom in a bush, Dr. Scratchansniff gets an awful itch, because he was in a poison oak bush.
* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: "Goodnight everybody!"
* LampshadedTheObscureReference: In a short where the Warner Bros (and the Warner sister) met Rasputin. They did a pun between "Anastasia" and "anesthesia", and Dot said "Obscure Joke. Ask your parents".
* LastSecondWordSwap: During the song, "A Quake, A Quake" Yakko makes this clever pun.
-->'''Yakko:''' Whose fault? Whose fault? The San Andreas Fault! 'Cause Mr. Richter can't predict 'er kicking our asphalt!
* LateToThePunchline: Most people who saw the show as kids. Seriously, watch it as an adult and embrace the [[{{Demographically Inappropriate Humour}} revelations]].
* {{Leitmotif}}: Just about every character had one. Nicely shown off in the last short: The Animaniacs Suite.
** Certain actions warranted their own theme music too. For example, a character eating was usually accompanied by "Shortnin' Bread" and a character cleaning something would be accompanied by "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush". This is an obvious callback to [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Carl Stalling's]] work.
** Hello Nurse's leitmotif (a sultry drumbeat) is an interesting case, where hers was started by Wakko in the first short ("Dezanitizsed") just to screw with the audience in true Warner fashion, but has since stuck with the character ever since.
* LimitedAnimation: Parodied in "Back in Style". Rumor has it that, in a rare subversion, the animation kept being sent back to AKOM because it came out looking ''too good''.
** Thanks to uneven animation, Creator/VargaStudio's "When You're Traveling" and most of Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand's shorts tend to fall into this quite often.
* LionKingLift: There's a spoof of the ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' where Yakko is the one to lift Simba, only to drop him off Pride Rock.
-->'''Yakko''': [[CrossesTheLineTwice Oh, I thought they landed on their feet]].
* ListSong: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0y8jkfXoX8 Yakko's World]]", among others.
* LittleGuyBigBuddy: Rita and Runt; also arguably WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain and Buttons and Mindy.
* LocalReference: When Rita and Runt go to Poland in "Puttin on the Blitz", Rita sings that it doesn't look like Burbank, more like Van Nuys. (Both are cities in the UsefulNotes/LosAngeles Area. You can guess which one has higher property values).
* LocationSong: "Yakko's World" is a ListSong listing every country in the world.
* LoopholeAbuse: The candy store episode has Flaxseed save himself from the nuns about to attack him by pointing out they aren't allowed to resort to violence. They actually agree with him and pray for assistance, which brings the Notre Dame football team to the store so they can do it instead. Nothing stops the nuns from allowing sympathetic souls to take action they want to but their vows prevent them from doing.
* LosingYourHead: Happens to Minerva Mink in "Moon over Minerva" (see HeartBeatsOutOfChest above).
* LustfulMelt: Happens to Minerva in both her cartoons, and to Dot and some aliens in "Space Probed".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: M]]
* MadHatter: All three main characters, in the tradition of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and similar cartoons. ''"We're not monkeys, we're just cuckoo! Don't know what to say the Warners won't do!"''
* MadwomanInTheAttic: Yakko, Wakko and Dot were locked in a water tower for decades for being too zany.
* TheMafia: The Goodfeathers are an AffectionateParody of ''Goodfellas'' and mob films in general. And, naturally, are TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily.
* MagicPants: Taken in an unusual direction in "Moon Over Minerva." Whenever Wilford changes into his [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent hunky werewolf form]], his pants actually ''shrink''.
* {{Malaproper}}: A source for so much of the humor.
* ManChild: Ralph and Mr. Director (an {{Expy}} of Jerry Lewis), but special mention goes to Hercules in the "Hercules Unwound" episode, whose whining about Zeus making him do the 12 Labors is reminiscent of a teenager complaining about unpleasant chores.
* MarsNeedsWomen: All three of the Warner siblings. Although they seem to see themselves as more or less human-ish.
* MeaningfulName:
** Dr. Scratchansniff's German last name is Freudlos, a double pun; it literally means "joyless", but it's also a reference to yet another psychiatrist...
** Yakko and Wakko. Wakko, a play on "wacko", as in someone who is a little whacky (strange or crazy), and Yakko, a play on "yakking away" or talking incessantly. Yakko almost never shuts up.
* MediumAwareness: Mostly Slappy and the Warners. Slappy beats the Warners here:
-->'''Skippy:''' But that was in a cartoon! [[ThisIsReality This is real life!]]\\
'''Slappy:''' *AsideGlance* Don't tell him, he might crack.
* MemorialForTheAntagonist: Played with in "Rest In Pieces". [[spoiler:Slappy Squirrel and her nephew Skippy attend the funeral of Walter Wolf, Slappy's life-long ArchEnemy. While the audience learns that Walter is actually [[FakingTheDead faking his death]] as part of his plan to trap Slappy, and so does Slappy later on, Skippy and the rest of the attendees don't know this, so Slappy's attempts to expose Walter come across to them as her making a mockery of his funeral]].
* MickeyMousing: ''Animaniacs'' actually had orchestral accompaniment - very, very rare for a televised cartoon series - and took full advantage of that.
* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: "The Brain's Apprentice" and a couple of the {{Retraux}} Warners shorts.
* MisplacedWildlife: In the "Tiger Prince" cold open, there are tigers substituting for lions in Africa... because they're parodying ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994.''
* MissXPun: This joke:
-->'''Dr. Scratchansniff:''' You're misinterpreting!\\
'''Yakko:''' ''[with a beauty pageant model]'' No, ''this'' is Miss Interpreting!\\
'''Wakko:''' ''[also with a model]'' This is Miss Understanding!\\
'''Dot:''' And I'm mis''terious''.
* MockyMouse: The ''Slappy Squirrel'' segment "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" has Slappy wind up in a nursing home after losing her memory, with the other senior citizens there being elderly spoofs of classic cartoon characters. Three of them are Rhena Rat (spoofing Minnie Mouse), Doofy (parodying Goofy) and Quacky Duck (a Donald Duck ersatz).
* ModestyTowel The episode "Meet Minerva" start with Minerva Mink walking out of home with just a towel (and another for the head), causing a [[HeadTurningBeauty head-turning reaction]] (Tex Avery-styled) to males of every species, before bathing naked in a lake. Then again, this trope was applied to Ms. Mink every chance the writers got in the comics.
* MonsterClown: A birthday-party clown is viewed this way in-universe in "Clown and Out" (by two characters who are afraid of clowns), but he's actually a very nice guy.
* MoodWhiplash:
** There was one serious Slappy cartoon in which Slappy was put away in an asylum and Skippy was taken away by social services, and... to say that this episode was just an ''example'' of this trope is an understatement. The mood jumped up and down OVER AND OVER again, to the point of being a highly compressed intra-episode version of CerebusRollerCoaster. It leads in with a comedic stretch where Slappy is driven mad by watching too many daytime talk shows (Jerry Springer etc.), which she can't stand. Then her madness is played for laughs for a while. Then Skippy takes her to the doctor, and even amidst there being a few gags in the scene, suddenly it starts portraying realistic consequences of her going insane. Then it just keeps REPEATEDLY ALTERNATING between playing it for laughs and [[PlayedForDrama portraying the tragic real consequences of a kid's aunt losing her mental faculties.]] Then she suddenly gets better and escapes the asylum for a happy ending. Then as a ContinuityNod in later episodes she references that now she actually LIKES those talk shows.
** "The Ballad of Magellan" really makes us feel sympathy for the man, after which The Great Wakkorotti is brought in for comic relief.
* MookFaceTurn: Several shorts involved Dot escaping from confinement by convincing the prison guard on duty with her cuteness.
* MoralGuardians: A frequent target of the show.
** "Valuable Lesson" is centered around this.
** "Bully for Skippy" involved an obnoxious senator imposing standards on cartoons to make them "safe and educational" for children. That same episode had Skippy repeatedly beaten up by a bully after following ineffectual advice from his guidance counselor. When Slappy and Skippy finally do use violence (cartoon violence) on the bully and it works, the senator and the counselor are both livid. Slappy's response to both their complaints is to use the machine the senator had sent to her, which carries out all cartoon violence [[GoryDiscretionShot off screen.]] Naturally, they both concede to Slappy's methods when they emerge as charred, beaten wrecks.
* MrExposition: {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Slappy.
-->"Doug the Dog!? But he hates you, Aunt Slappy! He's been trying to eat you for years!!\\
"Thank you, MrExposition."
* MultipleDemographicAppeal: Was specifically designed for this. Kids will laugh at the potty jokes and the slapstick, but there's still plenty of {{Parental Bonus}}es to keep the adults entertained.
* MusicalEpisode:
** Rita and Runt have at least one song per short. There are also numerous episodes that parody Broadway without those two characters that still act as musical episodes. Combining the two, one extended Rita and Runt segment is basically a parody of ''Theatre/LesMiserables''.
** Episode 82 consists entirely of episodes based around music: "Wakko's 2-Note Song," "Panama Canal," "Hello Nurse," "The Ballad of Magellan," "The Return of the Great Wakkorotti," and "The Big Wrap Party Tonight." It even includes the extended theme song.
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Dot is one of the few inversions in western animation that ''willingly'' introduces ''herself'' as this trope on a ''regular basis.''
* MythologyGag: Or more of a coincidence that was taken advantage of. Many animated shows only run for 65 episodes, a number deemed large enough for syndication. Animaniacs was originally to be no different, and it turned out that the fictional backstory of the Warner siblings had already established their debut as being around 1929, 65 years prior to the finale's broadcast. The episode thus played up the number, revolving entirely around a "65th Anniversary Special" tribute to the Warners.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: N]]
* NaiveAnimalLover: A sketch ("The Hip Hippos") involved a Jane Goodall {{Expy}} maintaining vigilance over a pair of City Slicker, {{Nigh Invulnerab|ility}}le (because of their obesity) IdleRich hippos. The RunningGag was her seeing them in ([[NotWhatItLooksLike what she believed to be]]) danger and try to save them, only for the hippos to come out of the stunt all right and [[BadlyBatteredBabysitter her hurt in some comedic fashion (with them not even noticing she was there)]].
* TheNapoleon:
** Mr. Plotz, the WB CEO.
** Eli, a character in a Chicken Boo sketch.
* NighInvulnerability: Baloney the dinosaur just ''laughs'' off anvils much to the horror of the Warners. He can actually be harmed though, through the most mundane method you can imagine. Literally. [[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll If you imagine him in pain and suffering that's what happens.]] But the Warners don't properly catch on.
* NoahsStoryArc: There was at least one sketch called "Noah's Lark" that went like this. [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Buster and Babs Bunny]] walked up and stated they were no relation, so Noah let them on, along with the Hip Hippos.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: ...at least not by name.
** Several notable public figures of the period were hilariously parodied in the show with such gems as [[Creator/RogerEbert Codger Eggbert]] and Lean Hisskill, as well as the Iraqi dictator Sodarn Hinsane.
** The "Used Cow Salesman" in 'The Warners and the Beanstalk' is basically Pat Buttram.
** The clown in "Clown and Out" is pretty much Jerry Lewis in whiteface and a silly outfit.
* NoFourthWall: Was central to its humor, and is some of the best PostModernism ever put in kids' comedy TV.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Buttons goes to enormous lengths, risking his own hide to keep Mindy from harm. Every episode ends with Buttons getting in trouble over some (Generally minor) misbehavior he performed in the course of his duties.
* NoPunctuationPeriod: And that's why the writers created [[CuteAndPsycho Katie Kaboom]] to explain to innocent little children why their big sister chucks a psycho for NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON WHATSOEVER once a month. Basically, their explanation was TeensAreMonsters.
** '''''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcNcJuTHVo "I'm Not Overreacting!! I'm a Teenager!!"]]'''''.
* NoirEpisode: The episode "This Pun for Hire" with the Warners do a film noir parody, taking every cliché and killing them with many bad puns. Feature Scratchansniff and Ralph as villains and also Hello Nurse (and, after, Minerva Mink) as FemmeFatale.
* NonSequiturThud: Happens a lot, this being a cartoon.
** '''Slappy:''' *waking up suddenly* I'd like to buy a vowel!
** And in another episode:
--->'''Death:''' *after falling off a cliff* I'll have the linguine with clams...
** In "Frontier Slappy":
--->'''Daniel Boone:''' ''(after attempting to break down Slappy's door, only to fail and bump his head on a tree)'' Daniel Boone was a great big guy!
* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The Warners' in-universe backstory states they were drawn in 1930, essentially making them all 80, and yet, none of them are geriatrics. It's particularly odd in that the Skippy and Slappy Squirrel segments make it quite clear that cartoon characters do age.
** Maybe it's because cartoon characters come from their creators' imaginations, so it depends on whether they were ''imagined'' as characters that age. The Warners come from the era of monochrome, where cartoon characters were kind of simple/crude, while Slappy seems like she's more from the 40's, as a more realistic character.
** Slappy throws a bit of a [[AgeWithoutYouth grim skew]] on it though in the short 'Rest in Pieces'. Though she and her old co-stars are clearly getting on in years, she tells Skippy that she knew [[spoiler:Walter wasn't dead]] because 'there is no dying in the world of cartoons'.
* NothingIsScarier: We never see the faces of the Nazis in "Puttin On The Blitz."
%%* NotSoImaginaryFriend
* NotWhereTheyThought: In the episode "Meatballs or Consequences?", TheGrimReaper takes the Warner siblings to a dimension where he will officially make them dead if they lose a board game. Dot wonders if the place is Ohio.
* NunsAreFunny: The candy store episode had the Warners tormenting a stuck-up store proprietor named Flaxseed after he refused to donate candy to a orphanage run by nuns. After driving him nuts, Flaxseed finally gets hold of Wakko and Dot... only for the nun from before to come back with reinforcements. They're about to kick his ass before Flaxseed points out that nuns aren't supposed to resort to violence. So, the nuns proceed to pray, and the Notre Dame college football team shows up to pummel the living crap out of Flaxseed.
-->'''Head Nun:''' Our prayers have been answered!
[[/folder]]
[[folder: O]]
* OddNameOut: Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers doesn't rhyme with the others'.]]
** And let's not forget their voice actors: [[Creator/JessHarnell Jess]], [[Creator/TressMacneille Tress]] and [[Creator/RobPaulsen Rob]].
* OdeToFood:
** "Ice Cream" is about different types of ice cream.
** "Be Careful What You Eat" is about food ingredients, which, despite the title, aren't all bad (it even includes beta carotene, a ''nutrient'').
* OffModel: There were eight, count them, EIGHT animation companies that worked on the show; [[note]] Those studios are Creator/TMSEntertainment, Creator/{{AKOM}}, Creator/WangFilmProductions, Creator/StarToons, Creator/KokoEnterprises, Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, Creator/PhilippineAnimationStudioInc., and Varga Studios.[[/note]] all had different drawing and animation styles (and that does not even count the studios that TMS used under contract [[note]]these included Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/AjiaDo, Creator/TatsunokoProduction, Creator/KyotoAnimation, Creator/AnimeSpot, Creator/TokyoKids, Creator/MizoPlanning, Creator/SpectrumAnimation, Creator/FlyingDragon, Creator/StudioJungleGym, Creator/OhProduction, Creator/MagicBus, Creator/StudioJunio, Creator/StudioNue and Creator/FarEastern (the latter also working with Wang). All of them uncredited.[[/note]] However, almost all of them used TMS' style).
** Mostly with segments animated by Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, [[http://legion1979.tumblr.com/post/49399216720/yakko-can-you-conjugate-episode-16 take a look]].
** [=StarToons=] tended to dip into this, as well with the Slappy the Squirrel intro and "Wakko's America", though not to the extreme as Freelance, as well as [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools tending to make the animation even more expressive]]. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about shorts like "The Big Candy Store" or "Wally Llama".
** AKOM, of course. Though it's the more bland and uninteresting animation and sometimes horrific, rather than cartoonish, expressions as opposed to poor drawings as was usually the case with the studio.
** Many of the later episodes (such as the "Hooray For North Hollywood" two-parter and "The Carpool) fall deep into this.
** Happened occasionally with TMS's episodes as well, as several of their shorts went though numerous subcontractors and animation teams. For instance, "Taming of the Screwy" was given to Creator/TatsunokoProduction and the end result wasn't pretty[[note]]The animation is far below TMS' usual standards of liveliness and comes off looking like a low-budget late 80s anime at times, the Warners' noses are too small through most of the cartoon, and in one scene an object (a plate with a lobster claw, in this case) teleports from one spot to a slightly different spot between frames[[/note]]. "Roll Over Beethoven", "Home on De Nile" and "H.M.S. Yakko" are also guilty of this.
** The show was also so expensive that it couldn't afford character layout drawings. The animators instead blew up the storyboard panels to ten-field size so they could be registered to the animation pegs. Some of the more exaggerated board drawings would end up getting animated, resulting in weird proportional shifts. The [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain other]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}} Spielberg/Rugger]] [[WesternAnimation/PinkyElmyraAndTheBrain shows]] also did this, with similar results.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Often employed by the Warners. Performed ''on'' the Warners by the survey ladies ("Would you like to take a survey?")
* OhGodWithTheVerbing: Mr Director speaks like this.
* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Dot briefly fantasizes about going on one with Dr. Scratchansniff, and creeps herself out, in "De-Zanitized".
* OldShame: The Warner trio themselves, InUniverse; The company sealed them (and the cartoons which featured them) away in the early 20th century, refusing to release them because they (both the characters and their films) were nonsensical. Even in present time, they're trying to keep them locked up.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Kiki the Girlfeather and Kiki the gorilla from the Rita and Runt episode, "Kiki's Kitten."
* OnlySaneMan: Whoever is the one person that knows Chicken Boo is a giant chicken -- except in the Franchise/{{Batman}} parody... in which Batman, voiced of course by Creator/AdamWest, was the only one who '''didn't''' see through the Boo Wonder's PaperThinDisguise.
* OpeningNarration: Done via a DeliberatelyMonochrome (with a [[SplashOfColor splash of tomato red on the Warner's noses]]) newsreel called ''Newsreel of the Stars'', used to explain the Warner's genesis, how they got loose, drove the world insane, [[OldShame humiliated the studio executives,]] and became [[SealedEvilInACan sealed chaos in a can.]]
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: As seen in "Moon over Minerva," the light of a full moon turns the nerdy Wilford Wolf into a Fabio-esque hunk.
* OutOfFocus: Most of the characters got reduced screentime in favor of more Warners and Slappy cartoons in the Kids WB era seasons. They tried fixing this in season 4, only to go back to focusing on the Warners and Slappy in season 5. Pinky and the Brain have gotten their own show at this point. In Rita and Runt's case, it was getting expensive to fly Rita's voice actress to the studio.
* OverlyLongName:
** Professor Otto von Schnitzelbuskrankengescheitmeier from the song "Schnitzelbank." It gets lampshaded during of the verses ("Is das nicht ein incredibly long name to have to try and say?").
** Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca III - but you can call her Dot. [[BerserkButton Call her Dotty and you die]].
* OverlyLongGag: [[ShapedLikeItself Who's on Stage?]]
* OverlyPrePreparedGag: At least three Warners shorts are examples of these:
** "Wakko's Gizmo" has Wakko showing his siblings a giant Rube Goldberg contraption that ends up pushing a whoopee cushion.
** "The Party" has the Warners inviting everyone up to the water tower for a party. Thaddeus Plotz at first refuses to go, but then they mention that "Steven" will be there. The party is a disaster, and Plotz keeps intending to leave, but the Warners remind them that "Steven" will be disappointed. At the end, "Steven" finally shows up... Steven Pudner, that is, a schlubby fat nerd the Warners met on the Internet. Of course, Plotz was expecting Creator/StevenSpielberg. Yakko lampshades this, saying, "Was that a long way to go for a gag or what?"
** "Our Final Space Cartoon, We Promise!" is set up as yet another parody of ''Film/TwoThousandAndOneASpaceOdyssey'', with AL replacing HAL. At the end, when AL begins humming "Hail to the Chief", the Warners realize AL is really UsefulNotes/AlGore.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: P]]
* PaperThinDisguise: Exaggerated with Chicken Boo. Every sketch opened with a new group of people (Hollywood actors, Confederate soldiers, people in a karate tournament, etc.) singing the praises of Boo---who, as a reminder, is a six-foot tall chicken with absolutely ''no'' anthropomorphic features--who would then show up in the absolutely flimsiest of disguises (such as an extremely small mustache, a robe and headband, or a hat and wig). [[TheCassandra Exactly one person]] would realize Boo's true nature and try to tell everyone one about it ("HE'S A CHICKEN, I TELL YOU! A GIANT CHICKEN!") only to be disregarded. When Boo's disguise inevitably came off, the entire group would react in shock, and the chicken would be forced to move on to find another bunch to join.
* ParentalBonus: To the point where watching this show as a child and watching it years later as an adult are [[LateToThePunchline completely different experiences]]. While the show is well known enough for {{Demographically Inappropriate Humour}}, there is also a high amount of pop culture references, political commentary, and references to current events that virtually no child would be familiar with, but a grown-up sure would. As noted over in RealLifeWritesThePlot, there was actually a list of all the {{Parental Bonus}}es compiled by fans on UsefulNotes/{{Usenet}}. Reading that after having seen the show will likely as not have you in stitches from all the LateToThePunchline moments.
* ParentalNeglect: Mindy's parents, which is probably why she never calls them "mom" and "dad" like they want her to (except in ''Wakko's Wish'') and instead calls them "Lady" and "Mr Man", something she might refer to a stranger as.
* {{Parody}}: Anything from ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' to ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' to ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' to ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' (naturally, Barney was ''far'' more frightening).
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOePNFRFRU Oyyyyyyyyyyy, Macadamia!]]
** [[MajorGeneralSong We Are The Very Model Of]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Zy6UcA8GA Cartoon Individuals!]]
* TheParodyBeforeChristmas: This show has "The Day Before Christmas", in which Ralph, with a sleigh drawn by the gangster pigeons, delivers presents to the Warner siblings.
* ParodyMagicSpell:
** A Pinky and the Brain episode had "Charlie Sheen, Ben Vereen, Shrink to the size of a lima bean!".
** From their Shakespeare "translation":
-->'''Witches:''' Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.\\
'''Yakko:''' Loosely translated, "Abracadabra".\\
'''Dot:''' Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.\\
'''Yakko:''' "Let's cook a snake." Start with my agent.
* ParodySue: The musical number "Hello Nurse" is all about this trope.
* PatterSong: "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual," {{Parody}} of Gilbert and Sullivan's [[MajorGeneralSong "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General]]. To make the parody more blatant, it was sung [[Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance to a pirate]]. A good amount of songs in the Animaniacs songbook are patter songs, including their most famous one of all, "Yakko's World."
* PhraseCatcher: "Hello, ''Nurse!''" Guess who this is usually said to.
* PimpedOutDress: In the episode [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU5it18wMAk "King Yakko"]], Hello Nurse plays the prime minister of the kingdom, and she wears a magenta dress with [[PrettyInMink ermine trim]] and a blue cloak.
* PinkIsErotic: Minerva Mink gained infamy for her overly sexual design and in the cartoon, she's proven to be so attractive that all the males are aroused by the sight of her. In the episodes, she wears a pink [[ModestyTowel modesty towel]], a pink and purple dressing gown, and she is surrounded by pink flowers.
* PinPullingTeeth: In "I Got Yer Can", an EscalatingWar with Slappy Squirrel causes Candie Chipmunk to do this; terrifying a pair of nuns before blowing herself up.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: The robots in "The Brain's Apprentice". A single one can raise a standard fridge off the ground.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Rita and Runt.
* PlaneAwfulFlight: In "Plane Pals", an obnoxious executive has the bad luck of sitting next to the Warners, who decide to make him their "special friend" for the flight.
* PlayingCatchWithTheOldMan: Played for laughs in Good Idea, Bad Idea. The Bad Idea is playing catch using grandpa as the ball.
-->'''Good idea:''' Playing catch with your grandfather. ''[Mr. and Grandpa Skullhead toss a ball back and forth]''\\
'''Bad idea:''' Playing catch, [[AmbiguousSyntax with your grandfather]]. ''[Mr. Skullhead and a teen toss Grandpa Skullhead back and forth; Grandpa falls to pieces in midair]''
* PlotHole: Provides the page quote from a sketch of Shakespere's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" being translated for kids.
--> Puck (played by Yakko): And this weak and idling theme, no more yielding, but a dream!
--> Dot (the translator): There is a hole in this plot you could drive a truck through.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The episode "Spell-Bound" is presumably one to ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' as a test to see if the sketch could work as its own show. This is made apparent because of the entire episode being a half-hour ''Pinky and the Brain'' cartoon with the only connections to ''Animaniacs'' being cameos by Slappy Squirrel and the Goodfeathers.
* PottyDance: See below.
* PottyEmergency: {{Trope Namer|s}}, for the segment of episode 26 where Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are at the movies and Wakko drinks from [[GiganticGulp an insanely large cup of soda]] and spends the rest of the short desperately looking for a bathroom. Wakko also has this happen on a car trip in "I'm Mad!" and when he gets scared of the cartoon world in "The Girl With The Googily Goop". It also happens in 2 Creator/CartoonNetwork promos [[note]] One where the Warners are going into other shows on the channel and one where Wakko is watching a barber cut someone's hair[[/note]] as well as the Kids WB Kooky Karolfest promo "We Flush You A Merry Christmas".
* PottyFailure: Lampshaded. In the episode with Rasputin, at the end when the moral of the day is revealed to be "Brush your teeth," Dot says, "That makes me feel all warm and squishy. Either that or I need to wear diapers." In episode 35, she said "That makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Either that, or I sat in something."
* PoundsAreAnimalPrisons: Rita and Runt first met in one of these, and "Les Miseranimals" opens with Runt escaping from one.
* ThePrankster: Slappy Squirrel and the Warner Brothers both waver between this trope and being {{Karmic Trickster}}s.
* PrecociousCrush: Yakko & Wakko's iconic crush on Hello Nurse. Dot also has one on Creator/MelGibson.
* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Fake"
* PreviouslyOn: The first episode aired on Kids' WB! opened with a parody of this trope.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "I! AM! '''[[{{Satan}} SATAN!!!]] [[EvilLaugh MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!]]'''"
* PunWithPi: In one episode, the teacher Ms. Flamiel has a textbook called "Mathematics: Easy as [Pi symbol]."
[[/folder]]
[[folder: R]]
* RaidersOfTheLostParody: An early episode wound up with Yakko directing Mr. Director through a few movie parodies. In one, Mr. Director was "Illinois Smith" and utterly failed with the whip - first he ends up tying himself up with the thing, then when he gets free he cracks it and it gets caught on the set rafters, bringing them down on him.
** "I think it's a not-working whip."
* RailCarSeparation: In "Whistlestop Mindy", Mindy strays onto the mail car of a train. When Buttons chases after her, Mindy pulls out the bolt that keeps the mail car coupled to the passenger coach, causing the two cars to separate. Buttons grabs the couplings of the two cars to keep them together and lets Mindy walk across him like a bridge. When Mindy gets to the passenger car, Buttons puts the bolt back in the couplings.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: UsefulNotes/BillClinton playing the sax in the intro is ''not'' a NonSequitur; he really did play the sax while he was an active politician, [[https://youtu.be/a_WuGDYawFQ as seen on]] ''Series/TheArsenioHallShow''.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The "Please Please PLEASE Get a Life Foundation" was written using actual nitpicks from a newsgroup-made reference guide (the [[http://webspace.webring.com/people/cu/um_4922/crg/ Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs]]) verbatim. The show's writers even e-mailed the people who wrote that guide for permission to use their quotes. The show's run coincided with the early days of wide Internet access, and in those days (early to mid 1990's) most online discussions were done in newsgroups.
-->'''Will Bell:''' (founder and maintainer of the CRGA) Several months ago I received email from [writer] Peter Hastings asking for copies of the CRGA by email and snail mail, which I provided.
** A group of these fans were subsequently invited to the studios to see the short before its broadcast premiere, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1W-wnh__DM shown in this E! news segment from 1995]].
*** After the short was screened for the fans, one fan pointed out an error in the short's quoting of one of the nitpicks. From memory. This was met with incredulity by the staffers and no surprise at all by the fans.
** During the brief point in time when it looked unlikely that UsefulNotes/BillClinton would serve a second term, the creators hedged their bets by changing the theme song lyrics from "While Bill Clinton play the sax" to "We pay tons of income tax".
* RecurringExtra: The Hip Hippos.
%%* ReferenceOverdosed
* RefugeInAudacity: So much.
** In "Hot, Bothered and Bedeviled," the Warners take a wrong turn at Kennebunkport and end up in Hell, tormenting Satan. The same episode features Saddam Hussein plunging into a lake of lava and three demonic stand-ins for Music/TheAndrewsSisters singing a jazz tune about eternal damnation.
** An in-universe example in the "Baghdad Cafe" portion of the Animaniacs Stew episode, the villain-of-the-week is "Sodarn Insane" - presumably the same guy. The Warners mistake him for the headwaiter, but the part of Dot is being played by Slappy, who sees no reason not to cut directly to ComedicSociopathy:
--> '''Slappy:''' And I'm Princess Louisa Francesca... y'know what: forget it. I'm done. Have some dynamite down yer pants.
* RegionalRiff: In "Yakko's World", as Yakko mentions Japan, the famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_riff "Asian Riff"]] is briefly interpolated into the melody of the song.
* RememberTheNewGuy: The backstories of the Warner siblings and Slappy Squirrel were that the Warner siblings were created as Buddy's co-stars in an attempt to spice up his bland cartoons and Slappy is a retired Looney Tunes star.
* ReminderOfImpossibility: Provides the page quote.
** In one Slappy episode, Slappy and Skippy are dealing with a dog named Stinkbomb. After climbing their tree, Stinkbomb follows them up. Leave Slappy to bring up one important fact that Stinkbomb forgot about. Dogs can't climb trees.
** One instance of Buttons protecting Mindy has him following her up a tree. After she tells him that dogs can't actually climb, he immediately falls.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The DirectToVideo movie ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'', an AlternateUniverse medieval fantasy with a semi-serious plot that ultimately gave all of the characters in the series resolution despite the fact they were all removed from their traditional settings.
** One could also consider it a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover -- while the characters were all in the same show, they rarely all interacted in the same place.
* {{Retraux}}: The "lost" shorts.
* RhymingTitle: Used in several episodes:
** "Guardin' the Garden"
** "Scare Happy Slappy"
** "Smitten with Kittens"
* RhymingWithItself: At the end of the "Wakko's America" song about 50 states and their capitals:
-->Sacramento, California; Oklahoma and its City;\\
Charleston, West Virginia; and Nevada, Carson City.
** For the more grievous example see HumiliationConga.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The hippos.
* RightBehindMe: In one episode the Warners proceeded to trash talk the people working on the show [[note]]including their own voice actors[[/note]] as the credits rolled, not realizing that their microphone was still on.
** Slappy subverts this in the very first short featuring her, whipping out a club to hit the eavesdropping Doug the Dog [[OffhandBackhand without even looking at him]].
* RightWayWrongWayPair: The "Good Idea, Bad Idea" shorts.
* RoommateCom: The Warners appear in in-verse show ''Acquaintances'', which is a parody of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' (a prime example of Roommate Com).
* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Played for laughs at the end of the Get A Life sketch. The anal-retentive nerd points out they intentionally misspelled The "Please Please Pleese Get A Life Foundation" just to see if we were paying attention.
* RudeHeroNiceSidekick: The show uses this trope a lot:
** The Brain is a condescending InsufferableGenius, while Pinky is a MinionWithAnFInEvil who still likes and admires Brain, no matter how much abuse he gets from him. They are still this in their own show, ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain''.
** Slappy Squirrel is a cranky old lady. Her sidekick in all her segments is her nephew, the cheerful and adorable Skippy.
** Rita is an arrogant and sarcastic cat who is always accompanied by dimwitted BigFriendlyDog Runt.
* RuleOfFunny: A given on this show in general, but lampshaded in the Slappy short "I Got Yer Can", when Skippy drops an anvil on Candie Chipmunk apropos of nothing, justifying it to his aunt with a nonchalant "Who cares? Anvils are funny."
* RunningGag: Again, too many to count. Notably "Wanna See My Pet?", the Warners being chased by Ralph in the background of other shorts, and Yakko announcing "Good Night Everybody!" if something even ''remotely'' suggestive was said.
** A short-lived one was used in both "This Pun For Hire" and "Anchors A-Warners": A character says "No no no." Yakko in the first instance and Dot in the latter instance asked the character to repeat that. The character again said, "No no no." Then each replied, "I ''love'' that!"
** What about the dragon!? The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon!
*** Would someone please stop this man from saying "Dragon"?
[[/folder]]
----
[[foldercontrol]]
[[folder: J-L]]
* JawDrop: The show uses this a lot.
** In the episode "Meet Minerva", this is a squirrel's reaction to seeing the title character clad in nothing but a towel.
** At one point in the ''Pinky and the Brain'' short "The Brain's Apprentice," not only does Pinky's jaw drop, but also his nose and his eyes.
* JeopardyIntelligenceTest: The first ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' short had Brain go on the quiz show "Gyp-Parody!" in order to raise enough money for a device to TakeOverTheWorld. He gets every single question right, but bombs the final question and loses everything. Of course, the answer to the final question was [[Series/TheHoneymooners Ralph Kramden]], which Brain would have known [[NotNowKiddo if he had listened to]] [[{{Cloudcuckoolander}} Pinky]] earlier in the episode.
* JerkWithAHeartOfGold:
** Slappy hates to admit this, but she does care for her nephew Skippy.
** Mr. Plotz appears to hate the Warners, but he does harbor some respect for them. He'll even enlist their help on occasion when the pressures of running a major studio become too much for him.
** Much of the humor from the "Pinky and the Brain" shorts derives from Brain's constant verbal and even physical abuse of Pinky, but he also takes a paternal stance toward his lesser partner. (And Pinky admires Brain in return, once referring to him as "very honest and hard-working.")
** Rita [[DependingOnTheWriter sometimes]] falls into this trope, particularly in "When Rita Met Runt" and "Smitten With Kittens."
* JesusWasWayCool: One short in a ChristmasEpisode features a medley of Christmas carols, with the Warners playing the shepherds in the nativity story. In something of a meta-example, it's one of only two shorts that they ''don't'' treat as an excuse for irreverent havoc.
* JuryAndWitnessTampering: A Slappy the Squirrel short has Slappy accused of cartoon violence against Walter Wolf. Slappy's defense consists of describing how she basically blasted Walter to smithereens, leading the jury to find her...not guilty, at which point it's revealed that Slappy rigged explosives under the jury's seats.
* JustDesserts: Befalls a {{Jerkass}} magician duo in "Magic Time".
* KangarooCourt: In one episode, Slappy is put on trial for "assault with intent to squash" on her nemesis Walter Wolf. Given that the judge and jury are all wolves, Skippy is understandably afraid that Slappy is gonna get railroaded. Slappy tells Skippy not to worry, as she's got "a dynamite case". That is to say, she's wired the jury box with explosives, and gets off without a hitch.
* KarmicProtection: The Warners were only truly malevolent to the bad guys, which justifies a lot of the mayhem they cause. Even people who were annoyed by them but otherwise good characters would ultimately get the Warners' help in the end. One episode even lampshaded it and discussed it, when a kid watching at home wondered why the Warners weren't doing more to the antagonist.
** One episode had them frustrated because a character they wanted to get rid of (a ''[[Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic Sound of Music]]'' style Creator/JulieAndrews {{Expy}}) did nothing to invite retribution. [[spoiler:In the end, they sicced [[ScrewballSquirrel Slappy Squirrel]] on her.]] [[BadGuysDoTheDirtyWork Problem solved]].
** Still, a lot of what the Warners do could be needlessly cruel to the point of making them unsympathetic, such as stripping Otto in the "Schnitzelbank" song or leaving the woodchuck in the toilet in "Kid in the Lid"... until you remember that [[spoiler:everyone's an actor; hardly any of what takes place is "real"]].
** One cartoon ''was'' cut because they were too malicious.
* KarmicTrickster: From a proud Warner Bros. tradition. Both the Warners and Slappy Squirrel enjoy taking the air out of [[JerkAss Jerkasses]]
* {{Kevlard}}: The Hip Hippos are very fat and also very durable, which comes in handy given their less than stellar common sense.
* KnowsAGuyWhoKnowsAGuy: Yakko explains in song why he is now the king of Anvilania:
-->'''Yakko''': I'm the cousin to the sister / Of son's niece's brother / Of the uncle's daughter's father / Of the nephew's sister's mother / And my grandpa's only cousin / Was the King's daughter's sibling, / But they're all gone,\\
'''Crowd''': So that is why\\
'''Yakko''': I am now your king!
* KnowYourVines: In "Sound of the Warners" After using the bathroom in a bush, Dr. Scratchansniff gets an awful itch, because he was in a poison oak bush.
* LampshadedDoubleEntendre: "Goodnight everybody!"
* LampshadedTheObscureReference: In a short where the Warner Bros (and the Warner sister) met Rasputin. They did a pun between "Anastasia" and "anesthesia", and Dot said "Obscure Joke. Ask your parents".
* LastSecondWordSwap: During the song, "A Quake, A Quake" Yakko makes this clever pun.
-->'''Yakko:''' Whose fault? Whose fault? The San Andreas Fault! 'Cause Mr. Richter can't predict 'er kicking our asphalt!
* LateToThePunchline: Most people who saw the show as kids. Seriously, watch it as an adult and embrace the [[{{Demographically Inappropriate Humour}} revelations]].
* {{Leitmotif}}: Just about every character had one. Nicely shown off in the last short: The Animaniacs Suite.
** Certain actions warranted their own theme music too. For example, a character eating was usually accompanied by "Shortnin' Bread" and a character cleaning something would be accompanied by "Here We Go 'Round the Mulberry Bush". This is an obvious callback to [[WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes Carl Stalling's]] work.
** Hello Nurse's leitmotif (a sultry drumbeat) is an interesting case, where hers was started by Wakko in the first short ("Dezanitizsed") just to screw with the audience in true Warner fashion, but has since stuck with the character ever since.
* LimitedAnimation: Parodied in "Back in Style". Rumor has it that, in a rare subversion, the animation kept being sent back to AKOM because it came out looking ''too good''.
** Thanks to uneven animation, Creator/VargaStudio's "When You're Traveling" and most of Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand's shorts tend to fall into this quite often.
* LionKingLift: There's a spoof of the ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994'' where Yakko is the one to lift Simba, only to drop him off Pride Rock.
-->'''Yakko''': [[CrossesTheLineTwice Oh, I thought they landed on their feet]].
* ListSong: "[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y0y8jkfXoX8 Yakko's World]]", among others.
* LittleGuyBigBuddy: Rita and Runt; also arguably WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain and Buttons and Mindy.
* LocalReference: When Rita and Runt go to Poland in "Puttin on the Blitz", Rita sings that it doesn't look like Burbank, more like Van Nuys. (Both are cities in the UsefulNotes/LosAngeles Area. You can guess which one has higher property values).
* LocationSong: "Yakko's World" is a ListSong listing every country in the world.
* LoopholeAbuse: The candy store episode has Flaxseed save himself from the nuns about to attack him by pointing out they aren't allowed to resort to violence. They actually agree with him and pray for assistance, which brings the Notre Dame football team to the store so they can do it instead. Nothing stops the nuns from allowing sympathetic souls to take action they want to but their vows prevent them from doing.
* LosingYourHead: Happens to Minerva Mink in "Moon over Minerva" (see HeartBeatsOutOfChest above).
* LustfulMelt: Happens to Minerva in both her cartoons, and to Dot and some aliens in "Space Probed".
[[/folder]]
[[folder: M]]
* MadHatter: All three main characters, in the tradition of ''WesternAnimation/LooneyTunes'' and similar cartoons. ''"We're not monkeys, we're just cuckoo! Don't know what to say the Warners won't do!"''
* MadwomanInTheAttic: Yakko, Wakko and Dot were locked in a water tower for decades for being too zany.
* TheMafia: The Goodfeathers are an AffectionateParody of ''Goodfellas'' and mob films in general. And, naturally, are TheFamilyForTheWholeFamily.
* MagicPants: Taken in an unusual direction in "Moon Over Minerva." Whenever Wilford changes into his [[OurWerewolvesAreDifferent hunky werewolf form]], his pants actually ''shrink''.
* {{Malaproper}}: A source for so much of the humor.
* ManChild: Ralph and Mr. Director (an {{Expy}} of Jerry Lewis), but special mention goes to Hercules in the "Hercules Unwound" episode, whose whining about Zeus making him do the 12 Labors is reminiscent of a teenager complaining about unpleasant chores.
* MarsNeedsWomen: All three of the Warner siblings. Although they seem to see themselves as more or less human-ish.
* MeaningfulName:
** Dr. Scratchansniff's German last name is Freudlos, a double pun; it literally means "joyless", but it's also a reference to yet another psychiatrist...
** Yakko and Wakko. Wakko, a play on "wacko", as in someone who is a little whacky (strange or crazy), and Yakko, a play on "yakking away" or talking incessantly. Yakko almost never shuts up.
* MediumAwareness: Mostly Slappy and the Warners. Slappy beats the Warners here:
-->'''Skippy:''' But that was in a cartoon! [[ThisIsReality This is real life!]]\\
'''Slappy:''' *AsideGlance* Don't tell him, he might crack.
* MemorialForTheAntagonist: Played with in "Rest In Pieces". [[spoiler:Slappy Squirrel and her nephew Skippy attend the funeral of Walter Wolf, Slappy's life-long ArchEnemy. While the audience learns that Walter is actually [[FakingTheDead faking his death]] as part of his plan to trap Slappy, and so does Slappy later on, Skippy and the rest of the attendees don't know this, so Slappy's attempts to expose Walter come across to them as her making a mockery of his funeral]].
* MickeyMousing: ''Animaniacs'' actually had orchestral accompaniment - very, very rare for a televised cartoon series - and took full advantage of that.
* MimeAndMusicOnlyCartoon: "The Brain's Apprentice" and a couple of the {{Retraux}} Warners shorts.
* MisplacedWildlife: In the "Tiger Prince" cold open, there are tigers substituting for lions in Africa... because they're parodying ''WesternAnimation/TheLionKing1994.''
* MissXPun: This joke:
-->'''Dr. Scratchansniff:''' You're misinterpreting!\\
'''Yakko:''' ''[with a beauty pageant model]'' No, ''this'' is Miss Interpreting!\\
'''Wakko:''' ''[also with a model]'' This is Miss Understanding!\\
'''Dot:''' And I'm mis''terious''.
* MockyMouse: The ''Slappy Squirrel'' segment "One Flew Over the Cuckoo Clock" has Slappy wind up in a nursing home after losing her memory, with the other senior citizens there being elderly spoofs of classic cartoon characters. Three of them are Rhena Rat (spoofing Minnie Mouse), Doofy (parodying Goofy) and Quacky Duck (a Donald Duck ersatz).
* ModestyTowel The episode "Meet Minerva" start with Minerva Mink walking out of home with just a towel (and another for the head), causing a [[HeadTurningBeauty head-turning reaction]] (Tex Avery-styled) to males of every species, before bathing naked in a lake. Then again, this trope was applied to Ms. Mink every chance the writers got in the comics.
* MonsterClown: A birthday-party clown is viewed this way in-universe in "Clown and Out" (by two characters who are afraid of clowns), but he's actually a very nice guy.
* MoodWhiplash:
** There was one serious Slappy cartoon in which Slappy was put away in an asylum and Skippy was taken away by social services, and... to say that this episode was just an ''example'' of this trope is an understatement. The mood jumped up and down OVER AND OVER again, to the point of being a highly compressed intra-episode version of CerebusRollerCoaster. It leads in with a comedic stretch where Slappy is driven mad by watching too many daytime talk shows (Jerry Springer etc.), which she can't stand. Then her madness is played for laughs for a while. Then Skippy takes her to the doctor, and even amidst there being a few gags in the scene, suddenly it starts portraying realistic consequences of her going insane. Then it just keeps REPEATEDLY ALTERNATING between playing it for laughs and [[PlayedForDrama portraying the tragic real consequences of a kid's aunt losing her mental faculties.]] Then she suddenly gets better and escapes the asylum for a happy ending. Then as a ContinuityNod in later episodes she references that now she actually LIKES those talk shows.
** "The Ballad of Magellan" really makes us feel sympathy for the man, after which The Great Wakkorotti is brought in for comic relief.
* MookFaceTurn: Several shorts involved Dot escaping from confinement by convincing the prison guard on duty with her cuteness.
* MoralGuardians: A frequent target of the show.
** "Valuable Lesson" is centered around this.
** "Bully for Skippy" involved an obnoxious senator imposing standards on cartoons to make them "safe and educational" for children. That same episode had Skippy repeatedly beaten up by a bully after following ineffectual advice from his guidance counselor. When Slappy and Skippy finally do use violence (cartoon violence) on the bully and it works, the senator and the counselor are both livid. Slappy's response to both their complaints is to use the machine the senator had sent to her, which carries out all cartoon violence [[GoryDiscretionShot off screen.]] Naturally, they both concede to Slappy's methods when they emerge as charred, beaten wrecks.
* MrExposition: {{Lampshade|Hanging}}d by Slappy.
-->"Doug the Dog!? But he hates you, Aunt Slappy! He's been trying to eat you for years!!\\
"Thank you, MrExposition."
* MultipleDemographicAppeal: Was specifically designed for this. Kids will laugh at the potty jokes and the slapstick, but there's still plenty of {{Parental Bonus}}es to keep the adults entertained.
* MusicalEpisode:
** Rita and Runt have at least one song per short. There are also numerous episodes that parody Broadway without those two characters that still act as musical episodes. Combining the two, one extended Rita and Runt segment is basically a parody of ''Theatre/LesMiserables''.
** Episode 82 consists entirely of episodes based around music: "Wakko's 2-Note Song," "Panama Canal," "Hello Nurse," "The Ballad of Magellan," "The Return of the Great Wakkorotti," and "The Big Wrap Party Tonight." It even includes the extended theme song.
* MyFriendsAndZoidberg: Dot is one of the few inversions in western animation that ''willingly'' introduces ''herself'' as this trope on a ''regular basis.''
* MythologyGag: Or more of a coincidence that was taken advantage of. Many animated shows only run for 65 episodes, a number deemed large enough for syndication. Animaniacs was originally to be no different, and it turned out that the fictional backstory of the Warner siblings had already established their debut as being around 1929, 65 years prior to the finale's broadcast. The episode thus played up the number, revolving entirely around a "65th Anniversary Special" tribute to the Warners.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: N]]
* NaiveAnimalLover: A sketch ("The Hip Hippos") involved a Jane Goodall {{Expy}} maintaining vigilance over a pair of City Slicker, {{Nigh Invulnerab|ility}}le (because of their obesity) IdleRich hippos. The RunningGag was her seeing them in ([[NotWhatItLooksLike what she believed to be]]) danger and try to save them, only for the hippos to come out of the stunt all right and [[BadlyBatteredBabysitter her hurt in some comedic fashion (with them not even noticing she was there)]].
* TheNapoleon:
** Mr. Plotz, the WB CEO.
** Eli, a character in a Chicken Boo sketch.
* NighInvulnerability: Baloney the dinosaur just ''laughs'' off anvils much to the horror of the Warners. He can actually be harmed though, through the most mundane method you can imagine. Literally. [[NotSoInvincibleAfterAll If you imagine him in pain and suffering that's what happens.]] But the Warners don't properly catch on.
* NoahsStoryArc: There was at least one sketch called "Noah's Lark" that went like this. [[WesternAnimation/TinyToonAdventures Buster and Babs Bunny]] walked up and stated they were no relation, so Noah let them on, along with the Hip Hippos.
* NoCelebritiesWereHarmed: ...at least not by name.
** Several notable public figures of the period were hilariously parodied in the show with such gems as [[Creator/RogerEbert Codger Eggbert]] and Lean Hisskill, as well as the Iraqi dictator Sodarn Hinsane.
** The "Used Cow Salesman" in 'The Warners and the Beanstalk' is basically Pat Buttram.
** The clown in "Clown and Out" is pretty much Jerry Lewis in whiteface and a silly outfit.
* NoFourthWall: Was central to its humor, and is some of the best PostModernism ever put in kids' comedy TV.
* NoGoodDeedGoesUnpunished: Buttons goes to enormous lengths, risking his own hide to keep Mindy from harm. Every episode ends with Buttons getting in trouble over some (Generally minor) misbehavior he performed in the course of his duties.
* NoPunctuationPeriod: And that's why the writers created [[CuteAndPsycho Katie Kaboom]] to explain to innocent little children why their big sister chucks a psycho for NO JUSTIFIABLE REASON WHATSOEVER once a month. Basically, their explanation was TeensAreMonsters.
** '''''[[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RWcNcJuTHVo "I'm Not Overreacting!! I'm a Teenager!!"]]'''''.
* NoirEpisode: The episode "This Pun for Hire" with the Warners do a film noir parody, taking every cliché and killing them with many bad puns. Feature Scratchansniff and Ralph as villains and also Hello Nurse (and, after, Minerva Mink) as FemmeFatale.
* NonSequiturThud: Happens a lot, this being a cartoon.
** '''Slappy:''' *waking up suddenly* I'd like to buy a vowel!
** And in another episode:
--->'''Death:''' *after falling off a cliff* I'll have the linguine with clams...
** In "Frontier Slappy":
--->'''Daniel Boone:''' ''(after attempting to break down Slappy's door, only to fail and bump his head on a tree)'' Daniel Boone was a great big guy!
* NotAllowedToGrowUp: The Warners' in-universe backstory states they were drawn in 1930, essentially making them all 80, and yet, none of them are geriatrics. It's particularly odd in that the Skippy and Slappy Squirrel segments make it quite clear that cartoon characters do age.
** Maybe it's because cartoon characters come from their creators' imaginations, so it depends on whether they were ''imagined'' as characters that age. The Warners come from the era of monochrome, where cartoon characters were kind of simple/crude, while Slappy seems like she's more from the 40's, as a more realistic character.
** Slappy throws a bit of a [[AgeWithoutYouth grim skew]] on it though in the short 'Rest in Pieces'. Though she and her old co-stars are clearly getting on in years, she tells Skippy that she knew [[spoiler:Walter wasn't dead]] because 'there is no dying in the world of cartoons'.
* NothingIsScarier: We never see the faces of the Nazis in "Puttin On The Blitz."
%%* NotSoImaginaryFriend
* NotWhereTheyThought: In the episode "Meatballs or Consequences?", TheGrimReaper takes the Warner siblings to a dimension where he will officially make them dead if they lose a board game. Dot wonders if the place is Ohio.
* NunsAreFunny: The candy store episode had the Warners tormenting a stuck-up store proprietor named Flaxseed after he refused to donate candy to a orphanage run by nuns. After driving him nuts, Flaxseed finally gets hold of Wakko and Dot... only for the nun from before to come back with reinforcements. They're about to kick his ass before Flaxseed points out that nuns aren't supposed to resort to violence. So, the nuns proceed to pray, and the Notre Dame college football team shows up to pummel the living crap out of Flaxseed.
-->'''Head Nun:''' Our prayers have been answered!
[[/folder]]
[[folder: O]]
* OddNameOut: Dot. She's the only Warner sibling whose name [[TheLastOfTheseIsNotLikeTheOthers doesn't rhyme with the others'.]]
** And let's not forget their voice actors: [[Creator/JessHarnell Jess]], [[Creator/TressMacneille Tress]] and [[Creator/RobPaulsen Rob]].
* OdeToFood:
** "Ice Cream" is about different types of ice cream.
** "Be Careful What You Eat" is about food ingredients, which, despite the title, aren't all bad (it even includes beta carotene, a ''nutrient'').
* OffModel: There were eight, count them, EIGHT animation companies that worked on the show; [[note]] Those studios are Creator/TMSEntertainment, Creator/{{AKOM}}, Creator/WangFilmProductions, Creator/StarToons, Creator/KokoEnterprises, Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, Creator/PhilippineAnimationStudioInc., and Varga Studios.[[/note]] all had different drawing and animation styles (and that does not even count the studios that TMS used under contract [[note]]these included Creator/NakamuraProductions, Creator/AjiaDo, Creator/TatsunokoProduction, Creator/KyotoAnimation, Creator/AnimeSpot, Creator/TokyoKids, Creator/MizoPlanning, Creator/SpectrumAnimation, Creator/FlyingDragon, Creator/StudioJungleGym, Creator/OhProduction, Creator/MagicBus, Creator/StudioJunio, Creator/StudioNue and Creator/FarEastern (the latter also working with Wang). All of them uncredited.[[/note]] However, almost all of them used TMS' style).
** Mostly with segments animated by Creator/FreelanceAnimatorsNewZealand, [[http://legion1979.tumblr.com/post/49399216720/yakko-can-you-conjugate-episode-16 take a look]].
** [=StarToons=] tended to dip into this, as well with the Slappy the Squirrel intro and "Wakko's America", though not to the extreme as Freelance, as well as [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools tending to make the animation even more expressive]]. Unfortunately, the same can not be said about shorts like "The Big Candy Store" or "Wally Llama".
** AKOM, of course. Though it's the more bland and uninteresting animation and sometimes horrific, rather than cartoonish, expressions as opposed to poor drawings as was usually the case with the studio.
** Many of the later episodes (such as the "Hooray For North Hollywood" two-parter and "The Carpool) fall deep into this.
** Happened occasionally with TMS's episodes as well, as several of their shorts went though numerous subcontractors and animation teams. For instance, "Taming of the Screwy" was given to Creator/TatsunokoProduction and the end result wasn't pretty[[note]]The animation is far below TMS' usual standards of liveliness and comes off looking like a low-budget late 80s anime at times, the Warners' noses are too small through most of the cartoon, and in one scene an object (a plate with a lobster claw, in this case) teleports from one spot to a slightly different spot between frames[[/note]]. "Roll Over Beethoven", "Home on De Nile" and "H.M.S. Yakko" are also guilty of this.
** The show was also so expensive that it couldn't afford character layout drawings. The animators instead blew up the storyboard panels to ten-field size so they could be registered to the animation pegs. Some of the more exaggerated board drawings would end up getting animated, resulting in weird proportional shifts. The [[WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain other]] [[WesternAnimation/{{Freakazoid}} Spielberg/Rugger]] [[WesternAnimation/PinkyElmyraAndTheBrain shows]] also did this, with similar results.
* OffscreenTeleportation: Often employed by the Warners. Performed ''on'' the Warners by the survey ladies ("Would you like to take a survey?")
* OhGodWithTheVerbing: Mr Director speaks like this.
* OldFashionedRowboatDate: Dot briefly fantasizes about going on one with Dr. Scratchansniff, and creeps herself out, in "De-Zanitized".
* OldShame: The Warner trio themselves, InUniverse; The company sealed them (and the cartoons which featured them) away in the early 20th century, refusing to release them because they (both the characters and their films) were nonsensical. Even in present time, they're trying to keep them locked up.
* OneSteveLimit: Averted with Kiki the Girlfeather and Kiki the gorilla from the Rita and Runt episode, "Kiki's Kitten."
* OnlySaneMan: Whoever is the one person that knows Chicken Boo is a giant chicken -- except in the Franchise/{{Batman}} parody... in which Batman, voiced of course by Creator/AdamWest, was the only one who '''didn't''' see through the Boo Wonder's PaperThinDisguise.
* OpeningNarration: Done via a DeliberatelyMonochrome (with a [[SplashOfColor splash of tomato red on the Warner's noses]]) newsreel called ''Newsreel of the Stars'', used to explain the Warner's genesis, how they got loose, drove the world insane, [[OldShame humiliated the studio executives,]] and became [[SealedEvilInACan sealed chaos in a can.]]
* OurWerewolvesAreDifferent: As seen in "Moon over Minerva," the light of a full moon turns the nerdy Wilford Wolf into a Fabio-esque hunk.
* OutOfFocus: Most of the characters got reduced screentime in favor of more Warners and Slappy cartoons in the Kids WB era seasons. They tried fixing this in season 4, only to go back to focusing on the Warners and Slappy in season 5. Pinky and the Brain have gotten their own show at this point. In Rita and Runt's case, it was getting expensive to fly Rita's voice actress to the studio.
* OverlyLongName:
** Professor Otto von Schnitzelbuskrankengescheitmeier from the song "Schnitzelbank." It gets lampshaded during of the verses ("Is das nicht ein incredibly long name to have to try and say?").
** Princess Angelina Contessa Louisa Francesca Banana Fana Bo Besca III - but you can call her Dot. [[BerserkButton Call her Dotty and you die]].
* OverlyLongGag: [[ShapedLikeItself Who's on Stage?]]
* OverlyPrePreparedGag: At least three Warners shorts are examples of these:
** "Wakko's Gizmo" has Wakko showing his siblings a giant Rube Goldberg contraption that ends up pushing a whoopee cushion.
** "The Party" has the Warners inviting everyone up to the water tower for a party. Thaddeus Plotz at first refuses to go, but then they mention that "Steven" will be there. The party is a disaster, and Plotz keeps intending to leave, but the Warners remind them that "Steven" will be disappointed. At the end, "Steven" finally shows up... Steven Pudner, that is, a schlubby fat nerd the Warners met on the Internet. Of course, Plotz was expecting Creator/StevenSpielberg. Yakko lampshades this, saying, "Was that a long way to go for a gag or what?"
** "Our Final Space Cartoon, We Promise!" is set up as yet another parody of ''Film/TwoThousandAndOneASpaceOdyssey'', with AL replacing HAL. At the end, when AL begins humming "Hail to the Chief", the Warners realize AL is really UsefulNotes/AlGore.
[[/folder]]
[[folder: P]]
* PaperThinDisguise: Exaggerated with Chicken Boo. Every sketch opened with a new group of people (Hollywood actors, Confederate soldiers, people in a karate tournament, etc.) singing the praises of Boo---who, as a reminder, is a six-foot tall chicken with absolutely ''no'' anthropomorphic features--who would then show up in the absolutely flimsiest of disguises (such as an extremely small mustache, a robe and headband, or a hat and wig). [[TheCassandra Exactly one person]] would realize Boo's true nature and try to tell everyone one about it ("HE'S A CHICKEN, I TELL YOU! A GIANT CHICKEN!") only to be disregarded. When Boo's disguise inevitably came off, the entire group would react in shock, and the chicken would be forced to move on to find another bunch to join.
* ParentalBonus: To the point where watching this show as a child and watching it years later as an adult are [[LateToThePunchline completely different experiences]]. While the show is well known enough for {{Demographically Inappropriate Humour}}, there is also a high amount of pop culture references, political commentary, and references to current events that virtually no child would be familiar with, but a grown-up sure would. As noted over in RealLifeWritesThePlot, there was actually a list of all the {{Parental Bonus}}es compiled by fans on UsefulNotes/{{Usenet}}. Reading that after having seen the show will likely as not have you in stitches from all the LateToThePunchline moments.
* ParentalNeglect: Mindy's parents, which is probably why she never calls them "mom" and "dad" like they want her to (except in ''Wakko's Wish'') and instead calls them "Lady" and "Mr Man", something she might refer to a stranger as.
* {{Parody}}: Anything from ''Theatre/TheSoundOfMusic'' to ''Series/MightyMorphinPowerRangers'' to ''Series/BarneyAndFriends'' to ''Franchise/{{Godzilla}}'' (naturally, Barney was ''far'' more frightening).
** [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bjOePNFRFRU Oyyyyyyyyyyy, Macadamia!]]
** [[MajorGeneralSong We Are The Very Model Of]] [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P1Zy6UcA8GA Cartoon Individuals!]]
* TheParodyBeforeChristmas: This show has "The Day Before Christmas", in which Ralph, with a sleigh drawn by the gangster pigeons, delivers presents to the Warner siblings.
* ParodyMagicSpell:
** A Pinky and the Brain episode had "Charlie Sheen, Ben Vereen, Shrink to the size of a lima bean!".
** From their Shakespeare "translation":
-->'''Witches:''' Double, double, toil and trouble; fire burn and cauldron bubble.\\
'''Yakko:''' Loosely translated, "Abracadabra".\\
'''Dot:''' Fillet of a fenny snake, in the cauldron boil and bake.\\
'''Yakko:''' "Let's cook a snake." Start with my agent.
* ParodySue: The musical number "Hello Nurse" is all about this trope.
* PatterSong: "I Am The Very Model Of A Cartoon Individual," {{Parody}} of Gilbert and Sullivan's [[MajorGeneralSong "I Am The Very Model Of A Modern Major-General]]. To make the parody more blatant, it was sung [[Theatre/ThePiratesOfPenzance to a pirate]]. A good amount of songs in the Animaniacs songbook are patter songs, including their most famous one of all, "Yakko's World."
* PhraseCatcher: "Hello, ''Nurse!''" Guess who this is usually said to.
* PimpedOutDress: In the episode [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uU5it18wMAk "King Yakko"]], Hello Nurse plays the prime minister of the kingdom, and she wears a magenta dress with [[PrettyInMink ermine trim]] and a blue cloak.
* PinkIsErotic: Minerva Mink gained infamy for her overly sexual design and in the cartoon, she's proven to be so attractive that all the males are aroused by the sight of her. In the episodes, she wears a pink [[ModestyTowel modesty towel]], a pink and purple dressing gown, and she is surrounded by pink flowers.
* PinPullingTeeth: In "I Got Yer Can", an EscalatingWar with Slappy Squirrel causes Candie Chipmunk to do this; terrifying a pair of nuns before blowing herself up.
* PintsizedPowerhouse: The robots in "The Brain's Apprentice". A single one can raise a standard fridge off the ground.
* PlatonicLifePartners: Rita and Runt.
* PlaneAwfulFlight: In "Plane Pals", an obnoxious executive has the bad luck of sitting next to the Warners, who decide to make him their "special friend" for the flight.
* PlayingCatchWithTheOldMan: Played for laughs in Good Idea, Bad Idea. The Bad Idea is playing catch using grandpa as the ball.
-->'''Good idea:''' Playing catch with your grandfather. ''[Mr. and Grandpa Skullhead toss a ball back and forth]''\\
'''Bad idea:''' Playing catch, [[AmbiguousSyntax with your grandfather]]. ''[Mr. Skullhead and a teen toss Grandpa Skullhead back and forth; Grandpa falls to pieces in midair]''
* PlotHole: Provides the page quote from a sketch of Shakespere's "A Midsummer Night's Dream" being translated for kids.
--> Puck (played by Yakko): And this weak and idling theme, no more yielding, but a dream!
--> Dot (the translator): There is a hole in this plot you could drive a truck through.
* PoorlyDisguisedPilot: The episode "Spell-Bound" is presumably one to ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain'' as a test to see if the sketch could work as its own show. This is made apparent because of the entire episode being a half-hour ''Pinky and the Brain'' cartoon with the only connections to ''Animaniacs'' being cameos by Slappy Squirrel and the Goodfeathers.
* PottyDance: See below.
* PottyEmergency: {{Trope Namer|s}}, for the segment of episode 26 where Yakko, Wakko, and Dot are at the movies and Wakko drinks from [[GiganticGulp an insanely large cup of soda]] and spends the rest of the short desperately looking for a bathroom. Wakko also has this happen on a car trip in "I'm Mad!" and when he gets scared of the cartoon world in "The Girl With The Googily Goop". It also happens in 2 Creator/CartoonNetwork promos [[note]] One where the Warners are going into other shows on the channel and one where Wakko is watching a barber cut someone's hair[[/note]] as well as the Kids WB Kooky Karolfest promo "We Flush You A Merry Christmas".
* PottyFailure: Lampshaded. In the episode with Rasputin, at the end when the moral of the day is revealed to be "Brush your teeth," Dot says, "That makes me feel all warm and squishy. Either that or I need to wear diapers." In episode 35, she said "That makes me feel all warm and squishy inside. Either that, or I sat in something."
* PoundsAreAnimalPrisons: Rita and Runt first met in one of these, and "Les Miseranimals" opens with Runt escaping from one.
* ThePrankster: Slappy Squirrel and the Warner Brothers both waver between this trope and being {{Karmic Trickster}}s.
* PrecociousCrush: Yakko & Wakko's iconic crush on Hello Nurse. Dot also has one on Creator/MelGibson.
* ProWrestlingEpisode: "Fake"
* PreviouslyOn: The first episode aired on Kids' WB! opened with a parody of this trope.
* PunctuatedForEmphasis: "I! AM! '''[[{{Satan}} SATAN!!!]] [[EvilLaugh MWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!]]'''"
* PunWithPi: In one episode, the teacher Ms. Flamiel has a textbook called "Mathematics: Easy as [Pi symbol]."
[[/folder]]
[[folder: R]]
* RaidersOfTheLostParody: An early episode wound up with Yakko directing Mr. Director through a few movie parodies. In one, Mr. Director was "Illinois Smith" and utterly failed with the whip - first he ends up tying himself up with the thing, then when he gets free he cracks it and it gets caught on the set rafters, bringing them down on him.
** "I think it's a not-working whip."
* RailCarSeparation: In "Whistlestop Mindy", Mindy strays onto the mail car of a train. When Buttons chases after her, Mindy pulls out the bolt that keeps the mail car coupled to the passenger coach, causing the two cars to separate. Buttons grabs the couplings of the two cars to keep them together and lets Mindy walk across him like a bridge. When Mindy gets to the passenger car, Buttons puts the bolt back in the couplings.
* RealityIsUnrealistic: UsefulNotes/BillClinton playing the sax in the intro is ''not'' a NonSequitur; he really did play the sax while he was an active politician, [[https://youtu.be/a_WuGDYawFQ as seen on]] ''Series/TheArsenioHallShow''.
* RealLifeWritesThePlot: The "Please Please PLEASE Get a Life Foundation" was written using actual nitpicks from a newsgroup-made reference guide (the [[http://webspace.webring.com/people/cu/um_4922/crg/ Cultural Reference Guide for Animaniacs]]) verbatim. The show's writers even e-mailed the people who wrote that guide for permission to use their quotes. The show's run coincided with the early days of wide Internet access, and in those days (early to mid 1990's) most online discussions were done in newsgroups.
-->'''Will Bell:''' (founder and maintainer of the CRGA) Several months ago I received email from [writer] Peter Hastings asking for copies of the CRGA by email and snail mail, which I provided.
** A group of these fans were subsequently invited to the studios to see the short before its broadcast premiere, as [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v1W-wnh__DM shown in this E! news segment from 1995]].
*** After the short was screened for the fans, one fan pointed out an error in the short's quoting of one of the nitpicks. From memory. This was met with incredulity by the staffers and no surprise at all by the fans.
** During the brief point in time when it looked unlikely that UsefulNotes/BillClinton would serve a second term, the creators hedged their bets by changing the theme song lyrics from "While Bill Clinton play the sax" to "We pay tons of income tax".
* RecurringExtra: The Hip Hippos.
%%* ReferenceOverdosed
* RefugeInAudacity: So much.
** In "Hot, Bothered and Bedeviled," the Warners take a wrong turn at Kennebunkport and end up in Hell, tormenting Satan. The same episode features Saddam Hussein plunging into a lake of lava and three demonic stand-ins for Music/TheAndrewsSisters singing a jazz tune about eternal damnation.
** An in-universe example in the "Baghdad Cafe" portion of the Animaniacs Stew episode, the villain-of-the-week is "Sodarn Insane" - presumably the same guy. The Warners mistake him for the headwaiter, but the part of Dot is being played by Slappy, who sees no reason not to cut directly to ComedicSociopathy:
--> '''Slappy:''' And I'm Princess Louisa Francesca... y'know what: forget it. I'm done. Have some dynamite down yer pants.
* RegionalRiff: In "Yakko's World", as Yakko mentions Japan, the famous [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oriental_riff "Asian Riff"]] is briefly interpolated into the melody of the song.
* RememberTheNewGuy: The backstories of the Warner siblings and Slappy Squirrel were that the Warner siblings were created as Buddy's co-stars in an attempt to spice up his bland cartoons and Slappy is a retired Looney Tunes star.
* ReminderOfImpossibility: Provides the page quote.
** In one Slappy episode, Slappy and Skippy are dealing with a dog named Stinkbomb. After climbing their tree, Stinkbomb follows them up. Leave Slappy to bring up one important fact that Stinkbomb forgot about. Dogs can't climb trees.
** One instance of Buttons protecting Mindy has him following her up a tree. After she tells him that dogs can't actually climb, he immediately falls.
* TheResolutionWillNotBeTelevised: The DirectToVideo movie ''WesternAnimation/WakkosWish'', an AlternateUniverse medieval fantasy with a semi-serious plot that ultimately gave all of the characters in the series resolution despite the fact they were all removed from their traditional settings.
** One could also consider it a MassiveMultiplayerCrossover -- while the characters were all in the same show, they rarely all interacted in the same place.
* {{Retraux}}: The "lost" shorts.
* RhymingTitle: Used in several episodes:
** "Guardin' the Garden"
** "Scare Happy Slappy"
** "Smitten with Kittens"
* RhymingWithItself: At the end of the "Wakko's America" song about 50 states and their capitals:
-->Sacramento, California; Oklahoma and its City;\\
Charleston, West Virginia; and Nevada, Carson City.
** For the more grievous example see HumiliationConga.
* RichInDollarsPoorInSense: The hippos.
* RightBehindMe: In one episode the Warners proceeded to trash talk the people working on the show [[note]]including their own voice actors[[/note]] as the credits rolled, not realizing that their microphone was still on.
** Slappy subverts this in the very first short featuring her, whipping out a club to hit the eavesdropping Doug the Dog [[OffhandBackhand without even looking at him]].
* RightWayWrongWayPair: The "Good Idea, Bad Idea" shorts.
* RoommateCom: The Warners appear in in-verse show ''Acquaintances'', which is a parody of ''Series/{{Friends}}'' (a prime example of Roommate Com).
* RougeAnglesOfSatin: Played for laughs at the end of the Get A Life sketch. The anal-retentive nerd points out they intentionally misspelled The "Please Please Pleese Get A Life Foundation" just to see if we were paying attention.
* RudeHeroNiceSidekick: The show uses this trope a lot:
** The Brain is a condescending InsufferableGenius, while Pinky is a MinionWithAnFInEvil who still likes and admires Brain, no matter how much abuse he gets from him. They are still this in their own show, ''WesternAnimation/PinkyAndTheBrain''.
** Slappy Squirrel is a cranky old lady. Her sidekick in all her segments is her nephew, the cheerful and adorable Skippy.
** Rita is an arrogant and sarcastic cat who is always accompanied by dimwitted BigFriendlyDog Runt.
* RuleOfFunny: A given on this show in general, but lampshaded in the Slappy short "I Got Yer Can", when Skippy drops an anvil on Candie Chipmunk apropos of nothing, justifying it to his aunt with a nonchalant "Who cares? Anvils are funny."
* RunningGag: Again, too many to count. Notably "Wanna See My Pet?", the Warners being chased by Ralph in the background of other shorts, and Yakko announcing "Good Night Everybody!" if something even ''remotely'' suggestive was said.
** A short-lived one was used in both "This Pun For Hire" and "Anchors A-Warners": A character says "No no no." Yakko in the first instance and Dot in the latter instance asked the character to repeat that. The character again said, "No no no." Then each replied, "I ''love'' that!"
** What about the dragon!? The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon! The dragon!
*** Would someone please stop this man from saying "Dragon"?
[[/folder]]
