Funny / Animaniacs

"So just sit back and relax. You'll laugh 'til you collapse. We're Animaniacs!"

— The Animaniacs Theme

Wait, you thought Animaniacs is safe from the laughs? Yes, a show about three zany to the max cartoon siblings can have a lot of moments that can make the viewers laugh so hard, it even makes the likes of an ending where everyone laughs look good in comparison. Have a seat, you're gonna be here a while.

• Yakko, Wakko and Dot have so many moments, they got their own page.
• Pinky and the Brain
• Pinky, Elmyra & the Brain
• Wakko's Wish
• Animaniacs (2020)

Slappy Squirrel

• Slappy has acute Medium Awareness. Her nephew Skippy starts out with Genre Blindness:
  Slappy: I've tangled with Walter Wolf, Sid the Squid and Beany the Brain-Dead Bison. This 'Doug' guy is nothin'.
  Skippy: But those were cartoons, and this is real life!
  Slappy: (*Aside Glance*) Don't tell him, he might crack.
• In "Bumbie's Mom", every time Bumbie's Mom is even mentioned, Skippy gets PTSD and cries.
  Slappy: Pavlov would love this kid.
• "Guardin the Garden": As the narrator puts it, this is Garden of Eden's Funniest Home Videos because the Snake is a poor determined Butt-Monkey trying to get an apple, with Slappy guarding them:
  • The narrator describes the Snake as "pure and evil." The snake retorts, "You make it sound like that's a bad thing."
  • At one point, the Snake coils into a bouncy coil, starts bouncing, and tries to get an apple to tempt Eve and Adam. Slappy has him hit various objects until she gets bored. Then Slappy rolls him into a ball and hits him with a golf club. Cue the snake ending up in The Garden of Eden Mini Golf Course. Baby Plucky is there, club in hand. He says, "Look Daddy, snake!" and whacks the poor reptile into a golf hole. "Snakey go down the hooooole" indeed.
  • He also tries shooting himself like an arrow to hit an apple. Slappy uses a frying pan to stop him and remarks, "You remind me of a very young Scrappy-Doo."
• "Woodstock Slappy". Slappy happens to be present at Woodstock in 1969, but not by choice. Just watch this and try not to laugh.
  • The Shout-Out to Who's on First?, using completely accurate band names of both the era and who played at Woodstock. Even The Who themselves find it funny.
  Slappy: Skippy, who is on stage?
  Skippy: Yes!
  Slappy: Oh, so the name of the band is Yes?
  Skippy: No Aunt Slappy, Yes isn't even at this concert. Right now, we're listening to Who.
  Slappy: Why are you asking me?!
  Skippy: I'm not!
• A great moment when Slappy Squirrel took Dot's place in a short during the Bizarro Episode "Animaniacs Stew" and was less than enthusiastic about it.
  Slappy (reading directly from the script): And I'm Princess Angela Luisa Fran... (tosses the script aside) Ah, forget it. Here, have some dynamite down your pants.
• The Slappy cartoon "I Got Yer Can" is based on something that happened to one of the writers. Although the parts with the dynamite, the quiz show and Santa Claus were probably only in the Slappy version.
  • The Villainous Breakdown and the can becoming 'the thing that wouldn't leave' seem to be building to an epic climax... when, inexplicably, an anvil falls on the Designated Villain instead. Slappy looks up and sees Skippy leaning out of an upstairs window with a satisfied expression.
  Slappy: What about the plot, Hemingway!? What's an anvil got to do with this story?
  Skippy: Who cares? Anvils are funny!
• "No Face Like Home": Walter Wolf tries to botch Slappy's plastic surgery, but in the end fails and Slappy tells the doctors to operate on him instead and gives them a photo from her wallet. When Slappy and Skippy are walking home, Walter runs out of the clinic and his face and hairstyle now look like Hello Nurse's as he yells "What will the other villains say?!"
• The Running Gag of Skippy getting hit with the soccer ball in "Soccer Coach Slappy", if you don't mind him crying. Every time after the first results in a Non Sequitur, *Thud*. Slappy also comments each time.
  Slappy: I haven't seen anyone get hit in the kisser this much since Milton Berle.
• From "Frontier Slappy", every song about Daniel Boone but especially: "Daniel Boone was a great big jerk. Yes, a stupid jerk. He had another dumb plan that more than likely wouldn't work!"
• The "Buttermilk Commercial" sketch that parodied the 80s "Milk..It Does A Body Good" ad campaign. After being snubbed by an arrogant bodybuilder, a younger version of Slappy ages from drinking buttermilk to the point that she is now cranky and bad tempered enough to take vengeance on the man. She then proceeds to blow him and announcer up on the spot.
  • Similarly, "The Slapper" commercial parodies the Clapper light for senior citizen. The product in this case is a giant glove that bursts out of Slappy's purse and smacks down anything that's causing her annoyance.
• And when Slappy finds herself in the middle of the Speed shoot, Keanu Reeves pops up and says he's looking for a bomb. Slappy's epic response?
  "Check out your performance in Dracula."

Other

• The premise of the Chicken Boo shorts, since Boo's disguises are not exactly convincing, and he acts and moves like a normal chicken, clucking and pecking and scratching at the ground for seeds and kernels. Nobody ever finds this odd aside from the Only Sane Man of each short.
  • This exchange in "The Good, the Boo and the Ugly" as Chicken Boo enters the saloon, poncho and all.
  Eli: You know who that is? The Man with No Personality. Some say he robbed a bank and saved a puppy at the same time.
  Lee: So is he for the law or agin it?
  Eli: Nobody knows. Cause he ain't got no personality!
  • In "The Big Kiss", Chicken Boo's disguise consists of only a small fake mustache that manages to fool everybody until it comes off.
• Any time Pesto gets mad and beats up Squit on the Goodfeathers cartoons.
  • This dialogue from the beginning when Squit kisses Pesto after becoming a Goodfeather.
  Bobby: Maybe he thinks you're cute. Know what I'm sayin'?
  Pesto: Cute?! You think I'm cute?!
  (Squit shakes his head)
  Pesto: THAT'S IT!!
  • In "The Monkey Song", Squit accidentally hits Pesto with the flute he's playing and Pesto beats him up. And then when Squit flies away from the Goodfeathers to continue playing the flute, Pesto catches up with him and continues beating him up, never mind that Squit flew away so he wouldn't accidentally hit Pesto with the flute again.
• In "With Three, You Get Eggroll", after the Godpigeon gives the Goodfeathers some advice, Bobby and Pesto remark upon this, and then Squit says, "Did anyone else notice that the Godpigeon had gas?" After this, Bobby and Pesto shoot Squit a dirty look.
  • At the beginning of the episode, after Sasha forces Pesto to eggsit, Kiki and Lana arrive.
  Kiki: Hiya, Pesto. Hee hee hee hee hee hee!
  Lana: You’re adorable on that nest. Hee hee hee hee hee hee hee hee!
  Pesto: Adorable? What’s that supposed to mean? Are you saying that I am adorable?!
  (Sasha whacks Pesto on the head)
  Sasha: Don’t start with that, Pesto!
  • Then at the end of the episode, Pesto winds up getting a taste of his own medicine while arguing with his sister.
  Pesto: Your egg went for an eggroll.
  Sasha: What do you mean by that?
  Pesto: I said it went for an eggroll, that’s all!
  Sasha: What? Are you saying my egg went out for Chinese food, is that what you’re saying?
  Pesto: No, I’m not saying that! I-I said it went out for an eggroll!
  Sasha: An eggroll?
  Pesto: Yeah, th-that’s what I’m saying.
  Sasha: THAT'S IT!!!
  (Sasha beats up Pesto)
• A "Punchline" segment in one of the last episodes deals with the question of "Why did the chicken cross the road?" A disguised Chicken Boo is the consultant, Brain is a Conspiracy Theorist, Pinky keeps insisting that guy's a chicken, and Runt has been hired to sniff out the chicken that crossed the road.
  • "There was a second chicken on the grassy knoll!"
• This quote from "Jingle Boo":
  Colin: That's a chicken, dad! A giant chicken! He'll pick my eyes out!
  [Everyone else waiting in line laughs.]
  Woman: (whispers to another woman) He should get that boy into therapy. He has issues.
• "Noah's Lark". Which turns Noah into a complaining guy with a Yiddish accent, stuck as the Butt-Monkey to the Hip Hippos.
  • The Narrator's description of the beginning.
    Narrator: God looked down on the Earth, sand saw a great wickedness.
    Some people gathered around a fire: PARTY! PARTY! PARTY! WOOH!
    Narrator: God was not happy. Everyone on Earth was being a total jerk.
  • He's actually an Ink-Suit Actor of comedian Richard Lewis (aka: Prince John, who had a similar gimmick).
  • When God first spoke to him:
    Noah: Oh my god!
    God: Precisely!
  • His freaking out upon meeting Mr. and Mrs. Spider.
• Each 'Good Idea... Bad Idea' combined "life lessons from Captain Obvious" with Tom Bodett's great deadpan delivery and Mr. Skullhead's inevitable doom:
  It's time for another 'Good Idea, Bad Idea.' Good idea: Going alpine skiing in the winter. Bad idea: Going alpine skiing... in the summer. The End.
  It's time for another 'Good Idea, Bad Idea.' Good idea: Climbing a mountain. Bad idea: Climbing a mountain lion. The End.
  • Extra special super bonus points to the one that made Tom Bodett laugh a little in the aired recording:
    ''It's time for another 'Good Idea, Bad idea.' Good idea: Whistling while you work. Bad idea: Whistling while you eat. The End."
  • One of them is "Good idea: Playing catch with your grandfather. Bad idea: Playing catch with your grandfather."

• Just about all of "Animaniacs Stew", due to the gimmick of replacing one character with another for every segment (e.g. Pesto taking Rita's place in a Rita and Runt sketch), but special mention goes to 'Pinky and the Cat'. The entire segment is an opening theme, four lines of dialogue, and a closing theme, with any actual plot being cut short by, well, exactly what you'd think would happen if you put a lab mouse and a hungry stray cat in the same cage.
  Rita (to the camera): So far, this is my favorite episode!
  • Pinky's remark: "Roomy accommodations, Rita!"
• "West Side Pigeons": After Squit agrees to fly away with Carloota, the rival gang's bird, he engages in his love song as he gets swallowed up by the police cat that's been following them. Even while in the stomach, Squit continues to sing in a sickly-sweet manner, causing Officer Krupkitty to immediately cough up Squit.
  Krupkitty: I gotta cut down on me coloratura. (slinks off)
• "Boids on the Hood" with the Goodfeathers taking revenge on Mr. Plotz by tormenting Ralph to Ride of the Valkyries. It has to be seen to be believed.
• Pretty much the entirety of "Nighty-Night Toons", a spoof of the children's book Goodnight Moon. Highlights include the short being narrated by Jim Cummings using his Sterling Holloway impression (i.e. his Winnie the Pooh voice), The Brain objecting to being called a rat, Buttons being afraid of Mr Skullhead, and the narrator referring to Ralph T. Guard as a big baboon.
• "Definitely don't wanna wet the bunny beds."
• While most of the Mindy & Buttons shorts end with a mean-spirited scolding to Buttons from Mindy's mom, the one exception is "Night of the Living Buttons", where Mindy and Buttons encounter Michigan J. Frog. Mindy and Buttons run away in horror, most likely as a Take That! to The WB network, whom Michigan was the mascot of.

Comics

• In the Animaniacs comic series story Dot the Vampire Slayer, Dot's stomach growls and she tells it to stop growling because Ralph was going to hear and it wasn't very ladylike. Although there was a bunch of things throughout the series she DID that weren't very ladylike.

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